Page 31 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

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INTRODUCTION.
And because at this time it was the monsoon for Malaca, the
next day he set sail, without punishing or exacting satisfaction
from that port,1 or any other in that kingdom, for this insult,
although the whole coast of Jaoa was just suited for carrying out
successful expeditions with the strength of that fleet. He reached
Malaca on the ioth of July, 1598,2 and remained there until the
1st of January, when he embarked for Goa:* and during this
time he might have gone to capture the Hollanders [English']
in search of whom he had set out, who, after going about in
many directions, and becoming reduced to a single ship, they
having scuttled the other, retired to the port of Queda, which is
sixty leagues distant from Malaca, whither the news was speedily
brought.4 And it was of no avail that the captain of the fortress
and the officers of the Chamber requested him to go to Queda to
seize that ship,—he would not do it, nor anything else of the
many things that they suggested to him; and the Count Viceroy
having been advised of this, before the arrival at Goa of Lourengo
de Brito, because he came very leisurely, before he disembarked
sent word to him by the Secretary that he was to remain in his
house until he had cleared himself of certain charges which he
forwarded to him, taken from the letters of the captain, auditor,
city of Malaca, and other persons. And for the purpose of
considering his excuses the Count Viceroy summoned the Council,
and ordered them to be voted on, because he wished to introduce
into that State the practice that the faults of captains committed
in the exercise of war should be punished by the Council, and
not by the judges; but for private reasons the Council did
not
desire to take part therein, it being a matter of public advantage,
and they agreed that it should be settled by the ordinary means,
and this was done; and he was condemned by the Supreme
Court to a fine of a large sum of money, which he paid before
chastising “the rebels of Sunda and other enemies,” “and, in
particular, those that defeated and captured the three galleys of the
fleet in which Lourengo de Brito went.” The King also points out
that the fate of these galleys showed the danger of taking goods into
war vessels, and commands that this be entirely discontinued, and
all property of enemies be burnt. At the same time he strictly prohibits
attacks on vessels of Chincheos (British Museum Addit. MS. 20,562,
letter No. 57). The Viceroy did not undertake the expedition referred
to, but sent one under the command of Andrd Furtado de Mendoga
(see Voyage of Captain John Saris, pp. xxxiii-xxxiv).
1 The details given are insufficient for the identification
place. of the
2 So that more than six months had been occupied by Lourengo
de Brito’s fleet in the manner described by Couto.
3 The Malacca-China fleet always left for India early in January,
which was the suitable “ monsoon” for that voyage.
4 See the next extract for fuller details.
;
INTRODUCTION. lv
taking over the command of the fortress of Sofala, to which he
had been appointed.1
Although the fleet under Louren$o de Brito thus failed
to accomplish the object for which it was dispatched, we
learn from the same historian how another Portuguese
fleet chanced to meet the two interlopers, and what was
the result of the encounter. In cap. xvi of the same book
of his Twelfth Decade, Couto writes :—
While the fleet of Lourengo de Brito was still in Sunda, those
in Malaca being unaware of the Dutch [English] ships that were
already going about on that coast,2 the fleet that was to go to
India was got ready, which was as follows : the ship of Miguel da
Cunha, in which was to embark Francisco da Silva de Menezes,
whose term of office as captain of that fortress had expired,3 and
who was going as captain-major of all those ships; the ship of
the China voyage, the captain of which was Ruy Mendes de
Figueiredo; and a ship of Luiz de Mendoza, the captain of which
was a brother-in-law of his; another ship of the same Francisco
da Silva de Menezes, which had come from China, the captain of
which was Fernao de Almeida; two junks, and a small galliot.
And, it having been fixed that all these ships should sail on
Twelfth Day, the previous day Joao Gomes Fayo set sail, without
waiting for the rest of the fleet, which weighed anchor next day ;
and on the 9th, when he was thirty leagues from Malaca, in the
altitude of the islands of Puluparcelar,4 Joao Gomes Fayo, who
was on in advance, caught sight of the two Dutch [English]
1 In Liv. iv, cap. vii, of this same Decade, Couto says :—“After the
Count Admiral had dispatched the vias to Cochim [at the end of 1599],
he dispatched Lourengo de Brito to go and command the fortress of
Qffala, on account of his being already free, with much honour, from
the faults charged against him in connection with the expedition in
Sunda.” After serving his three years at Sofala, Lourengo de Brito
appears to have been appointed to Mozambique, whence, in 1604, he
went on a foolhardy expedition against a great Kafir horde, which
resulted in disaster to his force and his own disgrace (see Theal’s
Beginning of South African History, p. 322 ; Documentos Remettidos,
tom. i, pp. 2, 42, 72, 92).
2 They could not have been long there at this time (see note supra).
3 See supra, p. lii and note.
4 I can find no “ Pulo Parcelar” in the Admiralty chart of the
Malacca Straits ; but “ Parcelar Pt.” is marked, a little to the south of
the Langat river, and the encounter must have taken place somewhere
off this point. “ Pulo Parcelar” is entered in Linschoten’s Map of the
Eastern Seas (given at p. 192 of the Voyage of Capt.John Saris).