Page 30 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

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Ill INTRODUCTION.
In cap. xii of the same book of his last Decada, Couto
thus records the strange doings of the fleet sent to chastise
these interlopers :—
We have already, in Chapter vn above, stated that Lourenqo
de Brito, captain-major of the fleet that the Count Admiral
Viceroy sent to Malaca in search of the Dutch [English] ships,
left Goa on the 24th of September, 1597. He arrived at Malaca
safely with the whole fleet, except the galliot, the captain of which
was Luiz Lopes de Sousa, which, by reason of the storm that
she encountered, went ashore at Manar, where she was wrecked ;
but the captain with all the soldiers embarked in a ship that
left there for Malaca, and joined the fleet. Whilst Lourenqo de
Brito was at Malaca with this fleet, he learnt from a ship that had
left Cochim later, that the two Dutch [English] ships were waiting
at Cape Comorim ; wherefore a council was called of Louren^o
de Brito, Martim Aflonso de Mello Coutinho, actual captain of
the fortress,1 and Francisco da Silva de Menezes, who had served
in that post,1 with other persons of experience; and it was
unanimously resolved, being the general opinion, that Lourenqo
de Brito should go with his whole fleet to Sunda and the coast of
Jaoa, because a little while before the inhabitants of that port had
made great havoc of the Portuguese and native Christians,
killing them and plundering their goods,5 and that he might be
able to persuade the kings not to receive at their ports strange I plunder from the somas of the Chincheos, the artillery was unable
nations from Europe : and that he should try to get hold of two
Englishmen, who, it was understood, had remained at Bale as
hostages that the others would return with capital to load drugs ;4
and should do everything else that he considered
his Majesty. to the service of
1 See supra, p. xvii, n. 2 See infra, pp. 1, n., 225, n.
3 I have found no account of these events.
4 The two “ Englishmen” were, in fact, Hollanders belonging to
C. de Houtman’s fleet of 1595. In the narrative of that voyage
read :—“The 22. of Januarie [sic, for “Februarie,” 1597] two of we
our
men that sayled in the Mauritius stayed on lande, but wee knewe not
the cause : it should seeme some great promises had beene made
vnto them, for as we vnderstoode it, the King was very desirous to
haue all sortes of strange nations about him, but our people were therein
mveh ouerseene, for there they liued among heathens, that neyther
knewe God nor his commandementes, it appeared that their youthes
and wilde heades did not remember it, one of their names was
Emanuel Rodenburgh of Amsterdam, the other Jacob City per, of
Delft: within a day or two they sent vnto vs for their clothes, but wee
sent them not. . . . The 25. of Februarie we hoysed ankers, minding
to set saile & so go homeward, leauing our two men aforesaid on
land. . . .” (The Description of a Voyage, etc., p. 33). What became
of these men I do not know.
INTRODUCTION. 1 Hi
This order was at once carried out, and the fleet left,1 well pro­
vided with everything needful; and although the Count Viceroy,
in the instructions that he gave to Louren^o de Brito, had warned
him not to allow any violence or insult to be offered to the boats
he might meet sailing to Sunda and Jaoa, he paid so little
attention to this, that, on meeting with some carrying provisions,
of which he was in want, he ordered to be taken therefrom what­
ever he chose without paying them for it. These boats went and
gave the alarm in Sunda and on the coast of Jaoa regarding the
fleet, and told of the violence that had been done to them, on
which they all armed themselves. And Jorge de Lima, captain
of a galliot, captured a soma2 of Chincheos3 loaded with drugs,
and the captains of the galleys did the same to a soma carrying
Chincheos; and this becoming known in Sunda, they dissimulated
until they had got on shore several Portuguese and the factor of
the fleet: and this warning was not enough, nor the fact that
when the admiral of the fleet, D. Luiz de Noronha, came with
the boats of the galleys and other boats to get water, those on
shore resisted them; and, because they were in want of water,
the galleys went to get it further down at some distance from the
galleons, when there came out against them many rowing boats,
which gave chase to them : and as the galleys were much ham­
pered in their movements by the goods that they had taken in
to play, and, moreover, each of them carried no more than twenty
soldiers, the rest being on shore, and these so careless, that the
enemy easily got amongst them and killed the three captains,
D. Luiz and D. Jeronymo de Noronha, and Ruy Diaz de Aguiar
Coutinho. The captain-major, Lourenqo de Brito, was unable to
come to their assistance whilst the fight lasted, because he was
behind a point at the same time that a high tide was running,
and such a strong breeze was blowing that neither the galleons
nor the galliots could weigh anchor: and for some days the
captain-major had been dissatisfied with the captains of the
galleys, because he had thought that they did not obey him with
the promptitude that was necessary.4
1 Apparently towards the end of 1597.
1 This word occurs frequently in Couto. Smyth’s Sailor’s Word-
Book explains it as “a Japanese junk of burden,” and Fennell’s
Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, as “Jap.: a small trading
junk.” (The latter authority also cites two instances of its use in
Cocks’s Diary. See also Voyage of Captain John Saris, p. 93 and
notes.)
3 See footnotes on pp. 3 and 7, infra.
4 In a letter of 14th March, 1601, from Madrid, the King gives the
Viceroy Aires de Saldanha full instructions regarding an expedition
that he was ordered to undertake in person for the purpose of -