Page 44 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

I
lxxxii INTRODUCTION.
:
several vessels to be armed against these corsairs, and encountering
they attacked each other; and they captured one of their vessels, in
which they found some of those Hollanders that were in the ship.
And afterwards, from time to time, Daifuxama got hold of many
of these corsairs, all of whom he ordered to be hanged ; and he
made a law that not more than four vessels each year should go to
the Manilhas, and all the rest should be destroyed and their
owners crucified.1
The second fleet dispatched by the Netherlanders in
1598 for the Far East by the south-eastern route consisted
of four ships under the command of Olivier van Noort,
and sailed on September 13th. An account of this voyage
is printed in Purchas (vol. i, Bk. II, pp. 71-78), and a
very full summary is given in the Society’s translation
of Morga’s Philippine Islands, pp. 173-187. As I have
mentioned above (p. xviii), Teixeira, in his voyage from
Manila to Acapulco in 1600, by mere chance escaped
encountering the two surviving ships of this fleet, which
arrived before Manila on November 24th, and on December
14th had a fierce engagement with two Spanish vessels,
resulting in the loss of one ship on each side.2 Thence
Van Noort sailed for Borneo, which he reached on Decem­
ber 26th, and left on January 4th, 1601 ;3 and after touching
at Java he set sail homewards, calling at St. Helena, and
reaching Rotterdam on August 26th, 1601. He was the
first Netherlander that circumnavigated the globe.
While the Dutch had been sending all these ships to
the East in 1598, the Portuguese had been unable to
dispatch a single vessel from Lisbon, the fleet of five ships
that had been equipped for India having had to remain in
1 Cf. Morga’s Philippine Islands, p. 148.
1 See Morga’s Philippine Islands, pp. 166 ff, 184 AT.
3 On this day Van Noort captured a junk from Japan, and learnt
from the captain, a Portuguese of Nagasaki, of the arrival at Japan of
a Dutch ship (see Purchas, vol. i, Bk. ir, p. 77)* This was the first
news the Dutch had of the fate of the Liefde.
j
*
It .
INTRODUCTION. I xxx in :
the Tagus, owing to the presence of an English fleet off
!t h
the mouth of the river.1 However, in 1599, they were
more fortunate. Couto (.Dccada XII, Liv. ill, cap. x),
; vf.
says :—
if:
On account of the news that was received in Portugal, that
ten2 ships were being got ready in Holland to go out to those ifi
parts of India, as they did, of which we shall treat more fully in :
its proper place,3 the Council gave orders to send thither this
year a good fleet, which consisted of seven ships, of which they
elected as captain-major D. Jcronymo Coutinho.4 And when it
was the beginning of February, 1599, the captain-major set sail
with four ships, because all could not be got ready to leave at the
same time. In the ship S. Roque embarked the captain-major;
Diogo de Sousa, who was here5 called the Galician,5 went in the
ship S. Sivuio; Sebastiao da Costa in the ConceicCio; and Joao j:
Pais Freire in the ship Paz. With the captain-major embarked
i
Joao Rodrigues de Torres, who was to fill the office of vendor da i
fazenda at Goa, on whom the King bestowed many honours and v
favours in connection therewith.7 Soon after the departure of this
fleet,s in the March following of 1599 there set sail the other :r
three ships of the company of D. Jeronymo Coutinho. There
went as captain-major of these three ships Si mao de Mendoza, a *
fidalgo, married in India, who embarked in the ship Castcllo. In r.
the other two went Joao Soares Anriques in the 5. Martinho, and $
in the ship S. Matthcus Gaspar Tcnreiro, who was promised the
succession of the fortress of Mascate. These three ships were is
to remain in India.9 These two fleets united at Mozambique,
II
and all these ships anchored together at the bar of Goa, except 1?
the ship Castello, which was lost on the Cofalla bank near {;
Quilimane, in front of the river Licumbo, sixty leagues from
H
1 See footnotes on pp. xl, xli, supra.
2 As a matter of fact, only seven ships left Holland for the East in
;
1599 (see infra).
3 As Couto never completed this Decade, this promise was unfulfilled.
4 Cf. pp. xli, l.xviii, n., supra.
5 That is, in India. 6 See supra, p. Ixix.
7 Writing to the King at the end of 1603, the Goa Chamber
complain that this man was leaving for Portugal owing them 2,500
xerafins, and setting at defiance a warrant that had been served on
him ; wherefore they had sent instructions to have him arrested on .
landing at Lisbon (Archivo Porluguez-Oriental, fuse, i, Ft. II,
pp. 124-125).
8 These four ships and the S. Matheus formed the fleet of 159S.
9 The two that reached India returned next year with the others,
as we have seen above.
Z2