Page 43 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

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lxxviii INTRODUCTION.
of Brazil, and thence crossed over to Angola, where it did some
damage, and then they turned about in the direction of the
Strait of Magalhites, which they entered, and in which they were
detained ten months with many troubles and starvings, and in
some sallies that they made to seek water and provisions they
had several men killed j1 and as soon as the weather served they
passed through the Straits to the other side, and turned towards
the coast of Peril,2 where a storm struck them, so fierce, that it
separated them,5 and one went running at hazard to make for the
Islands of Maluco, where she arrived, and a little further on we
shall give an account of her ;4 the other seems to have disappeared,
for I have found no tidings of her ;5 the other, the captain of
which was a certain da Corda, nephew of the captain-major
Balthazar da Corda, went running before the storm along the
coast, and on its growing calm he proceeded to put in at the
fortress of Chile, in Peril. And learning that it was almost with­
out men, they made a sudden attack upon it, and entered it,
putting to death some of those that were within, and plundered
and profaned the temples and all that was in the fortress, remain­
ing there for several days as much at their ease as if they were in
Flanders.
These tidings having come to the Spaniards that were in the
interior, they collected several companies, and attacking the
fortress entered it, there being no more than twenty Flemings
therein; and of these they killed fifteen, while the other five leapt
down over the walls, and swam out to reach the ship, and those
on the ship came to meet them with a boat, and rescued them,
among these five being Captain Corda. And setting sail they
went to seek Maluco,6 where they arrived, and cast anchor at the
1 Cf. Purchas, loc. tit. ; Rundall’s Memorials, etc., pp. 18-20, 33-35.
* For our knowledge of the doings of the four ships that passed
the Magellan Straits we are almost entirely dependent on what Adam*
says in his two letters of 1611. De Jonge (loc. tit.) mentions two
unpublished documents in the Hague archives relating to two of the
ships.
5 Cf. Rundall’s Memorials, pp. 20, 35.
4 This was the Trouw (see infra).
6 Sebald de Weerd’s ship, the Geloof returned home from the
Straits of Magellan : of this fact Couto was evidently ignorant.
® Couto may possibly be here confusing several of the ships. The
Blyde Boodschap was seized by the Spaniards at Valparaiso, while
Simon de Cordes and others of the Hoop were killed on shore at the
island of Mocha (see Rundall’s Memorials, etc., pp. 20-22, 35-36 ;
Purchas, vol. i, Bk. 1, p. 74). The Hoop and Liefdc then set their
course for Japan, but were separated by a storm, and the former was
never heard of again. The Trouw, after capturing and plundering
several Spanish ships, and taking possession temporarily of the island
INTRODUCTION. lxxix
village of Soli in the island of Tidore, half a league from our
fortress, there being already at Ternate another ship of this
company1; the missing one was this ship which we have found in
Japao, which went running before the storm, whithersoever she
was able, and had such changeable weather, that she spent four
months in reaching the Tropic of Capricorn, where she was i
visited by an outbreak of disease so contagious, that in a few
days there died a hundred and fifty and five persons, among
whom was Captain Corda,3 there remaining alive but five and I
twenty,3 who were not sufficient to manage the ship ; wherefore '
they let themselves go at the hazard of the winds, until these and 1
the tides brought them to Japao, as we have said, where they
disembarked, all so enfeebled, that they looked like dead men.
That king, after he had ordered the ship to be emptied, sent her i;
to the kingdoms of Canto4 to load timber; and the Hollanders
that were most in health he sent to serve as bombardiers in a
war that he ordered to be undertaken against a rebel lord who
was called Cangeatica.® The pilot of this ship was an English-
of Chiloe (which is evidently what Couto refers to), set sail for the ;
Moluccas, and was, naturally enough, made a prize of by the Spaniards
at Tidore.
1 1 This is an error. The first Dutch ships to call at Ternate were
the Amsterdam and Utrecht under Van Warwijck, which, however,
left the island before the Trouw arrived there. The first news the
Dutch had of the fate of this vessel was on the visit of Jacob van
Neck in June, 1601 (see De Jonge, op. tit., vol. ii, pp. 242, 279).
a Another error. Simon de Cordes had been killed, as stated in :
the footnote supra.
5 Cf. Rundall’s Memorials, etc., pp. 23, 38.
4 The Kuwantd, in which Yedo (Tokyo) is situated (cf. p. 11,
infra ; and see Rundall’s Memorials of the Empire of fapon, p. 27 ;
Adams’s History offapan, vol. i, p. 19, and note).
5 Fernao Guerreiro, in his Relaqam Annual, etc., tom i, in cap. xxi
of the Cousas do fapao, which treats of the work of the Jesuits in \
Bungo, says “At a port of this kingdom there put in this year a t 1
ship of Hollanders, which it was said had two years before left
Holland in company with other four, the which passing through the
Strait of Magalhais set their course for Sunda, where had arrived
other English ships, as they wrote to us from Malaca. These five
being separated by a storm, there came to land at this Bungo this
ship of which I have spoken much shattered. She brought only five
and twenty men alive, and these sick and prostrated by the cold and
hunger that they suffered on such a long voyage, of whom two died
on arrival. She carried some woollen cloths and scarlets, raxas
[coarse cloths of little value], mirrors, glass beads, corals, and other
curiosities of Flanders ; and they had much and large ordnance.
The Father, speaking with them, understood that they were heretics.
On arriving in port and coming ashore they said that they came to
carry on trade in Japao, but the Tono soon discovered that they were