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In the Variorum Collected Studies Series:

C. R. BOXER
From Lisbon to Goa, 1500-1750
Studies in Portuguese Maritime Expansion

C. F. BECKINGHAM
Between Islam and Christendom
Travellers, Facts and Legends in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

ROBERT MANTRAN
L’Empire ottoman du XVIe au XVIIIe siicle

JEAN RICHARD
Croises, missionnaires et voyageurs

JEAN DAUVILLIER
Histoire et institutions des Eglises orientales au Moyen Age

R.B. SERJEANT
Studies on Arabian History and Civilisation

HALIL INALCIK
The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organisation, Economy

ELIYAHU ASHTOR
The Jews and the Mediterranean Economy, 10th-15th Centuries

CH. VILLAIN GANDOSSI

La M6diterran6e aux XHe-XVIe si&cles
Relations maritimes, diplomatiques et commerciales

JACQUES HEERS
Soci6t6 et Economic k Genes (XlVe-XVe siecles)

JEAN GAUTIER DALCHfi

Economic et soci6t6 dans les pays de la Couronne de Castille

PETER LINEHAN
Spanish Church and Society, 1150-1300

C. J.BISHKO
Spanish and Portuguese Monastic History, 600-1300

C. J.BISHKO
Studies in Medieval Spanish Frontier History
Portuguese Conquest and Commerce
in Southern Asia, 1500-1750
i
 C.R. Boxer

Portuguese Conquest and Commerce

in Southern Asia, 1500-1750

VARIORUM

J. Bala Library
Thomas
TRENT UNIVERSITY
PETERBOROUGH, ONTARIO
^5 \) u^\
British Library CIP data Boxer, C.R.
Portuguese conquest and commerce
in Southern Asia: 1500-1750.-
(Collected studies series CS208)
1. South Asia - History 2. Portugal -
Colonies - Asia - History
I. Title
954 DS341.3.P3

ISBN 0-86078-156-9

Copyright © 1985 by Variorum

Published in Great Britain by VARIORUM

Ashgate Publishing Limited
Gower House
Croft Road,
Aldershot, Hampshire GU11 3HR

Reprinted 1990,1992,1993,1995,1997

This book is printed on acid free paper

Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Short Run Books

King’s Lynn

COLLECTED STUDIES CS208

 CONTENTS

Preface ix-x

I Anglo-Portuguese Rivalry in the Persian

Gulf, 1615-1635 46-129
Chapters in Anglo-Portuguese Relations,
ed. Edgar Prestage.
Watford: Voss & Michael, 1935

II A Note on Portuguese Reactions

to the Revival of the Red Sea Spice
Trade and the Rise of Atjeh, 1540-1600 415-428
Journal of Southeast Asian History X.
Singapore, 1969

III Portuguese and Spanish Projects

for the Conquest of Southeast Asia,
1580-1600 118-136
Journal of Asian History III.
Wiesbaden, 1969

IV The Achinese Attack on Malacca in 1629,

as Described in Contemporary ' A VnsuV1/'
Portuguese Sources 105-121
Malayan and Indonesian Studies.
Essays presented to
Sir Ricnard Winstedt on his 85th birthday,
ed. John Bastin & R. Roolvink.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964
 VI

V Karl Marx and the Last Days

of Portuguese Malacca, 1640-41 123-128
Indica 19.
Bombay, 1982

VI War and Trade in the Indian Ocean

and the South China Sea, 1600-1650 3-17
The Great Circle.
Journal of the Australian Assocation
for Maritime History 1/2.
Nedlands, Western Australia, 1979

VII Asian Potentates and European

Artillery in the 16th-18th Centuries:
a Footnote to Gibson-Hill 156-172
Journal of the Malaysian Branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society XXXVIII.
Singapore, 1966

VIII Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche

and the Battle of Mulleriyawa, 1560 85-97
Mare Luso-lndicum III.
Paris, 1976

IX A Note on the Portuguese Translation

by Francisco Ros, S.J., of an Ola
from the Samorin of Calicut to
Andre Furtado de Mendoza (1599) 89-93
Mare Luso-lndicum IV.
Paris, 1980

X Antonio Bocarro and the ‘Livro

do Estado da India Oriental’ 203-218
Garcia de Orta (niimero especial).
Lisbon, 1956
 Vll

XI Captain Joao Ribeiro and his

History of Ceylon, 1622-1693 1-12
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1955.
London, 1955

XII A Glimpse of the Goa Archives 299-324

Bulletin of the School of Oriental
and African Studies XIV.
London, 1952

XIII More about the Marsden Manuscripts

in the British Museum 63-86
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1949.
London, 1949

XIV A Late Sixteenth Century

Manila MS 37-49
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1950.
London, 1950

Index 1-5

This volume contains a total of 312 pages.

 PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The articles in this volume, as in all others in the

Collected Studies Series, have not been given a new,
continuous pagination. In order to avoid confusion, and to
facilitate their use where these same studies have been
referred to elsewhere, the original pagination has been
maintained wherever possible.
Each article has been given a Roman number in order
of appearance, as listed in the Contents. This number is
repeated on each page and quoted in the index entries.
 PREFACE

When Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in August 1499

from his epoch-making voyage opening the sea-route to India
round the Cape of Good Hope, he was enthusiastically received
by King Manuel I and his court. There was, however, one
discordant voice. The Count of Vimioso, who was famous for his
barbed witticisms, asked Da Gama what merchandise could be
got from India and what the Indians wanted in exchange. The
“discoverer” replied that what could be brought from India
included pepper, cinnamon, ginger, amber and musk; what the
Indians demanded in exchange was gold, silver, velvet and scarlet
cloth. To which the Count retorted: “In that case, it seems to me
that it is they who have discovered us.” The authenticity of this
anecdote, first recorded in a manuscript dating from about
1550-70, has been impugned. But I think it may well be authentic,
as a similar remark occurs in an official dispatch written at
Cannanore in 1534. Referring to the adverse trade-balance (from
a mercantilist point of view) generated by the Portuguese
purchasing pepper and spices with gold and silver bullion, the
writer comments that “This induces many people to say that it
was India which discovered Portugal” (Faz a muitos dizer que a
India foy a que descobrio Portugal).
However that may have been, the fact remains that King
Manuel precipitately assumed the grandiloquent title of “Lord of
the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia,
Persia, and of India, etc.”, at a time when there was not a single
Portuguese ship in the Indian Ocean or anywhere near it.
Nevertheless, during the sixteenth century the Portuguese did
succeed in establishing over parts of the Indian Ocean a viable
thalassocracy, which, if it did not give them the complete control
which they claimed, made them decisively dominant in some
coastal regions and primus inter pares in others.
The articles in this volume are concerned with Portuguese
militant and mercantile activities in the maritime region from the
Red Sea in the west to the South China Sea in the east, with a few
 X

glances further afield. They complement, in several respects,

those published in the Variorum Collected Studies in my From
Lisbon to Goa, 1500-1750: Studies in Portuguese Maritime
Enterprise (London, 1984) and in Professor C. F. Beckingham,
Between Islam and Christendom (London, 1983).
Grateful acknowledgements are made by the author and
publisher to the following persons, institutions and publishers,
who have given permission for these articles to be reproduced:
Journal of Southeast Asian History (II); Journal of Asian History
(III); the Clarendon Press, Oxford (IV); Indica (V); The Great
Circle: Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History
(VI) ; Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society
(VII) ; Mare Luso-lndicum (VIII, IX); Junta de Investigates do
Ultramar, Lisbon (X); Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,
London (XI, XIII, XIV); and the Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies, London (XII).
The spelling of names in this volume is far from consistent,
since Portuguese official orthography has undergone various
changes in the last fifty years, and the editors of learned journals
elsewhere sometimes use different systems of transliteration. The
opportunity has been taken in this reprint to correct misprints in
the original articles.
C. R. BOXER

Ringshall, Herts.
May 1984
 '

■
 I

Anglo-Portuguese Rivalry in the Persian Gulf,

1615-1635.

Some explanation is perhaps needed as to why this

particular subject should have been selected as the
topic for this paper. When Professor Prestage asked
me to contribute something on the Asiatic aspect of
Anglo-Portuguese relations, I rather unthinkingly
accepted the proposal, without having any precise idea
of what subject to choose. In actual fact, the field
of choice is more limited than might be supposed, for
after the first armed clashes between the two nations in
the Indian seas were over, the story of their mutual
relations is mainly a hum-drum and uneventful one ;
the almost unbroken peace which prevailed between
them after the treaty of 1635, being marred only by
a few scuffles in the vicinity of Bombay Harbour, or by
an acrimonious exchange of notes over the vexed
question of the delimitation of the boundary lands and
islands near Bombay and Bassein. The more obvious
aspects of Anglo-Portuguese relations in the East, such
as the acquisition of Bombay in 1661-1665, or the rather
sorry part played by the English in the disastrous
Mahratta war against the Portuguese in 1737-1741, have
already been dealt with adequately by more than one
competent historian. Nor for that matter has the
story of Anglo-Portuguese rivalry in the Persian Gulf
been unduly neglected, but the tale has been told
almost entirely from the English side, whereas I
propose to deal with it more from the point of view of
the men “ on the other side of the hill.” Fortunately
the telling of it is enlivened by more than one stirring
incident, for that element of romance which seems to
be inseparable from the early Stuart adventurers is
equally to be found in their Lusitanian opponents ; so
that the story of their rivalry is something more than a
mere echo of “ old, unhappy, far-off things and battles
long ago.”
It may be as well to state here briefly, the principal
sources on which this paper is based. There is no lack
of material, whether printed or manuscript, on the
English side, and to all intents and purposes the
student will find everything he wants to know printed
in two works, both of them exemplary monuments of
patient research. I refer to Samuel Purchas’ Pilgrimes,
of which the best edition is that originally published at
London in 1625 (reprinted, Glasgow, 1905) and to Sir
William Foster’s series on The English Factories in India
of which the relevant volumes are the five covering the
years 1618-1636, printed at Oxford, 1906-1911. To
these may be added Mr. Noel Sainsbury’s painstaking
compilation of the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial
Series, East Indies, for the years 1615-1634 (London,
1862-1892), though this work has been largely super¬
seded by Sir William Foster’s scholarly volumes.
On the Portuguese side, we have nothing to compare
in fullness and accuracy with the English sources. The
Documentos remettidos da India or Books of the Monsoons,
published by the Lisbon Academy of Sciences in four
volumes (Lisboa, 1880-1893) cover the second decade
of the seventeenth century, but are not nearly so
helpful as might be expected. The series contains all
the letters from the home authorities to the Indian

47
 government at Goa during the period in question, but
has very few letters sent by the Portuguese officials in
Asia to their superiors in Europe, which would be of
far greater value and interest to us. More enlightening,
as also more entertaining, are the piquant memoirs of
a Spanish hidalgo, Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa, who
was Ambassador from the King of Spain to Shah Abbas
the Great, in the eventful years preceding the siege and
capture of Ormuz. Don Garcia had a pen dipped in
vinegar and no great love for his Portuguese fellow-
subjects,1 so it is not surprising that there is no
Portuguese edition of his diary. The original manu¬
script was first published in full under the title of
Commentaries, in two volumes, printed at Madrid in
1903, but as early as 1667, a French translation had
been made by Abraham de Wicquefort and published
at Paris.
Naturally enough, the siege of Ormuz in 1622 bulks
largely in contemporary literature, forming as it does
the turning-point in the struggle for power between
English and Portuguese in the Gulf. The military and
naval operations before, during and immediately after
the siege, are fully dealt with in the Commentarios do
grande Capitdo Ruy Freyre de Andrade, originally
printed at Lisbon in 1647, and of which an annotated
English translation was published at London in 1929.
This work, although based upon contemporary papers
and despatches, is not as reliable as it should have been,
owing to the arbitrary way in which the original
editor-publisher, Paulo Craesbeeck, used his material.
Still, the more important errors and omissions can be
readily detected by comparison with the contemporary
English accounts, as reproduced by Purchas and Foster*
A further check upon the Commentarios is afforded by a

‘It will be remembered that from 1580-1640, Spain and Portugal formed a
dual monarchy under a single King.
little work edited at Lisbon in 1641 by Luiz Marinho
de Azevedo and entitled Apologeticos Discursos em
defensa da fama e boa memoria de Fernao de Albuquerque,
Governador que foi da India, contra 0 que d’elle escreveu
D. Gonsalo de Cesfedes, na Chronica d’El Rei D. Filippe
IV de Castella. As its title implies, this little book
was published to vindicate the conduct of Fernao de
Albuquerque, who was Governor of India from
1619-1622, and who did not always see eye to eye with
Ruy Freyre, although he loyally supported him during
his campaigns against the Persians and English in the
Gulf. Although not so detailed as the Commentarios,
it is often more reliable, and has never yet been used
by any modern writer on the subject. Upon the 1647
edition of the Commentarios, Snr. Luciano Cordeiro,
the indefatigable secretary of the Lisbon Geographical
Society, based his Como se perdeu Ormuz (Lisboa,
1896). Although the learned author treated Paulo
Craesbeeck’s compilation with greater respect than it
deserves, he atoned for his uncritical acceptation of
the former’s patriotic embellishments, by printing as
an appendix to his own work, a large number of
contemporary documents on the siege of Ormuz which
are of the greatest value and interest. Snr. Cordeiro
followed up his first book with a small publication
entitled Dois Capitaes da India (Lisboa, 1898) which
contains several documents narrating in detail the
progress of Portuguese arms in the Persian Gulf during
the years 1623-1629, thus forming a continuation of the
Ormuz operations. Another valuable mine of in¬
formation for this period is the Travels of that
“ cultured Roman,” Pietro della Valle. This learned
voyager travelled up the Gulf in 1625, and the narrative
of his voyage throws numerous sidelights on the chief
personages and events concerned. An English edition
of his Travels was printed at London in 1665, and

49
re-edited for the Hakluyt Society by Mr. Edward Grey
in 1891. Printed sources in Portuguese for the years
1625-1635 are singularly few and far between, being
practically limited to a few paragraphs in the third
volume of Faria y Sousa’s not too trustworthy Asia
Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1675) and some incidental notices
in rare missionary tracts, such as the Carta do Padre
Vigairo da ordem de St. Agostinho etc. (Lisboa, 1628).
An exception is formed by the narratives of the three
hard fought battles in the Persian Gulf, between an
Anglo-Dutch squadron and a Portuguese armada under
Nuno Alvarez Botelho, in February, 1625 ; these fights
produced quite a spate of pamphlet literature on the
subject in Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and English, one
of the latter tracts being edited by John Taylor, the
Water-Poet. Later and partly traditional accounts of
the Ormuz operations, such as those given by Father
Queiroz in his Historia da vida do venerauel irmdo Pedro
de BastOy (Lisboa, 1689), are worth only a passing
mention.
The amount of relevant material to be found in
Portuguese archives is disappointingly small, most of
the contemporary documents and reports having
perished in the great fire which destroyed the building
in which they were housed, the Casa da India} after the
disastrous Lisbon earthquake of 1755; whilst the white
ant has been responsible for the destruction of many
old documents in the Goa archives. The scarcity of
material in Portugal, is however compensated for to
some extent, (at least as concerns the Ormuz operations)
by a large number of contemporary Portuguese letters
and reports preserved amongst the Egerton manuscripts
in the British Museum. These have not been consulted
by historians up till now, and should not be neglected
by any future writer on the subject.
All or most of the foregoing sources deal with wars
and rumours of wars, but the commercial activities of
the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf during the period
under review, are adequately dealt with by Antonio
Bocarro, the official Chronicler of Portuguese India
from 1631-1643, a contemporary copy of whose
monumental Livro do Estado da India Oriental is to be
found in the Sloane Library at the British Museum.
In this exhaustive review of the geographical, political
and economic situation of the Portuguese possessions
in Asia, which was completed at Goa in 1635, Bocarro
gives a detailed description of the Portuguese settle¬
ments and agencies at Muscat, Kung, Basra and all
other places frequented by the Lusitanians in the Gulf.
Some of these (e.g., those on Ormuz and Basra) were
reproduced by W. de Gray Birch in the Hakluyt
Society edition of the Commentarios of Affonso de
Albuquerque (London, 1880). The maps and plans
of the various fortresses which accompany the
descriptions, are also of considerable interest, although
their artistic value is small.1

•Antonio Bocarro was born at Abrantes in 1594, bis brother being the
celebrated physician and writer, Manoel Bocarro Francez. The family was
of Israelite origin, and Antonio Bocarro, after sailing to India in 1622, first
settled in the Jewish community at Cochim. In 1624 he was a prisoner of
the Inauisition at Goa, but was appointed the official historian by the Conde
de Linhares (well-known as a protector of the Christdos-novos) in 16^1.
Mr. de Gray Birch and several other English writers err in ascribing
Bocarro’s magnum opus to Pedro Barreto de Rezende, private secretary of
the Conde de Linhares who was Viceroy of India from 1629-1635. Rezende
did in fact co-operate in the work, but he explicitly states in the prologue
that he was responsible only for the actual plans of the fortresses, the whole
of the text having been drawn up by Antonio Bocarro. The British Museum
copy, which is a later one of about 1646, includes some interesting
hydrographic charts of Asiatic waters from the pen of Pierre Berthelot, a
Norman who first came to the Indies as pilot of a French ship in 1619. In
later years he rose to be Pilot and Cosmographer-major of India in the
Portuguese service, and after becoming a Carmelite monk was martyred in
Achin in 1638. Contemporary copies of Antonio Bocarro’s work exist in
Evora and Paris ; whilst others are mentioned by the Portuguese bibliographer.
Barbosa Machado, in Vol. I of his Bibliotheca Lusitana. Bocarro’s original
preface is dated Goa, 17th February, 1635 and Pedro Barreto de Rezende’s
copy in The British Museum, Anno de 1646.
 So much for the principal English and Portuguese
sources, but it must not be forgotten that it is often
the looker-on who sees most of the game. An
interested onlooker, and at times active participant,
was the “ insolent Hollander ” as his jealous English
rivals often dubbed him, and it is from Dutch accounts
that we can glean many facts which passed unnoticed,
or were glossed over, by the parties directly concerned.
For instance, a good deal of material is to be found in
some of the journals printed in volume II of the
Begin ende Voortgangh der Vereenighde Oost-Indische
Compagnie, published at Amsterdam in 1646 ; partic¬
ularly in that of Hendrik Hagenaer who travelled in
the Gulf during the years 1632-1633. The voluminous
Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Bataviaf the
modern publication of which (at Batavia and the Hague
1887-1912) corresponds roughly to Sir William Foster’s
English Factories in India series (albeit the former is
edited in a far less scholarly way), contains a good deal
of relevant material, although the diaries for some of
the years concerned (e.g., 1630 and 1635) are un¬
fortunately missing, either in whole or in part. Mr.
A. Hotz’s scholarly edition (Leyden, 1907) of the
log-book of skipper Cornelis Roobacker, who charted
a part of the Gulf during his voyage from Gombrun
to Basra in 1645, is also worth consulting ; as is Dr. H.
Terpstra’s De opkomst der Westerkwartieren van de
Oost-Indische Compagnie (The Hague, 1918)—another
careful piece of research.
An even more deeply interested party in the
spectacle of Anglo-Portuguese rivalry in the Gulf was
the Persian himself. Unfortunately, being guiltless of
any knowledge of the Iranian tongue, I cannot claim
to have translated a mass of Persian and Arabic
documents on the subject, and do not even know if
such exist. If by any chance they do, it would be

52
interesting to study them for the sake of getting an
insight into their point of view ; but it is improbable
that they would have much of importance to add to the
voluminous English, Portuguese and Dutch accounts.
Finally, it should not be forgotten that nothing can
quite supply the want of personal experience of the
sea or land area under discussion. Nevertheless,
although it is given to few of us to be able to travel
there, yet a good idea of the geographical and climatic
conditions obtaining in that desolate region, can be
obtained from a consultation of such sources as Sir
Arnold Wilson’s standard work on The Persian Gulf,
or of Admiralty charts and The Persian Gulf Pilot. It
may be added that the series of aerial photographs
published in The Times during 1934, affords us some
excellent glimpses of the forbidding nature of the
country in which Englishmen and “ Portugals ” fought
out their quarrels three hundred years ago.

As early as 1612 the Portuguese began to take alarm

at the prospect of their English rivals opening a trade
with Persia, and thus interfering with their own
monopoly of sea-borne commerce in the Gulf, which
they had held practically unchallenged for a century.
Although the English at this time had their hands full
at Surat, whilst subsequently King James I’s am¬
bassador to the court of the Great Moghul, Sir Thomas
Roe, opposed the extension of their trade to Persia,
yet the activities of the celebrated adventurer, Robert
Sherley, aroused considerable misgivings in the minds
of the Lusitanian authorities at Lisbon and Goa.
Accordingly when Sherley returned from his mission
on behalf of Shah Abbas to the courts of London and
Madrid in 1612, the Portuguese Indiamen which
53
I

sailed for Goa in the same year, brought warning

letters concerning his activities to Dom Hieronymo de
Azevedo, the Viceroy at Goa.
These warnings were duplicated by others which
were sent overland in the following year, and which
reached Goa at the beginning of November, 1613. In
these letters, the Viceroy was ordered to prevent by
fair means or foul Dom Roberto, as he is termed in
Portuguese documents, from reaching Persia ; and it
was not the fault of Azevedo that his prey escaped him.
As soon as these orders of the Lisbon authorities had
been received in Goa, it was resolved to hasten the
departure of Dom Luiz da Gama, who was about to
proceed to take up the captaincy of the fortress of
Ormuz ; and to give him a sufficient naval and
military force to ensure his being able to secure
Sherley’s person by force if necessary. Da Gama was
ordered to proceed forthwith to Laribandar (Diul-Sind)
at the mouth of the Indus, where Sherley had been
landed together with his companions from England in
the Expedition, and to offer the local Governor a bribe
of 6,000 pardaus, to induce him to surrender the
intended victim ; failing which, he was to be offered
an equally large bribe to kill him. Dom Hieronymo,
in reporting this drastic decision to the home authori¬
ties, added that he felt sure that Dom Luiz da Gama
would succeed in his mission, both because of his own
capabilities, and because the Governor, like all
Mohamedans, would be easily bribed, whilst Sherley
had nothing to offer as a counter-bribe. Nevertheless,
Sir Robert escaped the trap set for him, and Dom Luiz
arrived off Sind in January, 1614 to find that the bird
had flown. Sherley’s principal companion, Sir Thomas
Powell, the ambassador-elect from the “ British
Solomon ” to Shah Abbas, together with several
members of his entourage died, but he himself

54
managed to escape from the clutches of the local
Indian authorities, and made his way to the court of
Jahangir at Agra, whence he proceeded to Persia by
way of Kandahar.1
Encouraged by Sherley’s promises, and cheered by
the news that “ the King of Persia much favoureth the
English nation, and is of late fallen out with the
Portugals,” the chief factors at Surat now resolved to
try to open up a trade with Persia. The maritime
power of the Portuguese had been greatly reduced
since their disastrous defeats by the English off Swally
in 1610, and again in January, 1615 ; whilst at the same
time, their small fort at Gombrun which guarded the
wells on the mainland whence the population and
garrison of Ormuz depended for most of their water
supply, was attacked and taken by the Khan of Lar,
after a trifling resistance. All these events were of
good augury for the East-India Company, and after a
preliminary journey to Ispahan by two factors in 1615,
the first English vessel destined for the Persian trade,
the James, was despatched from Surat in 1616. The
Portuguese attempt to intercept the vessel proved
abortive, and after this first successful venture had
been repeated in the two following years, a factory was
definitely settled at Jask in 1619, which became the
centre of the East India Company’s commercial
activities in Persia for the next three years.
It is interesting to note that one of the reasons
which induced the Surat factors to embark on their
Persian adventure in 1616, was the fact that Sherley
was absent from Persia, having been sent by his master

•See the correspondence of Dom Hieronymo de Azevedo with his home

Government on tne question of intercepting Sherley, as printed by Cunha
Rivara on pp. 207-211 of the Chronista de Tissuary, I, Nova Goa, 1866.
Cf also Bocarro Decada XIII, pp. 201-203, and tne journal of Sherlev’s
voyage out to Sind in the Expedition as printed by Purchas in Vol. I of nis
Pilgrimes (1625 edition).

55
I

the Shah on another mission to the King of Spain

early in the same year. Evidently the help he had so
freely proffered three years earlier was found to have
been rather expensive ; at any rate it was noted that if
he had still been at the Shah’s court, he would either
have hindered the English in their enterprise, or “ to
our great charge as we suppose would lend us his
furtherance.” The presence of Sir Robert in Goa this
year, as the honoured guest of the Viceroy who had
done his utmost to have him poisoned or murdered a
bare two years before, was certainly rather amusing.
It will be remembered that although the Portuguese
fortress of Ormuz was a thorn in the eye of Shah Abbas
from the beginning of his reign, and that he had long
since been determined to secure it, yet there was
another even more powerful enemy, in the shape of
the Turk, on his western frontier. It is true that with
the capture of Nehavend and Tabriz, the Osmanali
had been fairly driven out of the North-west Persian
provinces by 1605, but the long-continued war with
the Sultan seriously affected the Persian silk trade with
Europe (largely a royal monopoly), which had either
to pass overland through the domains of the Turkish
enemies, or else by the sea-route controlled by the
Portuguese. Shah Abbas’ attitude towards the
Lusitanians, depended almost entirely on the progress
of his arms against the Turks, and any decisive success
over the latter was usually followed by the adoption
of a more openly hostile attitude towards the former.
Thus in 1602 the valuable pearl fishery of Bahrein, off
the north Arabian coast, had been forcibly seized from
the feeble grasp of the puppet “ King ” of Ormuz
who was a suzerain of the King of Spain. This
aggression was followed up in 1607 and 1615 by the
occupation of the wells and fort of Gombrun on which
Ormuz largely depended for its supplies of fresh water ;

56
 but the Turkish menace still prevented Shah Abbas
from breaking openly with the Portuguese. Not only
so, but he had frequently sent ambassadors to Madrid
with proposals to the effect that in return for active
Spanish assistance against the Turks in the Levant and
elsewhere, he would give the Portuguese a monopoly
of all the trade of Persia with Europe. This offer had
been made at different times by such varied repre¬
sentatives as the Portuguese friar Antonio de Gouvea,
the two Sherley brothers, Robert and Anthony, and
by the native Persian ambassador Dengis Beg in 1608.
The Spanish government for many years hesitated to
accept this apparently alluring offer, as they fully
realised that only the fear of the Turks had induced
the Shah to make it at all; but in 1614, largely as a
result of Robert Sherley’s previous persuasions, it was
decided to send an ambassador with power to conclude
an agreement on these lines, provided that Bahrein and
Gombrun were restored to the King of Ormuz. The
envoy selected was a courtly old Spanish hidalgo named
Don Garcia de Silva y Figeroa, and he embarked at
Lisbon in April, 1614 with a large retinue and “ an
extraordinary rich present ” for the Shah.1 He arrived
at Goa in November, but his reception by the local
Portuguese authorities was none of the most cordial;
and he likewise fell foul of Sherley who reached Goa in
March 1616, on his way to Europe on a reciprocal
mission to the court of Madrid. Shah Abbas’ dilemma
was well summed up by Sir Thomas Roe, who wrote
that he must either “ constantly resolve to go through

*It is amusing to note that the selection of Don Garcia as ambassador was
the direct result of a request by the Shah that no more ecclesiastical envoys
should be sent hinij “ as a Religious out of his cell is like a fish out of water.”
Della Valle also criticises the habit of the Portuguese of sending priests or
friars as envoys to native princes, and adds that this practice merely brought
them into disrepute. On the other hand, the custom may have been doe
in part to the fact that the priests (or at any rate the Jesuits) were usually
skilled linguists.

57
I

with the Spaniard, or to make peace with the Turk ;

one of them he must do.” To most observers it
seemed that Abbas had come down on the Spanish side
of the fence, for when he sent Sherley on his new
mission to Goa and Madrid in 1615, he was provided
with fuller powers and instructions than before. In
truth the Shah was only biding his time ; for whilst
Sherley was negotiating a definite treaty of alliance in
Madrid, he deliberately broke off all negotiations with
Don Garcia de Silva at Ispahan, on the pretext that
the Spanish demand for the restitution of Bahrein
and Gombrun as a sine qua non, was totally unjustified.
The real reason for his removing the mask, however,
was that the appearance of English ships at Jask
afforded him a welcome opportunity of disposing of
the silks, through other hands than those of his actual
or potential enemies.
The arrival of the English at Jask in 1616 and the
subsequent foundation of the factory there, aroused
the liveliest misgivings in the minds of the Portuguese
authorities, which the bland professions of the Shah,
or the persuasive eloquence of Robert Sherley could
by no means entirely allay. Even whilst the embassy
of Don Garcia de Silva was still treating with the Shah,
measures were being taken by the home authorities
to prepare for the worst, in the event of an agreement
not being arrived at. It was fully realised that the
English would not tamely abandon the trade they had
successfully begun, and that the continuance of
Portuguese political and commercial preponderance in
the Gulf depended entirely on the maintenance of
their supremacy at sea. It was therefore decided to
despatch a strong naval force from Lisbon to Ormuz in
the spring of 1619, with the dual object of forcibly
ejecting the intruding English “ corsairs,” and of
securing the fortress against a possible Persian attack.

58
 It is a common if natural failing of English historians,
that they tell us little or nothing about the men from
whom our ancestors had to wrest the mastery of the
seas, before they could enjoy the fruits of their “ quiet
trade ” in peace. This is hardly surprising, since so
many of the founders of our own colonial empire
(outstanding figures like Robert Clive always excepted)
have been unduly neglected, that it is only natural they
should claim the first share of our attention. Of late
years, however, the patient labours of Sir William
Foster and other investigators, have restored to their
rightful places such leading figures as Captain John
Weddel and William Methwold, so that a few words
about their principal opponents may not come amiss.
It is impossible to apprise the deeds of the first
Englishmen in India at their true worth, if we have no
idea of what manner of men they were, against whom
they had to fight for “ the wealth of Ormuz and of
Ind.” It is easy to dismiss the lot of them as decadent
“ dagoes ” or priest-ridden Papists, but in doing so
we sadly under-rate the achievements of our fore¬
fathers. If all the opponents of the English in India
during the seventeenth century had been as cowardly
and as inefficient as they are commonly made out to be,
then the foundation of our Indian Empire was neither
a particularly onerous nor honourable task. Such,
however, was not the case, and along with many
weaklings and half-castes, the ranks of the Portuguese
in India included soldiers and sailors who gave every
bit as much as they received. “ Who so cowardly as
a Portuguese ? ” asked Captain Downton sneeringly of
his men before the fight in Swalley Hole ; but he had
the fairmindedness to admit in his journal afterwards,
that he had never seen men fight more bravely than
those who boarded the Hope that day. There is
therefore ample reason to devote some space to a

59
I

sketch of the principal jidalgos who crossed swords with

King James’ men in the Persian Gulf three hundred
years ago.
First and foremost amongst these, was the man
selected to command the expedition fitted out at
Lisbon in the spring of 1619—Ruy Freyre d’Andrade.
Researches by the late Mr. W. Irvine, and by my
friend Snr. Frazao de Vasconcellos, have shown that
Ruy Freyre was born in the town of Beja in Alentejo.
He was the son of Joao Freyre d’Andrade, who was
Chancellor of India during the first decade of the
seventeenth century, and thus the holder of the
highest law office of the Crown. This Joao Freyre
was an intimate friend of the chronicler Diogo do
Couto, as may be seen from the correspondence
between them, printed on pp. 78-81 of Caminha’s
Obras ineditas de Diogo do Couto, Lisboa, 1808. In
the Torre de Tombo there is a reference to the
grant of the captaincy of Damao to Ruy Freyre
d’Andrade as the eldest son of Joao Freyre. Ruy
Freyre first went out to India in 1607, in the fleet of
Dom Jeronimo Coutinho, as an ordinary jidalgo, or
private gentleman, with an allowance of 2,000 reis a
month. No portrait of him has survived, but he
stands clearly before us in the pages of Purchas, where
a servant of John Company, who knew him well,
describes him as being “ a proper tall Gentleman,
swarthie of colour, Sterne of Countenance, few of words
and of an excellent spirit ; he had lived here in India
many years.” From 1609 onwards he spent every year
of his life on active service ; for the first eight or nine
years as Captain-Major of various Portuguese forces on
the North-west coast of India, defending the cities of
Chaul, Bassein and Damao against the assaults of
neighbouring princes; and from 1619, until his death
thirteen years later, fighting the English and Persians
60
in the Gulf. The scholarly Della Valle, who came
from Persia to India in one of the ships which had
participated in the taking of Ormuz, testifies to the
admiration in which he was held by his opponents,
which not even his ruthless execution of the hapless
survivors of the Lion, burnt by him off Gombrun in
1625, could altogether forfeit. The streak of cruelty
in his character is also clearly brought out by the
pitiless way with which he destroyed every living thing,
regardless of age or sex, which fell into his hands
during his campaigns in the Gulf. Of his headlong
courage, open-handed generosity and somewhat
capricious pride, several stories are told by Antonio
Bocarro and other contemporary writers, from which
we select the following.
During a sortie from Damao in 1613, Ruy Freyre
slew a Pathan in single combat, cutting him clean in
half at the waist with a single sweep of his sword.
Whilst serving as Captain of Chaul in the following
year, he was severely wounded by a musket shot in the
stomach, during an attack upon a superior force of the
enemy ; his troops on seeing this, fell into confusion,
but Ruy Freyre, despite the gravity of his wound,
rallied them by his voice and example, until a retire¬
ment was effected in good order. During these
campaigns he kept open house for scores of the poorer
soldiers, and raised and equipped a force of native
auxiliaries at his own expense.1 In November, 1615,
he was appointed Captain-Major of the Bombay
flotilla, which visited Surat on its voyage to Diu, in
order to confirm the peace recently agreed upon with

‘Bocarro, Decada 13 (Lisbon. 1876), pp. 71-73, 218-220 and 266-267.

Faria y Sousa also reproduces these stories with less exactitude and detail
in Vol. Ill of his Asia Portuguesa, (Lisboa, 1675). It is worth noting that
at the time of his appointment to the command of the Persian Gulf squadron
in 1619, Ruy Freyre was only 28 or 29 years old. His orders for the
expedition are printed on pp. 211-218 of the Commentaries, (English edition).

6l
I

the Moghul authorities. Ruy Freyre’s fame had

preceeded him, but the local Nabob had a still higher
opinion of him, when he found that he refused to
receive the customary bribes and gifts which all
previous Portuguese officers had accepted without
shame. Ruy Freyre was indeed eventually persuaded
to accept a Kashmir shawl, but he then told his
assembled captains that he was determined to present
it to the one whose mistress was by common consent
agreed to be the most beautiful—a certain Hippolyto
Furtado being judged the lucky man after a deal of
friendly rivalry.1 On his return voyage to Goa with
the same convoy in January, 1616, his flotilla was
scattered by a storm, and two of the merchant vessels
were captured by pirate craft who were lying in wait
on the outskirts of the fleet. So indignant was Ruy
Freyre that the vessels had not followed his poop-
lantern, which he had kept burning all night despite
the fury of the storm, that he shaved the beards of all
the soldiers in their six consorts as a punishment. In
view of these and many other similar exploits of his,
it is not surprising that he was famed far and wide
throughout the seaboard of Western India ; and when
peace had been concluded in 1615, hundreds of
Mahratta warriors flocked to Chaul to see him.
Incidentally, Bocarro informs us that he was singularly
successful as a trainer of native troops, and could
organise the most unpromising material into well-
trained and hard-fighting soldiers.
Whilst Ruy Freyre’s expedition was being fitted out
‘Bocarro, Decada ij, pp. 164-165. Danvers in his Portuguese in India,
makes a muddle of this anecdote which is typical of his slipshod and super¬
ficial work. He states that the shawl was awarded by the verdict of the
Captains to Hippolyto Furtado, who was mistress of Ruy Freyre. This
error is all the more ludicrous, as we learn from Faria y Sousa, whence Danvers
mistranslated his version, that Ruy Freyre was unusually chaste for a man
of his ape and race—never having had a consort of any kind. And yet people
persist in quoting Danvers as a reliable authority.

62
in the Tagus, the English were having things their own
way in the Persian Gulf. The first venture in the
James in 1616, had been followed up by the despatch
of the Bee from Surat in the following year, though
she arrived practically empty. Amongst the factors
on board her was Edward Monnox, who may be
regarded as the real founder of the English position in
the Gulf, and to whose entertaining pen we owe the
best account of events in Persia during the next five
years. Even before the agreement made by the first
factor, Edward Connock, with Shah Abbas in August,
1617, had been signed, the English had not omitted to
stir up the “ Sophy ” against the Portuguese. Fearful
lest the Lusitanians might spoil the Company’s
promised monopoly of the Persian silk export trade,
“ the only richest yet known in the world,” Connock
had tried “ with reasons unanswerable to persuade this
Prince what society, honour, benefit he may attain in
freeing his gulfs of their present slavery, by taking
Ormuz into his possession, an act worthy himself,
easily performed, and whereby he may be Lord of his
own.” The ease with which Ormuz might have been
taken at this time, is likewise emphasized by Don
Garcia de Silva in his Commentaries. This worthy,
who had been delayed in Goa for nearly two years,
owing to the procrastination of the jealous Portuguese
authorities, had at length reached Ormuz in April
1617, only to find the place in a lamentable condition.
So struck was he with the apparent defencelessness of
the town, that he renounced his former decision of not
proceeding on his embassy until the Shah had restored
Bahrein, Gombrun and Kishm to the titular King of
Ormuz, and resolved to continue his mission forthwith,
if only to spin out the negotiations in order to gain
time to put the place into a state of defence. He
crossed over to the mainland in October, but despite

63
I

the fact that his fruitless mission lasted two years, he

found Ormuz still utterly unprepared to stand a siege,
on his return from the Shah’s court in October, 1619.
Insult was added to injury by the fact that he was
compelled to kick his heels in Ormuz during the winter
months, as the reported presence of an English fleet at
Jask, was sufficient to scare the Portuguese to such an
extent that they dared not send any ships to Goa before
April, 1620. He tried to utilise his forced sojourn in
the town, by inducing the captain Dom Luis de Souza
to put the place in a state of defence, but could get
no more backing from him than from his predecessor,
Dom Luiz da Gama, whom he accused of intercepting
his correspondence during his mission in Persia. To
some of those not on the spot, the conquest of Ormuz
did not appear quite so easy. Sir Thomas Roe,
writing from India to William Robbins (Sir Robert
Sherley’s agent at Ispahan) in August, 1617, roundly
scoffs at the idea that “ we will take Ormuz and beat
the Portugal out of those seas ; these are but vanities.”
In other letters he repeated this warning, and frankly
urged that the best service he could do the Company,
would be to make peace with the Portuguese.
Nevertheless he added that the “ Portugals ” were not
wise enough to know their own weakness, and admitted
that the Persian trade once begun, “ though im¬
perfectly,” should not now be given over. He was
however, almost alone in this opinion, and the men
on the spot like Connock, Barker and Monnox were all
confident of success.
The poor lading brought by the Bee in 1617, had
been atoned for by the arrival of the Expedition at
Jask in 1618 with two Portuguese prizes, “ which are
very useful for your occasions,” worth some £2,000 or
£3,000. The Shah, who had by now finally, if secretly,
resolved to break with the Portuguese, showed
64
 himself especially gracious towards the English in the
following year ; for he received some letters sent by
King James from the hands of the English factors,
at a “ princely and sumptuous banquet, whereto he
invited all foreign ambassadors resident in his Court,
viz., the Spanish, Indian, Turkish, Russian, Tartarian
and Uzbeck ” emissaries. “ Glorying no doubt,” the
factors added complacently, “ to have it published in
an assembly of so many repugnant and discrepant
nations, that it hath pleased so potent and yet so far
remote and diffident a prince to direct his royal letters
to him.” Under the influence of wine the “ Sophy’s ”
benevolence went even further, and he whispered to
the factors “ that he had a resolution to take Ormuz
from the King of Spain and deliver it unto the English
nation ; ” though they later complained of his “ fair
promises but contrary performances.” Shah Abbas,
on his side, had some complaints to make about the
inadequacy of the English shipping and their cargoes,
which caused the factors to press for a fleet to be sent,
the more so since there was always the chance of a
single vessel being intercepted by the Portuguese, weak
as they were.1
The preparation of Ruy Freyre’s expedition in the
Tagus had not escaped the notice of the East India
Company, who duly warned their representatives at
Surat of its intended despatch and destination.
Consequently, it was decided to send the whole of the
squadron of three ships which came out from England
in the autumn of 1619, together with the ship Liony
to Jask, whither they set sail in November, returning
to Surat again in the middle of the following January,
without having seen anything of the expected Portu¬
guese armada. The mere appearance of Bickley’s

1 Calendar of Stale Papers, East Indies, 1617-1621, pp. 303-311.

65
squadron threw the Portuguese at Ormuz into a
shameful panic, which Don Garcia de Silva did his best
to allay, but without much success. His description
of the consternation caused by the news of the presence
of the English ships at Jask, is confirmed by Monnox
who jubilantly reported : “ As we increase so doth
Ormuz decrease ; for the very report of the arrival of
five English ships in Jask did strike such terror and
amazement into these hen-hearted inhabitants, that
even their own houses and churches escaped not the
fury of their mattocks and pick-axes, fearing lest the
English in landing should possess themselves of the said
churches and houses, and therein lay siege and battery
into their invincible fort.”1
From this panic mood the Portuguese were delivered
by the arrival of the long-expected squadron of Ruy
Freyre at Ormuz in June, 1620, after a disastrous
voyage, during which one vessel had been lost off
Melinde, whilst the remainder of the squadron had
wintered at Mozambique where many of the crew
died. Further time was lost in cruising off the
entrance to the Red Sea, for Indian or Arab vessels
unprovided with Portuguese passes ; and the condition
of the survivors on reaching Ormuz was such as to
justify the English sneer that they were only “ fightable
till they fly.” Nevertheless the factors at Jask reported
that with the arrival of Ruy Freyre’s squadron, “ the
Portugals are grown great men, and begin to look big,”
and it speedily became apparent that the English
would not be able to fetch their silks away this year
without a struggle.®
lIdem, p. 353. L' Ambassade de D. Garcias de Silva Figeroa en Perse,
(Paris, 1667), pp. 371-391.
%Cal. S.P. East Indies, 1617-1621, p. 379. The outward voyage of Ruy
Freyre’s fleet is described in full in Chapters I to III of the Commentaries of
Ruy Freyre <T Andrade, (London, 1929). Cf also Foster, English Factories
in India, 1619-1621, pp. xxvii-xxix.

66
 On arriving at Ormuz, Ruy Freyre made several
additions and alterations to his fleet, and then sailed
to Jask in November, 1620, with the intention of
intercepting the English ships expected to arrive there
in December, to fetch the 520 bales of silk contracted
for by Monnox. His force comprised the galleons
Sao Pedro (64) which served as flagship ; Sao Martinho
(48) second-in-command ; the pataxo, or pinnace, Sao
Lourenfo (24) and the urea, or hulk, Nossa Senhora da
Conceit do (22), these two last vessels being Flemish-
built ships. In addition, there were a number of
galliots and other oared craft to serve as despatch
boats and scouts, whilst the whole Armada was manned
by over 1,000 men, the majority of them soldiers, for
the European sailors and gunners were few and far
between. With this fleet the Captain-Major took up
his appointed station off Jask.
Ruy Freyre had been at sea for exactly a month,
when two English vessels hove in sight on the 16th
December, with a Portuguese prize they had taken on
the voyage. These were the Hart and Eagle, which
Captain Andrew Shilling, commander of this year’s
outward-bound fleet, had detached from his squadron
in accordance with the Company’s instructions, a few
days before reaching Swalley Hole with his two
remaining vessels, the London and Roebuck. The
Portuguese at once weighed to attack the English, who
thinking themselves no match for the four galleons,
abandoned their prize and put about for Surat under
cover of darkness.1 Meanwhile Shilling had arrived

1 The anonymous author of the True Relation of that worthy sea-fight, etc.,
is not very complimentary about the behaviour of the Hart and Eagle,
alleging : “ But the truth is, they were very rich themselves, and loath to
lose all by any misadventure, which they might escape, and not wilfully run
into; and yet I must confesse, they had many motives to fight with them,
and daring hearts to the encounter; [yet] for all their great burthen and
preparation, well, they did not . . . ’

67
I

at Swalley with his other two ships, but the Surat

factors, knowing of the peril to which the Hart and
Eagle were exposed owing to the presence of Ruy
Freyre’s squadron off Jask, hurried him off again to the
support of his consorts, “ for they knewe, they should
bee fought with all, if not over-set.” Some of his
captains were not too keen to go, although they
realised “ it was not our turnes to dispute, nor had we
any other part to play but obedience, and so wee put
to sea againe, taking a course to follow our shipps.”
The London and Roebuck had not been two days on
their voyage when they captured a Portuguese vessel
from Muscat laden with raisins, dates and forty-two
Arabian horses,1 whilst shortly after this event, they
fell in with the Hart and Eagle. The crews of these
latter vessels gave an account of their flight from Ruy
Freyre’s squadron, “ whose strength and preparation
they reported extraordinary . . . discoursing at large
of the matter, and describing the manner of the
enemies watches, and how bravely and warlike they
were appointed.” Shilling however, was not the man
to be daunted by any display of force, and he resolved
to take in his lading at Jask roads, even if he had to try
a bout with the redoubtable Ruy Freyre, “ whom
themselves call the Pride of Portugal.” The united
squadron accordingly headed for Jask, the prize having
been prepared for use as a fireship if necessary. Shilling’s
determined character is well shown from the fact that
when some people demurred at this step, “ as pittying
the loss of so many brave horses, he as bravely replied,
how doe they doe then in the wars, when they are
compelled to kill their prisoners in colde blood ; and
therefore think neither of scruple, or nicety, but let
us follow the businesse we take in hand.”

•The Nossa Senhora das Merces, of zoo ton*, Captain Francisco Miranda.

68
 The rival squadrons came in sight of each other at
sunset on Christmas day, but battle was not joined
until the following morning, when Ruy Freyre’s
galleons came out of the road, “ and in a daring and
braving manner invited us to an encounter, which we
intertained with many Navall ceremonies, and putting
out our collours of defiance, with the adorning our
ships to answere their proportion of Gallantnesse, we
made a brave show, as if we meant to intertaine death
and slaughter with mirth and jollitie.” In this
manner they approached, until the Sao Pedro and
London lay less than a musket shot apart, when Ruy
Freyre, who was standing on the half-deck of his
flagship dressed in rose-coloured camlet, took a goblet
of wine from an attendant page and drank Shilling’s
health, to which the Englishman replied in a similar
fashion. As a gesture of mutual defiance, the two
leaders then hurled their goblets into the sea, whilst to
the sound of drum and trumpet, both sides fell to it
with a will.
The ensuing fight has been described elsewhere, so
need only be briefly recorded here.1 The action
raged until the exhausted combatants were parted by
nightfall, but the advantage lay chiefly with the
English. They had, it is true, prematurely fired their
prize “ when there was neither reason nor cause . . .
and leaving us in a kind of confusion to see so many
goodly horses perish in the raging Sea,” but the
slaughter caused by the English cannon on board the
overcrowded Portuguese galleons was appalling. On
1 The best account from the English side is that of Richard Swan, master
of The Roebuck, printed on pp. 220-225, *he 1618-1621 volume of Foster’s
English Factories in India, q. v.. for other versions. Another valuable source is the
excessively rare little tract, Tne true Relation of that worthy sea-fight, (London,
1622), whence most of the quotations in the text are taken. Unfortunately
no trustworthy Portuguese account has come down to us, the only ones
available being translated in my edition of the Commentaries of Ruy Freyre
d’Andrade, (London, 1929), pp. xxv-xxvii, 21-30 and 298-301.

69
I

the next day the wind was in favour of the Portuguese,

but they made no attempt to interfere with the
English, who stood into Jask roads and landed their
goods. Ruy Freyre remained in the offing, and on
New Year’s day, 1621 he received a supply of men and
munitions which had been sent him in some small
craft from Ormuz. Thus reinforced, he accepted a
renewed challenge of the English on January 7th. This
action ended even more disastrously for the Portuguese
than the former, partly owing to the greatly superior
gunnery of the English, and partly to the mistaken
tactics adopted by Ruy Freyre, who insisted on fighting
with his ships moored in a line, against the advice of
his most experienced officers, who were in favour of
getting under sail. As a result of this foolish decision,
one of the galleons, whose cable had been cut by a
cannon ball, drifted athwart of the two vessels moored
in rear of her, so that (it being flat calm at the time), all
these ships remained board on board of each other, and
exposed to the full effect of the raking English
broadsides, without being able to use more than two
or three of their own guns. The Portuguese endured
this terrible punishment for some hours, until finally
at three o’clock in the afternoon, “ unwilling after so
hotte a dinner to receive the like supper, they cutte
their cables and drove with the tide (then setting
westerly) untill they were without reach of our gunnes ;
and then their frigattes came to them and towed them
awaie wonderfullie mangled and torne.” The English
were not further molested, and were enabled to lade
the silk and depart for Surat at their leisure.1
‘The casualties in these actions were amazingly disproportionate, even
making due allowance for the poor gunnery of the Portuguese. The total
English losses did not exceed ten, though they included Captain Shilling, who
was mortally wounded during the second day’s fight. The Portuguese
confessed to a casualty list of over 430, which is hardly surprising, in view of
the fact that Richard Swan states the four English vessels expended a total
of 4,021 “ great shot,” most of them at short range, during tne two battles.

70
 Whilst this campaign was in progress, the aged
Governor of India, Fernao de Albuquerque, had been
doing his best to assemble further reinforcements at
Goa for Ruy Freyre’s squadron. Despite the chronic
state of penury and want of European sailors, with
which the Portuguese authorities invariably had to
struggle, he had succeeded in fitting out two strongly-
built galleons,1 manned with 270 men, by the end of
the year 1620 ; but did not venture to despatch them,
for fear lest they should fall into the hands of Shilling’s
squadron, which he knew was on the way to Jask.
With the return of the English ships to Swally in
February 1621, the coast was clear, and the galleons
left for Ormuz on the 6th April, carrying a large supply
of munitions in addition to their crews. By these
ships, the Governor wrote letters to Ruy Freyre,
impressing upon him the necessity for preparing his
armada, thus reinforced, for another struggle with
the English off Jask in the coming winter. These
appeals fell on deaf ears, for Ruy Freyre had decided
to carry out the second part of the commission with
which he had been sent out from Lisbon, namely to
build a fort in the neighbouring island of Kishm
(Qishm). The object of this plan was to gain control
of some wells situated at the eastern extremity of this
island and thereby secure compensation for the loss
of the wells at Gombrun, taken by the Persians some

lTodolos Santos and Nossa Senhora da Victoria. The former was a very
famous ship which had served as the flagship of Don Hieronymo de Azevedo
in his fruitless attack on Downton’s squadron at Swally Hole in 1615. The
Governor admitted that the quality of their crews was verv poor, owing to
the fact that the news of Ruy Freyre’s ill success at Jask had disheartened
the men ; hence he had been forced to embark many convicted criminals,
whom he had taken from the jails, or induced to return from the dominions
of neighbouring native princes, by a public proclamation of free pardon for
all offences save sodomy, counterfeiting coinage and heresy. See the
interesting letters written by Fern3o de Albuquerque to Ruy Freyre in
March, 1621, as printed on pp. 186-191 of Luciano Cordeiro’s Como sc
perdeu Ormuz.

71
I

six years previously. This move was not only ill-timed,

but unnecessary ; for as long as the Portuguese main¬
tained their command of the sea in the Persian Gulf,
they could land on Kishm and draw water from its
wells at any time they liked ; whilst conversely, if the
mastery was allowed to pass to the English, then they
would not have access to the wells at Kishm or any¬
where else. These considerations, and others equally
potent, were urged upon Ruy Freyre by Fernao
d’Albuquerque and by the Captain of Ormuz, Dom
Francisco de Sousa, both of whom clearly saw that all
depended upon retaining command of the sea by
defeating the English off Jask. The hot-headed Ruy
Freyre however, either would not listen to reason, or
else despaired of defeating the English at sea ; and
gained his own way by producing at a full council
meeting held in Ormuz Castle, the Royal orders for
the speedy erection of a fort at Kishm.
Accordingly on 7th May, 1621, Ruy Freyre left
Ormuz for Kishm at the head of an expeditionary
corps of some 2,000 seasoned Portuguese soldiers and
1,000 Arab auxiliaries, embarked in a fleet of 33 sail,
which likewise carried the frame of the proposed fort.
A landing was effected the next day, in the face of an
obstinate resistance by the Persian troops, and Ruy
Freyre at once set about the construction of the fort.
This was built “ of a great height and thicknesse, with
halfe-moones and flanckers very artificially, which in
five moneths and a halfe hee had finished ; a thing
wonderfull in so short a time to be effected,” as a
contemporary Englishman described it. The Persian
forces in the island were speedily reinforced by levies
from the mainland under the command of Imam Quli
Khan who directed the operations as Governor of Fars.
The Persians closely besieged the fortress for nine
months, but all their efforts to take it proved vain ;
72
 whilst Ruy Freyre carried the war into the enemy’s
camp, by means of plundering flotillas of light craft
which he sent out to ravage the neighbouring coasts
and islands. No quarter was given by the Portuguese
during these destructive raids on the costal towns and
villages, but they did not serve to effect much more
than heighten the hatred of the Persians for their
savage opponents.
So long as Ruy Freyre held command of the sea, it
was clear to all concerned that the Persians could
never capture Kishm fort, much less Ormuz, and it did
not take the Persian authorities long to make up their
minds to secure the active assistance of the English, at
all costs. Both sides knew that the annual English
squadron to fetch the silks, would be due off Jask in
November or December as usual. Both Fernao de
Albuquerque and Dom Francisco de Sousa had urged
upon Ruy Freyre the importance of waylaying the
English off this port in order to prevent at any price
their effecting a junction with the Persian army.1
Ruy Freyre however considered that his duty lay in
Kishm fort, which he refused to abandon, and the
most he would consent to do, was to agree to proceed
to Ormuz to take command of the galleons, on a
signal gun being fired from the castle, when and
‘When FernSo de Albuquerque heard that Ruy Freyre had constructed
the fort in Kishm, against nis repeated advice, with the result that he was
closely besieged by an overwhelming Persian force, he wrote him a letter in
which the following interesting lines occur: “ it had been just and right if
you had considered my previous warnings, and not been so confident of
yourself, before putting hand to that work; for you with your thirty years
had not been dreamt of in this world, when I was already old in years of
experience and his Majesty’s service in these parts ; and yet they tell me that
you were fully persuaded you could correct what my seventy years wrote
you, in so weighty and important a matter ...” In this letter, the
Governor also urged on Ruy Freyre the advisability of proceeding to the
Coromandel coast after refitting his squadron, as he had news of three ill-
manned and newly arrived Danish vessels off that coast, which would be
an easy prey. He also suggested that Ruy Freyre could refit in Goa if
necessary, after which he could seek out the English off Swally, or Tiwai,
near Muscat. (Letter of Fernio de Albuquerque 21/X/1621.)

73
I

if the English fleet should appear. This voluntary

abandonment of the offensive to the enemy met with
its due retribution. A strong squadron of nine ships
under the command of Captains Blyth and Weddell
reached Jask on Christmas Eve 1621, and the Khan of
Shiras at once applied to the commanders for their
assistance against the Portuguese, threatening to
prohibit them from trading at all, in the event of their
not complying with his request. The English captains
urged on by Monnox, were nothing loath to fall in
with his plans and, despite some “ murmuring among
the commonality,” they induced their crews to follow
them. An agreement was speedily concluded with
the Khan of Shiras for the conduct of combined
operations against the Portuguese by land and sea, on
the general basis of (1) the castle of Ormuz to be
handed over to the English on its capture ; (2) the spoil
to be equally divided between Persians and English ;
(3) the English to be for ever Customs-free ; (4) the
Christian captives to be at the disposal of the English
and the Moslems at that of the Persians, whilst (5) the
latter would pay half the cost of the upkeep of the
English fleet during the operations.1 This treaty
was concluded at Kuhistak, whither the English had
gone from Jask, as being a better port and nearer the
scene of action, on the 5th January, 1622 ; and at the
end of the month, having embarked the silks lest the
Persians should play them false, the English squadron
stood over to Ormuz.
Weddell and Blyth hoped that the galleons moored
under the Castle would come out and fight them, but
nothing of the sort occurred. Some Portuguese
accounts allege that the agreed signal for the recall of
'This is the gist of the agreement as stated by Monnox. Other
contemporary copies (i.e., that in Records relating to Persia, Vol. IV state
that the Castle was to be garrisoned equally by Persians and Englisn, with
a Governor for each.

74
Ruy Frey re from Kishm, was made from the Castle,
but that it passed unnoticed in the besieged fort. Be
that as it may, neither the acting admiral of the fleet,
Luis de Brito, nor the newly elected Captain of the
fortress, Simao de Mello Pereira, had any stomach for
the fight, and they made no move.1 The English,
understanding that Ruy Freyre was at Kishm, did not
waste any further time, but sailed across to this island,
where they arrived on February 2nd, “ in fit time to
save both the lives and reputations of the Portugals,
not able long to hold out against the Persian siege, and
willing rather to yield to us.” At first the Portuguese
“ weived us with naked swords ; yet one more wiser
than the rest, hunge out a napkin or white cloth,
whereupone in Christianlike compassion, Edward
Monnox was sent on shoare to parlie with them.” He
was duly admitted to the presence of Ruy Freyre,
“ And beinge sett together in the courte of guard, the
sayd Rufrero began with a long storye of the antient
love and amytie betwene the two nations, English and
Portugalls, and the noble acts that the English had
done in asistinge the Portugalls to expulse the Moors
out of their countrye ;* to which the said Monox

lLuis de Brito, a cousin of Fernio de Albuquerque, had gone to Ormuz in

the galleon Todolos Santos in April, 1621, whilst Sim2o de Mello, who had
gone as commander of a flotilla in November of the same year; succeeded to
the captaincy of Ormuz Castle on the death of Dom Francisco de Sousa.
He had previously served as Captain of Mombasa and of the Malabar fleet.
After the fall of Ormuz, Sim2o de Mello fled to the domains of the Adil
Shah, Raja of Bijapur, whence he subsequently proceeded to the Coromandel
coast near SSo Thomi. Here he led a fugitive existence as a kind of hermit,
but he remained in touch with the authorities at Goa, acting as a sort of
spy on their behalf. An interesting letter of his to the Conde de Linhares,
is printed in the latter’s Diario. Amongst other things, de Mello discusses
a project for the capture of the Danish Fortress of Tranquebar. Luis de
Bnto was more unlucky, being apprehended by the authorities and executed
at Goa in 1622.

1 This is of course a reference to the English crusaders who assisted Dom

Affonso Henriques, the founder of the Portuguese monarchy to wrest Lisbon
from the Moors in 1147. (Cf. Professor Gibb’s lecture on English Crusaders

75
I

replyed hee came not to treate of busynisses of such

antequitye, but hee came to treate of sattisfaxione and
revenge for the warre begun and attempted by himselfe,
the their present Rufrero, against our last yeares fleete
in the Roade of Jasques, to the losse of our worthy
commander and our King’s sworne servante, besydes
other of His Majistis subjects.” Ruy Freyre retorted
that he had only acted in accordance with his orders,
but after much dispute he seemed disposed to
surrender on terms to the English. He demanded
however, that the same conditions should be extended
to his Arab auxiliaries, of whom there were some two
hundred in the fort ; but Monnox told him that these
would have to be handed over to the Khan of Shiras, in
accordance with the terms of the Anglo-Persian
agreement. “ Then sayd Rufrero : ‘ Rather than wee
will doe that, wee will ende our lives together ’ ” and
so vehemently did he say this, that Monnox promised
to intercede on their behalf with Imam Quli Khan.
He did in fact obtain from the Persian General a verbal
promise that their lives should be spared, but Ruy
Freyre absolutely refused to accept this, and broke off
all further negotiations. The English thereupon
bombarded the fort, which they soon reduced to a
sorry plight. Ruy Freyre now called on the garrison
to sally forth and end their lives fighting to the last ;

in Portugal.) On the first appearance of the English fleet off Kishra, Ruy
Freyre had also sent the commanders a letter couched in the same strain.
After recalling the exploits of the English crusaders and of John of Gaunt in
the Peninsula, (Cf. Mr. C. H. Williams’ lecture on this last subject) he asked
them to refrain from helping the Persians “ so that wee may reserve our
dissentions for other voyages, in which by valourous contending may be
satisfied those wrongs that cannot well be remembered in such times as these
are,” and concluded defiantly by declaring that in the event of the English
persisting in their intentions, “ the first wee hope for is no more than to
provide ourselves to die, defending that with Arms, wee have gotten by
Arms.” (Ruy Freyre to the commanders of the English fleet, i/ii/1622;
contemporary translation in Monnox’s History at large of the taking of Ormuz
Castle; India Office, Original Correspondence, 1032).

76
 but some friars dissuaded the men from following him
and induced them to reopen negotiations with the
English, after disarming their leader and imprisoning
him in his quarters. An agreement was speedily
concluded, whereby the Portuguese garrison was
allowed to proceed to Ormuz after having been dis¬
armed ; whilst the hapless Arab auxiliaries were handed
over to the tender mercies of the Persians, “ who
formerly had promysed them mercie, but falsely
murthered them most unhumanly.” Ruy Freyre
himself was delivered by his men to the English who
shipped him on board the Lion, together with some
of his captains, as prisoners to Surat.1
Ruy Freyre was well treated by his captors who
admired him unreservedly, which was hardly the case
with some of his own countrymen. How these
regarded his conduct at Kishm, is well shown by the
following extracts from a letter written by the
Archbishop of Goa, Dom Frei Christovao de Lisboa, to
Fernao de Albuquerque on hearing of the loss of the
fort. “ Your Worship should not despair nor become
angered at the affair of Kishm, because it could have
come to no other end, since that fortress was founded
at such an unseasonable time, as we always said ; whilst
their Lordships of the Council in Madrid ever expected
more of it, than we here from our own experience and
knowledge. Neither do I blame the soldiers in what
they did, according to what I have heard from Brother
Mezanha ; for what Ruy Freyre wished to do, was
rather the deed of a barbarian than of a Christian, and
the courage of despair rather than that of strength ; for
every day we see positions evacuated and armies in
‘The best English account of the siege and fall of Kishm fort is contained
in the documents calendared on pp. 31-38 of Foster’s English Factories in
India, 1622-1623, whence most of the above quotations are taken. The
only lengthy Portuguese account extant is that given in Chapters 24-29 of
the Commentaries, but this is a bombastic and unreliable version in the main.

77
I

retreat without shame, and it was more prudent to

make terms with the English than for so many soldiers
barbarously to die in vain ; as it is certain that ten
soldiers are worth more to us, than ten thousand to the
Shah, and even so, the affair was ended better than I
had expected . . . the Fortress [of Ormuz] is safe and
your Worship should send a good Captain for the fleet ;
there is no need to worry about the possibility of
recapturing Kishm, now or ever, because, so long as
we have control of the sea, they can never stop us
watering in so large an island, whilst if we have not
command of the sea, events have shown that the place
will always be more of a hindrance than a help. And
even though your Worship should realise all these
things perfectly, yet I could not forbear informing
you that I was of your opinion, as I always have been
in this matter ; and that the blame of everything lies
on Ruy Freyre, who impoverished the state for the
glory of making a fortress, and who abandoned his
armada for the sake of defending it. His Majesty
should trust more in us who are on the spot, and not
so much in the ministers at Madrid, who cannot know
as much of these regions as we.”1
A few days after the surrender of Kishm and the
joint occupation of its fortress by an Anglo-Persian
detachment, the English squadron sailed to Gombrun,
where the officers and men were royally feasted by the
grateful Khan of Shiras, who was nevertheless chagrined
that the English would not surrender Ruy Freyre to
him. The withdrawal of the fleet to Gombrun had

document printed on pp. 197-198 of Como se perdeu Ormuz, This

statement supports the version narrated in the Commentaries, and provides
a satisfactory refutation of the hints thrown out by D. Garcia da Silva y
Figeroa in his journal, that Ruy Freyre did not oppose the surrender of the
fort. Incidentally, the Archbishop’s letter affords yet another instance of
the continual ill-feeling between tne Spaniards and Portuguese at this date,
and the mutual suspicion with which tney regarded each other.

78
an unforeseen effect on the attitude of Simao de Mello,
Captain of Ormuz, who wrote to the Governor of
India that the English having accomplished their
object and laden the silks, would return to Surat and
leave Ormuz unmolested. He added that if they
should come after all, he was confident that he could
prevent either Persians or English from setting foot in
the island.1 This arrogant boast was soon put to the
test, for on Saturday, February 19th, six English
vessels hove in sight accompanied by an enormous
flotilla of small craft carrying some 3,000 Persian
soldiery, and the whole force anchored at a distance of
about six miles from the Castle at sunset. Next day,
the Persians under the command of Imam Quli Khan
landed without opposition, and marched with a great
show of resolution on the city. Simao de Mello, for
all his previous bragging and sneers at Ruy Freyre, had
completely lost his head on the appearance of the
Anglo-Persian armada and had made no attempt to
resist the disembarkation, as he might easily have done.*
A few men had been posted behind barricades erected
in the Maidan or market square, “ but the Persians
soone made way, and the Portugalls like so many sheepe
tooke their heels into their Castle.” Two valiant
captains, Dom Gon^alo da Silveira and Luis de Moura
Rolim, attempted to stay the panic, but their efforts
were without avail and in this manner the Persians
occupied and sacked the city.

‘Letter of SimJo de Mello for FernSo de Albuquerque, 7/ii/i622 (Como

se perdeu Ormuz, p. 199-200). Three of the English ships, including the
Lion with Ruy Freyre on board, were sent back to Surat at tnis time, which
may have had the effect of confirming SimSo de Mello in his erroneous
opinion.

*Sim5o de Mello’i own excuse for the lack of resistance offered, was that
the majority of the soldiers available were unarmed, having just come from
Kishm, where they had been deprived of their weapons by the English on
evacuating the fort.

79
 There are several detailed and reliable accounts of
the siege of Ormuz Castle available in print, and it is
therefore not necessary to give here more than the
briefest outline of the progress of the siege.1 The
English devoted their efforts principally to destroying
the galleons moored close under the castle walls ; and
in this they were so successful, that by the first week
in April they had sunk or burnt them all, including the
flagship Sao Pedro, which after being set on fire by a
daring cutting-out expedition one night, drifted, a
blazing wreck, over to the shore near Gombrun where
she sank. Meanwhile they had landed from the ships
some heavy guns which kept up a practically continuous
bombardment of the Castle, under cover of which the
Persians dug their approach trenches as far as the foot
of the bastion of Santiago. They next resorted to
mining, and though the Portuguese endeavoured to
forestall them by counter-mining, a part of the bastion
was blown up on March 27th, causing a breach, through
which although “ it proved somewhat difficulte and bad
to enter, yet the Persians gave a very resolute assault
thereunto, but it was so well defended by the Portugalls,
that the Persians were forced for that time to retire.”
Monnox sharply criticised the lack of discipline which
prevailed amongst the Persians, to which he attributed

1 The fullest account on the English side is Monnox’s History at large of the
taking of Ormuz Castle, printed m part by Purchas in Vol. II of the 1625
edition of his Ptlgrimes and first printed in full from the original manuscript
in the India Office as an Appendix to the English edition of the Commentaries
of Ruy Freyre d'Andrade. Other valuable contemporary sources will be found
mentioned in this work, and in the 1622-1623 volume of Foster’s English
Factories in India series. Herbert, Della Valle and others give hearsay and
less reliable narratives. On the Portuguese side, the longest account is to be
found in Chapters 30-^1 of the Commentaries of Ruy Freyre <T Andrade,
whilst the relations of Sim50 de Mello, Manuel Borges de Sousa and other
participants, which are printed in the appendices to this work, will also be
found useful, and in places more reliable. Another valuable source is the
depositions of many witnesses of the siege printed on pp. 205-293 of Como
se perdeu Ormuz. Both English and Portuguese versions agree well enough
together, when due allowance is made for their different standpoints.

80
most of their ill-success, “ for as the old proverb is they
entred without fear or witt, for when the Portugale
came to the push of the pike with them, they had never
a pike to answer them, and soe with shame were
constrained to give back, and lost that with dishonour
which they might have maintained with credit.”
The Persian army was singularly ill-equipped for a
siege, being poorly supplied with powder and shot ;
but the former being liberally provided by the English,
they continued their sapping and mining of the
Santiago bastion to such good effect that they were
enabled to make a second assault on the 27th April.
This attack was carried out by a force of at least two
thousand men “ who very resolutely ranne up the
breach into a part of the Bulwarke which they might
wholly have possessed that very instant, had they not
at first made such haste as to runne their resolution
out of breath; insomuch that onely eight or ten
Portugals and a few Negros, made them onely with
their Rapiers to give ground and to retire themselves
unto the very outward skirt of the Bulwarke, where
they had not roome for fortie men to stand in the face
of their Enemie, yet there they barricaded themselves.
Which before they could affect to their purpose, the
Portugall plyed two or three pieces of ordnance from
one of his Flankers that lay open unto them, in such
sort, that they sent some scores of them to carry newes
unto their Prophet Mortus Ali, that more of his
Disciples would shortly be with him.” Despite the
heavy losses suffered by the Persians from the raking
fire of the Portuguese guns, and from the hand-
grenades and powder-pots which the “ Portugals
bestowed as liberally as if they had come from the
mouth of Hell,” the attackers hung on to the lodgement
thus effected in the Santiago bastion. In the course
of three days’ furious hand to hand fighting, the
81
I

Persians gradually extended their hold over the whole

bulwark and could not be dislodged by the gallant
counter-attacks of the defenders led by the heroic
Dom Gon^alo da Silveira in person.
By the end of April, the situation of the besieged
was critical in the extreme. The bastion of Santiago
was held by the enemy, who could overlook part of the
Castle therefrom, whilst other mines had been sprung,
or dug, beneath the bastion of Sao Pedro, the Cavalier
bulwark and the Cistern. Provisions were running
short, being limited to some rice and salted fish, “ two
very good preparatives to a cup of good drinke if they
had it,” as Monnox sarcastically observed ; dysentry
and enteric fever raged amongst the hundreds cooped
up in the cramped space within the Castle walls,
where the bodies of the slain lay about unburied with
*i cats and dogs eating them, with infinite many flies.”
Many of the Castle’s canon had been damaged or
dismounted, whilst most of the best soldiers were
either killed or wounded, and the survivors almost
exhausted by the strain of continual toil and fighting.
The last hope of escape had gone when the galleons
had been sunk or fired, and the prospect of help
arriving from Goa seemed remote in the extreme. All
things considered, it is not surprising that at this
juncture the majority of the garrison mutinied and
demanded that the Governor should come to terms
with the English ; for all knew that there was no reason
to expect mercy from the victorious Persians, although
half-hearted negotiations had been going on with the
latter, at intervals since April 6th. But there were
still some dauntless spirits, who advocated that rather
than surrender they should “ put their Women and
children with all their treasure into a house, and blow
them all up with gunpowder (that the Turks should
neither injoy their wealth nor abuse their Wives)
82
 which done, they would thrust themselves pell-mell
with the Persians, and so end their dayes.” Chief
amongst these dauntless spirits was the indomitable
Dom Gon^alo da Silveira, who, despite the fact that
he was almost hors de combat from the numerous and
severe wounds he had received whilst defending the
breaches in the Santiago bastion, offered his assistance
to the Governor in quelling the mutiny. Simao de
Mello himself, however, if not secretly privy to the
insubordination of his men, at any rate connived at
it ; and rejecting Dom Gon^alo’s offer, he permitted
his second-in-command, Luis de Brito, to open
negotiations with the English, on the basis of the
surrender of the Castle to them, in exchange for a
guarantee that its inmates would be shipped to Sohar
and Muscat. The English were nothing loath to
accept these terms, and after a brief discussion the
Castle was surrendered to the Anglo-Persian com¬
manders on the 3rd May, which, appropriately enough,
coincided with St. George’s day in the Gregorian
calendar then used by the English.
We have seen (page 79) that when Weddell’s ships
returned after the capture of Kishm in February,
three of the vessels had been detached and sent back
to India, with the principal Portuguese prisoners
taken. Amongst these was Ruy Freyre in the Lion,
who was particularly well treated by his admiring
captors, from the master, James Beversham, down to
Thomas Winterbourne, the ship’s cook, who never
tired of making tasty dishes for the illustrious captive.
The English had determined to hold Ruy Freyre as
prisoner until they could secure the release of some of
the crew of the Unicorn, who had been prisoners at
Macau since the loss of their ship on the South China
coast in 1619. Together with Ruy Freyre they had
also captured his commission from the King of Spain,

83
I

authorising him to attack English shipping in the

Persian Gulf; and this was of great importance to
them, since it went a long way to justify their open
hostilities against the Portuguese forts at Kishm and
Ormuz, at a time when there was peace between
England and Spain in Europe. They consequently
kept a strict watch on their prisoner, but eventually
Ruy Freyre succeeded in eluding them by means of the
following trick.
On the pretext of celebrating Easter day, whilst the
Lion was anchored with some other vessels in Swally
roads, he obtained leave from his guardians to send
for some wine from the neighbouring Portuguese
settlement at Damao to celebrate the event. He was
able to arrange for some of this wine to be drugged, and
by inducing the ship’s company to partake freely
thereof, they were speedily reduced to a state of coma.
Seizing his opportunity, Ruy Freyre (with three
companions) lowered himself by a rope into the skiff
which was moored astern, and made for the shore.
His absence was speedily discovered and a hue and
cry raised, but although the Governor of Surat sent
out some cavalry to aid the English in scouring the
countryside, the fugitives escaped with the loss of one
of their number, who was drowned whilst the party
were swimming across the Tapti River. By ten
o’clock next morning Ruy Freyre was safe within the
walls of Damao, whence he proceeded as speedily as
possible with two small vessels to Muscat, with the
object of running the blockade of Ormuz in order to
assume command of the beleaguered fortress.1

‘This is the version given in Chapter 42 of the Commentaries and it is

supported to some extent by a letter written by Ruy Freyre from DamSo to
the President at Surat, acknowledging that he had made his escape owing
to the drunkenness of the watch, and pledging his honour to secure the return
of the Unicorn’s captives. Most contemporary English and Dutch accounts
agree in ascribing his escape to the negligence of the watch in leaving the

84
 At Muscat he was joined by Constantino de S£, who
had been despatched to the relief of Ormuz on the
2nd April by the Governor, Fernao de Albuquerque,
after he had received news at Goa of the loss of Kishm
and siege of Ormuz. The united force of de S£ and
Ruy Frey re, only amounted to some fifteen galliots and
similar light craft, all of which together would not
have been a match for any one of the English ships,
with which flotilla they left Muscat early in May.
They had not been more than one day at sea, when
they fell in with some ships from Ormuz carrying the
remnants of the garrison to safety, in accordance with
the terms of the capitulation. On learning of the fall
of the fortress, Ruy Freyre was all for pushing on with
the utmost speed, for he pointed out that the English
and Persians would probably be celebrating their
success in drunken orgies, and that an unexpected
attack by even so small a force as theirs, would have
every chance of success.1
De Sa however was not made of such stern stuff as
Ruy Freyre, and his heart had never been in the
business at all, as was proved by the dilatory way in
which he had brought his squadron from Goa. Glad

skiff moored astern of the ship, and say nothing about the drugged wine.
Beversham was severely taken to task by the directors of the Company, on
his return to England, and their annoyance was increased by the loss of Ruy
Freyre’s commission, which would have been a trump card in their hands
against any complaint by the Spanish Ambassador. They also suspected
that Beversham might have been bribed to let Ruy Freyre escape, as it was
stated he had offered Weddell ,£1,000 to wink at it. Eventually however,
Beversham seems to have cleared himself. (Cal. S.P.E.I., 1622-1624, pp.
134, 136 and 252.) The date of Ruy Freyre’s escape is variously given as
the 26th March and 2nd April.
‘This was certainly the case, to judge by Monnox’s racy description of the
confusion which prevailed in the city and castle during their pillage by the
Anglo-Persian forces, a contest in which the Persians as the more numerous
party easily bore away the palm. Needless to say. the Khan of Shiras had
no intention of fulfilling the terms of his treaty with the English by allowing
them any share in the government of the place, which remained a purely
Persian garrison.

85
I

of the excuse to abandon the whole enterprise, which

he had looked on from the beginning as doomed to
failure, he paid no heed to the angry protests of Ruy
Freyre, but, “ like a dogg that has lost his tayle,” put
about and returned with his fleet to Muscat.
That Ruy Freyre’s daring proposal to fall upon the
English and Persians in the full flush of their success
was a perfectly practicable one, is evident from the
remarks made by Monnox in his Journal. All the
time of the siege he had been worried by the lax
discipline kept by both English and Persian commanders,
and he was filled with anxiety at the thought of what
would happen if a relieving squadron should un¬
expectedly appear from Goa. “ I think,” he wrote
in his Journal on one occasion, “ there is no man soe
weake of understanding to thinke that the Vice Roy
and other Portugall magistrates of Goa, will suffer soe
famous a thing as is their Castle of Ormuz to be lost for
want of succors, and wherein consisteth that succor
but in sendinge a sufficient Armado to beate our
Englishe shippes oute of their seas, which is not
impossible to be don . . . we lull ourselves asleepe
in securitie and cry Peace, Peace, before the warr is
trulie begun. I feare before the Castle of Ormus be
possest eyther by Persian or English, we shall singe a
new songe, or els I will say we have bin more fortunate
in the success than prudent in our proceedings; but
if it prove otherwise, the dishonour will be more to
our selves and nation than some of us do dream off. I
would that those whom it conserneth more nearly than
it doth me, would leave looking after a little paultrie
pillage in Ormus and looke to this busyness of greater
consequence.”1 It was indeed fortunate for the

•Monnox’s journal, under March 27th. It it interesting to note that

P4r.cf}a8 ^a* orniued this passage, as also many other similar outspoken
criticisms, from his pricis of the journal printed in Vol. II of the 1625 edition

86
English that Dom Constantino de S«i, and not Ruy
Freyre, was in command of the flotilla which put back
to Muscat in May, 1622.

Whilst these events were taking place in the Persian

Gulf, the government at Madrid had neither been
deaf to the appeals for assistance which reached them
from Goa, nor blind to the fact that the victory of the
English over Ruy Freyre’s galleons would mean the
end of the century-old Lusitanian predominance in
Persian waters. In March, 1621, no fewer than eight
sail were fitted out for the voyage to India, but of all
these vessels, only one galleon, the Sad Joao, reached
Goa in September, all of the others having lost their
voyage. Indeed it seemed as if the very stars in their
courses fought against the Portuguese, since of four
other ships which left the Tagus a month later, not
one succeeded in rounding the Cape of Good Hope.1
On March 23rd, 1622, Sir Walter Aston, the English
Ambassador at Madrid, reported that “ about the

of his Pilgrimes. It may be added that some people at least obtained rather
more than the “ paultrie pillage ” Monnox derides. Chief amongst the
offenders was Woodcock, the master of the Whale, who was popularly believed
to have acquired an immense store of ill-gotten wealth; the Spanish
ambassador in England complained to King James I; “ that the very dishes
that the lowest and basest sort of the crew put their meat in are of silver,
stamped with the arms of many families of Portugal, whom they have
miserably sacked and slain." Despite these and other allegations, it is clear
that the Company itself was a loser by the enterprise, from a financial point
of view, whatever their servants on the spot might have secured for
themselves.

*The carracks in question were Nossa Senhora de Conceifdo, Santo Amaro

(which was wrecked at Mombassa); the galleons Trindade, Sdo Salvador, Sdo
Simao, Misericordia, Santo Andri and Sdo Joao. These were followed at the
end of April by the Santa Tereza, Sdo Joseph, SaO Carlos and Santo Thoml,
who were likewise forced to return to Lisbon.

87
I

19th of this month, there departed from Lisbon four

caracques with a new Vice-King for Goa, and in their
company four tall ships of war with soldiers and a new
Governor for Ormuz.” This was the fleet of the new
Viceroy-elect, Dom Francisco da Gama, Conde da
Vidigueira, who had occupied the same post twenty-five
years earlier, but these vessels were intercepted and
defeated by a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet off
Mozambique in July ; with the result that of the
intended reinforcements for Ormuz, only the galleon
Sao Salvador, commanded by Captain Gon^alo de
Siqueira de Sousa, was able to reach Muscat in
August.1 Thanks to all these disasters, the naval
power of the Portuguese in India was at a very low ebb,
and it was obviously impossible for Ruy Freyre and
Constantino de S& to assume the offensive with the
solitary galleon and few oared vessels at their disposal.
Under these circumstances, they determined to return
to Goa, whither they repaired in September, leaving
Dom Gon^alo da Silveira as Captain-Major of the
straits of Ormuz, and in command of the scanty forces
available at Muscat.
The situation of the Portuguese in the Gulf was now
critical in the extreme, and had the English and Persians
followed up their success with a vigorous attack on
Muscat, it is difficult to see how the place could have
been held. The Persians were indeed desirous of
assuming the offensive, but the English, disgusted with
their experience of Persian perfidy at Ormuz, flatly
declined to pull their chestnuts out of the fire for the
second time. The English losses during the actual
‘This fleet consisted of the carracks Santa Tereza, Sao Joseph, Sao Carlos,
Santo Thomi, the galleons Trindade and Sao Salvador, together with two
pinnaces. An account of the voyage of this fleet, and its defeat by the
Anglo-Dutch squadron off Mo9ambi<^ue, will be found in my article Dom
Franctsco da Gama, Conde da Vidiguetra, e a sua viagem para a India no ano
de 1622, (Lisboa, Anais do Club militar-naval, 1930), which is based on all
available contemporary Portuguese, Dutch and English sources.

88
fighting had been very few, but it was with crews
greatly decimated by sickness that Weddell and Blyth
returned to Swally in September.1 Left to themselves,
the Persians did indeed make an effort to carry the war
into the enemy’s country, and opened their campaign
by occupying the fortress of Sohar and other strong¬
holds on the Arabian coast, which had been previously
evacuated by the Portuguese. Their further progress
was checked first of all by Captain Gon^alo de Siqueira
de Sousa, who, with a small flotilla of seven fustasy
temporarily recaptured Sohar and drove them back
to Ormuz ; and, when they returned to the charge,
by Dom Gon^alo da Silveira, who, with a vastly
inferior force, routed their flotilla off Sohar, thus
preventing them from advancing on Muscat.2 In
May, 1623, Ruy Freyre returned to the scene of action,
with some reinforcements he had received from the
new Viceroy who had dissuaded him from his intention
of becoming an Augustinian friar, and persuaded him
to carry on the war against the Persians as “ Captain-
General of the straits of Ormuz and the Red Sea.”
Determined to retrieve his reputation, Ruy Freyre
wasted no time in getting to work, and speedily
organised an expedition to recover the lost strongholds,
commencing with Sohar, which was taken by storm
after an obstinate resistance by the Persians.8 The
news of Ruy Freyre’s return cowed the Arabs and
Persians, as much as it heartened his own men, and it
was not long before he felt ready to undertake the

‘Compare Foster’s English Factories, 1622-1623, PP- and xviii, and

documents there cited.

*Cf. the documents printed in Dois Capitaes da India, (Lisboa, 1898),

pp. 53 flg., and Queiroz, Vida do Irmao Pedro de Basto (Lisboa, 1689) Livro
III, Cap V, p. 277.

*Commentarios, Chapters 43 and 44. Dois Capitaes da India, pp. 60-70.

Della Valle, Travels (1665 edition), p. 92.

89
I

blockade of Ormuz. This he did to such effect, by-

ravaging the neighbouring Persian littoral and burning
and destroying all boats which he could get hold of, that
all communication with the mainland was practically
severed, except for an occasional boat which could
slip across to Gombrun by night. Ruy Freyre might
indeed have been able to recapture the Castle, had he
been properly supported from Goa; but his force was
too small, lack of men and provisions compelling him
to return to Muscat at the end of the year.1 If Della
Valle is to be believed, the poor support he obtained
from Goa was mainly due to the jealousy of the
Viceroy ; but a more probable reason was the great
want of ships and men in Goa itself, the India-bound
fleet which left the Tagus in 1623, having been nearly
as unfortunate as its predecessors of the two previous
years.2 During his blockade of Ormuz, Ruy Freyre
had made a fireship attack by night on the shipping
moored under the Castle walls, which included the
English ship Reformation and the Dutch Heusden, this
latter vessel being the first of her nation to appear in
the Gulf. This attack was only partially successful,
for although some “ Moorish ” ships were burnt, the
Heusden beat off the attackers and quenched the
flames on board the Reformation, which had been
seriously imperilled for a time.3

•Della Valle Travels, pp. 201-203.

*Sao Francisco Xavier, Santa Izabel, Nossa Senhora da Conceifao, Sao Simao,
Misericordia, Santo Andri, Sao Braz and the pinnace Nossa Senhora da Guia.
Of this fleet, three vessels were wrecked and most of the others compelled to
winter in Mocambique. The Nossa Senhora da Guia was taken by the
E.I.C. ship Coaster, outward bound for Batavia, near the Cape, but released
as being “so spoiled in the fight.” which had lasted for 12 hours. The
Captain was sent to Malacca, on nis promising to try to effect the release
of the English captives (from the Unicorn) detained there.
*Cal. S.P. East Indies, 1622-1624, p. 230. Terpstra, Opkomst der
fVesterquartieren der O.I.C. (Hague, 1918), pp. 151-157, q.v. for the
foundation of Dutch commercial relations with Persia in 1623-1624.

90
 At the beginning of 1624, Ruy Frey re received a
request for help from the Turkish Pasha of Basra, who
was being hard pressed by a strong Persian army
under the command of the Imam Quli Khan, the
captor of Ormuz. Adversity does indeed make strange
bed-fellows, and it is curious to think that the
Portuguese should now be making common cause with
their hereditary enemies, the Ottoman Turks, with
whom they had been at war ever since the discovery of
the maritime route to India. Basra was at this time
quite an important centre for the Portuguese trade
in the Gulf, and, after the fall of Ormuz, had become
with Muscat their principal mart. For this reason,
and to divert the enemy’s attention from Muscat, Ruy
Freyre readily consented to the Pasha’s proposal, and
sent thither a force of five or six galliots under the
command of Dom Gon9alo da Silveira, who was by
this time Ruy Freyre’s alter ego. Dom Gon^alo’s little
force proved very effective in the energetic hands of
its commander, and was chiefly responsible for forcing
the Imam Quli Khan to quit the invaded province in
1625. Such a thorn did it prove in the Persian’s flesh,
that in 1624-1625, the Khan of Shiras urgently
requested the English to send some ships to Basra in
support of the Persians against the Portuguese flotilla,
offering to defray their expenses if necessary. The
commanders bluntly rejected this offer, chiefly on the
grounds that it would have involved them in war with
the Turks, to the consequent detriment of English
trade in the Levant. Dom Gonfalo remained at
Basra until November, 1625, when he rejoined Ruy
Freyre off Ormuz.1
'Foster, English Factories, 1624-1629, pp. 42-43. Dois Cafitaes da India,
pp. 70-89. Dom Gonjalo ascended the Euphrates with this flotilla as high
as Babylon on one occasion. Amongst the documents attesting the value
of his services in this expedition, are some interesting translations of letters
of thanks from the Pasha and the Turkish Grand Vizier. In this year the

91
I

Whilst the Persians were wasting their strength

against Basra and Baghdad, Ruy Freyre, having received
some reinforcements and munitions from the Viceroy,
had resumed the blockade of Ormuz in August with a
fleet of about thirty galliots and terradas, “ a small
preparation indeed to take Ormuz withall,” as Della
Valle scornfully remarks. Nevertheless, with this small
force, he pressed the blockade so closely and wrought
such havoc amongst Persian shipping in the Gulf, that
sea-borne commerce practically ceased to exist. With
trade thus almost at a standstill, the English were again
earnestly pressed by the Persians to aid them, for the
latter perceived that unless they were relieved by sea,
Ormuz was bound to fall into the hands of Ruy Freyre
sooner or later.1 Deliverance, however, was at hand.
Owing to the slackness of trade, consequent on the
Portuguese blockade, only two English ships had gone
to Persia in the winter of 1623, but in November,
1624 a really strong combined Anglo-Dutch fleet of
ten sail lay in Swally Hole, ready to proceed thither.
This display of force had been rendered necessary, not
so much by the presence of Ruy Frey re’s galliots off
Ormuz, as by the fact that a strong squadron of fighting
galleons had arrived at Goa from Lisbon in September,
which, in conjunction with two other India-built
vessels, was being fitted out to join Ruy Freyre’s fleet
at Ormuz, and make a final effort to retake the island
once and for all. The fate of Ormuz depended on
who got there first, and fortunately for the Persians,
who were by now in a desperate condition, the race

war between Turkey and Persia had flared up again, and the Persian attack
on Basra was countered by the Turks besieging Baghdad, which was
however relieved by Shah Abbas in person in 1625.

lCal. S.P. East Indies, 1622-1624, PP- 287, 442, 450-451. Foster, English
Factories, 1624-1629, pp. 42, 80. “ So as it is a misery to think what Ormuz
hath been, and what it now is.”

92
was won by the Allies. The Dutch had actually
arrived first on the 23rd December, followed a few
days later by the English who stood in for Ormuz
“ where wee met our old freinde Rufrero with 17 or
18 frigetts to keepe the Persian from landing one
Armooze.” Ruy Freyre could of course do nothing
against such powerful ships, and was compelled to
stand over to Larak in order to await the coming of
the galleons, which was not long delayed.
The six galleons which had reached Goa in September
under the command of the Captain-General Nuno
Alvarez Botelho, “ a stout and expert soldier,” had
gone north to join two strong India-built vessels at
Bassein in December ; but owing to the delay in taking
provisions on board, it was not until the 6th of January
that Botelho was able to leave for the Gulf with his
eight sail. Even then he was none too well supplied
with water, and he had a stormy passage, in which the
flagship sprung her mainmast. Such nevertheless was
Botelho’s eagerness to close with his enemies, that he
would not put into Muscat to water or refit, but made
all the sail ne could to get to Ormuz as soon as possible,
hoping to catch his opponents unawares. The latter
however had arranged with the captain of the Persian
garrison of Kishm Castle, to fire some warning guns
if he should discern any “ crosse sails ” on the horizon ;
and the discharge of the Persian cannon in the early
dawn of February 10th, 1625, told them that their
expected foe was at hand. No doubt the memory
of Amboina was still fresh in the minds of the two
North-sea races, but all differences were sunk in view
of the common peril, and Anglo-Dutch co-operation
during the ensuing battles left nothing to be desired.
v A calm prevented the two sides from joining battle
on the first day, but early next morning the action
began in earnest. Full and graphic accounts of the

93
I

hard-fought battles have come down to us from the

pens of participants on both sides, so that only the
briefest outline need be given here.1 The Dutch
squadron was first under sail, and their Admiral
discharged the first shot at Botelho’s flagship which
“ presently answered him with three for one.” Weddell
and the English were not far behind and on their arrival
the battle became fiercer than ever, a calm supervening
which enabled every shot to take effect. The action
was fought at exceedingly close range, but there was
only one instance of boarding, this being when the
Dutch ship Dordrecht fell foul of the Portuguese Vice-
Admiral’s ship Sao Francisco, from whom she cleared
herself after some hours and with the loss of her ensign,

‘The best English accounts are those calendared in Foster’s English

Factories, 162a-1629, pp. 46-54 and 80-86. There is also a spirited account
of the action (based on Weddell’s own report} by John Taylor, the celebrated
" Water-Poet,” printed under the title of, A famous fight at Sea, where foure
English Ships under the command of Captaine Iohn Weddell and foure Dutch
Ships fought three dayes in the Gulfe of Persia neere Ormus, against 8 Portugall
Gallions and 3 Frigotts . . . London, 1627, 40, being afterwards included in
the collected edition of Taylor’s works, 1630. This narrative was
subsequently reproduced by Lediard in his Naval History of England,
(London, 1735), pp- 477-482, on which Clowes based his description of the
fight in Vol. II of his History of the British Navy. Taylor’s pamphlet has
its counterpart on the Dutch side, in an equally rare little tract published at
Amsterdam in 1626 under the title of Waerachtich verhael vanae victorieuse
Zeestrijdt tusschen acht Portvgysche Galleonen ende vier Hollandtsche met vier
Engelsche schepen omtrent Ormus ende de Persische kiut voorgevallen. etc. A
practically identical account is to be found on pp. 157-160 of tne Dagh-Register
gehouden in’t Casteel Batavia, 1624-1629. A contemporary Spanish
pamphlet on the battle, entitled Relacion de la Batalla que Nuno Albarez
Botello, General de la armada de altobordo, del mar de la India, tuvo con las
Armadas de Olanda, y Inglaterra en el estrecho de Ormuz, was printed by
Bernadino de Guzman at Madrid in 1626, but the best account from the
Iberian side is contained in the Rellafdo sumtnaria e mui verdadeira dos
successos da Armada do Capitam geral Nuno Alvarez Botelho, etc., written in
December, 1625 by an Augustinsan monk who was chaplain to the Armada,
and first published by the present writer at Oporto in 1028 under the title
of Nuno Alvares Botelho e a sua Armada de alto-bordo, 1624-1625, reprinted
from Vol. XVI of the magazine Historia. A full list of the squadrons of all
the contending parties will be found in this essay, together with details of
their tonnage, number of guns and so forth. An annotated English
translation of the Rellafdo Summaria is to be found on pp. 231-248 of the
English edition of Ruy Freyre’s Commentaries, op. cit.

94
 by the help of the James. The Dutch commander,
Albard Becker, having been killed early on in the action,
his ship fell off to leeward, and her place was taken by
Weddell in the James, who carried on a murderous
duel with Botelho’s galleon, Sao Francisco Xavier at
very close range. When the action was at its height,
Ruy Freyre d’Andrade came on the scene with three
galliots, and Botelho, not recognising him, ordered
him to get out a hawser and try to tow the head of his
galleon round, so that he might board the James.
This Ruy Freyre was about to do, when Botelho, being
told of his identity, went into the beak-head of his ship,
and called out apologies to Ruy Freyre who was
standing on the poop of his galliot. In this posture
the two courtly fidalgos remained for some time,
exchanging mutual compliments whilst exposed to the
concentrated fire of the enemy, before they could be
induced to withdraw to less perilous positions by their
anxious followers. The dauntless behaviour of Ruy
Freyre and Botelho greatly encouraged their men, who
responded unflinchingly to the withering fire of the
Anglo-Dutch squadron, whose crews likewise fought
so cheerfully “ that sartane Portugalls wich wee had
formerly taken, being then in cheanes, tould us wee
fought as though it had bine a Maye game, not dreding
nor regarding our lives in so good a cause.” In this
manner the fight continued, “ very hot, fearce and
cruel,” until sheer exhaustion parted the combatants
at sunset.
The Portuguese casualties in men and material during
the first day’s action had been very severe, many of
their senior officers having been slain, but their morale
was still unimpaired. The indefatigable Botelho
visited each vessel during the night, heartening the
crews, supervising repairs, and appointing fresh
captains and commanders in place of those killed or

95
I

disabled. Amongst those severely wounded was the

Rear-Admiral, Antonio Telles, whose galleon on the
next morning (Ash Wednesday) “ rowled by the board
her maine topmast, with part of her mainemast, and
alsoe her foretopmast.”1 Although thus crippled by
the loss of his strongest ship, Botelho did not hesitate
to accept the challenge of the allied squadron, which,
having refreshed and refitted themselves at Gombrun,
bore down upon him at dawn on February 13th.
This second day’s fight “ continued as bludy as it
was at the first,” or even more so, “ the sea being all as
callme and smooth as the Themes and wee continually
bord and bord.” The English concentrated their
efforts on Botelho’s flagship to begin with, but the
Portuguese “ behaved themselves very stoutly.” A
prize renamed the John had been fitted up as a fireship,
one Darby being placed in command, with the promise
of £100 reward if he clapped his ship alongside the
Sao Francisco Xavier. But the Portuguese were on
the alert, and Ruy Freyre with three frigates succeeded
in isolating this vessel from the fleet, and she had
perforce to be set alight prematurely and abandoned
in order to avoid capture. In the afternoon, the allied
squadron succeeded in surrounding the galleon Trindade
commanded by Francisco de Souza de Castro, which
was almost entirely disabled owing to damage received

*A contemporary English account states that the Sao Sebastiao “ had been
built upon a carrack at Cochin [alias Bassein ] only for to make a battery and
to be a barracado to the rest of her tleet. She was saker, if not whole
culverin proof in her lower works. This ship did more spoile unto our
fleet than any three of their ships taken together.” Her captain, Antonio
TelleSj had later a distinguished career, for he subsequently rose to be
Captain-General of the galleons, 1636-1639 (in which capacity he had three
pitched battles with the blockading Dutch squadrons off Goa’s bar);
Governor of India from 1639-1640 (when he was on excellent terms with the
English at Surat, who described him as “ our worthie friend ”); Captain-
General of the Home fleet in 1641-1657 ; Governor of Brazil from 1647-1650.
and finally appointed Viceroy of India in 1657, when he died on the outward
voyage to Goa.

96
in masts, hull and rudder. This unfortunate vessel
was so mishandled that out of her crew of 250 men
only seven or eight survived ; but despite this pheno¬
menal punishment she did not surrender, and wa9
eventually relieved by Botelho’s flagship.1 By this
time both sides were thoroughly exhausted and at
sunset the English “ ware so faint and werey that our
men began to drop downe for very faintness.” The
Portuguese were in like condition, or even worse, and
so once more nightfall parted the combatants on equal
terms.
At the end of this action the Portuguese were in a
sorry plight. Their losses had been extremely heavy,
the casualties in the flagship alone amounting to over
sixty, and though the allies had by no means escaped
scatheless, they had the port of Gombrun in which to
refit and replenish their supplies of food and ammunition
at leisure.8 The galleons had all suffered severely
in their hulls and rigging, and were in urgent need of
‘Taylor’s pamphlet (on the authority of a French deserter) states that out
of 250 men in the Trindade, 243 were slain in this second day's fight.
Laird Clowes (Royal Navy, Vol. II) remarks that this must be a misprint or
an exaggeration, but the statement is confirmed by a contemporary Portuguese
source, Jornada que Francisco de Sousa de Castro . . . fez ao Achem, com
uma importante Embaixada, enviado pelo Visorei da India Pedro da Silva, no
anno de 1638, (Goa, 1642, (abstracted in the Levantamento de Ximabara,
etc., Lisboa, 1643), whose author, Frei Gonsalo de S3o Jos6, states he was an
eye-witness of this heroic feat. Francisco de Souza de Castro was in later
years Captain of Dam2o, where he was on excellent terms with the English.
His name is often mentioned in the documents calendared in Foster’s English
Factories, 1630-1641. Whilst he was a prisoner in the hands of the treacherous
Achinese in 1638-1640, the English tried to secure his release, but in vain.
‘The expenditure of ammunition on both sides was colossal. The James
fired 550 shot the first day, and 1,112 the second, whilst Botelho’s flagship
expended 1,500 shot in this last action alone. The English and Persians
ashore in Gombrun estimated the total number of cannon balls fired at
16,000 on the first day and 17,000 on the second I In view of this prodigious
expenditure of ammunition, most of it at close range, the English and Dutch
losses were surprisingly low, amounting to less than 80 slain all told, whereas
the James alone had received over 400 shot during the fights. The
Portuguese losses were much heavier, but over half of them occurred in the
luckless Trindade, whilst the Sao Francisco Xavier, Botelho's flagship, had
84 killed and wounded in the two days’ fight.

97
I

repair, whilst there was no port with dockyard facilities

any nearer than Muscat. Furthermore, the shortage
of water had by now become acute, whilst the ships
were crowded with dead and wounded. Despite all
these unfavourable circumstances, however, Botelho
refused to be cowed, and the most he would consent to
do was to sail across to the anchorage in the neigh¬
bouring islet of Larak, where he anchored to await the
departure of the Anglo-Dutch squadron from
Gombrun. In taking this decision he was supported
by Ruy Freyre d’Andrade and the acting Vice-Admiral,
Dom Francisco Coutinho, against the practically unani¬
mous opinion of all the other captains of the armada.1
The allies had refrained from attacking Botelho in
his refuge, since they knew their foe to be “ implacable,
malicious and politique,” or, in other words, very good
enemies, as Laird Clowes observes. They busied
themselves with taking on board their cargoes, and
refitting their ships as best they could. Meanwhile,
the Persians were desperately anxious to persuade them
to stay and help them against the Portuguese ; but this
the Dutch refused to do on any terms, whilst the
English did not consider themselves strong enough to
do so alone, although the Governor of Gombrun
offered them a bribe of 500 Tumans a month if they
would do so. Accordingly the allied squadron put out
to sea on February 23rd with fourteen sail, including
three Indian vessels, and carrying two Persian Ambassa¬
dors destined for England and Holland respectively.2
^om Francisco Coutinho had come from Goa to join Ruy Freyre’s
squadron^ in the same galliot in which Della Valle was travelling to Basra,
The Italian traveller is loud in his praises of the conduct and courage of
Dom Francisco 5 and that these praises were amply justified is proved by the
courage displayed by him not only on this occasion, but in later years against
the Dutch off Malacca. (Della Valle, Travels, Chapter X, pp. 235-239.)
•Naqd Ali Beg in the Star for England, whence he returned with Sir
Robert Sherley in 1627; and Musa Beg in the Maagd van Dort for Holland,
whence he likewise returned in the same year.

98
 The Portuguese made sail at the same time and
kept ahead of the allied squadron all night, when the
weather freshened and Ruy Freyre’s galliots were
compelled to return to Larak, having first sent some
soldiers on board the galleons as reinforcements. At
noon on the 24th, the allies came up with the
Portuguese, who had shortened sail to wait for them,
when both sides “ fell to it pell mell, our ordnance
gowinge off as fast as smalle shott.” During this action
the English concentrated all their efforts on Botelho’s
flagship, “ not so much looking after or heeding the
other ships,” but the Portuguese commander did not
flinch from his station, until he was eventually relieved
by Antonio Telles in the Sao Sebastiao, which “ crept
in betwixt the James and the Portugall Admirall, lying
as a Bulwarke to weather off her, to receive all that
might be put upon her, and indeed all that was meant
to have been bestowed upon the Admirall was still
plyed upon that great Hulke.” The scene of this
battle was some six leagues to the South-east of Cape
Musandam; and the fight whilst it lasted was the hottest
of the three, “ and hotter it would have proved, had
not the approaching darkness of the unwelcome night
cryed a requiem to our bloudy resolutions.” By this
time both sides were short of ammunition, and neither
being anxious to have “ t’other odd bout,” they stood
away on their respective courses, the English for Swally
and the Portuguese for Muscat.
Needless to say, both sides were loud in their claims
of victory after the last of these memorable actions had
been fought, but whether any real advantage was
gained by either party is more than doubtful. The
allied squadron had undoubtedly inflicted far heavier
losses on their opponents, both in men and material,
than they had received, and thus far they could claim a
tactical success. But on the other hand, the Portuguese

99
had for the first (and last) time really held their own
in the face of an equal, or even slightly superior
opponent at sea, and their morale was no whit impaired
by the hammering they had received. In these battles
they had regained that confidence in themselves which
they had lost after Ruy Freyre’s defeats off Jask in
1621 ; and for the first time since the appearance of the
Anglo-Dutch fleets in Eastern waters, they had given
battle on equal terms without losing a ship or being
driven off the scene of action in confusion. For this
result they had Nuno Alvarez Botelho to thank, and
him alone. Thanks to his dauntless courage, inde¬
fatigable zeal and dogged perseverance, he had inspired
his men with much of his own spirit; and they followed
and fought for him even more willingly than they did
for the equally gallant, but harsher spirited Ruy Freyre.
Botelho had taken special care before leaving Goa, to
have as many Europeans and as few half-castes or
natives as possible amongst his crews, whilst he also
paid special attention to securing competent gunners
and sailors—points usually neglected by the average
Portuguese captain, who thought only of filling his
ship with a horde of ill-disciplined and sea-sick soldiers.
So high, indeed, was the quality of his crews, that both
English and Dutch refused to believe that they were
Portuguese, and alleged they must be mainly “ English,
Scotch, Irish and Dutch runnagadoes.” 1
For the moment the initiative in the Gulf was in
the hands of the Portuguese, and the question now arose
as to what use to make of Botelho:’s armada. At a
full council meeting, called by the Viceroy in Goa to

‘Foster's, English Factories, 1624-1629. p. 50. Manoel Xavier, S. J.,

Historia do Governador da India, Nuno Alvarez Botelho, (Lisboa, 1633), pp.
80-81. It is amusing to note that the English made similar and equally
unfounded statements, after the heroic stand made by Dom Manoel de
Menetes in the Sao Juliao in a three days fight against four English ships off
the Comoro islands in 1616.

IOO
discuss this matter, two points of view were put
forward. The first of these was that the galleons
should come and cruise off the West coast of India in
September, in order to lay in wait for the outward-
bound Anglo-Dutch Indiamen off Swally ; whilst the
contrary view was that they should stay in the Gulf
to assist Ruy Freyre, who otherwise would not have
sufficient men and munitions to undertake the siege of
Ormuz with any prospect of success. After long and
earnestly debating the point, it was decided to leave
the decision in the hands of Botelho and Ruy Freyre at
Muscat; and this information was sent by the six sail
under the command of Gaspar Gomes, which left for
Muscat on April nth, 1625, with large supplies of
money, provisions, timber and munitions for the
Armada.1
The council of war convened to debate the matter
at Muscat, finally decided by a majority vote in favour
of Ruy Freyre’s view that the galleons should proceed
to Swally in September, there to waylay the English
and Dutch Indiamen, as if these were prevented from
sailing to the Gulf, the fall of Ormuz was bound to
follow sooner or later ; whilst there would not be time
for Botelho’s galleons to join Ruy Freyre in blockading
Ormuz, and then proceed to India to intercept the
outward-bound allied shipping. Botelho himself was
of a contrary opinion, and offered to serve as a volunteer
with 600 musketeers from his crew under Ruy Freyre’s
command in the siege, before sailing for Swally in
September, whence he calculated he could return to
the Gulf in November after defeating the English and
Dutch.* All his captains however sided with Ruy
1Letter of the Conde da Vidigueira, Goa, 29/U/1626, in Livro da» Monfoes,
no. 22 fls. 114-119. The reinforcement! were conveyed in two galleoni
Sao Pedro and SSo Salvador, two carraclcs and two pinnaces.
•Letter of the Conde da Vidigueira, Goa, 29/U/1626. Among the
Egerton Manuscript in the British Museum,are two letters written by Botelho

IOI
I

Freyre, whose estimate of the time factor was

undoubtedly correct; and it was therefore resolved that
Botelho should sail for Swally as soon as possible,
leaving Ruy Freyre to resume the blockade of Ormuz
with his flotilla of galliots and other oared vessels.
It was typical of Botelho’s noble character, that
although his own opinion had been overruled, he
threw himself heart and soul into the work of refitting
his shattered vessels; labouring himself incessantly
from morning till night, and not ceasing work even in
the appalling noon-day heat of Muscat, which has
probably the hottest climate in the world. Fired by
his example, the men worked with a will, but two of
the galleons, Sao Sebastido and Trindade, were too
badly damaged to be able to be repaired with the
scanty resources available at Muscat, and were sent
back to Goa in advance. Botelho followed with the
remainder at the first opportunity, but his squadron
was separated by a storm at the entrance to the Gulf,
as a result of which three galleons, Misericordia, Santo
Antonio and Santiago, were driven ashore near Bombay,
though most of their crews and artillery were saved.1
Although thus weakened by the unexpected loss of
three of his vessels, and the temporary absence of two
others, Botelho took up his station with his four

to some prominent minister (? Olivares) at Madrid, dated off Ormuz on

February 22nd, and at Muscat on May 29th respectively. In the former one
he hints that he would like to be given the order of the Golden Fleece, and
the Captaincy-General of the Portuguese home fleet, whilst in the latter he
expresses his disgust at the way in which his claims have been ignored, in the
picturesque phrase, “ Emfim sehor, trine el Pastor qne en triste valle ttafe."

1Idem. Cf. also the only contemporary printed account of this year’s
maritime events in India, from the Portuguese side, as contained in the
excessively rare pamphlet (of which I know of no other copy in existence
save my own) entitled : Carta e Relafam dot successos do Estado da India
desde 0 princtpto do anno de 1625, e 0 de 1626, ate quatorze de Jevereiro, que as
Naos parttrau pera 0 Reyno. Com tudo 0 mats que sucedeo a Nuno Alvarez
Botelho, & a Rui Freire <TAndrade, & mais Armadas que sahirdo, & 0 que
jtzerao, [at end]. Em Lisboa. Pedro Craesbeeck. Anno 1626.

102
remaining storm-tossed galleons off Swally, where six
powerful English and Dutch vessels lay in the “ Hole.’"
The moral superiority established by Botelho, as a
result of his fights in the Persian Gulf in February,
was clearly evidenced by the fact that the allies would
not venture to come out and fight him, though
publicly challenged to do so “ shippe to shippe or all
together,” Botelho even offering to stand off and give
them sea room if necessary.1 Not only so, but when
on the 17th October, three outward-bound English
ships, Lion, Palsgrave and Dolphin, hove in sight and
Botelho stood out to sea to attack them, the ships at
Swally “ most basely lay still,” though had they come
out, the odds against the Portuguese would have been
nearly two to one. Botelho in his flagship, and Gaspar
Gomes in the Sao Pedro, eventually overhauled the
Lion which was a “ slug,” and clapped her aboard one
on each quarter, the Palsgrave and Dolphin making
no effort to relieve their consort, but continuing their
flight with all sails set. The Portuguese now swarmed
aboard the Lion and were speedily masters of her poop
and upper deck, whilst the frigate flotilla had now
come up, whose men threw firepots in at the ports
and stuck fire-pikes in her sides. The situation
appeared desperate, when the English by dropping
an anchor at the stern, and the tide running very strong,
brought the ship up so suddenly that the Portuguese
cables and grappling irons were broken, and the
•Botelho’s galleons were theSJd Francisco Xavier} Sao Francisco, Sao Pedro
and Sao Salvador, accompanied by some 14 or 15 frigates or light oared craft.
The English ships were the Jonas, Anne and Seoul, whilst the Dutch vessels
included the Goude Leeuw, Heusden and IValcheren. A translation of
Botelho’s public defiance to the Anglo-Dutch commanders, which was nailed
by his orders to the gates of the chief public buildings in Surat, will be found
on pp. 248-249 of the English edition of the Commentaries. Both English
and Dutch blamed each other for not venturing out. The English side is
given in Foster’s 1624-1629 volume op. cit., and the Dutch version in the
journal of Pieter van den Broeck, head of the Netherlands Factory at Surat,
as printed in Volume II of the Begin ende Voortgangh, (Amsterdam, 1646).

103
 galleons, drifting on with the fast flowing current, were
soon lost to sight in the darkness. Fifty or sixty
Portuguese boarders still remained on the poop, and as
these could not be dislodged, a barrel of gunpowder
was placed aft under the deck, and the Portuguese
“ blown to their parent the devill.”1 Meanwhile
Botelho, thinking that the Lion must be either burnt
or sunk, left only five frigates by her to complete the
work of destruction, and passed on with his remaining
vessels in pursuit of the Palsgrave and Dolphin, which he
soon overhauled and hotly engaged for two days, until
finally the two English vessels escaped by altering their
course in the night, and steering due south for the
Comoro islands. The commanders of the frigates left
to watch the Lion lost their heads at this juncture, and
so she was able to resume her voyage, crippled as she
was, and eventually reached Gombrun where she was
repaired as well as the limited facilities of that place
would permit.
Ruy Freyre with his galliots was still engaged in the
blockade of Ormuz, and on hearing of the Lion's
arrival he prepared to attack her. He did not have
long to wait, for the factors on shore in consultation
with the Master considered the roadstead of Gombrun
to be too exposed, and ordered the ship to take refuge
beneath the walls of Ormuz Castle. On the morning
of November 18th as the Lion was preparing to weigh
anchor, Ruy Freyre came rowing towards her with about
15 sail of frigates. A contemporary English writer
had contemptuously stated on one occasion, that such
frigates or galliots, “ were no more to be regarded
than butterflies,” but although powerless against
capital ships when there was a wind to manoeuvre
with, they could be very dangerous in a calm, when
‘The Carta e Relafam asserts that all these men were picked up out of
the sea by the frigates.
commanded by an officer of the courage and experience
of Ruy Freyre. So it proved on this occasion, for
Ruy Freyre so handled his flotilla that the Lion could
only make use of her bow and stern pieces, and his
frigates so pestered her with hand-grenades, powder-
pots and musketry fire, that the English were not able
to open a port in the ship, “ but were forced to shoot
away, ports and all.” Finally, the upper deck collapsed
on the heads of the gun-crews, “ who seeing death on
each side, some leaped overboard, and put themselves
to the mercy of their enemies, the rest gave fire to the
Powder-roome, and blew up the ship.” The Portu¬
guese gave quarter to the survivors swimming about
in the water, but Ruy Freyre made an indelible stain
on his own honour by executing all of them save one,
the next day. The fortunate survivor was Thomas
Winterborne, the ship’s cook, who owed his life to the
special kindness with which he had treated Ruy Freyre
during his captivity on board the Lion in 1622 ; and
who was now set on shore with the heads of his twenty-
six comrades wrapped up in silk, and a letter from Ruy
Freyre to the factors at Gombrun, explaining that
this barbarous act was a reprisal for the execution of
the Lascarins handed over by the English to the
Persians after the fall of Kishm, contrary to the
articles of surrender then agreed upon.1
Whilst this tragedy was being enacted off Gombrun,
Botelho’s galleons, all of which had received a good
deal of damage in their masts and hulls from the fire of
the fleeing Palsgrave and Dolphin, were busy refitting
in Bombay road, whither they had sailed on the 28th

•See the account as related in Taylor’s pamphlet op. cit., and the Portuguese
versions in the Commentaries and Carta e Relacam. For English indignation
over Ruy Freyre’s wanton barbarity, compare remarks in the English edition
of Commentaries, p. 312. The English lost 68 men in this action, whilst the
Portuguese losses were seven lulled and twenty wounded, according to their
own account.

105
October. The allied ships in Swally had belatedly-
put to sea on the 20th, too late to help their consorts ;
and three other Dutch vessels from Batavia under the
command of Frederic Cistiens, which passed Botelho’s
squadron off Bombay on the 28th, likewise avoided an
engagement. Botelho remained overhauling his vessels
at Bombay until January, 1626, when he was reinforced
by the galleons Sao Sebastiao, Sao Jeronimo and Reis
Magos, carrying 550 men and 80 guns, commanded by
Antonio Telles who had been sent by the Viceroy from
Goa on the 22nd December, 1625. Meanwhile the
joint Anglo-Dutch fleet of ten ships sailed for Persia
at the beginning of December,1 and on their return
to Swally in February, 1626, they found in the road
another four sail of Dutch vessels under Herman Van
Speult, which had just arrived from Batavia.*
There were now some fifteen English and Dutch
ships at Swally, and in view of this overwhelming force,
the position of Botelho’s seven galleons at Bombay
gave rise to great anxiety in the minds of the Viceroy
and his council at Goa. It had been originally
intended to send the armada to Muscat to protect
that stronghold from an expected Anglo-Dutch attack,
but this idea had been given up when it was heard
that Ruy Freyre had withdrawn there from Ormuz
on the appearance of the combined squadron in the
Gulf at the end of 1625.8 The next plan was to use

1James, Jonas, Anne and Falcon under the command of Captain Weddell
for the English, and Goede Fortuijn, Bantam, Engelsche Beer, Gouden Leeuw,
Walcheren and Heusden under Cistiens for the Dutch. Weddell’s order*
for the voyage, and an account of it, will be found in the documents calendared
on pp. 105-117 of Foster’s English Factories, 1624-1629.
*Mauritius, Oranje, Hollandia and a prize. It will be recalled that Van
Speult was the man responsible for the “ massacre ” of Amboina, but he
seems to have been on good terms with Weddell, although Kerridge and the
Surat factors protested against his appointment.
* Viceroy s letter, Goa, 26/ii/1626. The Anglo-Dutch threat against
Muscat did not materialise, although the Persians frequently broached the

I06
the galleons for cruising off Swally to intercept
outward-bound Indiamen, but this idea was likewise
abandoned in view of the strength of the allied
squadron, and the fact that the whole naval might of
the Portuguese in India was concentrated in Botelho’s
armada ; and it was finally resolved that the galleons
should cruise off the straits of Bab-el-Mandib, at the
entrance to the Red Sea, with the double object of
picking up some profitable prizes, and of avoiding a
battle with the greatly superior enemy fleet. They
were to remain off the Red Sea until May, when they
were to go to Muscat or to Tiwai for supplies, and
thence to the West coast of India in September, in
order to surprise and capture the isolated outward
bound Indiamen, which were due to arrive at Swally
in that season.1
In fulfilment of this plan of campaign, Botelho left
Bombay for the Red Sea shortly after having been
reinforced by an additional galleon, the Santo AndrJ,
from Goa, thus bringing the strength of his squadron
up to eight sail.* There had been some talk amongst
the allied commanders of attacking and destroying
Botelho’s squadron as it lay in Bombay road, “ so
their was pretence of exsecution of it, but as smoke it
vanisht, thoughe of English and Dutch we wear 14
ships and pineses.”8 Botelho’s galleons cruised off

suggestion. Ruy Freyre received two ships from Goa with munitions in
November.
lViceroy’s letter, op. cit.
*SSo Francisco Xavier (flagship), Sao Francisco, SSo SebastiaO, Sao Salvador,
Sao Jeronimo, Reis Magos, Sao Pedro and Santo Andri.
•Foster op. cit., p. 117. The allied fleet was composed of the James,
Jonas, Anne, Falcon, Spy (English), and the Gouden Leeuw, Oranje, Hollandia,
Mauritius; Goede Fortuyn, Beer, Walc/ieren, Bantam and Heusden (Dutch).
The English laid the blame for the failure of the expedition to materialise on
the faint-heartedness of “ Butcher Speult ” (Foster, pp. 117-137); but the
Dutch attribute it to want of entnusiasm on the part of the English.
(McLeod : De Oost-Indische Compagnie als Zeemogendheid in Azie, (Rijswijk,
1928), p. 418).
IO7
I

the mouth of the straits of Bab-el-Mandib until the

end of April, when they left for Muscat as originally
planned ; they thus just missed encountering an equal
number of Dutch ships, which had sailed for Mocha
at the beginning of the month under the command of
Herman Van Speult who died there. From Muscat,
where Ruy Freyre was busy strengthening the forti¬
fications, they sailed for the West coast of India in
September, “ and being nowe but six shipps, discrying
the Dutch a day before their coming in with the land,
used their best endeavour to have encountered them ;
which the Dutch (having advantage of winde) in
regard of their laden shipps avoided, though provoked
by sundry challenging shott from the enemies admirall.”
Botelho having thus failed to bring the Dutch to action,
stood in for Damao, and on hearing that the outward-
bound English fleet had reached Swally early in
October, he sailed with his galleons for Diu. Mean¬
while, the allied commanders at Swally had revived the
idea of an expedition against Bombay, whither they
proceeded with twelve sail, hoping to trap Botelho
in the harbour, being unaware that he had gone for
Diu. Being baulked of their expected prey, they
landed a force which burnt and sacked what little
property there was on shore, and then returned to
Swally, content with this somewhat barren exploit.1
In December, 1626, another strong Anglo-Dutch
fleet of eleven sail left for the Gulf in order “ to
prosecute the Persian trade.”2 They half expected to
meet with the Portuguese galleons, and the English
factors in their letters home, bitterly complained of
‘Detailed contemporary accounts of the sack of Bombay are to be found in
Foster, op.cit., pp. 142 flg. An account from the Portuguese side in Faria y
Sousa, Asia Portugueza, Vol. III.
'Palsgrave, Dolphin, William, Blessing, Discovery and Morris (English),
and the Zierickzee, Wapen van Zeelandt, Mauritius, Hollandia and Eneelsche
Beer (Dutch). *

I08
the hampering effect of the presence of Botelho’s
squadron, whose mere existence forced the English
and Dutch to sail in company with each other, and
even then in large fleets. Nothing was seen of the
galleons however, and in fact Portuguese shipping in
the Gulf was limited to a little flotilla of eight oared
vessels under Dom Gonsalo da Silveira, who was
cruising off Ormuz ; Ruy Freyre himself being still
busy with the remainder of his armada at Muscat.
Accordingly the English and Dutch returned safely to
Swally in March, 1627, after rejecting the annual
Persian proposal for an attack on Muscat.
During the whole of the year 1626, Ruy Freyre had
been busily employed in strengthening the fortifications
at Muscat, and, in accordance with the orders of the
Viceroy at Goa, he had not resumed the siege of Ormuz.
Early in 1627 it was resolved to make a great effort to
capture that stronghold before the appearance of the
English and Dutch ships in December ; and accordingly
Botelho with his galleons left for Muscat in May of
this year, in order to co-operate with Ruy Freyre in
the intended siege. There is every likelihood that
this expedition would have been successful, but for
the fact that Botelho’s squadron was shattered and
partially destroyed by a terrible storm which it
encountered on the 29th May, 1627. Three of
Botelho’s galleons were lost with all hands in the
raging seas, whilst his own flagship and the remainder
struggled into Tiwai completely dismasted and practi¬
cally in a sinking condition.1 From Tiwai the
‘Father Manoel Xavier, S. J., in his Historia do Governador da India Nuno
Alvarez Botelho, (Lisboa, 1633) has much to say of his heroic conduct on
this occasion. For fifteen days his galleon drifted at the mercy of the waves,
whilst the pumps and bails had to be kept going incessantly in order to keep
the water-logged vessel from foundering. Both food and water supplies
ran short, scores of men dying from sheer thirst, whilst others went raving
mad and leapt overboard. On finally sighting land at Cape Ras al Hadd,
the crew clamoured that the ship should be run ashore but Botelho rallied
their spirits and at length brought his ship to Tiwai.
IO9
I

shattered hulks were towed to Muscat by Ruy Freyre’s

frigates, but any attempt to besiege Ormuz with such
depleted forces was obviously doomed to failure,
and the proposed expedition was abandoned. By
way of compensation it was decided to despatch a
flotilla to the help of the Sheikh of Qatif who was
hard-pressed by the Persians, and anxious to make a
diversion against their valuable pearl fisheries at
Bahrein. Accordingly Ruy Freyre and Dom Gon9alo
united their forces off Qatif at the end of July, and
proceeded to ravage the neighbouring Persian coasts
with fire and sword, in the approved ruthless style
affected by the Portuguese. These operations were
continued until September when Ruy Freyre returned
to Muscat, leaving Dom Gon^alo with six sail to
continue the blockade of Bahrein in co-operation with
the Sheikh of Qatif.1
The news of the partial destruction of Botelho’s
armada was thankfully received by the English and
Dutch, so that for the first time since 1624, their
Persia fleets ventured to sail separately for Gombrun,
where eleven sail of allied shipping was assembled in
the roadstead by the middle of January, 1628.* The
news of this powerful concentration naturally alarmed
Ruy Freyre, who feared lest it should be employed
in an attack against Muscat, as the Persians confidently

‘Documents printed on pp. 105-120 of Dots Capitaes da India. The

orders issued by Ruy Freyre for this expedition are worth reading, as they
show his tactical and administrative abilities in organizing punitive expeditions
of this kind. His insistence on the importance of maintaining strict
discipline is also noteworthy, although, to judge from Della Valle, his captains
did not always pay due heed to these injunctions.

*The IVilliam, Exchange, Hart and Star (English), and the Groot Mauritius.
’s Lands Mauritius, Noort Holland!, ’t Guide Zeepaert, Bommel, Weesp ana
Nieuwtcheit (Dutch), the latter under the command of Willem Janszoon.
ex-Governor of Banda. Sir Robert Sherley returned to Persia from England
in this fleet, accompanied by Sir Dodmore Cotton as envoy from James I to
Shah Abbas. Both of these ambassadors died at Qazvin in July of this year.

IIO
announced. He therefore resolved to muster all his
resources to meet the expected assault, and accordingly-
recalled Dom Gonfalo da Silveira from Qatif at the
end of February.1 With this reinforcement and the
four remaining galleons of Botelho, which had by now
been refitted, the Portuguese were in a condition to
offer a formidable resistance to any force which the
allies could bring against them. In actual fact,
however, there was no serious intention on the part
of the enemy to attack Muscat, although the English
factors at Gombrun admitted “ having from our own
masters advices reported both to the King and Chaun
that wee should expect to the nomber of 6 or 7 shipps
purposelie designed by them for the surprize of
Muskatt; ” although they candidly added that they
saw “ no possibillitie for the attempting of anything
ourselves and, when the Hollanders shall goe more
roundlie to worke, as little hope of preventing them.”
The Dutch likewise had no particular inclination to
pit their strength against Ruy Freyre’s massive
fortifications for the sake of the Persians’ beaux yeuxy
and thus the project was once more allowed to lapse.
The allied fleets returned to Swally in February,
followed some weeks later by Botelho’s galleons which
had remained at Muscat until the menace of the
expected attack was over.
With the final departure of Botelho’s galleons, the
Portuguese had tacitly abandoned all hope of re¬
capturing Ormuz by force of arms, and the remainder
of the story of Anglo-Portuguese rivalry in the Gulf
is soon told. As the English and Dutch were unaware

1 The original order recalling Dom Gonjalo, signed by Ruy Freyre, and
dated 20/ii/i628, is in the possession of the present writer, who reproduced
the signature in facsimile on page 112 of the English edition of the
Commentaries. The letter itself was reproduced by Senhor FrazJo de
Vasconcelos, in Historia e Arqueologia, (Lisboa, 1921).

Ill
I

that Botelho had returned to Goa, their Persian fleets

sailed in company for Gombrun at the beginning of
1629, prepared to encounter the galleons in the Gulf.
Needless to say nothing materialised, and the allied
ships were back at Swally by the end of March.1
The year 1629 likewise passed without any important
alteration in the position of the contending parties in
the Persian Gulf, and the annual Persia fleets of the
English and Dutch Companies came and went at the
end of the year without any molestation from the
Portuguese.2 As a matter of fact, these latter were
now busy elsewhere, for the Rajah of Achin had
besieged Malacca with one of the most powerful
expeditions ever sent against that battle-scarred
stronghold ; and although the besieging fleet and
army was annihilated by Nuno Alvarez Botelho’s
relieving force in December, the absence of the
Portuguese commander on this expedition prevented
any effective aid being sent to Muscat from Goa, and
compelled Ruy Freyre to limit his operations to
harassing Persian coastal shipping in the Gulf.
So successful was the effect of Ruy Freyre’s
destructive raids, that by this time the Persians were
thoroughly exhausted, and early in 1630 they made
overtures for peace. The death of Shah Abbas at the
beginning of 1629 may have had something to do with
this weakening Persian attitude, although his successor,

1 Jonah, Hart, Christopher, Expedition, Hopewell, Eagle and James

(English), accompanied by the four Dutch ships Zeepaert, Brouwershaven,
Negapatam and Zeeburgh, with the returning Persian Ambassador, Musa Beg.
At the end of December, 1628, the President and Council at Surat had
reported that “ The Portugall forces are incerten, neither do wee knowe
where they lye.” Actually, Botelho was cruising in the galleon Conceifdo off
Goa and the ilhas Queimadas, to protect local shipping from possible attacks
by the Dutch or English. He remained on this station from October, 1628,
till mid-January 1629. (Dois Capitaes da India, p. 120-121.)

1 Charles, Discovery, Reformation and Jonas (English) and Tholen,

Brouwershaven, Buren, Bommel and Weesp (Dutch).

112
 Shah Safi, had commenced his reign well enough by-
breaking up the Turkish siege of Baghdad. Still, the
Ottoman pressure on the western frontier of Persia
was a constant menace, and the fortune of war did
not always favour Persian arms. In any case negotia¬
tions were opened by the Khan of Shiras, and an
agreement was speedily arrived at, whereby the
Portuguese were to be allowed to trade at the port of
Kung on the same terms as the English at Gombrun.
This agreement provided for the establishment of an
agency (or “ factory ” in seventeenth century parlance)
in the port, with a resident Factor who was empowered
to issue passes to native vessels, and to receive a moiety
of all Customs dues on behalf of the King of Portugal.
It was further agreed that Kung should remain open
to trade and commerce, even though the two parties
should recommence hostilities in the Gulf at a later
date—a somewhat curious stipulation, but one which
was in fact observed. Ruy Freyre further endeavoured
to secure exemption from attack by Dutch or English
vessels, of all ships trading to Kung under protection
of the Portuguese flag or passes; but in this, naturally
enough, he was unsuccessful.1 The question of

lThe conditions under which Ruy Freyre established the factory at Kung,
are mentioned in Foster, English Factories, 1630-1633, p. 140, and Dagh-
Register of Batavia for 1631-1634, p. 40. A very confused, rambling and
unreliable account is given in Chapters 47 and 48 of the Commentartes, in
which the foundation of the factory is placed before the fights of February,
1625, instead of five years later. Another Portuguese source, the Diario of
the Conde de Linhares, written at Goa in 1634, states that the truce was
made for six months in the year only, hostilities to be continued during the
other half. There is the following curious reference to this treaty, contained
in a contemporary translation of a letter from the Viceroy Dom Pedro de
Almeida, written to King Charles II in November, 1677, a profrot ofAnglo-
Portuguese boundary disputes near Bombay : "... in Persia since the loss
of Ormuz, we never have had peace with that King, but for the port of
Congo, by an accord made forty years agoe by General Ruy Brother (sic) of
Andrade, with promise to pay naif duty to this custom house, and never to
give passport except for this only port.” (Public Record Office, C.O. 77,
Vol. XIII, folio 278, reproduced in khan, Journal of Indian History, Vol. I,
Part III, September, 1922, p. 548.)

113 H
Ormuz was allowed to lapse for the moment, but by
way of compensation Ruy Freyre founded and
garrisoned a small fort at Juifar, on the Arabian shore
opposite Kishm island, which was a strategic centre
of some importance as well as the site of a valuable
pearl fishery.
On the conclusion of this truce with Persia, Ruy
Freyre’s forces were free to be used elsewhere than in
the Gulf, and he soon received a summons from the
new Viceroy, Dom Miguel de Noronha, Conde de
Linhares, to join him in an expedition that was being
fitted out at Goa for a secret destination, which
rumour variously reported to be the English ships at
Swally, the Dutch fort Geldria at Paliacat on the
Coromandel coast, and Malacca. On receipt of these
orders, Ruy Freyre sailed with eight well-appointed
galliots for Bassein, which he reached in November.
The news of his arrival caused considerable alarm
amongst the English at Swally, who had not forgotten
the fate of the Lton> but his force was too small to
effect anything. Although he put in an appearance off
the “ Hole,” together with fourteen other frigates,
he soon saw that there was no chance of taking the
English by surprise, and so continued on his voyage to
Goa, where he arrived on December 21st, 1630.1
Here he remained until May, 1631, when he was sent
back to Muscat by the Viceroy, since the proposed
expedition against Paliacat had been abandoned on
receipt of the news of Botelho’s death off Jambi in
the previous year, and the destruction of Constantino
de Sd with his army in Ceylon. Despite Ruy Freyre’s

‘Compare documents calendared in Foster, op. cit., pp. 57, 60,97 and 100.
The Commentaries give the date of Ruy Freyre’s arrival at Goa as the 2nd
February, 1631, but this is obviously wrong. Father Manoel Xavier, S. J.,
who was an eye-witness gives the date stated in the text, which agrees with
the English statements that Ruy Freyre was off Swally during the first week
in December.
absence from the Gulf, the English felt nervous about
the possibility of their ships being intercepted if they
should sail separately, and accordingly both their
homeward-bound and Persia ships sailed together early
in January for Gombrun, whence the latter returned
in April having parted with their homeward-bound
consorts off Jask.1
Ruy Freyre did not remain idle after returning to
his post, for the English factors at Gombrun reported
that during 1631, “ Ruy Freery reigning [ranging]
with three gallions and 20 frigotts in the Gulph,
presented the Duke [Khan of Shiras] with 600 tomans
and required the restitution of Ormus; or if not that,
then the free custom of all goods that the Portugalls
should land in all places or ports there, and free trade
without molestacion of the English or Dutch ; all was
denied them.” At the end of the same year, he
detached four well-equipped galliots, manned with
picked crews, to join a force of 20 frigates from Goa,
which had been sent to recapture the fortress of
Mombasa, taken by a sudden outbreak of the native
and Arab population, after all the Portuguese in¬
habitants had been massacred to a man.*
In this same year of 1631, the English made an
important alteration in the arrangements for their
Persian trade. The country round Surat had been
ruined by famine and flood, so that the outlook for
1632 was far from promising. In these circumstances,
the factors at Surat resolved to concentrate their
lJamcs, William, Blessing, Intelligence, Discovery and Reformation.
Gombrun was reached on February 1701 and the ships left just over a month
later, the first three arriving at Swally on the 15th April.
*An account of the fall and recapture of Mombasa will be found on pp.
475-487 of Faria y Sousa’s Asia Portuguesa, (Lisboa, 167c). The first
attempt to retake it was repulsed with heavy loss and the expedition returned
defeated to Goa, but the rebels abandoned the place without fighting
immediately afterwards, when it was re-occupied by a small force which
had been left to blockade it.
efforts on the Persian silk trade, and with this end in
view, after the despatch of the usual Persia fleet at
the beginning of 1632,1 they made arrangements to
send the outward-bound fleet straight from its usual
rendezvous at the Comoro islands to Gombrun, in
addition to despatching two vessels for the coast of
Coromandel to take in freight goods for Persia. The
factors at Gombrun strongly objected to this decision
when they heard of it ; one of their reasons being that
no transport could be obtained during the hot season
when the vessels from England were due to arrive, so
that the goods would lie at the port, exposed to
capture by Ruy Freyre’s frigates. The President and
council at Surat, overruled the objections, pointing
out that it was in the highest degree unlikely that the
Portuguese, who were living in Kung under an
agreement made with the Shah, would dare to attempt
any robbery at a port of his, and thus expose their own
factory to reprisals. They further added that the
protection afforded by “ Gombroone Castle ” might
surely be relied on. This reading of the situation was
apparently correct, as Ruy Freyre made no attempt
to interfere with the ships of his old acquaintance
Captain John Weddell, which reached Gombrun in
October and left for Surat after a stay in the port of
twenty days.*

lMary, Exchange, Blessing and William under Captain Slade. They

were back at Swally by the middle of April. A Dutch fleet consisting of
the Amboyna, Vlissingen, 't llojj van Hollands, ’s-Gravenhage^ Vere, ’/ Wapen
ven pelft, Butren and Malacca, under the command of Philips Lucaszoon,
was in Gombrun at the same time.

'Foster, English Factories, 1630-1633, pp. xxv-vi, 140, 195, 235-239.

Weddell’s fleet consisted of the Charles, Jonas, Dolphin, Hart and Swallow
from England, together with the Sea-horse, James and Intelligence from Surat,
which they had met off the Comoro islands. On reaching Gombrun in
October, they found the Mary and Exchange with freight goods from
Masulipatam in the road, as also the Dutch ships Utrecht, Amboina and Grol,
under Jan Carstenszoon from Batavia.

116
 This concentration of English shipping in the Gulf
had revived the plans of the Khan of Shiras for the
capture of Muscat, on which he was as bent as ever.
Both English and Dutch had been broached about the
matter, and hitherto both had replied with evasive
answers. This time, however, each believed the other
to be in earnest, with the result that they both
promised to assist the Persian for fear of being
forestalled by their rivals. The Khan of Shiras
commenced to assemble troops for the expedition in
1632, and he further presented the Hollanders with
some of the now rotten and leaky Portuguese frigates
taken at Ormuz in 1622, in order that the Dutch
might use them for in-shore work against the Portuguese
light craft at Kung, Bahrein and elsewhere.1 Only
three Dutch vessels arrived at Gombrun in October,
so that the Khan was forced to abandon the idea, as
the English likewise displayed no undue eagerness to
go. At this point, death removed two of the chief
protagonists from the scene, for in December, 1632,
Ruy Freyre, who had been in poor health ever since
his return from Goa the previous year, died of dysentry
at Muscat, worn out by his twelve years continuous
active service in the trying climate of the Gulf ; whilst
almost at the same time, his old opponent the Imam
Quli Khan, the captor of Ormuz, was executed
together with most of his family, by his treacherous
and ungrateful master Shah Safi.* This was the news
which Weddell found awaiting him at Gombrun,
whither he had sailed from Swally at the beginning of

‘MacLeod, Oost-Itidische Compagnie als Zeemogendheid in Azie, 1602-1652,

I, p. 450. Foster, English Factories, 1650-1633, p. 319. The English
informed the Portuguese of this plan early in 1634, during the negotiations
for a truce, Diario do Conde de Linhares, p. 29.

*The best and fullest contemporary accounts of this tragedy are to be

found in the documents printed in MacLeod, Oost-lndische Compagnie, etc.,
II, PP- 74'76-
I

February, 1633, with a fleet of four sail, specially fitted

out with the idea of helping the Khan of Shiras to
take Muscat. Announcing these tidings in a letter
to the Company from Gombrun at the end of March,
he wrote, “ I had a letter since my being att Gombroone
from the [Khan] of Serash concerning the business of
Muskatt ; but that designe perished with his death ;
and now since the death of Refrera in December [last],
who was Governor in Muskatt and hee which formerly
burnt your ships and was busie at sea with his frigotts,
which are now more quiett, the Dutch gave it out that
they will undertake Muskatt for themselves. I will
beleeve it when I see it, for without the land forces
of the [Khan] it is impossible to be effected.” Ruy
Freyre had indeed been active to the end, for on
December 1st, 1632, the Dutch ships in Gombrun
had been alarmed by the news that he was cruising off
Larak with a fleet of nearly twenty sail; although their
anxiety was relieved when they heard on the last day
of the old year, that Ruy Freyre was dead, and that
all his flotilla had retired to Muscat under shelter of
the Castle walls.1
Deprived of their redoubtable champion, “ the
mainstay of the soldiery in this India ” as a contem¬
porary writer described him, the Portuguese feared
more than ever for an attack on Muscat ; for apart

1Cf. Weddell’s letter from Gombrun, 24/iii/1633, calendered in Foster.

op. cit.} p. 295 and Hendrik Hagenaer’s Journal under i/xii/1632, and
30/xii/1632, printed in Vol. II of the Begin ende Voortgangh, (Amsterdam,
1646). It is quite clear from these and other contemporary sources, that
Ruy Freyre died in December 1632, and not in September 1633, as stated in
the Commentaries. This latter date was accepted both by Sir William
Foster (Vol. 1630-1633, p. 295, n. 2) and myself {Commentaries, p. 210, note),
but Hagenaer’s evidence is quite conclusive as he was at Ormuz at the time.
Furthermore, practically all the dates given in the original 1647 edition of
the Commentaries are demonstrably wrong, and the chronology is hopelessly
confused as I have shown elsewhere. Further confirmation is afforded by
the entry under Februacy 24th, 1634, of the Dagh-Register gehouden in’t
Casteel Batavia.

Il8
from the lack of English or Dutch maritime aid, only
the terror of Ruy Freyre’s name amongst the
inhabitants of the Gulf littoral, had previously
prevented the Persian threats from being translated
into action. Fortunately, the almost simultaneous
removal from the scene of the doughty old Imam Quli
Khan, had deprived the Persians of their most trusted
leader, whilst neither English nor Dutch made any
vigorous attempts to take the matter up with his
successors. Furthermore, two at least of the contending
parties were no longer enemies, for the Anglo-
Portuguese rapprochment, which culminated in the
agreement of January, 1635, had by now begun.1
Indirect negotiations between the Viceroy at Goa, and
the newly-arrived and energetic head of the English
Factory at Surat, William Methwold, had been carried
on through the intermediary of the Jesuit Fathers in
this latter place and at Damao, all through 1633 > ^ut
it was not until the end of the year that Methwold
finally wrote offering to “ lay by these our unwilling
armes,” and to “ participate in all mutual offices of
assured amity.” The Conde de Linhares and his
councillors readily closed with the offer, and granted
full and ample safe-conducts for the English repre¬
sentatives to proceed to Goa to negotiate a definite
peace. This they did in December, 1634, ^ut as
early as April, Methwold had issued instructions to
Captain Weddell, who was bound for Persia, and to
all other commanders, that no Portuguese shipping

*The best outline of the course of the negotiations is to be found on pp.

xxxv-xxxvii of the 1630-1633 volume of Foster’s English Factories. On tne
Portuguese side, the Diario do Conde de Linhares, may be consulted with
profit for the final stages. Tentative negotiations had been started by the
English representatives at Madrid in 1630-1631. but the Council of Portugal,
elated with the news of Botelho’s victories at Malaca and Sumatra in 1620-1630
scornfully rejected the proposals with the dictum that “ India had been
gained with the sword, and with the sword it would be defended.” (Livros
das Monf&es, Livro 30, fl. 263.)

”9
I

was to be attacked. With the promulgation of this

order, Anglo-Portuguese rivalry in the Persian Gulf
became once and for all a thing of the past—at any
rate in so far as armed hostilities were concerned, and
even of purely commercial rivalry there was henceforth
little or none. Whatever the reactions caused
elsewhere, the signing of the definitive agreement at
Goa on January 18th, 1635, brought nothing but
good to both of the erstwhile enemies in the Gulf; and
the signatories to that memorable document, had
every reason to congratulate themselves on thus
fortunately terminating a situation which had become
“ flat, stale and unprofitable ” to all concerned.

The story of Anglo-Portuguese rivalry in the Persian

Gulf from 1615 to 1635 affords us some interesting
examples of the influence of sea-power on history, and
of the penalties which follow the loss of the command
of the sea, either in whole or in part. Thanks to their
complete control of the sea routes in the Gulf, the
Portuguese held undisputed sway over all maritime
commerce in that region, down to the appearance of
the English in force. That this fact was appreciated
at Lisbon and at Madrid, is clear from the decision to
send a powerful squadron of galleons, under such a
picked commander as Ruy Freyre, for the express
purpose of nipping the growing English commerce in
the bud in 1619. Shilling’s victory off Jask in the
following year was an important check to the
Portuguese, but it did not have the decisive results it
might have had, owing to the failure of the English to
follow up their success by completely destroying Ruy
Freyre’s shattered hulks. The result was that the
120
 Portuguese were still as great a menace as ever, and
with Ruy Freyre’s fleet still in being, they were
soon in a position to challenge the English for the
supremacy once more. This fact was realised by the
experienced old Governor, Fernao de Albuquerque,
who, despite the almost total lack of resources against
which he had to struggle at Goa, spared no pains to
despatch powerful reinforcements to Ruy Freyre, at
the same time urging upon him the necessity of giving
battle again to the English fleet.
Ruy Freyre’s inability or unwillingness to recognise
the soundness of this advice, was the real reason of the
fall of Ormuz; for his voluntary abandonment of the
galleons, in order to carry out the expedition to Kishm,
played into the hands of the English and Persians, as
the authorities at Goa had foreseen.1 There was
now nothing to prevent the English from proceeding
direct to Ormuz, instead of their usual half-way house
at Jask, and, after uniting with the Persians, shutting
the door of the trap in which Ruy Freyre had placed
himself. This once accomplished, the fall of Ormuz
was merely a matter of time ; for however obstinate
the defence, the Castle was bound to fall if not
succoured from the sea—and this was rendered
impossible by the immolation and destruction of Ruy
Freyre’s galleons under the Castle walls, since there
was no other naval force in Portuguese India capable
of giving battle to the English vessels. Too late Ruy

‘Compare FernSo d’Albuquerque’s Ietter« to Ruy Freyre quoted in note

I on page 73 supra. In justice to Ruy Freyre it should be said that he
apparently realised the importance of maintaining an adequate armada to
cope with the English, even if he did not put his convictions fully into
practice. In a letter written shortly after his defeat at Jask, he wrote
“ Realms which are situated on the shores of the sea, and which have therein
such far-flung fortresses as His Majesty has in this, cannot be preserved
without well-eauipped fleets; and if His Majesty does not provide the same.
India will be lost, as likewise its strongholds, and this one first of all.’
(Letter of Ruy Freyre, Ormuz, 12/ii/i6z 1. British Museum, Egerton MSS.).

121
I

Freyre saw his error, and although, on his escape from

captivity, he was anxious to make a last desperate
attempt to retrieve the situation, by surprising the
victorious Anglo-Persian forces in the middle of their
plundering orgies, the irresolution of his companion,
Constantino de Sa, lost him this last chance. It was
a slender one at best, for even assuming the bold stroke
had succeeded (which was after all quite possible), the
fortress could never have been made tenable for long
against a renewed Anglo-Persian attack, since Ruy
Freyre had no galleons wherewith to oppose the English
ships, which were the decisive factor in the situation,
as they assured the passage of the Persian troops from
the mainland.
It must be admitted that Ruy Freyre, if he was
mainly to blame for the fall of Ormuz, owing to his
neglect to dispute the command of the sea with the
English in 1621-1622, subsequently made amends as
far as it lay within his power to do so. Although
provided with only slender forces and indifferent
troops, he broke up the threatened Persian attack on
Muscat, reconquered much of the lost ground on the
Arabian coast, and blockaded Ormuz so closely that
it twice came within an ace of falling into his grasp.
Both times however the Persians were relieved by the
opportune appearance of the English fleet, against
which Ruy Freyre’s oared frigates were powerless,
except under certain exceptional conditions. The
most he could achieve was the rather melancholy
satisfaction that even if the Portuguese could not
regain Ormuz, its possession proved but a barren and
profitless acquisition for the Persians.
The appearance of Botelho’s armada in 1625,
seemed to afford another hope of reversing the situation
but this was not really so. It is true that the masterly
way in which Botelho handled his squadron and sought
122
 to give battle to his enemies under all and every
conditions, caused the English no little worry and
annoyance, but there was no corresponding lasting
advantage for the Portuguese. The appearance of
the Hollanders on the scene in 1623, introduced yet
another complication from the Lusitanian point of
view, since the two heretic nations made common
cause together. The indomitable behaviour of Ruy
Freyre and Botelho, did indeed hearten their men to
such an extent that the Portuguese regained much of
the prestige they had lost; whilst the English and
Dutch were forced to navigate together for mutual
protection, often with unduly large and costly fleets.
The annual cruise to the Comoro islands by the
English, in order to protect their outward-bound
shipping from being waylaid by the Portuguese galleons,
was also an expensive waste of time, but the Portuguese
could never establish a decided superiority over the
allied forces, which were increasing yearly, whilst their
own decreased as rapidly. Furthermore, even if
Botelho and Ruy Freyre had succeeded in regaining
Ormuz, the place was by now little better than a heap
of ruins, its erstwhile trade having been diverted to
Muscat, Basra and Gombrun ; whilst it is very unlikely
that the Portuguese could have held it against the
overwhelming forces the allies could have brought to
bear against them.
Nevertheless, the advantage was not wholly on the
side of English and Persians. The European ships
were only present at Gombrun for a month or two in
the year, and for the rest of the season the whole
littoral on the Persian side lay exposed to the ravages
of Ruy Freyre’s waspish flotillas, which had unchallenged
control of the Gulf from Cape Ras Musandam to the
Shatt el Arab. It was entirely owing to the presence
of Portuguese galliots in the Euphrates, that the
123
I

Persians were foiled in their efforts to take Basra in

1624-1625, although otherwise the place would have
fallen into their hands like a rotten apple after the
capture of Baghdad from the Turks. Indeed so
paralysing was the effect of the pressure exercised by
Ruy Freyre on coast-wise commerce in the Gulf, that
the Persians, despairing of effective aid from their
European friends, were compelled to give the Portu¬
guese a settlement at Kung, on the same terms as they
had granted their victorious English allies a factory at
Gombrun eight years earlier. All this was due to the
cardinal error of their not following up the capture
of Ormuz in 1622 by an immediate attack on Muscat,
which would then have fallen in all probability. As
it was, Ruy Freyre made such use of the breathing
space afforded, that he was able to carry the war into
the enemy’s camp with a vengeance. A brave man
struggling with adversity is always an exhilarating
sight, but Ruy Freyre and Nuno Alvarez Botelho were
more than that. They were bonny fighters worthy of
any man’s steel; and it was indeed fortunate for
England that she was represented in the Gulf at this
time by men of the stamp of John Weddell and Edward
Monnox, who well and truly laid the foundations of
that supremacy which has lasted down to the present
day.

124
I
 -

.
 APPENDIX.

The following brief descriptions of some Portuguese factories or

agencies in the Gulf during the period under review, are based on
the accounts of them contained in Antonio Bocarro’s Livro do Estado
da India Oriental, written at Goa during the year 1634.
Only a few of the more obscure places have been selected, as
voluminous accounts of the more celebrated ones, such as Ormuz,
Muscat and Gombrun, are readily available in print in the works of
Linschoten, Pedro Teixeira, Pietro della Valle, Olearius and other
travellers, too numerous to mention here.

BASRA (Bassora).
Although the Portuguese frequented this place to some extent
during the sixteenth century, they did not resort there in large
numbers until after the fall of Ormuz, when Ruy Freyre tried to
make it the chief entrep6t for the Gulf, as a counterpoise to Gombrun.
Basra was at this time governed by a Pasha who owed a nominal
allegiance to the Turkish government, but who was to all intents
and purposes independent. After the capture of Baghdad, the
Pasha was hard pressed by the Persians, but this pressure was relieved
by the despatch of Dom Gonfalo da Silveira’s galliots in 1624, which
effectually checked the Persian invasion, as narrated in the text.
Navigation from Muscat to Basra was carried out in all seasons of
the year by coasting along the Persian littoral and making use of the
prevailing winds. The city was well fortified, and Bocarro estimates
the total population at some 15,000, in addition to the large Beduin
encampments in the neighbourhood. The Portuguese cajila or
convoy of merchant ships, that went from Muscat to Basra each
year, was usually escorted by only one man-of-war, as the English
and Dutch vessels did not come higher up the Gulf than Gombrun,
whilst the Portuguese galliots were considered to be more than a
match for such Nakhilu (Niquilla) pirates as might venture to attack
them. For their commercial voyages in the Gulf, the Portuguese
used chiefly small craft such as fustas or foists, terradas, terranquins,

125
 galliots, frigates and the like.1 Their cargoes consisted mainly of
such goods as they had formerly imported into Persia via Ormuz, of
which spices and fine cloths yielded the greatest profits. The most
profitable investment in return was pearls, but many European goods
could be secured, which came on camel caravan overland from
Aleppo. Bocarro estimates that nearly 500,000 xerajines were
invested annually in this trade, though the profits varied considerably.
He gives a very unflattering description of the inhabitants (in which
he is borne out by most other contemporary writers), stigmatizing
them as being “ very fat, white, weak and cowardly ” and “ much
addicted to sodomy despite the unusual beauty of their women.”
He admits nevertheless that the Portuguese were exceedingly well
treated by the local authorities, and that the Pasha kept faith with
with them very well, save on some occasions when he was justly
provoked by their own wanton misdeeds.* He speaks very highly
of the excellent wine, grapes and fruits to be had, and particularly
commends the marmalade and dates. The Portuguese had two
churches in Basra, one of the bare-footed Carmelites, and the other
belonging to the Augustinians, whose congregations included many
Armenian and Assyrian Christians, of whose rites he gives an account.
Della Valle, who was at Basra in 1625, has left us a not very edifying
description of the behaviour of the Reverend Fathers towards each
other. It is interesting to note that Bocarro speaks very highly of
the martial qualities of the Assyrian Christians, and states that the
Conae de Linhares encouraged them to emigrate to Muscat, Ceylon
and other Portuguese settlements, where their fighting value would
be welcome—an anticipation of our own Assyrian levies raised in
1918.

QATIF (Catifa).
The importance of Qatif as a centre of Portuguese trade in the
Gulf, likewise dates from the loss of Ormuz. The district was under
the rule of an Arab Sheikh, who, like the Pasha of Basra, acknowledged
a shadowy vassalage to the Ottoman Sultans. The Sheikh, or Pasha

’For detailed descriptions of these types of sailing vessels, see Dalgado,

Glossario Luso-Astatico, (Coimbra, 1919-1921).
•The terms on which the Portuguese were established at Basra, are to be
found on pp. 271-272 of Vol. II of the Chronista de Tissuary, (Nova Goa,
1867). Della Valle also gives a summary of them. The prosperity of the
Portuguese factory received its first check with the appearance of the" English
in 1640, who were followed by the Dutch six years later. The factory then
declined and was given up for some years, but was re-established in 1695.
In Bocarro’s time, the Pasha was named Ali.

126
 as he was called by the Portuguese, was at more or less open enmity
with the Persians of Bahrein, and hence the alliance with the
Portuguese, and the support he received from Ruy Freyre in 1627.
All the local trade was in the hands of the Pasha or his sons, whose
monopoly had anything but a beneficial effect on commerce in
general. Nevertheless, the place was important on account of the
fact that it yielded the finest Arabian horses which could be had for
money ; and great profits were realised on the sale of these in India.
The most expensive of them did not cost more than 200 patacas,1
whilst some could be had for as little as 50 or 60. They were brought
down to Qatif from the interior by the Beduins. There were also
great quantities of seed-pearls from the Bahrein beds to be obtained
at Qatif, since most of the pearl-fishers came from this latter district.
These horses and pearls were paid for by the Portuguese, with cloths
and linen from Sind and Cambay, and with silver money in the
form of larins and abexins. A subsidiary export was that of dates,
which although not so fine as those of Basra, made a better and more
lasting product when dried. Bocarro gives an interesting description
of the Beduins’ marriage ceremonies, which included betrothal by
capture. The exact amount of money invested in the Qatif horse
trade is not stated, but he admits that it amounted to many thousands
of cruzados or ducats, a year.

RUNG (Congo).
The Portuguese factory at Rung was founded by Ruy Freyre in
1630 under the circumstances related in the text. In accordance
with the agreement made at that time with the Rhan of Shiras, the
Portuguese were to enjoy a moiety of all Customs dues levied on
goods entering the port, in the same way as the English did at
Gombrun, but in both cases considerable difficulty was experienced
in extracting the amounts claimed from the Persians. Despite the
continual threat of a Persian attack on Muscat, and the intermittent
state of war in the Gulf which continued even after the negotiation
of the truce in 1630, the Portuguese factory at Rung remained
unmolested by the Persians, and even attained quite a considerable
prosperity. In 1633 there was some talk of transferring it to a site
three miles from Gombrun, which would have had a bad effect on

lPataca in Portuguese, or Patacoon in English, was the old Indo-European

name for the dollar or piece-of-eight. Larin was Persian bar silver money,
of which 5 Larins were worth one pataca. The Abexin (also written Abassi,
Abassee, etc.) was a kind of Persian silver money, first coined by Shah Abbas II
(whence the name) about 1600 and worth some 300 Portuguese reis, or
sixteen pence of English money according to Herbert and Fryer.

I27
I

the English receipts from the Gombrun customs, as the Hollanders

noted with malicious satisfaction. The proposal never materialised,
however, and perhaps was never seriously intended ; although the
local Persian Governor was anxious to make a definite peace with
the Portuguese, whereby the coast would be free from the raids of
their flotillas the whole year round, and not merely for six months, as
had been stipulated by Ruy Freyre.1
The chief importance of Kung to the Portuguese lay in the revenue
derived from the neighbouring pearl fisheries.
The roadstead of Kung was an open one, and only protected to a
slight extent against northerly, north-east and north-west winds, but
small ships could anchor within a musket-shot of the shore, j The
chief imports from Muscat were cloths and other goods from
Cambay, Sind and district, indigo, spices, raw hides and gold.
The exports included Persian goods of all sorts, such as silks, carpets
and rose-water, which were brought down on camels from the
interior. In addition, a good amount of silver bullion was obtained
in the form of Abbasis and Larins. The export of horses was
forbidden by the Shah under pain of death, but it was usually possible
to obtain some. The town, though composed of well-built stone
and adobe houses, was only a small one with a resident population
of some two hundred Persians, Parsees and Arabs, but there were
often large encampments of these latter in the neighbourhood. On
account of Ruy Freyre’s destructive activities, the Portuguese were
held in great respect by the Persians, save that they had always to
be prepared to encounter opposition at sea from the Nakhilau
(Niquilla) pirates who were described as being a race of hardy
free-booters. A similar pirate clan, the Nautaques, had given the
Portuguese much trouble in the past, but had been practically
exterminated as a result of Ruy Freyre’s punitive expeditions.

DOBBAH (Doba).
The Portuguese fort at Dobbah was a small but strongly
constructed work, which served to dominate the neighbouring
walled town of the same name, whose population of about one
thousand Arabs included but few men at arras. Date-palms and
seed-pearls formed the principal product of the neighbouring land
and sea respectively, but the gathering of both was frequently
impeded by the raids of the local Imam. This fortress, together
with the others on the Arabian coast (except Muscat and Sohar),

lDagh-Register Batavia, 1634, pp. 261, 338. Diario do Conde de Linhares,

>634, pp. 9-io.

128
had been built by Ruy Freyre, and garrisoned by him on behalf of
the titular King of Ormuz, whose son served for some time in Ruy
Freyre’s armadas. They were used as provisioning depots for the
fleets, and for ports of refuge in case of necessity, but their value as
such was substantially decreased when the new Imam opened
hostilities against the Portuguese after the death of Ruy Freyre.

KHOR FAKKAN (Corfocam).

The small triangular Portuguese fort at this place was constructed

by Gaspar Leite in 1620. It was garrisoned only by a 3mall
detachment of Lascarins, or Arab auxiliaries, under a captain of the
same nationality. Its only importance lay in the fact that it was
the first harbour north of Muscat, with a safe anchorage in all winds
for vessels up to three or four hundred tons, whilst the local Wells
produced the best drinking water in all Arabia.

SOHAR (Soar).
The small, but strongly-built fortress of Sohar was garrisoned by a
detachment of forty Portuguese soldiers under a captain, supported
by some hundred and fifty Lascarins. There was an Augustinian
church within the walls, and a Customs-house on the shore, which
yielded an annual income of over 200 “ pardaus of larins.” The
chief products were date-palms and the seed-pearl fisheries along the
coast, but the cultivation of the former was frequently impeded by
hostilities with the local inhabitants. There was also a great deal
of game to be shot in the neighbourhood, and a plentiful supply of
birds which were hawked with falcons. On the site of the old
ruined city, a large number of Roman gold coins of Tiberius Csesar
had been dug up in the year l6or, which afforded proof that the
place had been of considerable importance in Roman times.

I29
 '

■
 II

A NOTE ON PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO THE

REVIVAL OF THE RED SEA SPICE TRADE AND
THE RISE OF ATJEH, 1540-1600

No reputable historian nowadays maintains that the Portuguese

16th- century thalassocracy in the Indian Ocean was always and
everywhere completely effective. In particular, it is widely accepted
that there was a marked if erratic revival in the Red Sea spice-trade
shortly after the first Turkish occupation of Aden in 1538, though
much work remains to be done on the causes and effects of this
development. The Portuguese reactions to the rise of Atjeh have
been studied chiefly in connection with the frequent fighting in
the Straits of Malacca; and the economic side of the struggle has
been less considered. The connection of Atjeh with the revival of
the Red Sea spice-trade has been insufficiently stressed; though
Mrs. Meilink-Roelofsz and Dr. V. Magalhaes Godinho have some
relevant observations on this point in their recent and well docu¬
mented works (Asian Trade and European Influence in the
Indonesian Archipelago, 1500-1630, The Hague, 1962, pp. 142-46;
Os Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial, Vol. II, Lisboa, 1967, pp.
Ill - 171). The purpose of this paper is to amplify the facts and
figures which they give there, in the hope that someone with the
necessary linguistic qualifications will be incited to make comple¬
mentary researches in the relevant Indonesian, Arabian, or Turkish
sources.

I am not concerned here with the origins of Atjehnese-P'ortuguese

enmity, nor with the founding of the Atjehnese empire by Sultan
Ali Mughayat Shah, who conquered Daya to the west and Pedir
(Pidie) and Pase to the east.1 By the time of his death in or about
the year 1530, the Atjehnese had captured so many cannon from
the Portuguese that the contemporary chronicler, Fernao Lopes de
Castanheda, averred that the Sultan “was much better supplied with

1. Cf. Jojo <lc Barros, Decada III (Lisbon, 1563), Livro 5, cap. iii; R. S. Whiteway,
The Rise of the Portuguese Power in India, 1497-1550 (London, 1899,, pp. 329-
330; G. Schurhammer, S.J., Franz Xaver, seine Leben und seine zeit, II, Asien
1541-1552 (1) Indien und Indonesien, 1541-1547 (Freiburg, 1963), p. 601, and
the sources there quoted.
II

PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

artillery than was the fortress of Malacca”.- The Atjehnese popula¬

tion was not yet a homogeneous one, since it was composed
of different groups brought together by force during the successive
conquest of other petty kingdoms along the east and (principally)
west coasts of Sumatra during the course of the 16th century.
There was also a considerable mixture of Indian blood in the
populous capital of Kutaraja, with the increasing importance of the
trade with India during the reign of Sultan Ala’ al-Din Ri’ayat
Shah al-Kahhar (c. 1537-1571), with which we are primarily con¬
cerned. Atjeh was and long remained an essentially coastal state
and seaborne empire. No serious attempt was made to occupy the
interior of the island, where the Sultan’s rule was purely nominal.
The export of Sumatra pepper to the west coast of India and
thence to the Red Sea in Gujarati shipping was only temporarily
interrupted by the Portuguese conquest and occupation of Malacca.
Pedir was for some time the principal port whence this pepper was
shipped, but the Atjehnese may have participated in this trade even
before their conquest of Pedir, whose dispossessed ruler died as a
refugee at Malacca/' However that may be, the earliest reference
to Atjehnese participation in the pepper trade which I have been
able to find in the Portuguese sources, dates from 1534. In that
year a Portuguese squadron commanded by Diogo da Silveira inter¬
cepted a number of ships from Gujarat and from Atjeh off the
straits of Bab-el-mandib at the entrance to the Red Sea.2 * 4 In the
year 1545, P'ero de Faria, who had twice served as captain of
Malacca, wrote to the Crown from Goa that the Gujaratis were
exporting pepper from Atjeh and Kedah, a piece of information
confirmed by Manuel Godinho in the same year.5 Just about the
same time (8 March 1546), King Dom Joao III wrote to the
Governor at Goa complaining about the reports which he had

2. ", . ,c com esta arlclharia ticou muyto mais abastado dela do que estava a
fortaleza dc Malata” (Fernao Lope* dc Castanheda, Historia do descobrirnento
r tonquisla da India pelos Portugueses, Livro VII (Coimbra,, 1554), caps. 84,
85, 100), R. Fclner (ed.), Subsidies para a historia da India Porgutueia: Lem-
braii(as das rousas da India ein 1525 (Lisbon, 1968), p. 16; G. Schurhammer,
•S.J.. Die Zeitgcnossischen l^uellen zur geschichte Portugiesisch-Asiens und seiner
naclibarljnder, 15)8-1552 (2nd ed., Rome 1962), p. 108, nr. 1629.
,‘t. Ex-Sultan Maharnat to King of Portugal, letter d. Malacca, 15 Nov. 1543, in
Arthur Basilic dc Sa (ed.), Documentafio para a hisl&ria das missQes do Padroado
Porluguesa do Oriente. Iisulindia, I, 1506-1519 (Lisbon, 1954), pp. 382-84. Cf.
G. Schurhammcr, QxieUen (7962), nos. 1132-1133. SimSo Alvares in his report
on the spite trade drawn up in 1548, states that he had personally examined
large quantities of white pepper captured in ships bound from Pedir and
Martaban before the vear 1530 (apud Studia. Revista Semestral, Vol. X, Lisbon,
1962, p. 142;.
4. Diogo do Couto, Decada IV (Lisbon, 1602), Livro 8, cap. 10.
5. Pero dc Faria to the Crown, Goa, 19 Nov. 1545, and Manuel Godinho to the
Crown, 28 Nov. 1545, in G. Schurhammer, Quef/en (1962), nrs. 1709, 1746.

416
 II

PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

received concerning the marked revival of the Red Sea spice-trade.6

This dispatch must have crossed one from D. Joao de Castro to
the king, stating that he had ordered all Portuguese ships bound
from India to Malacca to sail in convoy thenceforward, owing to
the recent capture of Antonio de Sousa’s junk by the Atjehnese.7
A further report of 1547 specifically mentions two ships from Surat
lading pepper at Atjeh.6 It seems safe to assert, therefore, that
Atjehnese participation in the Red Sea Spice-trade dates from the
late fifteen-thirties and early fifteen-forties; and that it did not
originate in the fifteen-sixties, as is usually stated or implied.9

Atjehnese participation in the Red Sea spice-trade was undeniab¬

ly in full swing by the mid-sixteenth century. In 1554-55, two
successive Portuguese fleets were sent to cruise off the entrance to
the Red Sea in the hope of intercepting ships from Atjeh and
Gujarat; while another squadron blockaded Swally (Suahli), the
roadstead of Surat, for the same purpose of capturing Gujarati ships
from Atjeh "which had not taken out Portuguese passports”
(cartazcs).'0 These expeditions do not seem to have achieved any¬
thing; and a projected attack on Atjeh itself, for which the
Governor, Francisco Barreto, had organised an armada of 25
galleons and caravels, with over seventy galliots and foists, was can¬
celled in September 1558, when Barreto was superseded by the
newly arrived viceroy, Dom Constantino de Braganja.11 In 1559
this viceroy sent a squadron of two galleons and eighteen oared
craft to the Red Sea, “to intercept and capture the ships from
Atjeh”, but they likewise failed to meet them.1*
The Portuguese had long since acquired a wholesome respect for
the Atjehnese as formidable fighters who formed the greatest threat
to Malacca for over a century. A contemporary account of the
misadventures of the castaways from the outwardbound Indiaman
Sao Paulo, wrecked on the west coast of Sumatra in the latitude of
the equator in January 1561, described the "Dachens” as being “a

G. King D. Jo3o III to D. Joao dc Castro, Almciritn, 8 March 1546, in Antonio

da Silva Rego (ed.), Documeniafio para a histdria das missQes do padroado
portuguis do Oriente. India, III, 7544-/547 (Lisbon, 1950), p. 274.
7. D. Joio de Castro to the Crown, Coa, 16 Dec. 1546, in Elaine Sanccau (ed.),
Carlas de D. Joao de Castro (Lisbon, 1954), p. 235.
8. Antonio dc Sousa to D. Joio de Castro, Chaul, 28 May 1547, in G. Schurhammer,
S.J., Quellen (1962), n. 3102.
9. M. A. Meilink-Roclofsz, Asian Trade and European Influence, p. 145, has noticed
that ships from Atjeh were reaching the Red Sea shortly after 1526. A good
discussion of the vicissitudes of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf spice-trade routes
during the 16th century will be found in V. Magalhjes Godinho, Os Descobri-
mentos e a Economia Mundiul (2 vols., Lisboa, 1963-67), especially Vol. II,
pp. 111-171. He also comments on the importance of Atjeh in this connection.
10. Diogo do Couto, Dccada VI, Livro 10, cap. 18; Ibid., Occada VII, Livto 1,
caps. 7-8.
11. Diogo do Couto, Decada VII, Livro 5, cap. 8.
12. Diogo do Couto, Decada VII, Livro 6, cap. 7; Ibidem, op. cil., Livro 7, cap. 6.

117
II

PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

roving and piratical people, formed from many nations, and most
bitter enemies of the Portuguese, and very courageous warriors.”13
The survivors of the Sao Paulo personally experienced the fighting
qualities of the Atjehnese in a fierce encounter which they had with
the crew of a trading-junk; and another instance was afforded by
a naval engagement off the South Arabian coast in March or April
of the same year. A large 50-gun ship, comparable in size and
appearance to one of the great Portuguese Indiamen (Naos, or
carracks), was intercepted off Qishn (“Caxem”) by two Portuguese
galleons and some foists. This vessel came from Atjeh and was
manned by 500 warriors, including Turks, Arabs and Abyssinians,
as well as Atjehnese. A tremendous all-night long battle ensued,
in which both the Portuguese galleons and the Atjehnese ship fell
aboard of each other and caught fire. One of the Portuguese
galleons eventually got clear and extinguished the flames on board;
but the other two vessels were burnt to the water’s edge. Casualties
were heavy on both sides, and the Atjehnese ship was reportedly
worth ‘‘over a million in gold”, as her lading included 200,000
cruzados’ worth of gold and jewelry for the Sultan of Turkey.
Next day, her consort was sighted; but though the Portuguese even¬
tually caught up with her and forced her to strike, she managed
to give them the slip in the darkness of the ensuing night. Baulked
of their prey, the Portuguese squadron remained cruising off the
approaches to the Red Sea for just over a month, in the hope of
intercepting other vessels bound for Mocha, Jidda and Suez; but
though they sighted no fewer than fifty large ships (Naos), they
were not able to intercept any of them. The facf that fifty big
ships escaped them in such a short space of time, is in itself striking
evidence of the extent to which the spice-trade route to the Red
Sea had recovered.11
Diogo do Couto, who is our most reliable Portuguese authority
for this period, states that the ships bound from Atjeh to the Red
Sea were now taking their course through the channels of the
Maidive Islands, and that the Portuguese tried to intercept them
there, as well as cruising between Capes Ras Fartak and Guardafui
(“Mount Felix”) off the Hadramaut and Somaliland coasts. In
March 1565, a Portuguese squadron of two galleons and four
13. Castaways' accounts in A.B. dc Sit, Documentafio, Insulindia, II, 1550-1562,
pp. 391, 40:"), -123, and in C.R. Boxer (cd.), Further Selections from the "Tragic
History of the Sea," 1559-1565 (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 91-93.
14. Diogo do Couto, Decuda I'll. Livro 10, caps. 2-3, for a graphic account. This
is obviously the same light as that briefly described on p. 110 of R. B. Serjeant,
The Portuguese off the. South Arabian Coast [according to the] Hadrami
Chronicles (Oxford 1903). Dr. Serjeant notes (o/t. et loc. cit), ' It is surprising
how frequently Atcheh appears in Arabic works of this period, as e.g. in al-
Djaturtui, Mukalla MS., p. 12, which includes a description of the island and
its produces.” Cf. also Studia, Yol. Ill (Lisboa., 1959), pp. 80-81, for the
Yicerov of India's teles ant report.

418
 II

PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

galliots was sent to intercept the ships expected from Atjeh. This
led to another fierce engagement, reminiscent in many ways of the
1562 battle off the Hadramaut coast. 1 he Portuguese galleon Sao
Sebastiao fell in with a “fine ship from Achem, which carried more
than 400 white men, of Turks and other nations, and mounted
many good guns”. The .Sao Sebastiao boarded the Atjehnese ship,
but both vessels caught fire and were destroyed after a homeric duel,
nothing being saved of the former’s “very rich” lading.1' Subse¬
quent efforts made to intercept the ships bound from Atjeh to the
Red Sea in the years 1566 and 1567, did not result in the capture
of any prizes, though one Muslim ship was forced ashore and
wrecked on the island of Socotora.'0

Venetian sources at Cairo reported the arrival of three ships from

Atjeh in 1565, with another two expected in the same year; but one
of these was, as we have seen, intercepted and destroyed in the
Maidive passage by the Portuguese. In addition to the five
Sumatran ships, another twenty from various ports in India reached
Jidda. In 1566, another five ships reached Jidda from Atjeh,
together with three vessels from Baticalao, bringing a total of some
24,000 cantara of pepper (1 cantara being presumably the Portu¬
guese quintal of 112 lbs.).17 Mrs. Meilink-Roelofsz considers that
“these must have been exceptionally large shipments” (Asian Trade
and European Influence, p. 363); but I do not think that this was
necessarily so, since very large ships, comparable in size to the great
Portuguese India carracks, were employed in this trade, as Diogo
do Couto and other Portuguese sources emphasize.1K In any event,
the costly annual expeditions mounted by the Portuguese to try
and intercept these ships on their way to the Red Sea in the period
1554-1567, clearly failed in their purpose. This failure presumably
accouts for the fact that they were apparently abandoned about
1569, since notices of Portuguese expeditions to the Red Sea after
that date are relativeely few and far between. Diogo do Couto,
recording the organisation of an expedition to the Red Sea in
1585-86, observed that its failure was forecast by the gossips of Goa,

15. Diogo do Couto. Decada fill, cap. 8.

16. Diogo do Couto, Decada I 'III, caps. II and 17.
17. M. A. Meilink-Roelofsz. Asian Trade and European Influence, pp. 134-135, 363.
Mrs. Meilink-Roelofsz’s tentative identification of "Assi" (mentioned in the Vene
tian source) with Atjeh is confirmed1 by reference to R. B. Serjeant, Portuguese
of) the South Arabian Coast, p. 110, where the Ash! of the contemporary Arabic
chronicles is identified as Atjeh.
18. D. Antso de Noronha, the Viceroy of Coa, writing to the Crown in December
1566, stated that 20,000 or 25,000 quintals of pepper were reaching the Red Sea
annually in Atjehnese and other Muslim ships, whereas the Portuguese Indiamen
were only carrying 10,000 or 12,000 round the Cape of Good Hope to Lisbon
(A. da Silva Rego, Documentafjo. India, X, 1S66-1S68, pp. 157-58, 160, 163;
A. B. De Si, Documentafio. Insulindia, III, 1S6J-67, pp. 172-177).

419
II

PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

who recalled that just as all the Turkish naval expeditions against
the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean had miscarried, so had all the
Portuguese expeditions to the Red Sea. Francisco Rodrigues da
Silveira, who served in this fruitless expedition, recalled in his
memoirs that “as many years had elapsed since any Heet of ours had
sailed in the Red Sea, we had no accurate knowledge of the prevail¬
ing winds, nor of the ports, anchorages, and watering-places.”10
The development of the Atjeh - Red Sea spice-trade was paralleled
by increased Atjehnese pressure on Malacca during the reign of
Sultan Ri'ayat Shah al-Kahhar, who, in Couto’s expressive phrase,
"never turned over in his bed without thinking how he could
encompass the destruction of Malacca”. The Portuguese were
particularly worried by the prospect of an offensive alliance between
the Atjehnese and the Ottoman Turks, as indeed they had every
reason to be. The Viceroy of Goa was informed in 1564 that the
Sultan of Atjeh had sent an embassy to Constantinople, to ask for
Turkish military assistance, and especially for cannon, gun-founders
and gunners. This embassy brought rich gifts of gold, pepper and
spices, besides large proffers of future wealth to be derived from
the Indonesian spice-trade if the Portuguese were expelled from
Malacca and elsewhere with Turkish help. A dispatch from two
Portuguese spies at Venice, dated 27th August 1564, informed the
King of Portugal that letters had been received by the Seignory from
Cairo with news of the arrival there in June of over 1,800 quintals
of pepper and 3,000 quintals of other spices. These spices had
been landed at Jidda from a total of 23 ships, some of them from
Atjeh and some from Baticaloa on the Malabar coast. “These
Atjehnese are those who most frequent this commerce and naviga¬
tion”, and they had sent ambassadors with gifts to the Sultan of
Turkey at Constantinople. This information had been received at
Venice from Jews and from the Venetian envoy at the Sultan’s court.
The Atjehnese ambassadors were asking tor expert gunfounders to
be sent over, “and up till now they have only been given six gunners
and another six military experts. And this in return for the present
which they gave to the Turkish Pasha, which was a casket contain¬
ing a large necklace of valuable pearls and many diamonds and
rubies.” It is not clear from the context of the letter whether the
Atjehnese envoys had already proceeded to Constantinople in June
1564, or whether they were still at Cairo or at Jidda. The writer
added that the arrival of these spices had lowered the price for them
everywhere.20 The Atjehnese envoys were apparently detained for

19. Diogo do Couto, Decada X, Livro 7, caps. 7, 1517; A. de S.S. Costa Lobo
(ed ). Memorias de um soldado da India, 1S8S1S98 (Lisboa, 1877), pp. 27-30.
20. Diogo do Couto, Decada VIII, cap. 21; letter of Gaspar and Joao Ribeiro, Venice
27 August 1564 (Torre do Tombo, Lisbon, Corpo Chronologico, Maco 107, doc.
9, no. 14198. Copy kindly supplied by Mr. S. Osbaran).

420
 II

PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

about two years in Turkey by the death of Sultan Suleyman “The

Magnificent’’ after their arrival, and by other matters which dis¬
tracted
, the attention of the Sublime Porte. Orders were eventually/
given for an expeditionary-force to be organised in Egypt; but this
force, embarked in nineteen galleys, was diverted to the Yemen
when a revolt broke out there just as it was ready to leave for Atjeh.
Only two ships carrying 500 Turks, including gun-founders, gunners
and engineers, together with a number of heavy bronze guns and
other war material, reached Atjeh in 1566 or 1567. In addition
to soliciting Turkish military aid, Sultan Ri’ayat Shah al-Kahhar
also tried to obtain the help of various Indian and Indonesian
rulers; but in the upshot he only secured some limited assistance
from the rulers of Calicut and Japara for the major attack on
Malacca which he mounted in 1568.-'

Although the frequent Atjehnese attacks on Malacca were not

countered by any Portuguese invasion of Atjeh during the 16th
century, such a move was frequently canvassed in government circles
at Goa for many years after the abandonment of Francisco Barreto’s
abortive expedition of 1558, to which reference has been made above.
Prominent among the arm-chair strategists of this school of
thought, was the Archbishop of Goa, D. Jorge Temudo, who warm¬
ly commended this project to the Crown in 1569. He stressed that
the Sultan of Atjeh was the most dangerous enemy that the Portu¬
guese had in Asia, and that he was actively seeking alliance with
their other principal foes in India and Ceylon. In exchange for
the military and technical aid which he was receiving from Turkey
the Atjehnese ruler was sending such vast quantities of pepper to
the Red Sea, “that it must help to lower the price of pepper in
Flanders. So much pepper is now going to Mecca [Jidda] from
Atjeh, that this year there was a surplus there, which was re-exported
to Gujarat.”*•

The Archbishop recommended that the harbours of Atjeh (and

particularly that of Kutaraja) should be blockaded for three succes¬
sive years by a naval force comprising four or five strong galleons
and twice as many galleys, carrying a thousand men under a
specially selected commander. This task-force would be based on
Malacca, and equally well placed to prevent any ships from leaving
Atjeh, to disrupt its maritime trade, and to intercept any Turkish
galleys coming from the Red Sea. This campaign would be much
simpler, cheaper, and more effective than the actual system of trying

21. Diogo do Coulo, Decada VIII, cap. 21; Encyclopedia of Islam (new ed., I960),
Vol. I, 743, quoting Ottoman archival sources. For the Turkish bronze cannon
brought to or cast in Atjeh at this period see the articles by K. C. Crucq in
the TijdschTift Dataviasche Genootschap, Vol. LXX1 (1941), pp. 545-552.
22. Studia, Vol. XIII (Lisboa, 1961), pp. 207-09 for the above and what follows.

421
II

PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

to intercept the ships from Atjeh in the Maidive channels or oft

the coast of the Hadramaut, which only happened by luck once in
while. An effective blockade of Kutaraja would completely ruin
the Atjehnese maritime trade and the Sultanate’s economy, thus
sapping the strength of this upstart coastal kingdom to such an
extent that its subsequent conquest would be easy. Rather sur¬
prisingly, the Archbishop argued that this conquest would be
greatly facilitated by the fact that the Atjehnese were merely “a
bunch of pirates and of all kinds of peoples, feeble and unwarlike”
(“hum ajuntamento de ladroes e de muitas castas, fracos e pouco
bellicosos”). Perhaps he was unduly influenced by the fact that
Sultan Ri'ayat Shah al-Kahhar’s long-planned attack on Malacca
had been decisively repulsed in 1568; but even so, virtually all other
contemporary Portuguese accounts are unanimous in stressing the
courage and bellicosity of the Atjehnese.

This project never materialised, and on the contrary it was the

Atjehnese who took the offensive again in the ensuing decade,
though they met with naval reverses in 1571 and 1577-78, and their
all-out attacks on Malacca in 1571-75 were again repulsed.-3 But
the Archbishop’s suggestions were probably largely responsible for
the projected division of Portuguese Asia into three separate
governments, which was decreed (though never implemented) by
the Crown in 1571. By the terms of this decree, Antonio Moniz
Barreto, one of the most experienced and successful Portuguese
conquistadores in the East, was made Governor-General of the
region between Pegu and China, with his seat at Malacca and the
task of containing or conquering Atjeh.24 He never took up this
post, and he refused to let anyone do so when he became governor-
general at Goa in 1573; but the idea of attacking Atjeh was never
lost sight of, as we know from Couto and other contemporary
sources. An interesting map of Kutaraja and its approaches, made
by the famous cartographer, Fernao Vaz Dourado, at Goa in 1568,
was specifically prepared for this abortive invasion, and it marks
the site where the Portuguese siege-batteries should be planted.26
Padre Alexandre Valignano, S.J., the great reorganizer of the Jesuit

23. Jorge do Lcmos, Hystoria dos cercos que em tempo de Antonio Monis Barreto,
Governador que foi dos F.stados da India, os Achens e Jjos puieram a fortaleza
de Malaca, sendo Tristao I'az da I'eiga Capitio della (Lisboa, 1585), J. M.
Margregor's article in JMBRAS, XXIX (1956), pp. 5-21; Marion Ehrhardt, Um
Opiisctilo Alemao do seculo XI'I sobre a historia portuguesa do Oriente (Frank¬
furt am Main, 1964), for details of the naval actions and sieges of Malacca
in 1570-1580.
24. Iliogo do Couto, Decada IX, cap. 1; G. H. Cunha Rivara (ed.), Archivo Port.
Or. Ill, p. 597.
25. Reproduced from the original in the collection of the Duke of Alba in A.
Cortesjo & A. Teixeira da Mota, Tabularum Geographicorum Lusitaniorum
Specimen (Lisboa, 1960), p. 16, and Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica, Vol.
Ill, p. 245.

422
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PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

missions in Asia during the last quarter of the 16th century, asserted
in his Sumario of 1579/80, that Malacca was “a very poor and small
thing (es cosa muy pequena y pobre), and would remain so unless
and until Atjeh was conquered.-0 A similar opinion was expressed
by Diogo do Couto in his "Dialogue of the veteran soldier”, written
about the same time, and to which further reference is made below.

Proposals for the invasion and conquest of Atjeh continued to

be discussed throughout the 1580's by the responsible authorities
at Lisbon, Coa, and Malacca; but in the upshot nothing concrete
came of them, as was duly noted by Linschoten in his Itinerario.
"It was long since concluded and determined by the King of
Portugal and his Viceroy, that the isle of Sumatra should be con¬
quered, and at this present there are certain captains, that to the
same end have the King’s pay, with the title of Generals and Chief
Captains, or Adelanludo of this conquest, but as yet there is nothing
done therein although they do still talk thereof but do it not.”27

The most enthusiastic advocate of the conquest of Atjeh, and

for that matter of the whole island of Sumatra, was Jorge de Lemos,
one-time Viceregal secretary at Goa, and author of the Cercos de
Malacca published at Lisbon in 1585. He reminded the Crown
that the rulers of Atjeh were actively negotiating with the Sultans
of Turkey with a view to mounting a combined offensive against
the Portuguese in Asia. Every year (so he said) richly laden ships
from Atjeh brought vast quantities of spices, gold and jewels, to
the Red Sea. The Turks had already supplied the Atjelmese with
bronze cannon of all calibres, as also with gunners, naval personnel,
and engineers capable of "fortifying and of besieging fortresses.”
The Sultan of Atjeh had even sent a sum of money sufficient to
cover double the estimated cost of the auxiliary Heet of Turkish
galleys lor which he had asked. If the Sultan of Turkey had not
yet complied wit!) this request, it was only because Turkish efforts
and resources were fully committed to fighting the Christian powers
in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean, and against the Persians
on the Mesopotamian front. But times might change; and the
Turks would then gladly supply the naval assistance which the
Atjelmese required.'-’8

forge de Lemos calculated (with evident exaggeration) that the

Sultan of Atjeh derived an annual income of three or four million

26. A. clc Silva, Rcgo, Documentafio, India, XII, 1572-1582 (Lisboa, 1958), pp.
514-16, 550-51; A.B. clc Sfi, Documentarfi), Insulindia, IV, pp. 155-56.
27. lohn Hughen van Linschoten, his Discours of Voyages into ye Easte and West
Indies (London, 1598), fls. 32-33. I have modernised! the spelling in the extract
in the text. Linschoten was Secretary to the Archbishop of Goa, 1584-88.
28. Jorge de Lemos, Hystoria dos cercos (Li9boa, 1585), Part III, fls. 1-64 for the
above and for what follows. Lemos also served as Escrivio da Faienda or
Secretary of the Treasuty at Goa in the 1590’s.

423
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PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

gold ducats from his trade with the Red Sea, “in return for the
30,000 or 40,000 quintals of pepper and other spices and merchan¬
dise which he sends there in his ships.” De Lemos also tried to
stimulate the royal cupidity by extolling the great actual wealth
and the still greater potential richness of Sumatra’s natural resources.
He claimed that these included great quantities of gold, camphor,
benzoin, cinnamon, ginger “better than that of Malabar”, sandal¬
wood, silk “like that of Persia”, and sulphur. Last not least, the
island “was naturally very healthy and well stocked with wild and
domesticated cattle.” Somewhat oddly, he added: “Sumatra is
such a wonderul thing, and contains such great riches .that I dare
to affirm (according to what many experienced old men related,
whom I overheard when they were conversing with the viceroy of
India) that it could well be considered as the equal of England, of
which the scriptures speak so highly.”-0 In a final flight of fancy,
Jorge de Lemos claimed that the conquest of Atjeh would give the
Spanish-Portuguese Crown the economic resources wherewith to
destroy not only "the Heresiarchs and their followers”, but to
recover all Christian territory lost to the Muslims (including
Jerusalem), and to overthrow the Ottoman Empire.

Coming down to earth in the last chapter of the Cercos (1585),

Jorge de Lemos argued that now was the time to launch an invasion
of Sumatra, since after the death of Sultan Ali Ri’ayat Shah or
Husayn (reigned 1571-1579), four or five years of confusion and
civil strife had ensued in Atjeh. An expeditionary-force of 3,000
men would probably be enough to ensure success, "as was agreed
in the reign of Dom Sebastiao.” If the present fleeting opportu¬
nity was neglected, and Atjeh was allowed to recover its unity and
strength, then the Sultan might easily “blockade the mouth of the
strait of Singapore, by which route our carracks sail to and from
China and Japan, and which is so narrow that the tips of their yards
touch the land on either side."30 This blockade would be all the
more effective if Atjeh got help from Johore. Malacca had only
survived its previous sieges by a series of miracles; but even
a merciful God could not be relied on to continue this benevolence
indefinitely, and Malacca would never be secure until Atjeh fell.
An almost hysterical note of urgency echoed through Jorge de
Lemos’ proposals for an attack on Atjeh; but there were not want¬
ing more soberly worded suggestions for this oft-projected campaign.
I need only mention two of them here. Dom Joao Ribeiro Gaio,

29. "...que se pode bem paragons com a lngiaterra, de que as escripturas canto
falam” (Cercos, ft. 61). Perhaps "lngiaterra" is a slip of the pen for some
biblical land of milk and honey.
30. For discussion as to what was meant by "the strait of Singapore" in the 16th-
century, sec Gibson Hill in JMBRAS, XXVII (1), pp. 163 214, and Macgregor
in JMBRAS, XXVIII (2), pp. 95 96 n.

424
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PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

Bishop of Malacca from 1581 to 1601, put forward some detailed

proposals in 1584, based partly on intelligence-reports which he had
received about Atjeh from Portuguese who had long been captives
there. He further suggested that this attack should be mounted in
cooperation with the Spaniards from the Philippines, where a
previous governor, Dr. Francisco de Sande, had already envisaged
such a move in 1578.31 As indicated above, Diogo do Couto, the
famous soldier-chronicler of Portuguese India, was another advocate
of the conquest of Atjeh, both in his Decadas and in his two versions
of the "Dialogue of the Veteran soldier”.3- Couto was more
cautious than Lemos, recommending that the expeditionary-force
should comprise 4,000 Portuguese soldiers, apart from sailors and
2,000 or 8,000 Indian auxiliaries, commanded by the viceroy in
person. It would be easy to quote other Portuguese advocates of
the conquest of Atjeh; but the point I wish to emphasize is that
not only did such proposals stress the ever-present threat to Malacca,
but they also pointed out that the Atjehnese spice-trade with the
Red Sea was undermining the Portuguese claim to the monopoly of
the "conquest, navigation, and commerce” of the Indian Ocean.
If these projects were not translated into action during the 16th-
century, it was because the government at Coa could not find the
necessary men and ships. This fact was ruefully admitted by an
anonymous commentator of 1582, apropos of the Javanese bringing
Moluccan spites to Atjeh, “which we cannot stop them doing, as
we have no fleet strong enough in those parts to prevent them”.33

Far from the Portuguese mounting an all-out attack on Atjeh

during the last decade of the 16th-century, this period witnessed a
decided, it temporary, relaxation of tension. Distracted by such
major European involvements as the revolt of the Netherlands, the
failure of the Spanish Armada, and the renewal of war with France,
the dual monarchy of Spain and Portugal had neither the time,
the money, nor the men to spare for adventures in Southeast Asia.
On the other hand, the Sultan Ala'al-Din Ri'ayat Shah who came
to the throne of Atjeh in or about the year 1588,34 alter several
years of civil turmoil, was so hard pressed at times by Johore, that
he could not afford to undertake any major campaign against
Portuguese Malacca. Dom Leonardo de Sa, the Bishop of China

31. "Denotero y Relacion que don joan ribero gayo obispo de Malaca hizo de las
cosas de acben para El Rey Nuestro Senor", d. Malacca, 1584, for which see
my article in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, April, 1950, pp. 4041.
32. Dinlogo do soldado pratico portuguei (ed. Lisboa, 1790), pp. 72-77; Diogo do
Couto: O Soldado Pritico (ed. M. Rodrigues Lapa, Lisboa, 1937), pp. 221, 224.
33. Apud J. Gentil da Silva, Alguns F.lementos para a histdria do comfrcio da India
de Portugal existentes na Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid (Lisboa, 1950), p. 31.
34. Reigned r. 1588-1604, and not to be confused with his earlier and near name¬
sake, Ala'al-Din Ri'Syat Shah al-KahhSr, c. 1537-1571, according to the table
given in the latest (1960) edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam, I, 743.

425
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PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

who was wrecked off Atjeh in 1587 on his way to Macao, was
detained for some years by the Sultan; but he was well treated and
eventually released with all save one of his surviving companions
in 1594.an The Sultan took this opportunity to try to effect
a rapprochement with the Portuguese; and though the viceroy
gave him no encouragement, the Crown ot Portugal, perhaps at
the prompting of the Goa Senate or municipal council, later repri¬
manded him tor neglecting this opportunity. The change from a
hot war to a cold one (as we would say nowadays) did not come
about immediately; and it was due more to mutual exhaustion,
and to greater preoccupations elsewhere, than to anything else.
Thus we find the Crown writing to the viceroy in March 15%,
that the peace with Atjeh should be utilised merely as a breathing
space betore launching the inevitable attack, which should lie
mounted as soon as an opportunity occurred. But two years later,
Lisbon changed its tune, and authorised the viceroy to maintain
friendly, if duly cautious, relations with Atjeh.au
At this period, the total amount ot pepper exported from Atjeh
was estimated by the Portuguese at "15,UU0 bares each year, each
bar being equivalent to three and a half quintals",:r‘ Unfortunate¬
ly, this report does not state how much ot this pepper was exported
to the Red Sea, and how much to other markets, such as China,
India, and even to Malacca itself, as some of it certainly was. But
even it we assume that Jorge de Lemos’ slightly earlier estimate
(1585) ot 40,000-50,000 quintals of pepper and other spices from
Atjeh to the Red Sea was exaggerated, it seems certain that the
Atjelmese were exporting much more pepper to Jidda at the end of
the century, than the Portuguese were taking round the Cape of
Good Hope to Lisbon.11* By this time, the Portuguese had aban¬
doned their efforts to intercept the ships Irom Atjeh bound for
Jidda. Willem Lodewijcks, one of the Dutch pioneers who visited
Atjeh, noted on his map published at Amsterdam in 1598: “We
should be able to drive a good trade in Aclieni: because they have

35. Biography of 1). Leonardo de Si in Manuel Teixeiva, Macau e a sua diocese,

Vol. 11 (Macao, 1940), pp. 86-88.
3fi. For lire telease of 1). Leonardo de S« and (he gradual rapprochement between
Portugal and Atjeh during the 1590's, see the relevant correspondence between
Lislxin and Goa printed in J. 11. da Cunha Rivara (ed.), Arcliivo Portugues
Oriental, Ill (Nova-Goa, 1861), pp. 276, 380-81, 597-98, 627, 669-70, 824, 848,
926, Ibidem, op. cit., I (1877), pp. 188; op. cil., II (34)- (35). Cf. also A. B.
de Si, Dorumenlafao. Insullndia, V (Lisboa, 1958), pp. 63, 189-90, 194-95 , 216-17.
37. Arcliivo Porluguei-Oriental, III, p. 627, Grown to Viceroy, Lisbon, March 1590.
38. V. Magalhjes Godinho, Os descobrimentos e n economia mondial, II (Lisbon,
1967), pp. 105-106, gives the figures for the amounts of pepper imported an¬
nually into Lisbon by the Cape route between 1587 and 1599. In the years
1592-98, they averaged only 9,110 quintals. Cf. also his remarks on the revival
of the Red Sea spice route in op. cil., pp. 164-171.

426
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PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

great store of pepper, which the ships from Suratte and Cambaye
come yearly to fetch and take to the Red Sea”.39
With regard to the shipping employed in this trade between
Atjeh and the Red Sea, it is ambiguously described in the contem¬
porary Portuguese sources as “Naos de Achem”, which means “great
ships of (or from) Atjeh”, and it is seldom clear from the context
whether “of” or “from” is intended. But the Atjehnese fleets
which so often attacked the Portuguese in the straits of Malacca were
almost entirely composed of oared craft and small swift sailing
vessels such as galleys and lane haras.in When larger junks and
merchant ships were employed, they had been pressed or embargoed
from Indian and other shipping in Atjehnese harbours. It is
virtually certain that the large and well-gunned merchant ships
which traded to Jidda were of Indian, Arabian, or Turkish origin.
In fact, the great majority, and perhaps all of them, were probably
Gujarati. The part played by the Gujaratis in the maritime trade
of Malacca before 1511 is well-known, and there are numerous if
scattered references to their presence in Atjeh during the period
with which we are concerned. It is evident from Couto and other
contemporary Portuguese sources, that Cambay, Surat, and other
Gujarati ports were directly concerned in the trade with Atjeh and
the Red Sea, with or without the Portuguese cartazes which they
were supposed to carry.
We have seen that Couto also remarks on the close resemblance
of these Gujarati “tall ships” (to use the English 16th-century
equivalent of naos de alto bordo) with the large Portuguese carracks
of the carreira da Indiu, which ranged between 500 and 2,000 tons.
He also mentions admiringly the “most beautiful great ship (nao)
called Rupiya, which is to say ‘the great silver ship’; for each year
she came from Mecca [= Jidda] with a great quantity of it, and with
many other riches, as it was the vessel in which the wealthiest mer¬
chants of the whole kingdom of Cambay embarked. And all of us
in the fleet thought that she was larger than any of the carracks
employed in the carreira da India,’**1 when he and his comrades
inspected this ship after her capture off Surat in 1560. W. H.
Moreland has shown that as early as 1507 an Arab merchant had
built a galleon in Portuguese style in Gujarat; and two years later
Albuquerque reported that Indian builders were imitating Portu-

39. Beschrijvinge vandc Slrnten ofte englen van Malacca endc Sunda met haer
omligghende Eylanden/Banchen/Ondiepten ende Sanden, reproduced in facsimile
on p. 32 of Collectie Dr. IV. A. Engelbrecht. Lof der Zeevaart, catalogue of an
exhibition held at the Maritiein Museum, Rotterdam, 1966-67.
40. For lancliaras and other types of ships used by the Atjehnese in the 16th-
century, see Godinho de Eredia's "Description of Malacca, Meridional India,
and Cathay”, as translated and annotated by J. V. Mills in JMBRAS, Vol. VIII
(Singapore, 1930), pp. 36-38, 158-162.
41. Diogo do Couto, Decada VII, Livro IX cap. 12 (fl. 201 of the 1616 edition!.

427
II

PORTUGUESE REACTIONS TO RED SEA SPICE TRADE

guese techniques in some of the ships which he found on the stocks

at Goa.4- There is no doubt but that Indian shipwrights continued
to incorporate or adapt European features in their own construc¬
tion, whenever they found it convenient to do so. For that matter,
the same applied to the masts and rigging, as Peter Muncfy noted
of the eight Indian ships which he saw on his visit to Atjeh in
1638. “Except a man knew what they were, he would hardly judge
them to be other than some Europe fleet by their form, beak-heads,
tops, rigging, etc.”43 I think it safe to suggest, therefore, that the
development of Atjeh’s spice-trade with the Red Sea was largely,
perhaps mainly, due to the initiative and cooperation of the
Gujaratis.

42. W. H. Moreland, "The ships of the Arabian Sea about A.D. 1500” (Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society, January fc April, 1939), pp. 179-181, quoting Gzspar
Correia and Femio Lopes da Castanheda.
43. R. C. Temple (ed.), Travels of Peter Mundy, 111, 1611-1618, Part II, p. 338
(London, Hak. Soc., ed. 1919). The Portuguese made extensive use of intliaii
shipwrights in their yards at Goa, Cochim, and Damjo, as the English did later
at Bombay, where Governor Oxendcn wrote as early as 1668: "here are many
Indian vessels that in shape exceed those that come, either out of England
or Holland”. W. Foster, ed., The English Factories in India, 1668-1669 (Oxford,
1927), p. 80.

428
 Ill

PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS

FOR THE CONQUEST OF SOUTHEAST ASIA,
1580—1600

It was, perhaps, natural that the spectacular successes of the Por¬

tuguese and Spanish conquistadores in the first half of the sixteenth
century should have bred in many of their compatriots the conviction
that almost any Asian kingdom—other than those of the Great Turk,
the Great Sophy, and the Great Moghul—could be conquered by a
small force of European soldiery. The union of the two Iberian Crowns
in 1580, which initiated the first world empire on which the sun never
set, naturally strengthened this conviction among those who held it,
despite the mutual dislike between Castilians and Portuguese, which
had bedevilled their relations at frequent intervals since the High
Middle Ages.1 Don John of Austria’s great victory at Lepanto in
1571, and the epic Portuguese defence of Goa and Chaul against over¬
whelming odds in the same year, inevitably enhanced Iberian self-
confidence. It is true that these prestigious successes were followed by
some humiliating reverses—the Spanish loss of Tunis in 1674, the
Portuguese surrender of Ternate to Sultan Baab Ullah in 1578, and
King Sebastian’s defeat and death at al-Ksar-al-Kebir in 1578. These
defeats could, however, convincingly be ascribed to the folly and
ineptitude of the commanders concerned. They did not shatter the
basic Iberian belief that God was on their side in conflicts with the
Infidel, who, with divine aid, would normally be smitten hip and thigh.
This militant crusading spirit which was still strong—though by
no means universal—in the Iberian Peninsula, and which was fostered
by continuous warfare with the Muslims of North Africa, was also
evinced in the tropical world of Southeast Asia during the last quarter
1 C. R. Boxer, “Spaniards and Portuguese in the Iberian colonial world:
aspects of an ambivalent relationship, 1680—1040,” 13-page reprint from
Salvador de Madariaga. Liber Amicorum (Bruges, 1967).
 Ill

PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS etc. 119

of the sixteenth century. Save for an abortive intervention by the

Spaniards in Cambodia (May—July 1596), the ambitious projects for
territorial expansion in the name of the Cross and the Crown which
were adumbrated at Manila, Malacca and Goa, came to nothing, for
reasons explained below. The subsequent arrival of the Dutch in Asian
seas sharply changed the balance of maritime power in this region.
Even the Iberian conquistadores with their tradition of reaching for the
moon, could no longer envisage the conquest of this region during the
decades in which they were locked in a desperate struggle with their
heretic foes.
Prior to the arrival of the Dutch in Malayan and Indonesian waters,
there had been for many years an uneasy balance of power between
the Portuguese at Malacca and the two Muslim Sultanates of Atjeh
and Johore. In other words, none of these three was able to inflict a
knock-out blow on either of the other two; nor did any peace or agree¬
ment which was concluded between them last for any length of time.4
So far as the Portuguese were concerned, their most dangerous oppo¬
nent was undoubtedly Atjeh, whose warlike Sultans, in the expressive
phrase of the soldier-ohronicler Diogo do Couto, never turned over in
their beds without thinking how they could encompass the destruction
of Malacca.8 The failure of their repeated attacks on this stronghold
seldom discouraged them; and during the second half of the sixteenth
century they made strenuous efforts to obtain technical military and
naval assistance from the rulers of the Ottoman empire. Turkish pre¬
occupation with wars in the Balkans, in the Mediterranean, and on
the Persian frontier, prevented the Sublime Porte from sending assist¬
ance on the scale that the Atjehnese desired. But at least two ships
carrying five hundred Turks, including gunfounders, gunners, and
military engineers reached Atjeh about 1567. Cannon, firearms, and
other war material came regularly in the four or five Gujarati ships
which traded annually between Jiddah and Atjeh. These supplies may
not have risen much above a trickle, but they were sometimes accom¬
panied by military personnel, and they helped to boost the Atjehnese
morale.
What alarmed the Portuguese as much or more than this Turkish
military assistance to their most redoubtable foe was the part played

a M. A. P. Meilink-Roelofsz, Asian Trade and European influence in the Indo¬

nesian archipelago, 1500—1630 (The Hague, 1962), pp. 139—143.
3 Diogo do Couto, Decada VIII, cap. 21.
Ill

120

by the Atjehnese in the revival of the Red Sea spice-trade, which had
become increasingly evident after the capture of Aden by the Turks
in 1538. Thirty-one years later, Dom Jorge Temudo, the Archbishop
of Goa, informed the Crown that the Sultan of Atjeh, in exchange for
the help which he was receiving from Turkey, was sending such vast
quantities of pepper to the Red Sea “that it must help to lower the
price of pepper in Flanders. So much pepper is now going to Mecca
[= Jiddah] from Atjeh, that this year there was a surplus there,
which was re-exported to Gujarat.” Since neither the Turks nor the
Atjehnese possessed larger vessels than galleys, this trade was carried
on by well-gunned Indian ships of from four hundred to six hundred
tons. They seem to have been built and operated mainly by Gujaratis,
though the crews were usually reinforced with Turkish and Atjehnese
warriors.4
Archbishop Temudo recommended (in 1569) that the harbors of
Atjeh, and particularly the riverine capital of that name,5 6 should be
blockaded for three successive years by an armada of four or five
strong galleons and twice as many galleys, carrying one thousand men
under a specially selected commander. This task-force would bo based
on Malacca, and thus equally well placed to prevent any ships from
leaving Atjeh, to disrupt its maritime trade, and to intercept any
Turkish galleys bringing help from the Red Sea. An effective blockade
would completely ruin the upstart Sultanate’s economy, and its sub¬
sequent conquest would be easy. In 1571 the Crown promulgated a
decree—which was never implemented—dividing Portuguese East
Africa and Asia into three separate governments, with their respective

4 C. ft. Boxer, “Portuguese reactions to the revival of the Red Sea spice
trade and the rise of Atjeh, 1540—1600”; A. J. S. Reid, “Sixteenth century
Turkish influence in Western Indonesia.” Two papers presented at the Fourth
International Conference on Asian History at Kuala Lumpur (August, 1968)
and now in the press there, give more details and further references. For the
wider implications see also W. E. E. Allen, Problems of Turkish power in
the sixteenth century (London, 1963), A. C. Hess, “The Moriscos: An Ottoman
Fifth Column in 16th-century Spain”, American Historical Review, LXXIV
(1968), pp. 1—26.
6 The Portuguese termed both the capital and the country “Achem” or
“Achin”. The Atjehnese themselves usually referred to the capital as Atjeh-
dar-es-salaam, and later as Kuta Raja. For old and modem nomenclature see
D. Lombard, Le Sultanat d'Atfih au temps de Iskandar Muda, 1607—1636
(Paris, 1967), pp. 9, 128.
 Ill

PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS etc. 121

headquarters at Mozambique, Goa, and Malacca. Antdnio Moniz

Barreto, one of the most experienced and successful conquistadores in
the East, was appointed governor-general of the Malacca region which
extended from Pegu to China, with the task of conquering or contain¬
ing Atjeh. He never took up this post, and he refused to let anyone
else do so when he became Governor-general at Goa in 1572. Some
people argued that priority should be given to the conquest and effec¬
tive occupation of Ceylon, where the Portuguese controlled only the
coastal regions. Diogo do Couto, in his Dialogo do Soldado Practico
(“Dialogue of the veteran soldier”), which was written at Goa about
this time, maintained that the conquest of both these places was
necessary. He further argued that an essential preliminary was the
conquest of the empire of Monomotapa, as the Portuguese called this
Bantu tribal confederacy in East-central Africa. This region was be¬
lieved to be very rich in gold and silver mines, whose exploitation
would provide the economic resources to finance these costly enter¬
prises.4
Padre Alexandre Valignano, S. J., the great reorganizer of the
Jesuit missions in Asia during the last quarter of the sixteenth cen¬
tury, asserted in his Sumario of 1579/80, that Malacca was but a
“very poor and small thing” (es cosa muy pequena y pobre), and would
remain so unless and until Atjeh was conquered. His views were shared
by Dom Joao Ribeiro Gaio, the Bishop of Malacca from 1581 to 1601,
who put forward some detailed proposals for the conquest of Atjeh in
1584. These proposals were chiefly based on an intelligence report
which he had recently received about Atjeh from a certain Diogo Gil,
who had been a prisoner there for many years, but who had enjoyed
considerable freedom of movement.* * 7 This report gives a detailed des¬
cription of all the beaches on the northern tip of Atjeh, near the river
leading to the capital, on which a disembarkation would be possible,
comparing their relative advantages and disadvantages. It also des-

• Diogo do Couto, Dialogo do soldado practico (ed. Lisbon, 1790), Pt. I,

p. 144. Ibidem, op. cit. (ed. Rodrigues Lapa, Lisbon, 1964), pp. 221—232.
7 “Derrotero y Relacion que Don Joan Ribeiro Gayo obispo de Malaca hizo
de lets cosas de Achen para El Rey Nuestro Seiior”, compiled at Malacca in
December 1684. The Portuguese original hets not been tretced, and my quota¬
tions are made from etn Ms. Spanish translation made at Manila c. 1690, for the
provenance of which see my article, “A late sixteenth century Manila Ms.,” in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society [London] April, 1960, pp. 40/41.
Ill

122

cribes the various routes by which a landing-party could reach the

city and the fortified enclosure surrounding the Sultan’s palace
(Dalam); and it suggests what tactics and what formations should
be adopted, and what degree of resistance might be expected.
Presumably echoing his informant’s views, Dom Joao Ribeiro Gaio
stated that the expeditionary-force from Goa should comprise at least
four thousand Portuguese, exclusive of mariners, auxiliaries, and
camp-followers. The armada should leave Goa in time to ensure its
arrival off Atjeh Head by mid-March at the latest, so that the whole
campaign could be concluded by the “moon of May, which is very
dangerous for shipping off that coast.” A feint disembarkation should
be made one evening at a beach nearly two leagues east of the river
mouth, whence a good path led to the city, and where the Atjehnese
expected a landing. The real landing would be at dawn next day on
the shore between “Coalasacan and Yndergit.”8 After describing the
route which the landing force should take to the king’s palace, the
bishop added piously that he would build a hermitage at the place
where the assailants effected an entry “in the name of Jesus and with
the war-cry of St. James, taking for intermediary and guide the most
holy Virgin Our Lady of Light,” to whom the building would be
dedicated.
It is evident from this “Derrotero y Relacion” of 1584, that though
the Sultan’s palace was situated in a fortified enclosure, this was not
very strong. The Atjehnese were well supplied with artillery, includ¬
ing one hundred large bronze guns, but they were nearly all dismounted
and lying on the ground, as John Davis found them sixteen years
later.9 The three hundred galley-type vessels would not have been
much use against a powerful Portuguese armada; and the real strength
of Atjeh consisted in the Sultan’s six hundred trained war-elephants
and in the fighting spirit of its thirty thousand fanatical Muslim
warriors. Apart from a very detailed plan of invasion and assault, this
episcopal project also gave a description of all the places along the
Sumatran coasts which acknowledged the overlordship of Atjeh. Like

8 Not identified, though “Coala” is presumably the Malay word “Kuala”,

as in Kuala-Lumpur.
* “. . . great store of brass ordnance which they use without carriages, shoot¬
ing them £is they lie upon the ground”, apud C. R. Boxer, “Asian Potentates
and European artillery in the 10th—18th centuries”, in Journal of the Malaysian
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XXXVIII (2), Singapore, 1906, p. 183.
 Ill

PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS etc. 123

other advocates of the conquest of Atjeh, the bishop stressed the

fertility of Sumatra and the wealth of its natural resources in pepper,
gold, benzoin, and other products. Dom Joao Ribeiro Gaio advocated
not merely the conquest of the whole island, but of Johore as well,
and likewise the recapture of Ternate. All this, he claimed, could be
done “in the monsoon which lasts from mid-March to mid-January.”
Carried away by his crusading enthusiasm, the bellicose bishop re¬
commended that the subjugation of Sumatra and Malaya should be
followed by the conquest of Siam, Cambodia, Cochinchina [= Vietnam]
and China. All these and many other beneficial results would flow
from the occupation of Atjeh; provided that the king sent out a care¬
fully selected viceroy, of the stamp of Afonso de Albuquerque and
Dom Joao de Castro, to command this expedition in person. King
Philip would then be lord of all the countries between India and Japan,
“which are the finest regions in the world. For they contain all the
riches, precious stones, and mundane merchandise, spices, and many
and great kingdoms and empires. And all this,” the bishop added with
his habitual optimism, “can be accomplished with four thousand men
and the expenditure of eight or nine hundred thousand cruzados.”10
Dom Joao Ribeiro Gaio’s proposals for the conquest of Southeast
Asia must have reached Madrid just about the same time as Jorge de
Lemos’ Hystoria dos cercos . . . de Malaca (“History of the sieges of
Malacca”) was published at Lisbon in 1585.* 11 Lemos was a senior
colonial official who held various high positions at Goa. He claimed to
have got much of his information from conversations between VIP’s
which he had overheard in the viceroy’s anteroom. He calculated
(with evident exaggeration) that the Sultan of Atjeh derived an annual
income of three or four million gold ducats from his trade with the
Red Sea, “in return for the thirty or fourty thousand quintals of
pepper and other spices and merchandise which he sends there in his
ships.” Like the bishop, Jorge de Lemos strove to arouse the royal
cupidity by dilating on the great actual wealth and the still greater
potential richness of Sumatra’s natural resources. After making a not

10 “Derrotero y Relacion”, fls. 127—129. The cruzado was worth about 4/-
English.
11 Jorge de Lemos, Hystoria dos cercos que em tempo de Antonio Monis
Barreto, Oovernador que foi dos Estados da India, os Achens e Jdos puzeram d
fortaleza de Malaca, sendo Tristdo Vaz da Veiga Capitao della (Lisboa, 1585),
a very rare work, of which only six or seven copies seem to be extant.
Ill

124

very valid comparison of Sumatra with England, “of which country

the Scriptures speak so highly,” Lemos claimed that the conquest of
Atjeh would give the dual Iberian Crown the economic resources for
a war wherewith to destroy not only “the Heresiarchs and their
followers,” but to recover all Christian territory lost to the Muslims
(including Jerusalem), and to overthrow the Ottoman empire. Jorge
de Lemos, even more sanguine than the bishop, argued that an ex¬
peditionary force of three thousand men would probably be enough
to ensure success—particularly since Atjeh had been seriously
weakened by internal dissensions after the death of Sultan Ali Ri’ayat
Shah in 1579. If, on the other hand, this favourable opportunity was
neglected, and Atjeh allowed to recover its unity and strength, then
the Sultanate might, in alliance with Johore, effectively blockade the
straits of Singapore, and even take Malacca itself. Malacca had been
preserved hitherto by a series of miracles, and it could never be secure
until Atjeh fell.
In the same year that Jorge de Lemos’ book appeared at Lisbon,
the Oidor or Chief Justice at Manila, Licentiate Melchor Davalos,
wrote to King Philip, urging him to order the expulsion of all Muslims
from the Philippines, or at least to subjugate them and force them to
pay tribute: “routing them all from Java, Sumatra, Atjeh, Borneo,
Mindanao, Jolo, the Moluccas, Malaya and Siam, and Patani and
Pegu, and other kingdoms where they venerate Mahomet, whose cult
and evil sect have been brought here by Persians, Arabs, Egyptians
and Turks, and there have even come here Moors from Tunis and
Granada.” Supporting his arguments with quotations from the Por¬
tuguese chroniclers, Joao de Barros and Jeronimo Osorio, as well as
the 47th chapter of Genesis, the Oidor flatly declared: “all the Muslims
in this utmost part of the earth are our sworn foes.” Turks were com¬
ing yearly to Sumatra, to Brunei and to Ternate, “where there are
now some of those who were vanquished by Don John of Austria” at
the famous battle of Lepanto. “And they also come to other islands
in the Moluccas, where they preach their sect and stir up the people
to make war on the Christians.” Recalling the forcible conversion or
expulsion of the Moors in Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, and the
Mameluke Sultan’s vain remonstrance against this barbaric into¬
lerance in 1505, Davalos alleged that many of the descendents of these
embittered refugees had found their way via the Red Sea to the
island-world of Southeast Asia. Since the Catholic Kings had rightly
 Ill

PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS etc. 126

oppressed and persecuted the Muslims in Spain, they would be even

more justified in conquering their descendents in Asia—or so Davalos
argued with somewhat lopsided logic.12
Proposals for the invasion and occupation of Atjeh continued to be
discussed throughout the 1580*8 by the responsible authorities at
Lisbon, Goa and Malacca; but in the upshot nothing came of them, as
was noted by Jan Huigen van Linschoten during his stay at Goa in
1584—88. “It was long since concluded and determined by the King
of Portugal and his viceroy, that the isle of Sumatra should be con¬
quered, and at this present there are certain captains, that to the same
end have the king’s pay, with the title of Generals and Chief Captains,
or Adelantado of this conquest; but as yet there is nothing done
therein, although they do still talk thereof but do it not.”13
A note of realism was introduced into this perennial discussion by
Francisco Rodrigues da Silveira, a soldier who served in the East
from 1585 to 1698, and who subsequently pestered the authorities at
Lisbon and Madrid with schemes for the moral, military, and ad¬
ministrative reform of Portuguese Asia.14 Rodrigues da Silveira was
in favour of making Ceylon rather than Goa the centre of Portuguese
power. He argued that for a maritime empire, an island base was
preferable to a landlocked one like Goa. Replying to those who advo¬
cated the conquest of Sumatra in preference to that of Ceylon,
Rodrigues da Silveira pointed out that although Sumatra was very
rich in natural resources, the inhabitants were ardent Muslims. There
was no possibility that they could ever be converted to Christianity,
whereas the Hindus and Buddhists of Ceylon might be—particularly
if “St. Thomas Christians” from the Malabar coast were used as
auxiliary troops and subsequently settled as colonists in the island.
In sharp contrast to the previously quoted writers, Rodrigues da
Silveira averred that the enmity of the Muslims was entirely due to
the tyrannous behaviour of the captains of Malacca, who strove to

12 Melchor D&valos, letter of 20 June 1685 in Colin, F., and P. Pastells, S. J.,
Labor Evangilica de los obreroa de la Compania de Jesus en las islas Filipinos
(3 vols., Barcelona, 1803/04), Vol. Ill, pp. 32—34.
18 Iohn Huighen van Linschoten, his Discours of Voyages into ye Easte and
West Indies (London, 1698), fls. 32/33. I have modernised the spelling in the
citation. Linschoten was secretary to the Archbishop of Goa, 1584—88.
14 British Museum, Additional Mss., 25, 419. Copious extracts were published
by A. de S. S. Costa Lobo, under the title of Memoriae de um soldado da India,
compUadas de um manuscripto Portuguez do Museu Britannico (Lisbon, 1877).
Ill

126

monopolise all the trade for their own profit. This was the real reason
why the Sultans of Atjeh and Johore attacked Malacca so often,
“and why they frequently stimulate the Sultan of Turkey to send
them military experts and masters of galleys, and [technicians] of
other weapons and war material.”16
Even before the union of the two Iberian Crowns in 1580, there
had been suggestions on both sides that they might combine their
forces in the East against their common enemies. Nothing came of
these proposals, but during the 1580’s the Spaniards at Manila sent
two expeditions to help the Portuguese in the Moluccas, although
their combined forces failed to retake Ternate. Unlike many, perhaps
most, of his countrymen, Dom Joao Ribeiro Gaio was an enthusiastic
advocate of such cooperation. His pro-Spanish proclivities earned him
a glowing testimonial from Luis P6rez Dasmarinas, interim Governor
of the Philippines in 1593—96. Dasmarinas described the bishop as:
“A prelate of holy zeal, and very desirous cf the glory of God and of
the service of Your Majesty and the common weal, and a person of
great experience and knowledge of these regions, and quite free of the
harmful points and pretensions of his nation.”16 This commendation
was made apropos of the Bishop’s project for the conquest of Patani
and Siam, which he suggested should be imdertaken simultaneously
with the invasion of Atjeh.
Dom Joao Ribeiro Gaio’s information about Patani was derived
from four Portuguese who had been there, though in what capacity
is not stated.17 According to them, the city was about a league and
a half in circumference and fairly well fortified with a stockade and
some bulwarks. The defenders disposed of about a thousand cannon
of all calibres, including “a very large culverin.” They were well pro¬
vided with excellent arquebuses of local manufacture. The houses were
all of wood with thatched roofs, including the mosques and the Sultan’s
palace. Patani contained a citizens’ militia of some four thousand men,
who could quickly be reinforced by twenty thousand men mobilised from

16 Memoriae de urn soldado da India, pp. 162/163.

16 Original in the author’s collection, fl. 146.
17 “Relacion quo hizo don Juan Ribeiro Gayo, obispo de Malaca con Antonio
Diez, Enrique Mendez, Francisco de las Nieves, Juan Serrano de las cosas de
Patani,” fls. 129—133, of the original Ms. in the author’s collection. The names
given here in their Spanish forms, should read Antdnio Dias, Henrique Mendes,
Francisco das Neves, and Jo6o Serrao, in Portuguese.
 PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS etc. 127

the peasantry in the surrounding district. The male inhabitants were

described as being fine, upstanding, and warlike men, and of a friendly
disposition. They had never been engaged in any hostilities with the
Portuguese. There was a foreign trading community of over three
thousand men in one of the suburbs, most of whom were Chinese from
Fukien and South China.18
As in the case of Atjeh, the Bishop’s informants gave detailed
advice about the suitability of the various beaches for disembarka¬
tion, and the way in which the attacking force and the supporting
artillery should be deployed. The enterprise should be timed for early
February if possible, “for nothing can be done in the winter months
of November, December, and January.” This report clearly implied
that Patani might prove a tough nut to crack, but it made no provi¬
sion for any casualties being suffered by the attacking force. On the
contrary, the Bishop seems to have ignored the possibility of any
casualties in his plan for the conquest of Patani and Siam, which he
outlined as follows.
At the same time as the projected Portuguese armada with an
expeditionary-force of four thousand men left Goa for Atjeh, another
two thousand men should leave Manila for the capture of Patani.
Half of this number would suffice to garrison this place, and the
remaining thousand would be launched against Siam, which would
easily be conquered as its people were unwarlike.19 From these greatly
enlarged bases in Southeast Asia, the Spaniards and Portuguese could
then proceed to conquer the city of Canton, “so rich and sumptuous,
and all those other regions of the South, which are many, and very
great and very wealthy. And thus His Majesty will be the greatest
lord that ever was in the world.” It was, however, important that
these simultaneous expeditions against Atjeh and Patani should be
mounted very soon. “For at present this enterprise can be accom¬
plished with only six thousand men who may be sent [from Europe]
to these parts, and in future it will need more, since these infidels are
becoming daily more powerful and expert in military arts.”

18 “. . . nesta povazon viven todos loa chinas y Chincheos y demas estrangeros

y naturales, qu© pasan de tree mil hombres, y todos buena gente” (fl. 129 of
the Ms.).
18 “Region y derrotero del Reyno de £ian para el Rey nuestro Sefior,”
As. 134—138 of the original Ms. in the author’s collection.
Ill

128

The Siamese capital of Ayuthia was described as being very large.

It was protected by a wall measuring over eight leagues in circuit,
“so that a man would have his work cut out to walk round it in two
days.” This wall was weakly built of earth and brick, and could easily
be breached at many places, especially at points where the numerous
canals entered the city. Some of the bastions were provided with
guns, but they were lying on the ground, and the Siamese did not
know how to cast cannon. The buildings were all of wood or bamboo,
save for some twenty or thirty brick houses, built by wealthy mer¬
chants as a precaution against fire. “There would be about thirty
thousand householders in this city, but they are a weak people who
don’t know how to fight. It is therefore ill-fortified and can be entered
anywhere without much resistance, as the people are cowardly and
physically feeble.” Buddhist temples were numerous, and the priests
were held in great esteem, “enjoying the best that the land pro¬
duces.”
The Bishop (or his informants) waxed lyrical over “this kingdom
of Siam, which contains everything that is needed to sustain human
life, and in such abundance.” It was the rice-granary for neighbouring
countries, save only Cambodia. More than three hundred junks from
Malayan and Indonesian ports entered the river Menam annually.
There was also a flourishing trade with China, mainly in gold for
sappan-wood. The kingdom abounded in cattle and deer, the export-
trade in hides amounting to some thirty or forty thousand yearly,
“to Japan and other parts.” All provisions were exceedingly cheap,
and a large cow cost only about a cruzado. There was likewise a big
export-trade in indigo (twenty thousand tinajas or large earthen jars
per annum), benzoin, coarse cloth, and sappan-wood, “which is the
brazilwood wherewith the whole of India, China, and Japan are
supplied.” Siam was (allegedly) more abundant in timber suitable for
shipbuilding than was any other country “at the present time.” Every
day was a market-day, and the streets and canals were always thronged
with buyers and sellers. The river Menam was deep and navigable for
ships and large junks drawing eighteen spans of water. The Siamese
would be taken completely by surprise by an expeditionary force
which appeared off the bar, and whioh would have time to sail up the
river and attack the city before the king could be informed of its
approach. The only military technique in which the Siamese were
formidable, was in the manufacture of arquebuses, “which are made
 Ill

PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS etc. 129

in Siam better than in Goa, for our sins,” as the Bishop regretfully
reported.20
When advocating the conquest of Patani and Siam in 1584, Dom
Joan Ribeiro Gaio offered no excuse for this unprovoked aggression,
save that the subjugation of Southeast Asia would make King Philip
the richest and the most powerful sovereign in the world. Ten years
later, he and his sympathizers at Manila had found a suitable pretext
in the real or alleged atrocities committed by the Siamese monarch,
Preah Nareth, the “Black King,” as he was commonly termed by
contemporaries. He was accused of being “a great enemy of the
Christians and of the Name of Jesus and His Holy Cross. He has
made himself very powerful, arrogant and cruel.” It was vital for the
service of God and of His Majesty, and the welfare of the Spanish
and Portuguese possessions, that the “Black King” should be de¬
stroyed in the most ruthless manner.
Both the Bishop of Malacca and the governor of the Philippines
were convinced by this time that the Portuguese authorities at Goa
were not strong enough to intervene effectively in Southeast Asia.
They therefore urged that an expedition should be mounted from
Manila, in order to conquer Siam with the aid of its hereditary rivals,
Burma and Cambodia, both of which had suffered severely at the
hands of the “Black King.” If further justification was needed, it
could be found in the sadistic tortures with which he had executed
several Portuguese and Spaniards, as well as Cambodian prisoners,
and those of his own subjects who displeased him. These tortures in¬
cluded boiling them alive in oil, tearing out their flesh with pincers,
and trampling them to death under the feet of elephants. The Siamese
themselves were alleged to be disaffected with his rule, which was more
like that of a devil than a man. They would welcome almost any alter¬
native, and not least a Spanish conquest, which would enable them
to live in peace and security with their lives and property, “something
which everyone desires, and which they now lack completely.”21
Luis Perez Dasmariiias compiled at Manila a bulky dossier of evi¬
dence in support of his contentions. Carried away by his enthusiasm,

30 “Region y derrotero del Reyno de £ian”, fl. 136.

n Original Ms. in the author’s collection, fl. 144; “Auto de las crueldades
del Rey de Sian”, original Ms., Kong-hai (South China) January 1600, in the
author’s collection. For a summary of this and other relevant Mss. in English,
see Maggs Bros., Catalogue N° 515 (London, 1929), items 6 and 6, pp. 21—27.
Ill

130

he claimed that one thousand or even five hundred Spaniards would

suffice as the core of the expeditionary-force, which could be supple¬
mented with Filipino auxiliaries. It would not be necessary to send large
reinforcements from Spain and Mexico, but merely some additional mi¬
litary equipment, such as muskets, arquebuses, coats of mail and hel¬
mets, “for there is great want of these in the Philippines and in New
Spain."22 The projected conquest of Siam was by now closely linked
to schemes for Spanish intervention in Cambodia. These projects briefly
matured in May 1596, with the expedition which sacked the Cambo¬
dian capital of Srei Santhor and lulled the usurping king, Chung Prei.
The story of this expedition and of the romantic careers of the two
adventurers largely responsible for it, the Portuguese, Diogo Veloso,
and the Spaniard, Bias Ruiz de Hernan Gonzalez, has often been told,
and there is no need to describe the details here.23 It suffices to recall
that the expeditionary force originally comprised three small ships
and one hundred twenty Spaniards, under the command of Juan
Juarez Gallinato. One of the vessels was wrecked at the mouth of the
Mekong, and the flagship was forced off course and put into Malacca
before continuing the voyage. The capture of Srei Santhor was effected
by those in the remaining ship, in which were Veloso, Hernan Gon¬
zalez, and an adventurous Dominican friar, Diego Aduarte. When
Gallinato reached Pnom-penh after the sack of Srei Santhor and the
death of Chung Prei, he refused to continue the campaign and set sail
for Manila in July. The failure of this expedition did not discourage
Dasmarinas, Aduarte, and other hotheads at Manila, who continued
to bombard Madrid with projects for the conquest not merely of Cam¬
bodia, Champa24 and Siam, but of Canton and South China as well.

22 fl. 146 of the original Ms. in the author’s collection.

23 B. P. Groslier & C. R. Boxer, Angkor et le Gambodge au XVIe si&cle d'apria
lea aourcea portugaiaes et espognolea (Paris, 1968), pp. 34—62, with full references
to all previous accounts and the vast literature on this subject.
24 . . venga primero a dar en Champan, amparo de todo el latrofinio,” as
Fr. Gregorio de la Cruz, O. F. M., wrote to Luis P6rez Dasmarifias, 24 Sept.
1694 (fl. 144 of the original Ms. in the author’s collection). A junta of theolo¬
gians held at Manila in August 1696, voted that “the tyranical king of Champa”
could justly be punished with “a war of fire and blood” (con una guerra a fuego
y aangre). Cf. the English summaries of these proceedings in Maggs Bros.,
Catalogue N° 515 (1929), item 2, pp. 2—4, and in Carlos Quirino, “The first
Philippine expedition to Indochina,” a paper presented to the International Con¬
ference on Asian history at Kuala Lumpur in August 1908, and now in the press.
 Ill

PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS etc. 131

Dasmarinas, accompanied and advised by the indefatigable Fr.

Diego Aduarte, mounted another expedition in 1598 to aid Cambodia,
where the rightful king, Barom Reachea II, had been restored to his
throne by the efforts of Veloso and Hernan Gonzalez. This expedition
was even more unlucky than the first. Out of three small ships, one
was lost with all on board in a storm soon after leaving Manila. The
flagship, with Dasmarinas and Aduarte, was driven ashore on the
Kwangtung coast near Macao. The famished castaways subsequently
had to beat off attacks by the Portuguese, and Aduarte had to endure
the rigours of a Chinese jail at Canton, before the survivors eventually
got back to Manila in the year 1600. Only the third vessel reached
Cambodia, where those on board made contact with Veloso and Hernan
Gonzalez. They later became involved in a dispute with the local
Malay colony, and most of them were killed in July 1599.25
The end of the sixteenth century witnessed the end of armed Spanish
intervention in Indochina for the next 250 years; but Dasmarinas and
his supporters continued to urge their bellicose projects on a reluctant
court at Madrid, until the former was slain in the “Sangley” (Chinese)
rebellion of 1603. His death, incidentally, was directly due to his
contempt for the Chinese as fighters. He insisted on attacking a
greatly superior foroe of Sangleys, and when one of his captains remon¬
strated at this rashness, he accused him of trying to “chicken-out”
(“que gallina le avia cantado al oydo?”), and retorted that twenty-five
Spaniards were enough to conquer the whole of China. Some of these
proposals achieved the dignity of print, such as the Memorial of Pedro
Sevil published in 1603, and the Relacion Breve y Verdadera of Fr.
Gabriel Quiroga de San Antonio, O. P., published in 1604.29 But neither
Philip III nor his favourite and prime minister, the Duke of Lerma,
possessed the conquistador spirit, and Dutch maritime expansion was
becoming their chief colonial preoccupation. Those who criticised these

25 Aduarte’s own version of these events in his Historia de la Provincia del

Sancto Roaario de la Orden de Predicadorea en Philippinaa, Iapon, y China
(Manila, 1640), Pt.I.fls. 207—228, 239—246, 259—262,283—288; Ibid., op.cit.,
Pt. II, fls. 378—394.
29 Both edited by A. Cabaton, Br&ve et viridique relation des evenementa du
Cambodge par Gabriel Quiroga de San Antonio (Paris, 1914), and Le M4morial
de Pedro Sevil d Philippe III sur la conqulte de Vlndochine (Paris, 1916). For
the death of Luis P5rez Dasmarinas, see Bartolom5 Leonardo de Argensola,
Conquista de laa ialoa Molucoa (Madrid, 1609), pp. 321/322.
Ill

132

ambitious proposals, such as Dr. Antonio de Morga, Oidor at Manila in

1595—1602, were read with more attention. Subsequent projects for
the conquest of all or part of Southeast Asia, such as those submitted
by the Count of Bailen in 1602, were either flatly rejected or else
quietly shelved.
The still more ambitious suggestions for the conquest of China had
been turned down by the government at Madrid even earlier. Their
principal advocate was the restless, intriguing Jesuit, Fr. Alonso
Sanchez, who secured much support for his fantastic projects at
Manila. He had the misfortune to arrive with his detailed proposals
at Madrid, just about the same time as the shattered remnants of the
Invincible Armada returned to Spain in 1588. Moreover, his proposals
were severely criticised by some of his own colleagues, including Padre
Alexandre Valignano, and the celebrated Padre Jose de Acosta. His
schemes were pigeonholed at Madrid, but, as we have seen, similar
suggestions continued to be advanced by people at Manila who should
have known better, down to the end of the sixteenth century.27 In
1697, we find Luis Perez Dasmarinas and Hernando de los Rios Coronel
arguing that it was essential to occupy Formosa, both in order to fore¬
stall the Japanese and as a preliminary to securing a foothold on the
mainland of Asia. They claimed that Siam could be conquered
with one thousand men, Champa with three hundred, and Cochin-
china [= Vietnam] with fifteen hundred. “And thus beneath the
shelter and protection of the Spanish flag, the ministers and preachers
of the Holy Gospel would be able to convert souls, while extirpating
idolatry and Islam.“28 The Spanish historian, W. E. Retana, has
termed Los Rios Coronel the leading intellectual of his time in the

27 For Sdnchez’s scheme for the conquest of China and related projects, see
my Christian Century in Japan, 1549—1650 (California University Press, 1951,
1967), pp. 257—259, 484, and the sources there quoted; L5on Bourdon, “Un
projet d’invasion de la Chine par Canton h la fin du XVIe sidcle”, in Actas do
III Coloquio Intemaeional de Estudos Luso-Brasileiros, Vol. II (Lisboa, 1960),
pp. 97—121. For Jos6 de Acosta’s criticisms see L. Lopetegui, S. J., El Padre
Jos6 de Acosta S. J. y las misiones (Madrid, 1942), pp. 461—485.
28 “. . . y bajo la sombra y amparo de la bandera espanola los ministros y
predicadores del Santo Evangelio podian convertir las almas, destruyendo la
gentilidad y el mahometanismo . . apud D. Pedro de Torres y Lanzas & Pablo
Pastells, S. J., Catdlogo de los documentos relativos a las islas Filipinos existentes
en el Archivo de Indias de Sevilla (9 vols., Barcelona, 1925—1936), Vol. IV (1928),
pp. Ixxxiii—lxxxiv.
 PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS etc. 133

Philippines.29 He was certainly a competent navigator and carto¬

grapher, but his sense of proportion evidently left something to be
desired.
It will be clear from the foregoing that the grandiose illusions of
Dasmarinas and Los Rios Coronel were widely shared, nor was such
optimism anything new. Some Portuguese prisoners lying loaded with
chains in Canton jail in 1634—36, had managed to smuggle out letters
addressed to their fellow-countrymen, explaining how a small force of
Portuguese with some Malabar auxiliaries could invade the Pearl
River, capture Canton and part of South China. As the English trans¬
lator and editor of these letters commented: “When one remembers
the absolutely helpless condition in which the writers were at the time
when they penned these letters, the full details which they furnish for
the capture by the Portuguese of Canton and a large part of China
itself, and their remarks concerning the ease with which the Chinese
could be conquered, read somewhat strangely.”30 Similarly, Luis P4rez
Dasmarinas and his ragged castaways on a beach in Kwangtung, with
virtually nothing to eat except seaweed and shellfish, still found time
(and pens, ink, and paper) to draw up fantastic schemes for the con¬
quest of Siam and Indochina.31 Many other examples could be given
of this overweening self-confidence, which, if it involved the Spaniards
and Portuguese in many disasters, was also largely responsible for
many of their victories.
Lack of numbers seldom worried the authors of these ambitious
schemes. During the last quarter of the sixteenth century, there were
never more than a few hundred able-bodied Spaniards (including
Mexicans and Mestizos) available for service at Manila. A census
taken in 1584 gave a total of 713 Spanish men throughout all the
Philippine Islands, and there were insufficient firearms and other
weapons for all of these. Manila could only muster 329 men of all
ages (“entre viejos y mozos”), and most of the sixty-four Spanish
sailors then at Cavite were unarmed. In 1689, Philip II fixed the mili-

29 “. . . El primer intelectual que hubo en el Archipelago en su tiempo. Fud

cart6grafo, inventor, ndutico, etc.” (Sucesos de las Islas Filipinos por el Dr.
Antonio de Morga, ed. W. E. Retana, Madrid, 1909), p. 663.
30 Donald Ferguson, Letters from Portuguese captives in Canton, written in
1534 and 1536 (Bombay, 1902), especially pp. 144—166.
31 “Auto de las crueldades del Rey de Sian,” Ms. of 1600 in the author’s
collection, signed twice by Luis Pdrez Dasmarinas.
Ill

134

tary establishment of the Philippines at a total of four hundred paid

Spanish soldiers. Drafts of one or two hundred men arrived yearly
from Mexico, but they were usually ill-equipped, and their numbers
barely served to replace the annual wastage from death, desertion,
and disease. The Bishop of Manila reported in June 1588, that the
city contained only eighty Spanish householders (vecinos), fifty of
whom were married with European women and the others with Fili-
pinas. He added that there were usually about two hundred soldiers
billeted on the citizens, or in the nearby native villages, most of whom
were very poor and had to beg their bread.82 It was a similar story at
Malacca, where there were very rarely as many as five hundred Por¬
tuguese available for service, and usually less than a couple of hundred.
The wastage from death and disease in this unhealthy stronghold was
certainly higher than that at Manila.83
Although Diogo do Couto and the more responsible advocates of an
attack on Atjeh considered that at least four thousand Portuguese
soldiers would be needed for this purpose, the government at Goa
could never muster so many at any one place or time. The armada
of the Viceroy, Martini Afonso de Castro, which finally launched the
oft-proposed invasion of Atjeh in May 1606, was manned by jthre^
3012 men, of which 2392 were apparently white (or Eurasian) soldiers,
and 227 sailors.34 The expedition was a failure, as the Viceroy delayed
his disembarkation for several days after his arrival off the bar of
Atjeh, so the defenders had time to mobilise their forces and they put
up a stiff resistance to the landing. The Portuguese could only estab¬
lish a very narrow beachead; and the Viceroy was glad enough when
he received news that the Dutch were besieging Malacca, thus enabling

32 Documents published in Colin, S. J.,—Pastells, S. J., Labor Evangelica,

Vol. II, pp. 674—682, and Lanzas-Pastells, S. J., Gatalogo, Vol. II (1926),
p. ccxlvi. Argensola and other authorities claim that G6mez P^rez Dasmarinas
took 1,000 Spaniards with him on his abortive expedition to the Moluccas in
1593, but I doubt this.
83 Cf. J. M. Maegregor’B article in JMBRAS, Vol. XXVIII (2), p. 6. The
figures he gives there are much the same as those extant for the period 1680—
1600.
34 “Rela9&o da armada do visorey dom Martim Afonso de Castro que foy ao
Sul,” sent by Diogo do Couto to the Count of Vidigueira, 20 December 1606,
apud C. R. Boxer & Frazao de Vasconcelos, Andri, Furlado de Mendonfa,
1558—1C10 (Lisboa, 1966), pp. 131—133.
 Ill

PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH PROJECTS efco. 135

him to reembark his men and sail away without too much loss of
face.85
As indicated above, both the Portuguese and the Spanish advocates
of these invasion projects, though often men with many years ex¬
perience of tropical warfare made no allowance whatever for the
inevitable wastage from disease and desertion, let alone the casualties
suffered in battle. When asking, as they did, for two or four thousand
men to be sent from Europe, they invariably assumed or implied that
the same number would be available for service in Southeast Asia
after a voyage halfway round the world. This was patently absurd,
particularly as regards the Portuguese. Often as much as half or a
third of the men who yearly embarked at Lisbon, died on the six or
eight months’ voyage to “Golden Goa,” where the death-rate from
malaria and dysentery was also alarmingly high.86
It is true that in some of these projects, though by no means in all
of them, it was argued that the paucity of European soldiers could be
remedied in part by the use of Asian auxiliaries. Vasco Calvo had
advocated the employment of Malabar Nairs for his projected invasion
of South China in 1536. Rodrigues da Silveira had urged the enlistment
of “St. Thomas Christians” for the conquest and colonization of Ceylon.
Padre Alonso Sanchez S. J., (and others in his wake) strongly advised
the recruitment of Japanese Christians as well as Filipinos for the con¬
quest of China. Dasmarinas and others considered that the Khmers of
Cambodia would help the Spaniards against the Siamese, and in this
they may have been right. They were, however, quite wrong in their
assumption that the Cambodians could easily be converted to Chris¬
tianity. The Spaniards used Filipino auxiliaries in their Molucca
garrisons from 1606 to 1662; and their Filipino troops played a lead¬
ing role in the capture of Saigon by a Franco-Spanish expeditionary
force in 1858, which inaugurated the French empire in Indoohina.
Both Portuguese and Spaniards placed greater reliance on those Asians
who were Christian converts, as explained by the Jesuit chronicler,
Fernao Guerreiro: “Because as many heathen as are converted to

35 Rodrigues da Silveira’s version printed from the original in the BM,

add. Mss. 26, 419, in C. R. Boxer & Fraz&o de Vasconcelos, op. cit., pp. 147—
162; Fernao de Queiros, S. J., Vida do Venerdvel Irmdo Pedro de Baeto (Lisboa,
1689), pp. 334—344.
» C. R. Boxer, The Tragic History of the Sea, 1589—1622 (Cambridge, 1969),
pp. 1—30, and the sources there quoted.
Ill

136

Christ, just so many friends and vassals does His Majesty’s service
acquire, since they later fight for the State [of India] and the Christians
against the heathen.”37 In other words, reliance could be placed on a
Christian fifth-column.
The reader of these projects, and I have only discussed a few of them
here, will notice how often and how closely God and Mammon go hand
in hand. Some of the staunchest advocates of Iberian militant im¬
perialism were mitred prelates, and others were self-sacrificing missio¬
nary friars and Jesuits. There is no need to doubt the sincerity of
their religious zeal; but their concern for the material interest of their
respective Crowns was almost equally great. Diogo do Couto correctly
observed: “the kings of Portugal always aimed in this conquest of
the East at so uniting the two powers, spiritual and temporal, that
the one should never be exercised without the other.”88 This concern
for the union of the interests of church and state was equally true of
the Castilian kings. The great majority of their subjects, whether
Portuguese or Spaniards, shared the same conviction. This ideology
helps to explain why a genuine desire for the salvation of immortal
souls was often accompanied by a determination to secure the material
wealth of lands lying beyond the pale of Christendom.

37 Fem&o Guerreiro, S. J., Relacdo Anual, 1602—03 (Lisboa, 1605) Bk. Ill,
ch. 23.
88 Diogo do Couto, Decada VI, Bk. IV, ch. 7.
 IV

THE ACHINESE ATTACK ON MALACCA

IN 1629, AS DESCRIBED IN
CONTEMPORARY PORTUGUESE SOURCES

Sir Richard Winstedt in his ‘A History of Malaya’, JMBRAS xm.

1 (I935)> 84-85, has a brief reference to the great Achinese attack on
Malacca in 1629, taken from a contemporary English source. Since I
cannot find any fuller account of this campaign in any more recent
work in English, it is perhaps worth while listing the principal Portuguese
sources and publishing in translation three of the most authoritative.
Lack of space prohibits the publication of the fullest, which is number 5
of those listed below; but, on the other hand, the three which are printed
here include the official reports of the two Portuguese commanders and
a narrative compiled at Goa from the first dispatches which reached the
Indo-Portuguese capital. They therefore give the essence of the Portu¬
guese side of the story, and I have further indicated where some con¬
temporary Dutch and English accounts can be found. Being ignorant of
Malay and Arabic, I cannot say whether there is any Muslim narrative
which gives us the viewpoint from ‘the other side of the hill’; but as
there were so few survivors of the Achinese expeditionary force, it may
be doubted whether any reliable contemporary account exists. Readers
may note, however, that while the earliest Portuguese narratives, trans¬
lated under (b) and (c) below, gratefully acknowledge the help given to
the besieged by the Sultan of Johore and the Queen of Patani, Padre
Manuel Xavier, S.J.’s Vitorias of 1633, which forms the basis of all
subsequent versions, deliberately plays down the assistance given by
Portugal’s Islamic allies at this crisis in the eventful history of Malacca.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

i. Dispatch of Nuno Alvares Botelho to the Governor of Portuguese

India, d. Malacca 8 December, 1629.
Original in the Arquivo Histdrico do Estado da India (hereafter
referred to as AHEI), Goa, ‘Livro das Mon9oes do Reino, Nr. 14,
1630-1631*, fl. 245. Printed by J. H. da Cunha Rivara, O Chronista
IV

106 The Achinese Attack on Malacca in i62g

de Tissuary, i (Nova Goa, 1866), 12-13; and by Panduronga
Pissurlencar, Assentos do Conselho do Estado da India, I, 1618-1633
(Goa-Bastord, 1953), 501, together with a photographic facsimile,
whence the English translation which I give below (a).
2. Relafam da grande vitoria que os Portugueses alcansaram contra El
Rey do Achem no cerco de Malaca, dotide Ihe destruirao todo seu
exercito, & Ihe tomarao toda sua Armada. Soube-se por cartas
a Goa em 28 de Fevereiro de 630. [colophon] com todas as licenfas
necessarias. Em Lisboa. Por Pedro Craesbeeck Impressor del Rey.
Anno 1630. Two unnumbered leaves, folio.
Reprinted in Ernesto Donato (ed.), Ineditos da Biblioteca Geral
da Universidade de Coimbra. Miscelanea (Coimbra, 1924), 118-20.
Exceedingly rare pamphlet which is translated in full from the copy
in my own possession (b).
3. Dispatch of Antonio Pinto da Fonseca, Captain-General of Malacca,
to the Governor of Portuguese India, d. Malacca, 19 February 1630.
Original in the AHEI, Goa, ‘Livro das Monroes do Reino’, no. 14,
1630-1, fls. 357 et seq. Printed by Cunha Rivara, Chrotiista, 9-12;
and Pissurlencar, Assentos, 506-10, whence the English translation
which I give below (c).
4. Avisos delfeliz sucesso de las cosas espirituales, y temporales en diversas
provincias de la India, cottquistas, y navegaciones de los Portugueses
por los ahos 1628, y i62g. [colophon]. Em Lisboa. Por Mathias
Rodrigues. Anno de 1630. Eight unnumbered leaves, small 410.
Exceedingly rare little work, of which I know of only one other
copy besides my own. It contains a two-page account (fls. A3
verso-A4 recto) of the 1629 Malacca campaign, but adds nothing
to the details given in the other and fuller narratives listed here.
The anonymous compiler was evidently a Jesuit, since his principal
sources of information were Jesuit missionary letters from the East.
5. Manuel Xavier, S.J., Vitorias do Governador da India Nuno Alvarez
Botelho. Por, 0 Padre Manoel Xavier da Companhia de lesus. A
Matioel Severim de Faria, Chantre, & Cotiego da Sancta Se de Evora
Anno 1633. Com todas as licenfas necessarias. Em Lisboa. Por
Antonio Alvarez. Small 4m, 4 prelim, unnumbered leaves -f- 34
numbered leaves of text.
The author explains in his dedicatory preface to Manuel Severim
de Faria, dated Goa, 8 February 1632, that he has compiled this
detailed narrative from the various relations of the 1629-30 cam¬
paigns which he had received from Malacca. This is the fullest
contemporary Portuguese account, too lengthy for reproduction
here, and it served as the basis of all those published subsequently.
 IV

From Contemporary Portuguese Sources 107

6. Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Asia Portuguesa (3 vols., Lisboa, 1666-75),

iii- 4o6~9> 434-46-
This version is merely a rehash of Manuel Xavier, S.J., Vitorias,
with the addition of some moral reflections and digressions by
the author. There is an abridged English translation of the Asia
Portuguesa by Captain John Stevens, published at London in
3 vols., 1695. Despite the fact that Faria e Sousa was confessedly
only a compiler and had no personal knowledge of Asia, most
English writers lean heavily on him through their ignorance of
Portuguese. Cf., for example, F. C. Danvers, The Portuguese in
India (2 vols., London, 1894), ii. 229-35, where the account of the
Malacca campaign is taken from Faria e Sousa without the slightest
acknowledgement.

7. Fernao de Queiros, S.J., llistoria da vida do veneravel Irmao Pedro

de Basto coadjutor temporal da Companhia de Jesus e da variedade de
sucessos que Deos Ihe manifestou (Lisboa, 1689).
Pp. 361-5 narrate the Malacca campaign of 1629, but add nothing
to the information given in the foregoing accounts save for the
description of a prophetic vision of Fr. Pedro de Basto, S.J.

8. Cunha Rivara, Chronista, i. 6-20. This well-documented article,

‘Victoria de Nuno Alvares Botelho em Malaca, 1629’, prints in
extenso the dispatches listed under nos. 1 and 3 above, as well as
other relevant documents from the ‘Livros das Monroes do Reino’,
vols. 13-15 (1629-32), in the Goa archives.

9. Pissurlencar, Assentos, I, 1618-33, 272-83, 501-21.

Prints the dispatches listed under nos. 1 and 3 above, as well
as a number of other contemporary documents in the Arquivo
Historico do Estado da India at Goa, which are relevant to the
Malacca and Sumatra campaigns of 1629-30.

10. Alfredo Botelho de Sousa, Subsidios para a llistoria militar-maritima

da India, 1383-1669 (4 vols., Lisboa, 1930-56); III, 1618-1635
(1953). 424-8- .
This account is based primarily on those listed under nos. 1, 3,
5, and 7 above, to which it adds nothing new. The author died
after completing the fourth volume of his work, which carries the
story down to 1650.

11. Studia. Revista Semestral, (7 vols., Lisboa, 1958-61; in progress),

vi (i960), 75-77.
Part of a serial article by Alberto Iria, Elementos de estudo
acerca de posslvel contribui'^ao portuguesa para a organiza9ao do
Museu Historico de Malaca’, listing relevant documents for the
IV

108 The Achinese Attack on Malacca in 1629

Malacca campaign of 1629 in the Arquivo Historico Ultramarino

at Lisbon. The documents calendared here have, with two important
exceptions (nos. 480 and 483), already been printed in vol I of
Pissurlencar’s Assentos, q.v.
12. Some check on these Portuguese sources can be obtained from
contemporary Dutch and English published records, such as those
calendared or quoted in P. A. Tiele-J. E. Heeres, Bouwstoffen voor
de geschiedenis der Nederlanders in den Maleischen Archipel, II Deel
(The Hague, 1890), 166-73; N. MacLeod, De Oost-Indische Com-
pagnie als zeemogendheid in Azie (2 vols., and atlas, Rijswijk, 1927),
i. 347-49, where reference is made to the publication of Gijsbert
Hecq’s journal for 1629-30 (in the Marineblad of 1 August 1910)
which contains many details over Achin and Johore in those years,
but which I have not seen; W. Foster, The English Factories in India,
1630-33. A calendar of documents in the India Office, Bombay
Record Office, &c., (Oxford, 1910), 111-13.

(a) Dispatch of Nuno Alvares Botelho to the Governors of

India, Malacca, 8 December 16291
I raised the siege of Malacca; I kept intact the fleet in which
I serve; and I completely destroyed that of the enemy; for which
infinite thanks be given to God for evermore. The captains and
soldiers performed their duties as punctiliously as I hope they
always will do when I am in command. The comptroller of the
revenue is sending to Your Worships the list of the captured galleys
and artillery, which is something most impressive. And forasmuch
as this campaign ended today, I am leaving tomorrow for the straits
[of Singapore], since the enemy ships are cruising there, and it is
necessary that I should go and engage them and convoy the vessels
expected from China. I am taking twenty sail, and leaving thirteen
under the flag of Dom Jeronimo da Silveira to go to Pera2 and
reduce that king to the service and obedience of His Majesty. This
is what I have to inform Your Worships of hitherto, and I will

1 Arquivo Histdrico do Estado da India, ‘Livro das Monroes’, no. 14, fl. 245.
Printed in Pissurlencar, Assentos, i. 501, with facsimile reproduction of the
original document. For Nuno Alvares Botelho see note 2, below, p. 112.
1 Perak. For Dom Jeronimo da Silveira cf. C. R. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far
East, 1550-ijjo (The Hague, 1948), 105-7, and f°r Portuguese relations with
Perak see n. 1, p. 120 below.
 IV

From Contemporary Portuguese Sources 109

send a second dispatch when I have something further to report.

God preserve Your Worships for many years etc. Malacca 8 Dec¬
ember 1629.
(signed)
NUNALURZ BOTELHO.

{b) Narrative of the Great Victory which the Portuguese

won against the King of Achem in the Siege of Malaca.
where they Destroyed his Whole Army and Captured
his Whole Fleet. Learnt from Letters which reached
Goa on the 28 February 16301
On the 24 March 1629 we received reliable information that the
King of Achem was coming with all his forces to besiege this city
of Malaca in person, with the Queen and with his treasures, and
with the resolve not to return to his kingdom without finishing this
enterprise. On that very same day, the captain of the fortress,
Gaspar de Mello, and Antonio Pinto da Fonseca sent this news to
the Bishop-Governor,2 in a vessel which left almost at the change
of the monsoon; but Our Lord God allowed it to reach Nega-
patam, whence three posts were dispatched overland to Goa with
this information. Preparations were forthwith begun there to send
a powerful relief force. During this time, which would be about
two months and twenty-four days before the enemy’s arrival, the
captain of the fortress diligently worked at strengthening this
stronghold and the suburbs, by day and by night. The Captain-
General Antonio Pinto da Fonseca helped to supervise all this,

1 Translated from the original printed edition of 1630 in my own collection.

I can only trace two other copies of this exceedingly rare pamphlet; in the
University Library of Coimbra and in the Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon, respec¬
tively. The King of Achin was the famous Iskandar Muda (Makota ‘Alam)
who reigned 1607-36. I have kept the spelling of place and personal names in
their original Portuguese forms.
2 Dom Fr. Luis de Brito, O.E.S.A., Bishop of Meliapor and Bishop-elect
of Cochin, Governor-General of Portuguese India from 8 March 1628 until
his death at Goa, 29 July 1629. Antdnio Pinto da Fonseca served in Flanders
before coming to the East in 1611, and was Captain-General of Malacca with
special powers from 1615 until his death twenty years later (27 Dec. 1635). His
tombstone is still preserved there. Cf. I. A. Macgregor in JMBRAS xxviii. 2
(>955), 33-34*
IV

no The Achinese Attack on Malacca in 1629

although his age and infirmity might well have excused him from
lesser tasks, but his zeal and spirit are still as vigorous as they were
in his first years of service.
The King of Achem left with all his fleet and reached one of his
ports, called Odelim,1 about eighty leagues on the way, where he
supplied the fleet with many things needful. When on the point of
leaving this place he fell ill and was told of some unfavourable
omens, for which reasons he was advised to desist from the enter¬
prise. On this occasion, something happened to one of his sons-in-
law—one of the lor princes whom he had captured some years
ago—which is worth relating here.2 This prince had a baby son,
who was the King’s grandchild and whom the King took in his
arms, when the infant began to cry and would not stop. The King,
angry at this, said to the baby: ‘Since you get angry with me when
you are so young, you won’t live to be very old’, and dashing the
child against the wall, he killed him. The son-in-law, seeing this
atrocity, stole away with a ship next night and fled to this city of
Malacca, which he would not have reached if the fifty ships that
were sent in pursuit had caught up with him, but he escaped
from them by transshipping into two of our Galeas3 which brought
him here safely. From him we received detailed and reliable
information of what was toward. He was treated here with the
distinction due to his person. The King of Achem, meanwhile,
accepted the advice given him, and decided to send two generals in
the expedition, one to command by sea and the other by land.
The chief one was called Lancaman& and the other Maraja.4 The
fleet consisted of 236 sail, including 38 galleys, much larger than
ours; and when the muster-roll was called on their departure, it
was found that they carried 19,300 people between warriors and
coolies.
1 Probably at, or somewhere near, the modem port of Deli.
2 I cannot identify this prince, who was presumably captured when the
Achinese sacked Batu Sawar and captured the royal family of Johore in May
1613, or else when they expelled Sultan 'Abdullah from Lingga in Mar. 1623.
Cf. R. O. Winstedt in JMBRAS x. 3 (1932), 32-36, and the genealogical table
on p. 133 where the name of the murdered child is given as Raja Ashem.
3 Also spelt jalias, jaleas, &c. Vessels smaller than a galliot, and provided with
fifteen sweeps on each side as well as a mast and sail. Cf. S. R. Dalgado, Glossario
Luso-Asiatico (2 vols., Coimbra, 1919-21), i. 478-9, and Yule-Burnell, Hobson-
Jobson (ed. 1903), 362.
4 Laksamana was the title of a Malay official who corresponded to a European
admiral. Maharaja was an Indian courtesy title applied here to the Achinese
General.
 From Contemporary Portuguese Sources 111
On the 3 July they arrived off this fortress, whence the eye could
see nothing but the ships which covered the sea, and on the 6 July
they disembarked at the mouth of a river a league from this fortress.
The General Lancamantl came marching along a very bad road
with 4,000 or 5,000 men and pitched his fortified camp on the hill
called Sao Joao, below which is a large and spacious field which
lies one third of a league from this city. Here the Captain went to
await him, and although our people were incomparably fewer in
number than his, yet the terrain and the place made the odds
almost even. The captain of the fortress was stationed in the van,
and Antonio Pinto da Fonseca in the rear, and the day went so
much in our favour, that the enemies might have judged by this
beginning what sort of an end they would have; for on this after¬
noon we killed more than 300 of their soldiers, and we withdrew
to the fortress with only the loss of some wounded.
The passage of time showed us the best ways of resisting the
enemy and the pride with which he came; and thus it seemed to
the Captain and to Antonio Pinto da Fonseca that we should defend
ourselves with outlying palisades and bulwarks for as long as we
could against the enemy’s approaches. We fortified the hill of Sao
Francisco1 with 200 men till we could see what turn events would
take. During this time we made many attacks, storming their
stockades and bulwarks, always killing many of their men with
sword and lance, as also with our artillery. They therefore came
greatly to fear our limited strength, for we did not exceed three
hundred Portuguese, all of them local citizens but good mus¬
keteers.2
We were obliged to evacuate Sao Francisco and the other
palisades and bulwarks, one after the other. But this was all done
in good order and without any loss, save that which resulted from
the huge blaze of a fire which burnt the monastery and the other
stockades and bulwarks, though the enemy was not able to salvage
anything therefrom. They raised their bulwarks so close to ours of
Santiago and Sao Domingos that an arquebus could reach from
the top of one to the other. The enemy were so industrious in

1 Bukit China. Cf. C. A. Gibson-Hill, ‘The fortification of Bukit China,

Malacca’, in JMBRAS xxix. 3 (1956), 157-81, and especially 162-7.
2 ‘porque n3o passamos de trezentos Portugueses da terra todos, bons
mosqueteiros’. This does not agree with Antdnio Pinto da Fonseca’s dispatch,
printed below, which gives the Portuguese forces as totalling 830 men, including
260 soldiers of the garrison.
IV

112 The Achinese Attack on Malacca in 1629

building their bulwarks that it was said that not even the Romans
could have made such works stronger or more quickly.
They suffered such losses in all the counter-attacks that we
made on them, and in one attack which they made on us when they
tried to scale Sao Francisco, that, seeing their resulting want of
men and provisions, they began to despair of success; and after
taking council they resolved to raise the siege and to retire in a very
different way from that in which they had come. Even so, they
likewise killed 128 of our people, sixty of them being Portuguese
and the remainder local men, apart from many wounded, all of
whom subsequently recovered.1 But the enemy could not leave
the river in which they had left their whole fleet until the high
water came, for which they would have to wait seven days. Just
at this time, on the Feast-day of the Eleven Thousand Virgins
[=21 October] there arrived our Armada of twenty-eight galliots,
with Nuno Alvarez Botelho as General, one of the three Governors
who had succeeded after the death of the Bishop-Governor, who
had already sent five ships, which had come by way of Sao
Thome and arrived here a few days before this our fleet.2
With the whole of this armada, and with five pinnaces which the
captain of the fortress had fitted out, and with a pontoon mounting
two siege-guns, six geleas and forty small praus carrying 350
soldiers, married citizens and local men, who had been prepared
before the arrival of our fleet, it seemed to the Governor, to the
captain, and Antonio Pinto da Fonseca, that we could blockade
the mouth of the river where the enemy were. This was done with
great diligence, at a time when the enemy were strongly stockaded
and fortified ashore, but with the mouth of the river free for them

1 The defenders’ casualties are here rated much higher than they were by
Antdnio Pinto da Fonseca in his dispatch printed below, which admits to the
loss of only 66 men.
1 D. Fr. Luis de Brito, Bishop of Meliapor, was succeeded on his death by
a triumvirate consisting of three governors, Nuno Alvares Botelho, Captain-
General of the High Seas Fleet (Armada de Alto-bordo), who had greatly dis¬
tinguished himself against the Dutch and English in the Persian Gulf and the
Indian Ocean, 1624-8, Dom Louren?o da Cunha, Captain of the City of Goa;
and the Chancellor, Gon^alo Pinto da Fonseca. Botelho assumed command of
the relief-expedition which left Goa on 22 Sept., leaving his two colleagues in
charge until the arrival of the incoming viceroy, Dom Miguel de Noronha Count
of Linhares, who assumed office on 21 Oct. 1629. After relieving Malacca and
scoring further successes against Dutch and English shipping in Sumatran
waters, Botelho was mortally wounded in the destruction of the Dutch Indiaman
Walcheren off Jambi (5 May 1630).
 IV

From Contemporary Portuguese Sources 113

to come out, as they greatly desired to do; but our armada prevented
them from doing so, and harassed them to such an extent with
gunfire, particularly from the pontoon and from another one which
was made mounting only one cannon, that the enemy were obliged
to give themselves up for lost and to try to flee away by land.
At this juncture the King of lor came to our help with 150 sail,
most of them belonging to his aunt, the Queen of Patane.1 And
though he only arrived at this stage, yet we are much beholden
to him, for he had already sent previously fifty vessels which
served us very well and supplied us with many provisions, for
which he deserves to receive letters of thanks from His Majesty.
On this day the General MarajS died of chagrin at seeing him¬
self vanquished and bottled up in a river which he had entered
with so little forethought. Every day two or three hundred men
deserted to us, which the General Lancamani and the chief men
and nobles realizing, they resolved to flee; as indeed they fled with
five or six thousand men, seeking refuge in the jungle after first
killing their women, and abandoning the finest fleet that had ever
been seen in Asia, full of great and small cannon, as well as much
booty, of which our soldiers took good advantage. This victory
was won without stroke of sword, and we believe that the like has
never been seen before, when the besieger suddenly found himself
besieged and completely destroyed. A work of heaven and of the
powerful hand of God Our Lord, to whom alone are due thanks as
the Author thereof. The Lancamana wandered about in the jungle
for thirteen days, when, not being able to endure further hardships,
he surrendered himself to the King of I6r five leagues from here,
who will undoubtedly hand him over to us according to an agree¬
ment we have made with him.
These are the tidings which came from Malaca by way of
Negapatao on the above-said day, and we await further news in the
ships which are daily expected, including a galley and another

1 Sultan 'Abdu’l-Jalil Shah III (reigned, 1623-77), whom the contemporary

Portuguese accounts style (as here) ‘King of Johore’; ‘King of Pahang’ (in
Xavier, Vitorias, 1633, and elsewhere); and ‘King of Johore and of Pahang’ (in
the Diary of the Count of Linhares for 1634). Peter Mundy, writing in 1637
(Travels in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667, ed. Hakluyt Society, iii, London,
1919, 142), also states that the King of Johore was then King of Pahang, and
though this is denied by some modem authorities (e.g. C. O. Blagden in his
note on Mundy’s observation, op. et loc. cit), I think the weight of contemporary
European evidence confirms it.
114 The Achinese Attack on Malacca in 1629

vessel of those which were captured in the river. Our Lord &c.
From the Hospital, on the 3 March 1630.
ROQUE CARREIRO1

With all the necessary licenses

In Lisbon. By Pedro Craesbeeck, The King’s printer, Anno 1630.

(c) Dispatch from the Captain-General of Malacca to the

Governors of India, 19 February i6jo2
It seemed to me that my first duty was to send to Your Worships
a narrative of everything that happened in this siege, and thus I do
so in the briefest and most succinct form possible, because if men¬
tion were made of all the relevant details, it would be very lengthy.
On the 3 July last year there arrived in sight of this city a fleet
of the King of Achem consisting of 236 sail, including 38 galleys
with two topsails each, of the type of the one which the governor is
sending,3 the remainder being smaller vessels. There came in this
fleet 19,400 Muslims, and on the 6th they landed near the hill of
Sao Joao, which lies about half a quarter of a league from this
fortress.
There came a general of this fleet, Lassemane, who was the
oldest and bravest captain that the King of Achin had, and his
second-in-command w'as a foster-brother of the King of Achem
called the Marraja.4 They were accompanied by many other
Captain-Majors of squadrons, who were governors of provinces,
and many other renowned captains.
I ordered that day a great skirmish to be fought with the Mus¬
lims, but I did not want to risk many people therein, since I did
not have more than 260 soldiers and up to 120 married men who
could bear arms, and 450 local soldiers formed in four companies
that we had raised. Our men killed in this skirmish over 200 Mus¬
lims of the best people that they had, including six captains who

1 I cannot certainly identify this man but presume that he was a Jesuit priest
and director of the Hospital at Goa. Negapatao = Negapatam on the Coro¬
mandel coast.
2 Translated from the original as printed by Cunha Rivara, Chronista, i. 9-12,
and Pissurlencar, Assentos, i. 506-10.
3 The Achinese flagship, called the Terror of the World, which was sent to
Goa as a trophy with the captive Laksamana aboard.
4 Laksamana and Maharaja. Cf. note 4, p. no, above.
 IV

From Contemporary Portuguese Sources 115

came in the van, without the loss of a single fatal casualty on our
side and with only one Portuguese soldier wounded. We regarded
this success as a good augury for all the others that we subsequently
had during the siege.
The Muslims came close with their very strong palisades pro¬
vided with many bulwarks, in which they mounted many guns with
which they tried to annoy us. They placed the whole of their fleet
in a river called Duyon, which is a league and a half from the city,1
and they stockaded the river mouth on the sea side as well as on
both banks for as far as the fleet reached, which was a considerable
distance. They left outside only seven galleys and a few light craft,
numbering not more than twenty. This was the cause of their total
ruin, for we had the bar left free, as also the suburb called the
Malacca side,2 and thus all the vessels that came hither could
enter freely. For I had stationed advice-boats at Pulubutum and
off Cape Rachado, which is where all the ships from India,
Negapatam and Sao Thome3 must pass. I also had light craft
stationed in the straits of Sincapura and Sabao,4 in order to warn
vessels coming from Macassa and from the lands of the Malays
and Javanese for this fortress, with orders to detain arriving vessels
off Cape Rachado and in the Straits until I could send jalias by
night to convoy them, from among the six which I had fitted out
in this roadstead. The convoys functioned at night without the
enemy being able to hinder them, for I had calculated the tides so
accurately that all the vessels which came entered safely.
Before the arrival of the enemy, I informed the King of Jor,
our friend and neighbour,5 of the definite news which I had of the
1 Duyon: from Malay duyong ‘dugong’. The name of a river and mukim about
3 miles east of Malacca town.
2 The suburb of Banda Malacca, the modern Bunga Raya. Cf. JMBRAS
xxix. 3, p. 163.
3 S3o Tom6 de Meliapor on the Coromandel coast, now a suburb of Madras.
Pulubutum = Pulau Butang, the Butang Islands, off the coast of Kedah.
4 Singapore and the strait between Sumatra and Pulau Kundur. Cf. J. V.
Mills in JMBRAS viii. i (1930), 225, and pi. vi.
5 Sultan 'Abdu’l-Jalil Shah III of Johore (and Sultan of Pahang) and the
Queen of Patani were still allies of the Portuguese in 1633, when Antonio Pinto
da Fonseca sent six well-equipped ships to help them defeat a rebel prince who
had entrenched himself with Siamese support at Singora (Didrio do 3° Conde
de Lvthares, vice-rei da India, Lisboa, 1937, 23-24). The Portuguese commander
of this expedition, Antdnio Vaz Pinto, refused to accept the pecuniary reward
offered him by the queen after the rebel’s defeat, ‘saying he had not come for
gain but out of gratitude’. Later, the allies fell out, and the Sultan of Johore
assisted the Dutch in their final siege of Malacca, 1640-41.
IV

116 The Achinese Attack on Malacca in 1629

coming of the King of Achem’s fleet. The King of Jor thereupon
made proclamation throughout his lands that all his vassals should
bring all the provisions which they could to Malacca, and this they
did with great promptitude and great abundance. And as soon as
the King learnt that the fleet of the King of Achem had reached
Malacca, he sent a relief-force of one thousand men by land, and
a fleet of sixty sail by sea, in which came 1,500 warriors and a very
experienced captain-major, with orders from his king to serve in
Malacca for as long as the siege lasted, and to die with all his men
in defence of the place. The King also wrote to the captain and the
city, stating that he was preparing to come in person to the relief of
Malacca, and that he would bring a large relief-force from his
aunt, the Queen of Patane, for he had sent to ask her for this; all
of which he did, as I will say further on, and his captain-major
who served here captured two galleys which the General of Achem
was sending with dispatches to his king, which was of great con¬
sequence for us.
After midnight on the fourth day of the month of August, the
enemy assaulted the convent of Madre de Deos1 wherein reside
Capuchin friars, and which I had ordered to be fortified and gar¬
risoned with a detachment of sixty Portuguese and two hundred
local men, under the command of an honourable citizen named
Diogo Lopes da Fonseca, who was the syndic of that house, and
who had volunteered to defend it at great cost to himself. And he
did defend it that night with great courage, during which time
I sent him reinforcements twice, for the assault of the Muslims,
who numbered more than three thousand, lasted until morning.
At one time, they penetrated into the grounds of the convent, but
they were thrown out again with the loss of many Muslims, and we
counter-attacked and took a palisade which they had made adjoin¬
ing the convent. After their repulse, they occupied a neighbouring
hill which overlooks the convent;2 and from there they pushed for¬
ward their palisades close to the convent enclosure and tried to
dig themselves in at the foot of the hill on the city side, so as to
prevent its being reinforced by our own people. For this reason
I was compelled to withdraw from that position, after first evacu¬
ating everyone within the convent including the provisions and
munitions of war. At eight o’clock in the morning, I ordered the
' On the hill of S3o Francisco, or Bukit China.
1 Presumably SSo J080, or St. John’s Hill, also called Ujong Pasir.
 IV

From Contemporary Portuguese Sources 117

whole convent to be fired in such wise that nothing whatever was
left unburnt. After its destruction, the garrison, which had been
drawn up outside with flying colours, retired in good order to the
beat of drum, without the enemy daring to attack them, for they
feared I would sally out and succour them. In like manner I
maintained the other palisades in the field of Sao Joao for a long
time in order to slow down the enemy’s advance and to prevent
him from getting close to the walls of this city, which, in fact, they
never did dare to attack even after I had decided to evacuate the
palisades and ordered them to be fired.
At various times I ordered attacks to be made against the
enemy’s stockades, in which many Muslims were killed with very
little loss on our side. We captured some of their palisades in
which we took many weapons; and the Muslims were so intimidated
that they never ventured to cross the river on the side of the
Malacca suburb, nor to come close to the walls, for I always had
Portuguese soldiers and local auxiliaries stationed outside them and
the said suburb was fortified.
On the last day of September there arrived five relief ships
which had come via Ceylon and been sent by the Bishop of
Meliapor with Miguel Pereira Borralho as their captain-major.
This relief was one of the reasons for the Muslims’ subsequent
defeat, as they thought that no more help would be coming from
India, and so they stayed where they were until the lord governor
arrived in view of the city on the 21 of October. He had found my
advice-boat in Pulubutum, where I informed him of everything
that had happened, of the enemy’s situation, and how they had
placed their whole fleet in the river Duyon, and that he should
hasten to arrive before they could get out; since if he blockaded
the mouth of the river they would not be able to sally forth, adding
that he would find more news off Cape Rachado.
The lord governor arrived here on the 21 October with his
whole fleet in company besides two merchant-ships1 and a pinnace.
As soon as he arrived I went to meet him, and told him that he
ought to go with all his fleet and anchor off the mouth of the river
where the King of Acherti’s fleet was laid up. This he did, and
hastened the completion of a pontoon which we had begun to

1 ‘Dous navios de chatins.’ This could mean either Portuguese merchant-

ships or else merchant-ships belonging to Indian traders. Cf. Dalgado, Glossdrio,
i. 265-7. The Indo-Portuguese chatim corresponds to the Anglo-Indian ‘chetty’.
IV

118 The Achinese Attack on Malacca in 1629

make, as well as two others, from which and from his fleet he
began such a heavy bombardment of the enemy by day and night
(who had all retired from the land to their ships on the second day
after the governor’s arrival) that he ruined all their fleet with his
continuous bombardment, killing and wounding many Muslims
and sending to the bottom two very large galleys stationed at the
river mouth. All this time the lord governor went with great valour
and diligence by day and night between his fleet and the enemy’s
stockades, giving orders as to what should be done, always risking
his life and person. I frequently begged him not to expose himself
so much and as a matter of course, since the preservation of his life
was of vital importance to us.
At the end of November the King of Jor reached this bar,
bringing a fleet of 160 sail, 100 belonging to the Queen of Patane
and 60 of his own, in which he is said to have brought 9,000
warriors. He took up the position which the lord governor assigned
to him and remained there until the end of the river blockade.
• The King brought his mother with him, for it is really she who
rules since he is still very young. She is a very brave woman and
so grateful for the help and reliefs that I have sent her on various
occasions in His Majesty’s name—since this is advantageous for
the royal service and the preservation of this fortress—that I was
informed that she had told the King her son that if he would not
go in person to the relief of Malacca, she would throw him into
the sea. Here we have treated the King and his mother the Queen
with all due respect, and I think that His Majesty is under an
obligation to send his warmest thanks to this king and his mother
for the great help which they have given us in this siege, and to
send him some present, since he is poor and has spent a lot on this
occasion. And it is very important that we should keep this king
friendly to us as long as he deserves it, since he is our near neigh¬
bour; and because I was the intermediary in securing this friend¬
ship, I feel that I have the duty of reminding Your Worships and
His Majesty of these facts.
After the arrival of the King of Jor, the lord governor continued
the bombardment, thus compelling the enemy to run the blockade,
which the lord governor prevented by ordering the first galley
which came out to be attacked by Francisco Lopes, Captain-Major
of the jalias, with his jalia and some praus, who bravely fired the
galley and therefore the enemy desisted from their plan. They
 From Contemporary Portuguese Sources 119

were so cowed by this, that they never again dared to sally out
from the river, and they sent to treat of a settlement, which the
lord governor answered he would never listen to unless they first
sent him Pedro de Abreu, whom they had brought with them as
a prisoner in irons, and who had been sent from here as ambassador
to the King of Achem over three years ago. The Achinese sent
other emissaries again, and they were given the same reply, until
finally they sent Pedro de Abreu and two Achinese ambassadors
in his company, saying that the General Lassamane and the other
leaders of the fleet wished to surrender to the lord governor, and
to enable them to do so he should send them a safe-conduct. This
was sent them, but because we thought that this was all due to
fear and treachery, the lord governor sent to tell them that same
day that if he did not surrender himself on the next day he would
attack him by force of arms. He did not do so, and that night there
was a great storm with heavy rain, and the General of Achem
fled with those who were able to follow him. According to what
some Achinese told us there would be about 4,000 Muslims who
fled to the jungle, which is so impassable on account of its rugged¬
ness and the heavy rainfall that it was not possible to send
men in pursuit of them. They left the whole of their fleet bottled
up in the river with many cannons great and small, and many
sick, and some spoil which the lord governor allowed the soldiers
to sack.
This was one of the most notable victories which have ever
been seen in the world, since the besieged lost the whole of the
fleet in which they came, without there escaping even a single
prau to take the news to their king. All of the men who had retired
from the stockades perished, with the exception of some of those
who fled into the jungle.
During the whole of the time in which the blockade of the river
lasted, the lord governor did not sleep one night on shore, nor was
there a single unfortunate incident or dissension in our fleet. And
I can assure Your Worships that I never saw a General who served
His Majesty with such zeal and valour, or with greater honesty.
On the third day after the victory, the lord governor left for the
straits [of Singapore] to await the vessels from China and Manilla,
taking twenty galliots of the armada and leaving the rest under the
command of Dom Jeronimo da Silveira to go to Pera to subjugate
that king, who is a vassal of Achem, and reduce him to the obedience
IV

120 The Achinese Attack on Malacca in 1629

of His Majesty, or at least to agree to renew the trade which Malacca
always had with that kingdom.1
There died of the Achinese who landed to besiege Malacca,
3,000 Muslims from fire and sword, and over 1,000 from disease
before the lord governor’s arrival. Those killed in the battle
included seventeen well-known captains, and three governors and
captain-majors of provinces.
On our side, we lost captain Gonfalo Mendes de Vasconcellos
in an attack, and up to twenty-five Portuguese on different occa¬
sions, and forty of the local men. There were wounded, captain
Jorge de Mello, captain Antonio de Carvalho, and the captain-
major of the jalias, Francisco Lopes, and some thirty-five Portu¬
guese soldiers—these up to the time of the lord governor’s arrival—
and some others were killed and wounded in the armada. During all
the time that this siege lasted, the captain of this fortress, Gaspar
de Mello Sampaio, helped me very diligently whenever the
opportunity occurred, both in constructing palisades and in
defending them, as well as in the watches, patrols and rounds,
both inside and outside this city, risking his person many times.2
The municipal councillors and all the other citizens likewise
honourably performed their duties.
Some days after the General of Achem fled, he surrendered
himself to the King of Jor, together with some of those who had
fled with him, and the remainder were left wandering in the jungle
and surrendered piecemeal to our allied Muslims. The King of
Jor handed over the General and Admiral of Achem and some
other leading Muslims to the lord governor.3 God preserve Your
Worships for many years. Malacca 19 February 1630.
(signed) ANTONIO PINTO DA FONSECA

1 Dom Jeronimo da Silveira’s mission to Perak was temporarily successful, but

in Apr. 1632 the Viceroy of Goa received the unwelcome news that 'the king¬
dom of Perak had rebelled and was now allied with the [former] common enemy
of Achem’ (Pissurlencar, Assentos, 417).
1 Gaspar de Mello Sampaio, captain of the Malacca garrison in 1629-30,
later quarrelled with Nuno Alvares Botelho over questions of precedence and
rank, for which he was reprimanded by the Viceroy (Pissurlencar, op. cit.
272-3). He was twice Captain-General of Muscat in the Persian Gulf, where he
died in 1636.
* The Laksamana surrendered to the Sultan of Johore on condition that the
latter would not hand him over to the Portuguese, according to a well-informed
Dutchman writing from Jambi in Mar. 1630 (Jan Oosterwijck to Anthony
Van Diemen, apud Tiele-Heeres, Bouwstoffen, ii. 167). However that may be,
 From Contemporary Portuguese Sources 121

he was relatively ^ell treated by Botelho and sent as a state prisoner to Goa in the
captured galley, Terror of the World. He died en route at Colombo, ‘of an abcess
in his private parts’, which he did not reveal to his captors until it was incurable.
The Viceroy Count of Linhares reported his death with mixed feelings, since
on the one hand he would have been glad to have such a distinguished prisoner
at Goa, ‘as a spectacle for the many Muslims and Hindus here’, but on the
other hand he feared the captive might bribe his way to freedom with the temp¬
ting offers he was making to achieve that end (Linhares to the Crown, Goa,
3 Dec. 1630, in Assentos, i. 520-1).
 IV

Achinese Siege of Malacca 1629. From a water-colour sketch in the MS. ‘Livro do Estado da India Oriental’
of c. 1635-46 in the British Museum, Sloane MS. 197, folio 382
 V

KARL MARX AND THE LAST DAYS OF

PORTUGUESE MALACCA, 1640—41:
A REASSESSMENT*

SOME OF YOU may recall that Karl Marx, in Das Kapital

(1867), in the course of a violent denunciation of the Dutch and
their misdeeds in the East, alleged: “To secure Malacca, the Dutch
corrupted the Portuguese governor. He let them into the town
in 1641. They hurried at once to his house and assassinated him,
to ‘abstain’ from the payment of £21,875, the price of his treason.”* 1
Marx gave as his source Thomas Stamford Raffles, History oj Java
(London, 1817). Raffles, notoriously prejudiced against the Dutch,
derived this fairy-tale from the entertaining and informative but
often unreliable work of Alexander Hamilton, A New Account of the
East Indies, 1688—1723 (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1727).2

Marx’s endorsement of this fable has given it a longer life than

it deserves, although there is no excuse for accepting it after the
publication by P. A. Leupe in 1859 of the many official Dutch
records relating to the last siege of Malacca, and of the Batavian
Dagh-Register, 1640-41 in 1887.3 The Portuguese accounts are
unfortunately not so reliable and not so numerous, since the de-
vassa, or judicial enquiry, into the loss of that stronghold is lost,
stolen or strayed. At any rate, it could not be located in the His¬
torical Archives at Goa-Panaji, when I worked there in 1951, 1963,
1978, and 1980. However, there are two Jesuit accounts, one by
an eyewitness, and one by Padre Fernao de Queyroz, who was in
Cochin at the time and met many of the survivors. There are also
some other secondary sources, which were utilised together with

* The key role of Malacca in the Portuguese “Estado da India”, and the
eminence of the author in the field of colonial history, leads Indica to publish
this article which is not strictly indological in nature.—Ed.
1. Karl Marx, Capital. A critical Analysis of Capitalistic Production (ed.
2 vols., Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1970), I, 704.
2. Sir William Foster (ed.), A New Account of the East Indies by Alexander
Hamilton (2 vols., The Argonaut Press, London, 1930), II, 42-43.
3. P. A. Leupe, ‘‘Stukken betrekkelijk het bcleg en dc veioveiing van
Malakka op de Portugezen in 1641,” in Berigten van het Historisch Genootschap
Utrecht, VII, (1859), 128-428 ; English translation by Macobian in JMBRAS,
XIV (1936), 1-178; J. G. Overvoorde, “Eene niet gepubliceerde kaart
van de belegering van Malaka in 1640-41,” in TBG, Voj. 66 (1926), 604-17;
N. MacLeod, De Oost Indische Compagnie als zeemogendhtid in Azie, 1602-1650
(2 vols., Rijswijk, 1927), II, 211-16.
V

124

most of the foregoing, by the late Vice-Admiral Alfredo Botelho de

Sousa in his Subsidios para a historia militar maritima da India, 1585-
1650 (4 vols., Lisboa, 1930-56), Vol. IV, pp. 194-201.4 The Johore
allies of the Dutch played an essential role in the final siege, as the
Dutch themselves admitted, although they did not allow them to
participate in the actual assault and occupation. But the Council
at Batavia wrote to the Directors of the Dutch East-India Company
on the 9th July 1645: “We must continue to remember that the
Johorese contributed substantially toward the conquest of Malacca.
Without their help we would never have become masters of that
strong place.”5

There is another eyewitness-account of the last days of Portu¬

guese Malacca, which has never, so far as I am aware, been used
by any modern writer on the celebrated siege of 1640-41. This is
the narrative of a remarkable Spanish Dominican missionary-friar,
Fr. Juan Bautista de Morales (1597-1664). Described by his
colleague, Friar Domingo Navarrette O. P., as “a great missioner
in China, of known virtue, and very zealous for the good of souls,”
Morales found himself stranded in Malacca on the eve of its fall,
while trying to make his way to Rome (as he eventually did)
from Manila via Macao, Malacca, and Goa. His account is a
singularly objective one, and its accuracy is confirmed at nearly
every point, when compared with the contemporary Portuguese
and Dutch sources. It forms chapter 28 of the Dominican History
of the Province of the Rosary in the Philippines and East Asia by
Fr. Balthazar de Santa Cruz O. P. (1693); which may perhaps ex¬
plain why historians of Malacca have apparently overlooked it —
as Karl Marx most certainly, if unsurprisingly, did.6

Morales left Manila on the first leg of his adventurous voyage

on Ascension Day 1640 for Macao, where he was held up for five
months, trying to find onward shipping. In August, a little
Portuguese craft which had evaded the tight blockade of Malacca,
reached Macao with the news that the place was closely besieged
and in dire need of help. Although Macao itself was in a critical
condition with the loss of the Japan trade, and (as it turned out
later) the execution of over sixty persons of a diplomatic mission

4. Studia, Revista Semestral, 6 Julho, 1960 (Lisboa, 1960), 87-88, anony¬

mous account d. Manar, 2 April 1641 ; Fernao de Queyroz, S J., Historia da vida
do oeneravel Irmdo Pedro de Basto (Lisboa, 1689), 370-76.
5. Cf. Leonard Y. Andaya, The Kingdom of Johor 1641-1728 (O.U.P.,
Kaula Lumpur, 1975), 26-27, 35, where, however, the origin of the dispatch
is wrongly dated, and the reference to J. E. Heeres, Bouwstqffen (1895), should
read p. 232.
6. Baltasar de Santa Cruz, O. P., Tomo Segundo de la Historia de la Provincia
del Santo Rosario de Filipinos, Japon, y China, del Sagrado Orden de Pttdicadores (Zara¬
goza, 1693), ch. 28, pp. 410-16, “Del viage que hizo el Padre Fray Juan Bap-
tista de Morales a la Santa Ciudad de Roma por la India Oriental.” For
Morales and his disputes with the Jesuits over the vexed problem of the
Chinese Rites,” see J. S. Cummins (ed. and trans.), The Travels and Controversies
of Friar Domingo Navarrete, 1619-1686 (Cambridge University Press for the Hak¬
luyt Society, 1962), index in voce, and sources there quoted.
 V

LAST DAYS OF MALACCA 125

sent to request the re-opening of the trade at Nagasaki on the 3rd

August 1640,.a general meeting of the citizens voted unanimously
on the 9th August that help should be sent to the beleaguered
stronghold.7 The original plan had been to send eight chos (large
Cantonese junks) with supplies and reinforcements, but the citizens
of the “City of the Name of God in China”, always a fractious lot,
could not agree on who should command them. The projected
expedition was abandoned ; but a wealthy citizen, Lopq Sarmento
de Carvalho, equipped three chos at his own expense and sent
them off under the command of his eldest son, Ignacio Sarmento
de Carvalho.8 Morales embarked in the cho of Ignacio Sarmento,
which left in October, although it did not reach the vicinity of
Malacca until shortly before Christmas, after a voyage of two
months instead of the average two weeks. The cho stranded on
a dark night when trying to get into Malacca roadstead ; but
Morales got ashore with a few others in the junk’s boat and made
his way into the fortress with his Chinese manservant, hand-
baggage and some “loaves” (paes) of gold, which he had secured
at Macao to pay the expenses of his voyage to Europe. Ignacio
Sarmento fired his ship, but was captured with most of his men
when trying to get ashore. The other two chos likewise miscarried;
and the Dutch exhibited Ignacio Sarmento and some other prisoners
outside the walls, to show the besieged that they could
expect no more help from Macao or elsewhere.

Morales found that Malacca was at the last gasp, owing to

the ravages of famine, from which thousands of the inhabitants
had died. He considered himself lucky to be able to enjoy a
Christmas Eve “feast” with a “Tortilla of meal, with a little salt and
vinegar.” The garrison was also reduced to the last stages of
hunger and exhaustion, while both besiegers and besieged suffered
a heavy toll from malaria. He noted, however, that the place
was immensely strong with thick walls and bastions, and amply
provided with heavy artillery of excellent quality. If it had been
adequately garrisoned, “not all the power of Holland could have
captured it.”9

Though Morales does not explicitly say so, the chief reason
for the fall of Malacca was the inaction and passivity of the Portu¬
guese commander, Manuel de Sousa Coutinho. This fidalgo
had very little experience of war, and had been appointed governor
and captain-general of Malacca in 1638, merely on account of the
services of his father. The little ship in which he embarked was

7. A bud, Manuel Teixeira, A Diocese Porhiguesa de Malaca (Macao, 1957).

267-68n.
8. For the live* of Lopo and Ignacio Sarmento de Carvalho, see C. R.
Boxer, Breve RelacSo da vida e jeitos de Lopo e Inacio Sarmento de Carvalho (Macao,
1940), and Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550-1770 (The Hague, 1948), index in voce.
9. The Portuguese were evidently not short of munitions, and there was
an almost continual artillery duel on both sides. The Dutch told Fr. Morales
that in the course of the siege they had fired over 40,000 cannon-balls into the
city. The Dutch found a total of 111 guns when they captured it.
V

126

captured in the straits of Malacca by the Achinese. He managed

to escape ashore and was found wandering in the jungle by some
friendly Malays, who guided him into the fortress, “where he was
received like one who had arisen from the dead.” This rejoicing
proved premature. Either physically and mentally shattered by
his experiences, or else prostrated by malaria, he spent most of his
time in bed, and flatly refused to allow the garrison to make any
determined sorties, as several of his subordinates repeatedly
begged him to do. Father Queyroz tells us that some of them
discussed whether it would not be best to depose him and replace
him by a more energetic officer, such as the casado (settler) Antonio
Vaz Pinto, who had given repeated proofs of his courage and
initiative, “but respect for the royal orders prevailed, and with
blind obedience they let themselves be totally lost.”. At a meeting
between several emissaries of the two sides in November 1640,
to discuss the exchange of prisoners under a flag of truce, the
Portuguese frankly told the Dutch : “that they knew perfectly
well that our strength by land and sea was greater than theirs,
but they trusted that God Almighty would help them. They
were determined to defend the town to the bitter end, come what
might, only wishing that they had a good soldier for their gover¬
nor.”10

The Dutch themselves were not in a much better physical

condition than the defenders, since they were likewise suffering
severely from malaria, though not from starvation, as they were
adequately provisioned. Deserters from each side kept the other
informed of developments, and it was problematical which side
would collapse first from sheer exhaustion and the ravages of
disease. Two of the Dutch commanders had died since the siege
began, and the third, Minne Willemsen Caertekoe, lay ill in his
bed, when he decided to give the order to storm the place on the
early morning of the 14th January 1641. Only 650 men, between
sailors and soldiers, could be mustered for the occasion, and many
of these were far from well. But the garrison was in an even
worse state, and less than 160 men strong. By 10 o’clock, the
Dutch had stormed three of the five bastions, despite a fierce
resistance. The defenders of the last two were prepared to fight
on, but Manuel de Sousa Coutinho ordered —or allowed — the
hoisting of a flag of truce, and had himsdf carried in a litter to the
Town gate. Here he was met by the sickly Caertekoe, also carried
in a litter. Coutinho took off a great gold chain which he wore,
and hung it on Caertekoe. “He asked him,” wrote Morales,
“for liberty for the miserable survivors, and that they could keep
their possessions.” Caertekoe “granted him the first request in
the name of the Company, but refused the second.” All accounts
agree that there was a good deal of pillaging, licensed and unli-

10. Dagh-Register CasUtl Batavia, 1640-1641 (Batavia, 1387), 122-123. It

» interesting to note that the emissaries drank toasts to each other before
parting.
 V

LAST DAYS OF MALACCA 127

censed, but no physical harm was done to the surviving inhabi¬

tants and remnants of the garrison.11

Friar Morales related how he and several others were tricked

by a Dutchman who spoke fluent Portuguese into entrusting him
with their most valuable gold and jewels, on condition that he
would keep half, and return the other half to their respective
owners after the general pillaging and disorder had ceased.
Needless to say, they never saw this Holandes Ladino again; and
Morales thus lost the four “loaves” of gold which he had brought
from Macao to finance his journey to Rome. The Dutch shuffled
through all his papers, but let him keep them, save for part of
a testimony he was taking to Rome on the Dominican martyrs in
Japan. The siege had lasted for 5 months and 12 days. It cost
the victors some 1,500 men, mainly from malaria and other
diseases, and the population of Malacca had dwindled from an
estimated 20,000 to 7,000 (or 3,COO or 1,400; estimates vary),
mainly from disease and starvation. A contemporary English
report summed up the campaign fairly enough:

“ . . . the city and fort were taken by assault ; wherein the

Dutch (the now owners of it) pretend to have found great riches,
and with them 7 or 8,000 persons of all conditions and ages dead,
swept away either by the malignant air [xtV for malaria] of that
place or some other infectious disease, which also bereft 1,000
Hollanders of their lives. So that, although much blood, was not
spent (for we do not hear of any sallies or great resistance made
by the Portugals), yet many of both nations lie buried, together
with the Portugal’s quandom commander, in that now Dutch
Malacca.”12

The “quondam commander,” Manuel de Sousa Coutinho,

died two days after the fall of the fortress, evidently from a mixture
of chagrin and malaria. Oddly enough, the Dutch never per¬
ceived his real character, and they always extolled him as a resolute
and doughty opponent. They gave him a Roman Catholic
military funeral with full honours, all the Dutch dignitaries walking
in procession behind the coffin.18

The further adventures and misadventures of Fr. Juan Bau¬

tista de Morales, though interesting in themselves, do not concern
us here. Suffice it to say that after a perilous voyage in an over¬
crowded and under-supplied refugee ship across the Bay of Bengal,
during which over 60 people of all ages and both sexes died from

11. Several of the Eurasian widows and spinsters remarried with Dutch
husbands, within a few days and weeks.
12. W. Foster (cd.), The English Factories in India, 1637-1641 (Oxford, 1912)
298
13. P. A. Leupe, op. cit., 130-31, 187, 233. Cf. also the standard
works of B. H. M. Vlekke, ffustmtara (Harvard U. P., 1945), 138, and D. G. E.
Hall, A History of South-East Asia (London, 1955), 257.
V

128

thirst and starvation, including his Chinese servant, he reached

Goa by way of Ceylon and Cochin. His position was an awkward
one, as news had recently arrived of Portugal’s break with Spain,
after the “Sixty Years Captivity” of 1580-1640. He eventually
managed to get away secretly by night and continued his journey
via Surat, the Persian Gulf, and the overland route from Basra to
Aleppo, finally reaching Rome on the 2nd January 1643, nearly
two and a half years after he had left Manila.14

Although Malacca would presumably have fallen in due time

to the vastly superior seapower which the prosperous Dutch
East India Company could—and did — bring to bear on the
declining Estado da India, the outcome of the great siege in 1640-41
was, like the Battle of Waterloo, “a dammed close-run thing.”
Given more dynamic leadership on the Portuguese side, it could
have led to the temporary withdrawal of the Dutch, decimated
as they were by disease. Manuel de Sousa Coutinho may be
acquitted of cowardice ; but he exhibited a merely passive stub¬
bornness, and he was guilty of both lethargy and incompetence.
Fernao de Queyroz S. J. was clearly right when he claimed that
another commander, such as Antonio Vaz Pinto or Francisco
Bravo de Araujo, both of whom proved themselves to be intrepid
and resourceful individuals before, during, and after the siege,
would have made all the difference.15 The perennial Portuguese
fixation on giving fidalgos high commands, irrespective of whether
they had.any real military abilities, was also partly to blame, as
contemporaries observed both then and later. Finally there was
the chronic tendency of the Portuguese to defeat themselves, due
to their improvidence, carelessness and indiscipline, as repeatedly
demonstrated in Ceylon, India, and Zambesia.16 Nevertheless
the story of the siege remains in many ways an epic one. It is
certainly the very reverse of the tendentious version propagated
successively by Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Stamford Raffles,
and Karl Marx.

14. Balthasar de Santa Cruz O. P., HiUoria (1693), 414-21.

15. For the careers of Antonio Vaz Pinto and Francisco Bravo de Araujo
see my "Casados e Cabotagem no Estado da India” (forthcoming).
16. C. R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825 (London 1969),
114-18, and M. D. D. Newitt, Portuguese Settlement on the Zambesi (London,
1973), 260-65, for some typical examples. Although the devassa held at Goa
into the loss of Malacca has not yet been traced the questionnaire which
formed the basis of it, is preserved in the Historical Archives at Goa-Panaji.
It is very enlightening when compared with the account given by Padre Fernao
de Queyroz S.J., who may well have seen the original devassa.
 VI

War and Trade in the Indian Ocean and the

South China Sea, 1600-1650
Introductory Remarks

As Michael Howard has written in his succinct but stimulating War in European
History (in ch. Ill, 'The Wars of the Merchants'):

. . . The capacity to sustain war and so maintain political power in Europe became,
during the seventeenth century, increasingly dependent on access to wealth either ex¬
tracted from the extra-European world or created by the commerce ultimately derived
from that wealth. There was in fact a continual interaction between the expansion of
European enterprise overseas and the internecine conflicts between the Europeans
themselves. Expansion provided further resources for those conflicts and was to a con¬
siderable extent generated by them.1

Contemporaries were, of course, fully aware of this interaction between war and
trade, whether in the Atlantic or in the Indian Ocean. Jan Pietersz Coen wrote to the
managing directors of the Dutch East India Company (the "Heeren XVII” or
“Gentlemen Seventeen") from Bantam on the 27 December 1614: “You gentlemen
should well know from experience that in Asia trade must be driven and maintained
under the protection and favour of your own weapons, and that the weapons must be
wielded from the profits gained by the trade; so that trade cannot be maintained
without war, nor war without trade." Similar sentiments were expressed by Dr Joao
Pinto Ribeiro, the Crown lawyer who was a key-figure in the Portuguese revolt from
the union with the Castilian Crown. In his published Discourse Arguing that Por¬
tuguese Fidalgos and Soldiers should not Fight in Conquests which do not Pertain to
this [Portuguese] Crown (Lisbon 1632), Pinto Ribeiro stressed that trade and war went
together in the Estado da India. and that only from trading profits could the means of
war be financed. The Dutch, he added, understood this truism much better than the
authorities at Madrid —a scarcely veiled criticism of the Count-Duke of Olivares, but
an undeserved one, as we shall see below.
In this paper, I do not propose to give a chronological narrative of war and trade in
the Eastern Seas, but to indicate some thematic aspects of their interaction which may,
perhaps, deserve further research.

Long-range Strategic and Commercial Planning

It is significant that J. A. A. Thompson in his otherwise excellent work, War and

Government in Habsburg Spain, 1560-1620 (1977) makes no mention of the Philip¬
pines. Yet the defence of these islands was a constant and at times a major preoccupa¬
tion in the government councils at Madrid (or at Valladolid). Apart from annual
orders to the Viceroy of Mexico to be sure to send sufficient supplies of men and of
money (the situado) to the Philippines, the Castilian Crown and its advisers organized
several expeditions which left from Spain itself via the Cape of Good Hope. A specially
constituted squadron of seven Portuguese caravels, with a Portuguese commander,
and with a Spanish second-in-command, sailed from Cadiz in April 1613, with 224
Portuguese seamen and 300 Spanish soldiers. The experiment was not a great success.
4

as the caravels became separated in the South Atlantic, four of them reaching Manila
in August 1614, after calling at Malacca, and the remainder ten months later.
Caravels and crews were both in “a lamentable condition” by the end of their arduous
voyage. Another similar effort was made with a smaller squadron of caravels in 1617.
They fared even worse, taking nearly two years on the voyage.2
Meanwhile, a much more powerful armada was being prepared for the assistance of
the Philippines in 161619. Command was originally offered to Don Antonio de
Oquendo, one of Spain’s finest Basque seamen, but he declined on the plea of ill-
health and pressing private affairs (17 June 1616). It eventually devolved on another
Basque, Don Lorenzo de Zuazola. Great difficulty was experienced in recruiting suffi¬
cient pilots, gunners and seamen, although the Crown cast its net wide. Orders were
given that they were to be secured by force if necessary, from Flanders, Italy, Ragusa
(Dubrovnik) and from the homeward-bound flotas from America, as well as from all
the maritime provinces of Spain. There was also much discussion in the Councils
whether this armada should sail by the Cape of Good Hope or by the Straits of
Magellan. Eventually, the former option was decided on, and the expedition finally
sailed from Cadiz in mid-December 1619, after three years of difficult preparations. It
comprised “six large ships and two pinnaces, carrying 732 seamen and 1,700 soldiers",
as well as thirty missionaries for the Philippines. It was scattered by a violent storm on
the 26 December, and all save one A'no and the two pinnaces were wrecked off the
straits of Gibraltar with great loss of life. This disaster put an end to all idea of sending
reinforcements to Manila via the Cape of Good Hope for the rest of the period with
which we are concerned.3
These projects, and others like them, had first been ventilated in December 1610,
when a royal cedula ordered the Viceroysof Portugal, Mexico, and Peru, and the
Audiencias (High Courts) of Mexico, Lima and Manila, to report on a proposal to
close down the Acapulco Manila carrera, and to re-route all maritime contacts with
the Philippines via the Cape of Good Hope.
Dutch projects for combined operations on a world wide scale were rather more suc¬
cessful, relatively speaking, although their achievements fell far short of their over-
ambitious targets. In August 1614, five vessels under the command of Joris van
Spilbergen sailed for the East Indies via the straits of Magellan and the Spanish
Pacific, with the objective of pillaging Peruvian coastal towns and intercepting the
Manila galleon off Acapulco. They failed to intercept the galleon, but they inflicted a
severe defeat on a scratch Spanish fleet in a two day battle (17/18 July 1615), off
Canete, Peru. The Spaniards, who were hopelessly out gunned, lost two ships and 450
dead, while Spilbergen lost only 40 men and his ships suffered scarcely any damage.
After sailing across the Pacific, he blockaded Manila briefly before continuing to the
Dutch base at Ternate, eventually arriving back in Zeeland in September 1617.*
Much more ambitious was a powerful expedition mounted after the expiry of the
Twelve Year truce. Simultaneously with the newly-founded West India Company’s
first attack on Bahia in May 1624, another Dutch fleet of eleven sail, manned by 1,650
men and mounting 294 guns, equipped jointly by the Stadholder Prince Maurits/the
States-General, and the East India Company, sailed via Cape Horn into the Pacific.
The organizers of this fleet had been informed (correctly) of the bloody civil broils in
Potosi between "the Basques and the rest" (guerra entre Vascongados y Vicunas,
1621-25). They had also been assured (incorrectly) that the Black slaves and the
Amerindians of Peru were ripe for revolt against their Spanish overlords and would
willingly join the Dutch if the latter disembarked in force. Not merely was the capture
of Callao and Lima envisaged, but the possibility of landing at Arica and marching on
Potosi, which was an unfortified but immensely rich mining centre.
 WAR AND TRADE 1600-1650 5
The plan was probably chimerical anyway. But whatever chance it had of even par¬
tial success —establishment of a Dutch foothold in Peru or Chile —was ruined by the
fact that the fleet called at the Cape Verde Islands, where the crews, as well as provi¬
sions and water, picked up amoebic dysentery Decimated by this disease, which pros¬
trated the commander, Jacques L’Hermite, the fleet nevertheless managed to beat its
way through the fierce storms of Cape Horn. The Dutch blockaded Callao (where
L’Hermite was buried) for three months, and sacked Guayaquil twice. But they missed
the flotilla with the silver from Potosi, which had left Callao five days before their ar¬
rival, and they failed to intercept the Manila galleon off Acapulco. Too weak to effect
anything more, the “Nassau Fleet”, as it was termed, sailed across the Pacific via the
Moluccas to Batavia, which they reached on the 25 August 1625.
Although the “Nassau Fleet” attained none of its major objectives, the Dutch ac¬
quired some knowledge of the Araucanians, who were successfully resisting the
Spaniards south of the Bio-Bio river in Chile. Nineteen years later, the directors of the
virtually bankrupt West India Company organized an expedition to Chile , with which
Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, Governor-General of Netherlands Brazil was
ordered to cooperate. This he did, supplying a force of five ships and 400 men. But
after a promising start with the Araucanians in May 1643, these Amerindians became
suspicious of the Dutch with their constant enquiries about gold mines. They became
uncooperative, so the Dutch re-embarked in their ships and returned to Pernambuco
in December 1643.5
Apart from these world-wide expeditions, whether Dutch or Iberian, which were
organized in Europe, there was some ambitious strategic planning, implemented in
whole or in part, in the more limited region of the Indian Ocean and the China Sea.
Although the terms of the union of the Crowns of Portugal and Castile in the persons
of the Spanish Habsburgs (1580/81) had specifically recognized that the two colonial
empires would be kept entirely separate, administratively, militarily, economically,
and even in the missionary sphere, the rapid rise of the Dutch menace in the East- In¬
dies soon compelled the Crown to authorize cooperation between Goa, Macao, Manila
and Mexico, in matters of defence. The Spanish capture of Ternate and Tidore in
1606 had been categorically ordered by the government at Madrid, after an earlier
combined Luso-Spanish effort against Ternate had failed in 1603. In 1610, the
Viceroy of Goa sent a well-found fleet of eight sail to Macao with orders to cooperate
with the Spaniards at Manila against the Dutch. But the cowardly Portuguese com¬
mander, Dom Diogo de Vasconcellos, after reaching Macao, refused to do anything of
the sort, despite the cooperative attitude of the Governor of the Philippines, and the
urging of his own subordinate commanders. Five years later the Viceroy of Goa and
the Governor of the Philippines agreed to mount another combined expedition, which
would rendezvous at Malacca and then attack the Dutch at Bantam and in the Spice
Islands. This plan miscarried because the four Portuguese galleons sent to Malacca
were intercepted off that port by an Atjehnese fleet In the straits of Johore. This ar¬
mada was the largest and strongest ever mobilised by the Spaniards at Manila. It in¬
cluded sixteen great galleons of 600-2,000 tons, mounting some 300 bronze guns, and
manned by 2,000 Spaniards and 3,000 Asians (Filipinos, Japanese. Malays). De Silva,
sickened and died of dysentery soon after reaching Malacca and the armada, short of
supplies, returned to Manila without attempting to seek out and engage the Dutch.
. However, some of these galleons next year inflicted a severe defeat at the Playa Honda
on the Dutch blockading fleet under Jan Dirkszoon Lam, who had unwisely detached
some of his ships a few days before the battle (15/16 April). After the Dutch (in 1624)
and the Spaniards (in 1626) had established themselves in Taiwan, there were several
Iberian projects for a combined expedition against the Dutch at Fort Zeelandia. But

* Two lines omitted here, see p.17.

VI

they never got translated into action, despite periodic reminders from Lisbon and
Madrid that Macao and Manila should cooperate for this purpose.6
Another instance of long-range strategic planning which proved to be abortive in
practice, though sound enough in principle, was the Count-Duke of Olivares’ proposal
for a “Union of Arms", elaborated in 1625-26. This was designed to secure a pool of
soldiers, recruited and paid in appropriate proportions by the heterogenous kingdoms,
principalities, and lordships which in one way or another owed some form of
allegiance to the wearer of the Castilian Crown. Portions of these forces could then be
deployed to reinforce whatever battle-front was most critical, whether in Europe,
America, Asia, or Africa. The project never materialised in the form envisaged by
Olivares, since it infringed the jealously guarded autonomous rights of the various
regions, including Portugal, Vizcaya, and Catalonia. Castile and its colonial
dependencies continued to bear the brunt of defence expenditure, Peru being assigned
an annual quota of 350,000 ducats, and Mexico, 250,000.7 But neither Peru nor
Mexico raised large forces of trained manpower. Iberian-Americans for centuries
evinced a visceral dislike of military and naval service, as viceroys and governors from
Southern Brazil to Northern Mexico continually complained.
Even more ambitious than Olivares’ scheme for the "Union of Arms” was his com¬
plementary “Great Project” for the establishment of a series of interlocking trading
companies, which would compete with the Dutch from the Baltic to the Atlantic and
the Indian Ocean. They would be for trade respectively with Northern Europe in
cooperation with the Hanseatic League, with the Spanish Indies (based on Seville),
with the Mediterranean and the Levant (based on Barcelona), and with Portuguese
Asia, based at Lisbon and Goa. In the event, the flat refusal of the Hanseatic League,
the lukewarm attitude of the Catalans, and untoward events such as Piet Heyn's cap¬
ture of the Mexican silver-fleet, forced the abandonment of the “Great Project" by the
end of 1628, after four years of high level paper work and discussions. Only an under
capitalized Portuguese East India Company materialized in August 1628. Even then,
some 300,000 cruzados intended by business interests in Spain for investment in this
Company were diverted at Olivares' insistence to the wars in Flanders. The weakling
Portuguese East India Company never looked like being a serious threat to its dynamic
Dutch rival. It was liquidated by order of the Crown in April 1633, control of the car-
reira between Lisbon and Goa reverting to the Treasury Council (Conselho da Faz¬
enda).8
On the Dutch side, there were many high level suggestions for a fusion of the Dutch
East and West India Companies in the 1630s and 1640s. Advocates of such a move in¬
cluded Johan Maurits, who optimistically claimed that their combined resources
would enable the Dutch to strip the Spanish Habsburgs of all their colonial possessions
from the Philippines to Peru. But the Directors of the V.O.C. resolutely refused to link
the thriving fortunes of their Company with the virtually bankrupt W.l.C. Their in
fluence finally prevailed with the States-General; although they only secured a renewal
of their monopolistic charter in 1647, by giving their Cinderella sister a hefty subsidy
of 1,500,000 florins as a contribution to the war against the Portuguese in Brazil and
West Africa. But they refused to terminate their own (belated) truce with the Portu¬
guese in Asia until it had run its course in 1652.9

Manpower, Leadership, and Morale

Manpower was a perennial problem for all three contestants, particularly for the
two Iberian powers. Portugal’s population may have increased very slowly (? to about
 VI

WAR AND TRADE 1600 1650 7

1 '/£ or 1% million?) during this period, but Spain's declined disastrously, due to
plague, famine, expulsion of the Moriscos, etc. Spain’s Cantabrian and Basque pro¬
vinces, whence came the best of her seamen, were among the hardest hit, although
they had no — or very few — Moriscos. Neither Spain nor Portugal could raise adequate
numbers of men for the defence of their extended overseas empires; and neither the
Mestizos of Portuguese Asia nor the Creoles and Mestizos of Spanish America were
very promising fighting material, if the official complaints about their failures can be
taken at even half their face value. On the other hand, the Dutch, with a population
about the same as that of Portugal, could and did draw, thanks to their commercial
prosperity and greater economic resources, on large reservoirs of potentially suitable
manpower in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Baltic coast and hinterland.
Once Europeans reached the Indian Ocean region, they could expect a high death-
rate from tropical diseases, powerfully reinforced by other causes such as strong drink
and weak women, as the official correspondence from Goa, Manila, and Batavia
makes abundantly clear. This correspondence is equally emphatic about the low
quality and the insufficient number of the annual reinforcements/replacements which
the colonial authorities did receive, as indicated previously. While some of these com¬
plaints were probably exaggerated, there was obviously much substance to many of
them. “Golden Goa" had lost most of its attraction by the early 17th century and the
great bulk of voluntary emigrants from Portugal and its Atlantic Islands opted to go to
Brazil where the economic opportunities were better and health hazards were less. Jail¬
birds and convict-soldiers (degredados) formed increasingly large proportions of the
men who left Lisbon for Goa. and many of the others were mere boys. By 1650, it was
routine for the Crown to write to all the Portuguese comarcas (judicial districts) in the
late autumn or early winter, ordering them to send jail-birds to Lisbon for their quota
in the annual India Fleets in March if they could not get enough volunteers, as they
seldom or never did.10
Similarly, the governors of the Philippines continually complained that the drafts
which they received from Mexico were mainly composed of untrained juveniles,
vagabonds, layabouts, and criminals. Nor is this surprising, as the Crown while
repeatedly urging the Viceroys of Mexico and Peru to send only trained men in the
drafts for Manila simultaneously authorized those high officials to deport to the
Philippines undesirable and anti social individuals.
The Dutch, as previously indicated, had fewer problems in this respect. Even so, the
authorities at Batavia continually complained that they received “such wretched
people and so many foreigners", including those who could speak no Dutch, instead of
"trusty Netherlands hearts". Shore-based critics of the V.O.C. went even further.
They alleged, with palpable exaggeration, that very few self-respecting individuals
would voluntarily enlist in the service of the East-India Company, which was therefore
chiefly recruited from "the scum of the Dutch and of many other nations.
However, as Napoleon Bonaparte observed; "there are no bad soldiers, only bad of¬
ficers". The most unpromising material for cannon fodder can often be licked into
shape by inspired leadership, by adequate feeding and training combined with strict
discipline, or simply by making the soldiers more afraid of their own officers than of
the enemy (“fragging" had not been invented in those days). The Portuguese during
this period suffered much opprobrium from friends and foes, being called “chickens",
"hens’" and "hen-hearted fellows” by their enemies and their allies. Diogo do Couto
complained in 1608 that the Indians no longer termed the Portuguese Fennghis( =
Franks), but Frangdes (chickens). Fifty years later, a German Jesuit wrote from Surat
that the Portuguese "roar like lions when they speak, but their deeds and actions are

more timid than those of scared rabbits .

VI

Similar strictures abound in the intervening decades, including a waterfront-jin gle

reported by an English Capuchin friar as being of Dutch origin, but which I suspect
was really Spanish: "Senores Olandeses/ deixamnos passar/ Que somos Portugueses/
galinhas de la mar” (Dutch gentlemen, please let us pass, as we are only Portuguese,
the chickens of the sea"). The cowardly ineptitude of the Portuguese Jidalgos who
commanded the Persian Gulf strongholds of Ormuz (1622) and Muscat (1650) was the
principal reason for their humiliating surrender, and many other similar instances
could be given. But when courageous and inspiring leaders were in command, such as
Nuno Alvarez Botelho in the Persian Gulf (1625) and in the relief of Malacca (1630),
or Ignacio Sarmento de Carvalho in the defence of Cochin (1659-63) it was a very dif¬
ferent story. The “chickens" and "hens" were transformed into “fighting cocks", as the
Duke of Wellington later observed of Beresford’s Portuguese troops in the Peninsula
War. It was a similar story in Brazil, where a long run of Portuguese defeats in the
1630s was turned into a string of Luso-Brazilian victories in the 1640s under the
remarkable leadership of Joao Fernandes Vieira, Andre Vidal de Negreiros, and Fran¬
cisco Barreto.11
The Spanish-Dutch struggle in Philippine waters revealed that the former con
sistently produced the better leaders, a striking reversal of the struggle in the Atlantic
which was decided in favour of the Dutch in 1639 40. Perhaps the primary role of the
Basques in the Philippines had something to do with it, especially in the 1640s,
although the ineptitude of the Dutch commanders from Jan Dirckszoon Lam at the
Playa Honda (1617) to Abel Janszoon Tasman in 1648, certainly contributed to this
result. Despite their uniformly poor record against the Spaniards in the Philippines,
the Dutch leaders usually gave a much better account of themselves elsewhere. In fact,
many of them falsified Cornelis Mateliefs 1608 dictum "If you try to combine a soldier
and a merchant in one person, you will labour in vain." The careers of men like
Laurens Reael, Aernout de Vlamingh van Outshoorn, and Rijklof van Coens showed
that they were equally adept at handling the ledger and the sword. '*
Religious convictions were usually strongly held on both sides; but I think it fair to
say that whereas Protestant prisoners and deserters were often converted to Roman
Catholicism if pressure was brought to bear on them, the reverse process was much less
common. This was equally true of the struggle between the Dutch and the Iberians in
Spanish America and in Brazil. Religion naturally weighed more heavily with the
devoutly Catholic Habsburg and Braganza monarchs than it did with the largely Eras-
tian "Gentlemen Seventeen". When Philip 11 was urged by some of his advisers to
abandon the Philippines, since there was no likelihood that they would ever cease to be
a burden to the Royal Exchequer, he retorted that he would rather sacrifice all the
wealth which his Crown derived from the Indies as well as from Spain itself in order to
maintain Christianity in the Philippines for so long as a single Christian convert re¬
mained there. His successors felt the same way, sending 468 Franciscan missionaries to
those islands between 1621 and 1646, apart from members of the other Religious
Orders.13 The “Gentlemen Seventeen" gave more support to Calvinist missionaries in
the East Indies than is generally realised; but the spreading of the Protestant faith was
not high in their list of priorities.
The deep-rooted and common Iberian prejudice against the mariner's calling has
often been commented upon, but it has never been satisfactorily explained. The term
"sailor" was often used with an explicitly derogatory connotation, both in Spanish and
Portuguese. Military service ashore was always regarded as more prestigious than
naval service afloat. Landsmen with no knowledge of the sea were often appointed as
captains of warships, although they were not supposed to interfere with the naviga¬
tion, which was the sole responsibility of the pilot. Both the Spanish and the Por
 VI

WAR AND TRADE 1600-1650 9

tuguese Crowns sometimes promulgated edicts enjoining that sailors should be treated
with more consideration; but all such efforts to improve their status foundered on the
rock of social prejudice against them. This was the basic reason for the failure of King
John IV’s efforts to reform the carreira da India in 1644-48, by giving the command of
East Indiamen to professional seamen, instead of to nobly born but otherwise un¬
qualified fidalgos.14 The Dutch did not have the same prejudice against the sea ser¬
vice; but common sailors were certainly regarded as expendable by the “Gentlemen
Seventeen”, who never raised their basic pay between 1602 and 1799.

V. Shipping and Armaments

One notable difference between the Iberians and the Dutch was that whereas the
latter built all their Indiamen in the Netherlands shipyards, save for small vessels like
coastal craft and dispatch-boats, the Iberians built many of theirs in Asia. The Portu¬
guese built carracks (Nads, “Great Ships”) at Goa, Cochim, Ba^aim and DamSo on the
west coast of India. The Spaniards built the famous Manila galleons at Cavite, Albay,
Camarines, Marinduque and even, on occasion in Cambodia. The teak of Western
India and the Philippine hardwoods such as lanang and molave made more durable
ships’ timber than the oak and pine of Europe. On the other hand, these India- and
Philippine-built ships were costly to build, and were sometimes on the stocks for six or
seven years on end; whereas a Dutch East-Indiaman was often built in a twelvemonth.
The Manila galleons built during the Dutch War involved very heavy sacrifices from
the Pampangas, Tagalogs, Visayas, and other Filipinos who were drafted for forced
labour in felling the timbers in the hills and dragging them to the shipyards at Cavite
or elsewhere. Their wages were hopelessly in arrears and their villages had to find
rations and to pay taxes for them as well. The Castilian Crown was periodically in¬
formed of the abuses inherent in their system, but it was either unable or unwilling to
do anything effective to stop them. It contented itself with promulgating routine
orders that they should cease, just as it did with the abuses of the mita system of forced
labour for the mines of Potosi and Huancavelica in Peru.15
These abuses did not occur in Portuguese India, where carracks and galleons were
usually built on contract by paid Indian labour, which was very cheap. The construc¬
tion was done under the direction of Portuguese master-shipwrights, and sometimes in
cooperation with local potentates such as the Raja of Cochim and the Adil Shah of
Bijapur. The timber from the teak forests of the “Province of the North” between
Ba^aim and Damao, was often supplied by local Portuguese officials, who charged the
Crown outrageous prices. Peter Mundy notedwhen he witnessed the launching of the
great galleon Bom Jesus at Goa in 1636, that these great ships were “very long a-doing
and issue at excessive rates. ”
The Lisbon and Oporto yards also built some impressive carracks and galleons for
service on the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. The English consul at Lisbon in August
1641, wrote of the nine royal galleons in the Tagus: “They are well appointed ships, as
hardly cannot be seen better, the less of them about 800 tons and three of them about
1,000 —all exceedingly well mounted with brass artillery.”16
The Dutch East-Indiamen at this period were broadly speaking of two main types.
Firstly, the Retour-schepen, or “Return-Ships", which as their name implies, were
chiefly used for the carriage of cargoes between the Netherlands and the East Indies.
They might mount 40 or more guns, but seldom exceeded 1,000 tons. Secondly, sturdy
war-yachts (kloecke oorlogsjachten), mounting 26 or more guns, which were termed
“galleons” by their Iberian opponents, although they were usually lighter and handier.
VI

10
Portuguese, Spaniards, and Dutch alike made much use of smaller craft, such as pin¬
naces, fly boats, ketches, galliots, etc., which could be cheaply constructed and easily
replaced if they were lost The Portuguese also made great use of small craft like/uj-
tas combining the use of oars and sails, for coastal trade, and to evade the Dutch ships
blockading Goa and Malacca —not always with success. They used galliots in the
Macao Nagasaki trade from 1618 to 1639, when the Japanese termed them kareu-
tasen.
In the early 17th century most Portuguese carracks were under-gunned for their
size, mounting sub standard 6- and 8-pounders. This defect was remedied later,
largely due to the enormous output of high quality bronze and iron cannon cast by the
gun-foundry of Manuel Tavares Bocarro at Macao, c. 1627-64. The Spaniards also
had a good gun-foundry at Manila, where they cast great guns for the local fortifica¬
tions and for the Manila galleons, as well as for export to Mexico, where they were
mounted on the forts at Acapulco and San Juan de Ulloa.17
Uniformity in ships’ armament was still far to seek at this period, as we can see from
the surviving armament lists, such as those for Don Juan de Silva’s great armada
organized at Manila in 1615. This is also evident from the guns now being salvaged by
divers from Indiamen of various nationalities which were lost during this period.
These include the Witte Leeuw, a Dutch-East Indiaman sunk in a fight with tvzo
Portuguese galleons off St Helena on the 13Jurie 1613. Incidentally, this seems to have
been the only occasion on which the Portuguese ever sank a Dutch ship by gunfire.18
Work in progress by Mr. W. D. Allen and other divers on Portuguese wreck-sites in
South East Africa led to the salvage of both bronze and iron cannon from the wreck of
the galleon Sacramento off Algoa Bay in 1647. These guns were cast by the Bocarro
foundry at Macao. The Bocairos comprised three generations of gun founders at Goa
and Macao, spanning the century 1580-1680, more or less. Their cannon were extolled
by friend and foe alike, and were in great demand over the whole of maritime Asia.
Some specimens still survive at Kagoshima in Japan, at Larantuka in Indonesia, and
likewise in Vietnam, if I am not mistaken.19

VI Trading with the Enemy and with Neutrals

What the great Netherlands statesman, Johan de Witt, termed the Dutch ‘ mother-
trade” with the Baltic, enabled the Dutch Republic throughout the Eighty Years War
to act as carriers for the naval stores and armaments which Spain and Portugal needed
to equip the fleets which protected their seaborne empires against Dutch attacks. The
cash, mostly in the form of silver bullion and pieces-of eight (pesos de a-ocho reales),
which the Dutch obtained in payment for these goods enabled them, in turn, to pay
for the upkeep of their own naval and military forces. As Michael Howard has ob¬
served: “It was an arrangement which contemporaries and posterity have found equal¬
ly puzzling, but it worked to everyone’s satisfaction" ( War in European History, p. 44).
Examples of this handel op den vijand ("trade with the enemy”) as the Dutch called it,
are legion. A few will suffice.
The combined Spanish-Portuguese armada of Don Fadrique de Toledo, which had
been severely damaged by storms with the loss of several ships on its return voyage after
the recapture of Bahia in 1625, was refitted in 1626 with the help of naval stores im¬
ported from Holland in Dutch shipping. Similarly, a Portuguese armada which re¬
lieved Bahia from another threat by the Dutch in 1647, and which recaptured Luanda
from them next year, was fitted out almost entirely with naval stores and munitions
supplied from Amsterdam.20
 VI

WAR AND TRADE 1600 1650 1 1

In the Indian Ocean, several Portuguese captains of fortresses were accused of

trading with the Dutch, sometimes through the intermediary of the English, including
Franciso de Sousa de Castro, captain of Damao in 1634-37. On one occasion at least,
the Portuguese not only supplied the Dutch ships blockading Goa with fresh provisions
and water during an interim truce, but also with ladies of easy virtue. The Jesuits at
Goa and Macao allegedly traded with Dutch foes and with English neutrals on a scale
which later earned them the sobriquet of “Fathers of the East India Company of
Holland" from the (admittedly anti clerical) Viceroy, Antonio de Mello de Castro, in
1664. Some of these allegations can certainly be discounted, but others had con¬
siderable substance to them. The English Factors at Surat in the 1640s found that the
Jesuits of Goa were the most reliable suppliers of cinnamon from Sri Lanka
(theoretically a strict Crown monopoly) at the most reasonable prices.21
The English and Danes as neutrals in the Luso-Dutch struggle from 1635 onwards
likewise made the most of their opportunities. Successive Portuguese viceroys freighted
English ships to bring the Bocatro guns from Macao to Goa through the Dutch
blockade, beginning with the London in 1635. This practice received a temporary
check, when the Bona Esperanza was seized by the Dutch in the straits of Malacca in
1643. A renegade Dutchman in the service of the Danish East India Company at
Tranquebar kept the Viceroy of Goa informed about Dutch plans and projects.
Individual merchants could and often did trade with all comers whether a state of
war or peace prevailed. Perhaps the most outstanding example was the Portuguese
merchant-adventurer, Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo. Starting his adult life as a com¬
mon soldier c. 1623, he built himself up into one of the leading merchants of Southeast
Asia, trading with all and sundry in the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and In¬
donesian waters.22
Vieira de Figueiredo's main base for many years was Macassar, where the tolerant
Muslim rulers and their chief ministers (karaeng) deliberately encouraged Portuguese,
Spanish. English and Danish traders, as counterweights to the growing Dutch power
which eventually laid them low in 1667-69, after a hard and bitter struggle. He was
also involved in commercial transactions with the famous Persian adventurer and
Mughal governor, Mir Jumla. This puissant potentate likewise traded in diamonds
with Dom Felipe Mascarenhas, Governor of Portuguese Sri Lanka in 1640-45, and
Viceroy of Goa, 1646-51. Mir Jumla also traded with the factors of the Dutch and
English East India Companies in Coromandel and Bengal, but on his own terms rather
than on theirs.
Powerful Asian rulers could usually make the quarrelsome European traders toe the
line when they wanted to, although the “Great Sophy” of Persia and the “Great
Mughal” of Hindustan never contemplated building up a naval force to challenge the
Europeans. They evidently shared a former Sultan of Gujarat’s conviction “that wars
by sea are merchants' affairs and are of no concern to the prestige of princes.” But the
Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan was more forceful. While disbanding the budding
Japanese merchant-marine of “Red Seal Ships”, and despite its growing distrust of the
traders from Macao as potential fifth columnists, the Bakufu nevertheless prohibited
the Dutch ships from leaving Hirado until twenty days after the departure of the
Portuguese galliots from Nagasaki. The Sultan of Bantam, like the rulers of Macassar,
kept his port city open to the traders of all nations, despite frequent pressure from the
steadily increasing power of the Dutch in neighbouring Batavia.
With the steady attrition of Portuguese seapower in this period, even minor Indian
potentates were able to revise the terms of trade in their favour. The enterprising
Sivappa Naik, Raja of Ikkeri in 1645-1660, had constant disputes with the Portuguese
of Goa over the price of the pepper and rice which the latter secured from his terri-
VI

12

tories. But the Portuguese usually yielded in the end, and they continued to purchase
these vital commodities from Ikkeri, even when the two sides were openly at war, and
when he had captured the Portuguese coastal forts in Kanara in 1653-54.** Attempts
by the English East India Company to open up trade with Manila in the 1640s, and
with the Portuguese East African ports in the 1650s, ended in failure. In the former
case, this was chiefly due to the English being unable or unwilling to provide sufficient
quantities of naval and military stores, of which the Spaniards stood in great need.
Even so, the English were able to make a small commercial profit on the two ships,
Seahorse and Supply, which made the attempts.*4 In the second instance, the failure
was due to the inability of the English to agree on prices with the governors and the
Jesuits at Mombasa and Mozambique. The strict Crown ban against any such trade
was a dead letter, provided only that the prices and the commodities were mutually ac
ceptable.*6

VII Public Calamities and Private Fortunes

It was an accepted fact of life in the Old Regime that the perquisites, pickings,
and what are now called "kick backs” attached to any government office were usually
far more considerable than the official salary itself. It is, however, rather surprising to
find that personal fortunes burgeoned even in what were — or seemed to be — the most
unpropitious economic conditions.
Portugal and its seaborne empire were in an unenviable position during the whole of
this period, with the stepping up of the Dutch attacks in the South Atlantic and in the
Indian Ocean from 1630 onwards. The break with Spain in 1640 made things even
worse. The Luso-Dutch truce of 1641-52 did not prevent the renewal of full scale
hostilities in Brazil and Angola, following on the rebellion of Pernambuco in June
1645. All the official correspondence from Goa and Macao during this period is full of
loud lamentations about the desperate poverty of the Estado da India, and (after
1640/41) on the urgent need to make a peace or truce with the Dutch. Yet during this
period, marked by a succession of disasters, including the loss of Malacca, of Muscat,
of the Japan trade, of part of lowland Sri Lanka, the annual blockades of Goa in
1637-44, and an unprecedented shipwreck-rate, all the Viceroys concerned continued
to amass considerable personal fortunes.
This was true of the Count of Linhares (1629 35), who alleged that he had to wear
torn shirts, and that his credit-rating was so low that nobody would lend him 100
cruzados. Yet he returned to Europe a rich man; and he made at least one substantial
endowment to a religious foundation in India. His successor, the peevish and
avaricious Pedro de Silva (1635-39), was extremely critical of Linhares conduct; but
he himself was reliably reported to be worth at least 200,000 xerafines when he died
(unmourned) in office. The Count of Aveiras, who was Viceroy during the disastrous
years of 1640-44, returned to Portugal a very wealthy man. Dom Felipe
Mascarenhas (1645-1651) had been nicknamed the “King of Gold" by the Sinhalese
and the Dutch during his governorship of lowland Sri Lanka; nor did his skill in
trading in diamonds fail him during his viceroyalty at Goa. He left India with a large
personal fortune in 1651, although he did not live to enjoy it, dying on the homeward
voyage.*6
Most of the governors of the Philippines were popularly believed to have profited
greatly from their position, including the capable and controversial Sebastian Hur¬
tado de Corcuera, who had a longer tenure (1635-1644) than most. There remains
considerable doubt as to whether Corcuera was really guilty of the voluminous charges
 VI

WAR AND TRADE 1600-1650 13

of malfeasance brought against him. He was at first found guilty and was imprisoned
for some years at Manda. But he was acquitted after his return to Spain and given the
consolation prize of governor of the Canary Islands, where he died in 16 6 0.27 The Mar¬
quis of Cerralvo, Viceroy of New Spain in 1624-35, was reported to have made “a
million a year, what with gifts and presents, what with his trading to Spain and the
Philippines. He governed ten years, and in this time he sent to the King of Spain a
popinjay worth half a million, and in one year more he sent the worth of a million to
the Count of Olivares and other courtiers, to obtain a prorogation for five years
more."28 The Count-Duke of Olivares, who is usually credited with having been far
less greedy and grasping than most men in high office, nevertheless secured from the
Crown a highly lucrative grant enabling him to trade with a ship of 200 tons on an
annual round voyage between Acapulco and Manila, for a period of six years, later ex¬
tended to ten.29
The Dutch governors-general at this period did not yet become millionaires, as
several of them did later, includingjohan Maetsuyker (1653-1678), who began his East
Indian career in 1636. But they certainly did not lose money when in office. The same
applied to their Senior subordinate officials, including those who were not so cynical as
Pieter Nuyts, the ill-starred governor of Taiwan in 1627-29. When accused of corrup¬
tion, he retorted frankly that he "had not come out to India to eat hay."

VIII Indigenous Friends and Foes

It goes without saying that the European empires in Asia could not have survived for
any length of time but for the support and cooperation which they received from
various indigenous peoples. Some of these were prepared to side with the Europeans
not merely against their own hereditary enemies but sometimes against their own kith
and kin. A few examples will suffice.
The steadfast loyalty of the Pampangas in Central Luzon to the Spanish Crown and
to their missionary-friars was acknowledged by successive generations of Spaniards for
over 300 years. Their brief revolt in 1660, for which they had every excuse was seldom
repeated. Hurtado de Corcuera, who had himself “trailed a pike" in Flanders and par¬
ticipated in the capture of Breda (1625) aptly compared the Pampangas to the
Burgundian soldiers who displayed the same exemplary loyalty on the battlefields of
the "cockpit of Europe".31
The Tagalogs had a similar reputation. There was a Spanish saying current in the
Philippines that one Spaniard could beat four Tagalogs, but that one Spaniard and
three Tagalogs could beat ten Spaniards —or words to that effect, but I have mislaid
the reference. Nor were the Visayas far behind in loyalty. In fact, the Christianized
Filipinos in general never showed any inclination to join with the heretic Dutch in¬
truders, however oppressive they may have found their Spanish overlords on occasion.
They were indispensable as sailors on the Manila galleons.
The Dutch did secure allies among the Moros of Mindanao, Solo and Sulu, but the
cooperation of Calvinist and Muslim was not as effective in practice as it could have
been. This was basically due to the fact that both parties, although united in their
detestation of "idolatrous” Roman Catholicism, still retained basic prejudices against
each other’s religion. "Rather Turk than Pope” was a motto of the Dutch Sea Beggars
during the early years of the Revolt of the Netherlands; but Don Juan de Austria's vic¬
tory at Lepanto (October 1571) was celebrated in the Protestant as well as in the
Roman Catholic North. Once the Dutch were firmly established at Batavia, the
danger to their position posed by the powerful sultanate of Mataram, for long made
VI

14
them highly suspicious of Muslim Mullahs and holy men. The Moros on their side
realized that the Dutch were Christians of a sort. Presumably, they also felt ambivalent
about the growing Dutch power in the Moluccas, their subjugation of Ternate and the
Amboina group, and their hostility to Muslims elsewhere in Indonesia.
The Portuguese could count on the loyalty of many (though not of all) of the in¬
habitants of the Lesser Sunda Islands of Ende, Flores, Solor and Timor. They
achieved this result largely through the activities of the Dominican missionary-friars,
based originally on Solor and then at Larantuka. But it was cemented by miscegena¬
tion in the form of marital alliances between the half-caste Topasses or "Black Por¬
tuguese” who operated out of Larantuka and the chiefly families of the Belu clans in
Timor. The two best known of these mixed families were the Hornays and the Costas,
the former being descended from a Dutch deserter and an indigenous mother from
Larantuka. These two families intermittently disputed with each other for the effec¬
tive control of Timor (save for Dutch-held Kupang after 1641) until well into the eigh¬
teenth century. The “Black Portuguese" and their Timorese allies vaguely acknow¬
ledged the suzerainty of the Portuguese Crown; but they did not consider themselves as
being in any way subordinate to the viceroys at Goa. The Hornays and the Costas
fostered the sandalwood-, wax-, and gold-dust trade with Macao and Macassar, in
which the Dominican missionary-friars likewise had a profitable share.32
The situation in Sri Lanka was affected by the perennial rivalry between the Bud
dhist Sinhalese majority and the Hindu Tamil minority, the latter largely concen¬
trated in the northeast kingdom of Jaffna. Portuguese missionaries made Christian
converts in both communities, often by a mixture of carrot-and-stick methods, the
latter involving the destruction of Buddhist and Hindu temples and their substitution
by Christian churches. After the final subjugation of Jaffna, the Portuguese could
probably rely more on the Tamils than on the Sinhalese. When the Dutch intervened
to help Raja Sinha II of Kandy, the Sinhalese-Dutch alliance was bedevilled by mutual
mistrust, for which the Dutch must take the greater share of the blame since they
double-crossed the Sinhalese ruler from the start. Both Dutch and Portuguese
employed Sinhalese auxiliaries (lascarins) in their service, although they were seldom
complimentary about them. But captain Joao Ribeiro, who served for eighteen years
(1640-58) in “the Beautiful Island” had the grace to admit that if the lascarins
sometimes deserted to their compatriots of Kandy, there were other instances when
they would rather lose their own lives than abandon the Portuguese.33
The Dutch also tended to play down the military value of their Malay allies, whether
from Johore or elsewhere, in this long struggle for Portuguese Malacca, but Professor
L. Andaya and other scholars are now giving us a more balanced view.34
Although neither the “Great Sophy” or the “Great Moghul” ever thought of
challenging the Portuguese claim to the domination of the Indian Ocean, there was
one Muslim ruler who did so with a remarkable degree of success. This was the Ya’rubi
Imam Sultan ibn Saif I of Oman (1649-1679). Within a few months of his accession,
he had swept the Portuguese from their last but virtually impregnable stronghold of
Muscat. He improvised a fleet in a matter of weeks rather than months or years, and
he steadily improved its effectiveness in the next two decades. How the Omani were
able to build and maintain such a formidable fleet, which raided the Portuguese
stronghold from Diu to Mozambique island, in so short a time is not altogether clear.
There was no timber available in the Gulf, and all their shipbuilding and repairs had
to be done at Surat or elsewhere on the West Coast of India. Portuguese demoraliza¬
tion was certainly a major factor in their loss of Muscat (January 1650), Tom£ Pinheiro
de Veiga, the Crown Attorney-General (Procurador da Coroa) at Lisbon denounced
the cowardly surrender of Muscat as being a humiliation which would have disgraced
 VI

WAR AND TRADE 1600 1650 15

“the occupants of a sheep-fold or a chicken-coop *. The final capitulation was all the
more inexcusable since the Arabs in Portuguese service behaved with exemplary
loyalty and courage. There were many naval engagements between the Portuguese
and the Omani during the second half of the seventeenth century, but none of them
were decisive, notwithstanding Portuguese claims of resounding victories.35
As Sir Julian Corbett pointed out long ago, “command of the sea is never absolute ”,
The Indian Ocean continued to be the scene of trading and fighting between Por¬
tuguese, Dutch, English, Arabs, Marathas and others, with varying fortunes for many
years to come. But 1650 does mark a watershed with the appearance of Islam
Resurgent after a long-standing eclipse of virtually a century and a half.

REFERENCES

1. M. Howard. War in European History (Oxford 1976), p. 38.

2. C. R Boxer. The Embassy of Captain Gonfalo de Siqueira de Souza to Japan in 1644-47 (Macao 1938).
pp. 25 27, and sources there quoted, to which should be added Torres y Lanzas Pablo PasTells S. J.,
Catdlogo de los documentos relativos a las islas Ftliptnas, vols. VI and VII (Barcelona 1931), E. B. Blair
and I. A. Robertson. The Philippine Islands, vol. 18. pp. 91-92, 118.
3 Torres y Lanzas-Pablo Pasitells, vols. VI and VII; Public Record Office. London, S.P. 89/3. fls.
209-10. Francisco Colin S. J and Pablo Pas tells S. J., Labor Evangelica, vol. III. p. 525n. Many of the
consultas of the Junta de Guerra de Indias at Madrid, relating to the Philippines and Portuguese Asia
are calendared in the Boletim da Ftlmoteca Ultramanna Portuguesa, nr. 44 (1971), pp. 1-142:
Zuazola's name is sometimes given as Zuazo.
4. J.C. M. Warnsinck ed. De Reis om de wereld van Jons van Spilbergen, 16141617 (The Hague 1943);
John Leddy Phelan, The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century (Madison 1967), pp. 99 100.
5. For the Nassau Fleet see W. Voorbeijtel Cannenburg ed. De reis om de wereld van de Nassausche
Vloot, 162) 1626 (The Hague 1964); Phelan. 101-106; Gonzalo de Reparaz, 'El gran designio' in
Re vista Diplomdtica Peruana Intemacional ( Lima 1971). pp. 6-10. For the Dutch expedition to Chile
in 1643 see C. R Boxer. The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-16)4 (Oxford 1957; Hamden Conn. 1973). pp.
146 47. and sources there quoted.
6. C. R. Boxer. The Great Ship from Amacon Annals of Macao and the Old Japan Trade, 1555-1640
(Lisboa 1959. 1963). pp. 80 82. and sources there quoted; N. MacLeod, De Oost-lndische Compagnie
als zeemogendheid in Azie (2 vols., Rijswijk 1927), vol. 1. pp. 169-74. W. L. Schurz in his usually
reliable and always fascinating The Manila Galleon (New York 1939. 1959). goes badly astray in his ac¬
count of the Playa Honda battles, confusing Spilbergen (who did not fight in either of them) with Lam.
For the first Playa Honda and De Silva's abortive expedition, see the well documented article of Tien-
Tse Chang. 'The Spanish-Dutch Naval Battle of 1617 Outside Manila Bay', Philippine Historical
Review, vol. I (1965), pp. 68-79.
7. For the "Union of Arms" see John Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs. vol. II, 1698-1700 (New York
1969), pp. 97-101: Jose Alcala Zamora y Queipo de Llano, Espana, Flandes y el Mar del Norte,
1618-16)9 (Barcelona 1975). p. 212 sqq.
8. For Olivares' 'Grand Project' see A. R. Disney. Twilight of the Pepper Empire (Cambridge Mass.
1978). pp. 74, 79-81, and AlcaU Zamora y Queipo de Llano, pp. 236-42. The story of the short-lived
Portuguese East India Company, 1628 33. is fully documented and analysed in Disney's work.
9. C. R. Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-1654 (1957, 1973), pp 158, 187-188. 217 219; Evaldo Cabral
de Mello, Oltnda Restaurada. Guerra e Afucar no Nordeste, 16)0-1654 (Sao Paulo 1975). This last
work is the best in any language on the Luso-Dutch struggle in Brazil.
10. P. M. Laranjo Coelho ed. Cartas de El Rei Dom Joao IV para diversas autondades do Reino (Lisboa
1940). pp. 335-37, 341, for a few typical instances in 1650.
I 1. Diogo do Couto to the Count of Vidigueira, Goa. "derradeiro oitavo do Natal", a.I.s., in the Arquivo
Nacional, Torre do Tombo. Lisboa; Fr. Johann Grueber S.|.. Philippine Jesuits in the Middle
Kingdom in the 17th Century', Philippine Studies, vol. 26, In Memortam Horacio de la Costa S J
(Manila 1978), p. 197 n. 22. For other instances, see A. X. Soares, Portuguese Vocables in the Asiatic
Languages ( Baroda 1936), in voce Gallina' (393), and sources there quoted; Manuel Lopes de
Almeida ed. Memorial de Pero Ron, 1570-1628 (Coimbra 1953), passim. The anonymous English
Capuchin friar's account of his visit to Spain and Portugal is in British Museum, Sloane MS-. 1572. He
kept his diary in a hailing Spanish. For Brazil see Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil.
VI

16
12. C. R. Boxer, Jan Compagnie in Oorlug en Vredc (Bussum 1977), passim.
13. Juan Diez lie la Callc, Memorial y Noticias Sacras, y lleales del Imperio de las Indias Occidcnlalcs
(Madrid 1646), (Is. 182-83. King Philip's reoort was printed many times in the 17th century in slightly
varying forms, particularly in the Tablas Chronologtcas published between 1643 and 1689.
14 hor the Portuguese prejudice against sailors sec C. R. Boxer cd. and trans. Further selections from the
Tragic History of the Sea, l))9 1)6) (Cambridge 1968), pp. 9 10 and sources there quoted; Idem, For
luguese India in the mid-17th century, 1610-1668 (forthcoming, Bombay 1979). for the Spanish pre¬
judice, scejames Lockhart, Spanish Fern, l))2-l)60. A Colonial Society (Madison 1968), pp. 114-134,
and his Social History of Colonial Spanish America', Latin American Research Review, vol. Vli
(1972), p. 9.
15. All histories of the Philippines devote some space to a discussion of the forced-labour abuses connected
with the Manila Galleons during the Dutch War, including Moracio dc la Costa S.J., The Jesuits in the
,Fhihppincs, 1)81-1769 (Cambridge Mass. 1961), and Nicholas Cushncr S.J., Spam in the Philippines
(Manila 1971).
16. Consul John Chandler to King Charles I, Lisbon, 16 August 1641 (in P.R.O., London. Sl’89/4 fls
47 50). For the India built carracks and galleons see C. R. Boxer, The Carrcira da India; Ships, Men,
Cargoes, Voyages', reprint edition from O Centro dc Lstudos Jlistoricos Ultramannos c as Com-
emorafoes Henriquinas (Lisbon 1961); Disney, 123-75, 146-47.
17. |uan Diez de la Calle, Memorialy Noticias Sacras y Reales (1646), fls. 158-59.
18. C. R. Boxer, 'Asian Potentates and European Artillery in the 16th 18th Centuries', Journal of the
Malay liranch, Royal Asiatic Society, vol. XXXVIII, part 2 (1965), pp. 156 71; Idem 'Hum
desrnnltecida vithria naval porluguesa no sfculo XVII', liolctim da Agincia Ceral das Cnlonius, vol. V
(1929), pp. 29-38. Robert Slfnuil, Sale Catalogues of the artefacts recovered from the Witte Lccuw by
him and sold at London (Sotheby's) and Amsterdam, 1978.
19. W. 1). Allen (personal communications); C. R. Boxer. 'Macao as a Religious and Commercial Entrepot
in the 16th and 17th Centuries', Acta Asiatica. Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture, 26 (Tokyo
1974), pp. 64 90. and articles quoted on pp. 79 HI.
20. English translation ol Spanish passes issued at Lisbon 28 June and Cadiz 26 July 1626. for Dutch ships
to import over 250 masts, 50,000 pipe-staves, 1,500 sails, 1,500 barrels of pilch, 6,000 pine boards and
many other naval stores form 1 lolland into any Iberian port (in P. R .0. London, SP 89/3, (Is. 247-249).
For the Portuguese Armada of 1647 see Boxer, The Dutch in Uracil, pp. 189-190, and sources there
quoted.
21. Boxer, Portuguese India in the Mid-seventeenth Century.
22. C. R. Boxer, Francisco Vieira de Figuciredo: A Portuguese Merchant-Adventurer in South East Asia,
1621 1667( 1he Hague 1967).
23. Pauduronga Pissurlencar cd. Asscntos do Conselho do Eslado da India, 111. 1641-16)8 (Bastora-Goa
1955), pp. 395 98
24. Scrafin D. Quaison, 'The Early Trade of the English East India Company with Manila', Philippine
Historical Review, vol. I (1965), pp. 272-297.
25. John R. Jenson cd. Journal of Nicholas Buchcridge, 16)1-16)4 (Minneapolis 1973).
26. For Linhares sec Disney, p. 61; for the remainder, see Boxer,Portuguese India in the Mid-Seventeenth
Century.
27. For the very high-minded and sensible "Memorandum which 1 must read daily and observe as faithfully
as possible", which Corcucra drew up for his own guidance in office, sec lloracjo dc la Costa, S.J.,
Readings in Philippine History {Manila 1965), pp. 35-37.
28. I. Eric S. Thompson cd. Thomas Gage's Travels in the New World (Normal-. 1969), -p. 77. Gage’s
original account. The English-American Ins Travail by Sea and Land, was first published in 1648.
29. E. Schafer. El Cousejo de Indias, vol. I (1935) p. 226; Torres y Pablo-Pastrjls vol.. VII, 2nd part,
7622 7673(1932), p. 422.
30. Plt.W. Coolhaas, 'Ecn lasttg hccrschap tegenover ccn lastig volk', Bijdragcn cn Mcdedelmgcn
Historisch Genootschap Utrecht, vol. 65 (1943), pp. 1-237.
31. "Pampangas, who arc as good and faithful here as arc the Burgundians in Flanders" (apud Blair and
Robertson, The Philippine Islands, vol. XXVI, p. 197). On the exemplary loyalty of the Pampangas
see also Nicholas Cushner S.J., and John Larkin, 'Royal Land Grants in the Colonial Philippines: Im¬
plications for the Formation of a Social Elite", Philippine Studies, vol. XXVI, pp. 102-111.
32. For the marital alliances between "Black Portuguese" and Timorese see S. Forman, 'East Timor: Ex¬
change and Political Hierarchy at the Time of the European Discoveries', in Karl II. Hulicrcr cd.
Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from Prehistory, History,
and Ethnography, Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, no. 13 (1977), pp. 97-111. For the
Dominican participation in the gold-dust trade, sec C. K. Boxer, Portuguese India in the Mid 17th
Century.
33. Joan Ribciro, Fatahdade llislorica da illia dc Ccilao, book I, chs. 10 and 16. Originally completed in
 VI

WAR AND TRADE 1600-1650 17

1685, this work is most accessible in the English translation by Dr. Paul Pieris, ed. Colombo 1948.
34. L. Y. Andaya, 'De V.O.C. en de Maleise wereld in de 17de en 18de eeuw’, in M. A. P. Meilink-Roelofsz
ed. De V.O.C. in Azie (Bussum 1976), pp. 107-156.
35. The fall of Muscat is copiously documented in Portuguese sources. Cf. P Pissurlencar ed. Assentas do
Conselho do Estado da India. Ill, 1644-1618 (1955), pp. 132-33, 483-521. Tom£ Pinheiro da Veiga. in
his autograph 'Relacao e meu requerlmento', d. 23 May 1654 (author's collection), demanding an ex¬
emplary punishment for those involved, wrote of the "ignominiosa fraquenza com que nem hua corte
de ovelhas ou capoeira de galinhas se rendera". For the Omani background, see R. D. Bathurst.
'Maritime Trade and Imammate Government: Two principal themes in the history of Oman to 1728',
in Derek Hopwood ed. The Arabian Peninsula: Society and Politics (London 1972), pp. 89-106.

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA

P.5» third paragraph, line 20. After Johore inserts which burnt one of them
and the other three were destroyed by the Dutch shortly before the
arrival of Don Juan de Silva with an exceptionally powerful fleet,

P.11, add to first paragraph: Cf, also the Viceroy Count of Linhares' comp¬
laint to the Crown (i7.xii.l63i) that the Jesuits were doing more harm
to the Estado da India than its enemies, by trading with the latter and
trying to usurp royal jurisdiction and revenues.
At a consults of the Consejo de Indias, 10.viii.l6l9,it was stated that
in the twelve years to l6l9» the war in the Philippines and the Moluccas
had cost 7 million ducats sent from Mexico City to Manila—a third of
the money sent from Spain to Flanders in the same period (AGR,Bruxelles,
Leg. 183,fl. 156. Flom Jonathan Israel).
 VII

Asian Potentates and European Artillery in the 16th-18th Centuries:

A Footnote to Gibson-Hill

In an article published in this Journal, XXVI (1) (July 1953), 145-74,

the late C. A. Gibson-Hill discoursed in his usual entertaining and erudite
manner on some “Notes on the old cannon found in Malaya, and known to
be of Dutch origin.” Oddly enough, he did not mention the equally erudite
and lavishly documented series of articles by the late Dr. K.C. Crucq on
the sacro-magical elements often attributed to such cannon by Indonesian
peoples and rulers, which appeared in the pages of the TBG between 1930
and 1941. The demand for European cannon in the East during the six¬
teenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not limited to Malayan
and Indonesian princes, but it was equally pronounced in the principal Asian
countries from Persia to Japan, whether for defence, prestige, status-seeking,
or sacro-magical reasons. It is the purpose of this article to recall some
of these instances and thus to place the findings of Crucq and Gibson-Hill
in the wider context of Monsoon Asia.

It has been alleged that the use of artillery in Persia was due to the Por¬
tuguese; but there is no reliable evidence that such was the case, and it is
much more likely that the Persians acquired it from their Turkish opponents
of long-standing. In any event, the assertion in the Carmelite Chronicle of
Basra, reproduced in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam (p.1066)
that “in 955/1548 the Portuguese furnished [Shah] Tahmasp with 10,000 men
and 20 cannon at the time of the Ottoman Sultan Sulayman’s second invasion
of Persia” is a ridiculous exaggeration. There were never as many as 10,000
able-bodied men in the whole of “Asia Portuguesa” between the Cape of
Good Hope and Japan; and the largest force that they ever put in the field
in defence of their own interests (much more important to them than those
of the Persians) did not exceed two thousand men. The extant Portuguese
sources for the sixteenth century — admittedly very defective and incomplete
regarding their relations with Persia — make no mention of any considerable
quantity of cannon being sent to Shah Ismail and Shah Tahmasp, though se¬
cond-hand reports from Italy and elsewhere indicate that some were sent
 VII

Asian Potentates and European Artillery

to the latter monarch in 1537. But given the shortage of artillery in Por¬
tuguese India itself, as frequently expressed in the correspondence of viceroys
and governors, and given the precarious and intermittent nature of Portu-
guese-Persian co-operation against the Turks, it is highly improbable that
many cannon and firearms were supplied by the Portuguese to the Persians
in the sixteenth century.'

On the other hand, we know that Venetian gunners had made their way
to Persia as early as 1478, though here again we may doubt whether there
were really as many as 100 of them at a given time as alleged in the account
quoted in the Encyclopedia of Islam.2 But renegade Christian gunners and
gun-founders were always in great demand in Muslim and other Eastern
lands, ever since one of their number had cast a huge cannon for the siege
of Constantinople in 1453. No doubt the Portuguese supplied their quota
of such adventurers who entered Persian service, including the Italians,
Flemings, and Germans who were, perhaps, more numerous than native-born
Portuguese as gunners and cannoneers in Portuguese Asia during the sixteenth
century. In 1525, for example, an official indent drawn up at Cochin stated:
“There is great need for a hundred gunners, half of them Germans, and the
remainder Portuguese, and better trained in their profession than those who
have come out here in recent years”3 The soldier-chronicler, Diogo do Couto,
who lived in India from 1559 until his death in 1616, undoubtedly exagge¬
rated when he wrote in his “Soldado Pratico’' of 1611 that there was not a
single gunner in Portuguese Asia who could hit a hill unless his gun was
planted at the foot of it. But Gouto's explanation for this inefficiency was
undoubtedlv the correct one,—that gunnery was “a mean calling” (officio vil),
and so the Portuguese despised this profession and its practitioners.4 This
prejudice, incidentally, was shared by their Persian contemporaries, who had
“an innate dislike of firearms, the use of which they considered unmanly and
cowardly.and in particular they disliked the use of artillery, be-

1. For the sporadic nature of the help given by the Portuguese to the Persians in their
wars against the Turks, including the supply of a few cannon and arr|uebusses see
the documents, calendared in G. Sehurhammer, S. f., Die Zeitf’eniissischen {hwllen zur
Geschichte Portugiesisch-Asien.y untl seiner Nachbarlinder, 153H—1552 ted. Home
1962), nrs. 819, 909, 3969, 3982, 4502. 4505, 4512, 5059-60.
2. Citing Dan Juan of Persia (ed. & trans.), C. Le Strange (London, 1926), 98.
3. "Lembranya d’algumas consas”, in R.f. de Lima Felner (ed.), Subsidios para a hii-
toria da India Portugueza (Lisboa, 1808), III, 31. For Portuguese reliance on Cei
man, Flemish, and Italian gunners, often to the exclusion of their own, cf. R.S. White¬
way, Rise of the Portuguese Power in hulia, I4U7-1550 (Westminster, 1899), 40;
P.E. Pieris & MAH. Fitzler, Ceylon arul Portugal, 7539-1552 (Leipzig, 1927), 291
301.
4. Diogo do Couto, O Soldado Pratico (ed. M. Rodrigues Lapa, Lisboa, 1937), 115.

157
VII

cause it hampered the swift manoeuvers of their cavalry. It is not too much
to say that the Safawids never really made any effective use of artillery in
the field.”5 6 This medieval contempt and dislike for guns and gunners helps
to explain why during the naval and military campaigns which led to the
capture of Kishim (Qishim) and Ormuz by an Anglo-Persian force from the
Potuguese in 1621-22, neither the Persians nor the Portuguese made effective
use of their artillery, and it was the guns and gunners supplied by the ships
of the English East-India Company which mainly decided the outcome ol
the struggle. Some of the Portuguese guns captured at Ormuz were pro¬
vided with a triumphal commemorative inscription by the Persian comman-
der-in-chief and governor-general of Fars, the Imam Qull Khan. They were
later captured by the Arabs of Oman in the course of their wars with the
Persians and taken to Zanzibar, whence two of them found their way to Por¬
tugal in the nineteenth century and are now preserved in the Military Mu¬
seum at Lisbon.0
If the Portuguese gunners were not always so superior to their Asian
opposite numbers as is often alleged, their services were still in demand by
Asian princes and potentates for three centuries, and the guns cast by Por¬
tuguese and Eurasian gun founders were still more eagerly sought after.
This does not mean that Asians did not know—or did not learn — how to
cast cannon. When the Portuguese first reached India, they found that guns
were not unknown on the Malabar Coast, but the Indian gunners who worked
them had no idea of aiming and they took long to load. Early in 1503, two
Milanese gunfounders deserted the Portuguese service for that of the Samuri
of Calicut. They founded a good deal of artillery and trained many arti¬
ficers before they were killed in a local riot a few years later. In 1505 four
Venetians had reached Malabar in the Arab ships from the Red Sea in order
to cast artillery, and when Afonso de Albuquerque took Goa in 1510, he
found the arsenal well supplied with cannon, though these were mostly of
small calibre and the Bijapur garrison does not seem to have made good
use of them.7 Two decades later, Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat had a very

5. R. M. Savory in Encyclopedia of Islam, 1060-68

6. These two guns are described together with a translation of the Persian inscriptions
made by a French Orientalist in 1916, in the Cat.iloga do Museu Militar (10th ed.
Lisboa, 1930), 211-12. The Imim Quli Khan, governor-general of Fars, should not
be confused with his subordinate commander, Imim Quli Beg, who actually coope¬
rated with the English in the capture of Qishim and Ormuz (personal letter from
Dr. Lawrence Lockhart, d. Cambridge, 12-xii, 1964). The campaigns of 1621-22
are described in detail from Portuguese and English sources in my edition of Paulo
Craesbeeck, Commentaries of Ruy Freyre de Andrada, 1619-1633 (London, 1930).
7. Whiteway, Rise of the Portuguese Power in India, 37; Pieris- Fitzler, Ceylon and Por¬
tugal, 313, and the sources there quoted.

158
 VII

Asian Potentates and European Artillery

respectable train of artillery, including a gigantic bronze basilisco ("basi¬

lisk”) firing a shot of 110 lbs. This was captured by the Portuguese at Diu
in 1537, and sent as a trophy to Portugal, where it can still be seen as one
of the show-pieces of Military Museum at Lisbon.8

Some excellent bronze guns were cast at the Indo-Portuguese gun-

foundries at Goa and Cochin by the master gun-founder, Joao Vicente,
who was active from 1509 to 1546 at least.9 The foundry at Goa
also enjoyed a deservedly high reputation for its cannon during the
lengthy period when its work was directed by successive members of
the Dias and Tavares Bociarro family, who spanned between them the
century 1580-1680, and possibly longer.10 It is interesting to note that at
this time, when the decadence of Portuguese Asia formed a perenial sub¬
ject of complaint, particularly after the appearance of the English and
Dutch in Eastern Seas, the gun-foundries at Goa and (after 1623) Macao
continued to turn out bronze and iron cannon of very high quality, which
were eagerly sought for throughout the East. The production of these
cannon seems to have reached its height during the viceroyalty of the Count
of Linhares (1629-35), who was likewise responsible for the erection of
the gigantic gunpowder-mill at Panelim (Goa), which he boasted had no
superior of its kind in the world.11

The use of cannon was already common in the Deccan states by the time
the Portuguese arrived in India, both guns and gunners from Arabia, Persia
and Turkey being available. Those of Turkish origin had a deservedly high
reputation, but Firing! (“Frank”) or European artillery soon became equally
or more popular and long continued to be so. It may be noted that Babur,
in recounting his victory over Ibrahim Khan Lodi at Panlpat (1526) described

8. Catdlogo do Mtiseu Mill tar (ed. 1930), 33-34, 212-13, for a detailed description of
this Rim, variously known as the 77grr; (Tiger) and pan dr Diu, with a translation
of the Arab inscription showing that it was cast on a date corresponding to the 29
May, 1533.
9. For this man and his work see Sousa Viterbo, Fundidores de Artilharia (Lisboa, 1901),
85-89, and for a description of one of his guns cast in 1537 see the Caldlogo do Mtiseu
Militar (ed. 1930), 211 nr. 14.
10. For Francisco Dias Bocarro, Pedro Dias Bocarro, Manuel Tavares Bocarro, and Jero¬
nimo Tavares Bocarro, see Sousa Viterbo, Fundidores dr Artilharia. 27-31, 35, and
the guns cast by them, listed in the Catalog do Mtiseu Militar (ed.1930), 143, 209-
211. For the Bocarro’s gun foundry at Macao see below.
11. See the Viceroy’s letter to the Crown, d. 7 November 1030, in P.Pissurlencar, Assentos
do Conselho do Estado da India, 1, 16JH-1633 (Goa-Bastora 1953), 516-17, and for its
subsequent history, Gabriel de Saldanha, Hist^ria de Goa (2 vols., Goa — BastorA,
1924-26), II, 209-14. In 1631 this powdermill produced over 700 lbs of gunpowder
a day

159
 VII

his field-guns by this term, though they can hardly have been of European
origin in this instance. However that may have been, all the European tra¬
vellers who visited the realms of the Great Moghul in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries make frequent mention of European guns and gun
ners in the employment of both Muslim and Hindu rulers. Jean-Baptiste
Tavernier, the celebrated Huguenot jeweller and traveller who visited Dau-
latabad in 1645 and 1653, observed that “there are in this place numerous
fine cannon and the gunners are generally English or Dutch.” Tavernier
goes on to relate how one of the Dutch gunners who had served the great
Moghul for sixteen years only obtained permission to leave with great dif¬
ficulty. “Even the Dutch Company, which had placed him at the service
of the great Moghul, did all that it could to help him to obtain it; but it
was never able to achieve this desire, because he was a very good gunner,
and succeeded admirably with fireworks,” until he was finally released through
the intercession of the Raja Jai Singh in 1667.12
Perhaps the keenest collector of European cannon and the greatest em¬
ployer of European gunners in Moghul India was the celebrated Nawab Mir
Jumla. Tavernier tells us something about the European artillerymen em¬
ployed by the Nawab during his conquest of the Carnatic; and the Portu¬
guese, Dutch and English records of the period 1630-63 teem with allusions
to his anxiety to secure European guns and gunners. The foreign traders
found that the best way of keeping in this potentate’s somewhat capricious
good graces was to lend or to sell him the services of cannon and artillery
experts, loath as they were to increase the military potential of Asian rulers
in this way. Thus in the late 1630’s the Dutch East India Company lent
him some gunners and sailors for his ships sailing to Gombrun;'8 and in
1663, governor-general Johan Maetsuyker sent the Nawab four bronze field-
guns with their appurtenances for his campaign in Assam. The survivors
of the Dutch yacht Ter Schelling, which had been wrecked off the coast
of Arakan in the previous year, were also forced to serve the Nawab
as gunners and sailors on this his last campaign until his death near Dacca
in April 1663.14

In so far as the Portuguese were concerned, their natural reluctance

to supply Asian rulers with guns and gunners was enhanced by the papal

12. V. Ball & W. Crooke [eds.], Travels in India by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Baron of
Aubonne, from the French edition of 1606 (2 vols., Oxford, 1925), I. 117-18, 231, 244.
13. T. Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, 1605-1690 (The Hague, 1962), 40.
14. F. Jansz. van der Heiden & W. Kunst, Vervarelyke schip-breuk vant Oost-Indisch
facht Ter Schelling (ed. C.E. Warnsinck-Delprat, Utrecht, 1944), 102-133. Mir Jumla
had Portuguese, Dutch, and English guns and gunners in his army.

160
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Asian Potentates and European Artillery

bans which had been promulgated since the fifteenth century on the sale
of munitions of war and weapons to infidels and Muslims. These bans were
more particularly applied to the sale of firearms and gunpowder after the use
of these articles became generalised, but they were very largely a dead
letter in Asia. The first Ecclesiastical Provincial Council celebrated at Goa
in 1567, passed a resolution forbidding the Portuguese from lending Hindus
and Muslims artillery with which to fire salutes during their principal reli-
gous feasts such as the end of the Muslim fast of Ramadan.16 The prohi¬
bition was repeated in 1606, but it was the sale rather than the loan of
cannon and firearms to potential foes which naturally caused the authori¬
ties the greatest concern. The anonymous writer of Primor e Honra da vida
soldadesca no Estado da India, devoted an entire chapter to pointing out the
dangers of initiating Asians into European military techniques.10 He
instanced the state of affairs in Ceylon, “where the Portuguese taught the
Sinhalese, and more especially Raja Sinha I, the use of [fire]—arms, firing
with matchlocks, and casting cannon. And whereas they were formerly an
unwarlike race, and used no other arms than swords, shields, lances, bows
and arrows, they are now so expert in the use of matchlocks and artillery,
that they are in no way inferior to us.” This writer certainly underestimat¬
ed the warlike nature of the Sinhalese prior to the arrival of the Portuguese
in their island; just as he over-estimated their ability to cast cannon, in
which they did not become expert, although their craftsmen produced very
well made and beautifully decorated firearms. But his complaint echoes those
of Diogo do Couto and other Portuguese writers, who pointed out that they
had to contend in Asia with well-armed opponents, skilled in the use of
firearms and cannon, whereas the Castilian conquistadores of Mexico and
Peru had to overcome Amerindians armed only with wooden clubs and bows
and arrows.17

As regards the Dutch, they, like their Portuguese predecessors, were usu¬
ally reluctant to teach European military and naval techniques to Asian
princes and potentates who might afterwards turn against them; but equ¬
ally (as in the case of Mir Jumla) they sometimes had to propitiate power¬
ful personages by supplying them with guns and gunners. Apart from

15. O Primeiro Concilio Provincial cclcbrado em Goa, no anno dc 1567 (Goa, 1568) fl.,8.
16 Part II, ch.12. This work was first published at Lisbon in 1630, by its editor, Fr.
Antonio Freire O S.A., but it was evidently written by a veteran soldier at Goa, c.1585,
judging from the context.
17. Cf. Antonio de Sousa de Macedo, Flores de Espata, Excelencias de Portugal (Lisboa,
1631), Cap. XIV, Hs. 178-81; Diogo do Gouto, Drcada V (Lisboa, 1612), Livro 5
cap. vi

l6l
VII

those men who were ordered or allowed by their superiors to take service
with Asian princes, there were always plenty of deserters from the European
ships, forts and factories, who were willing to do so. The Italian globe¬
trotter, Gemelli Careri, in his description of the Great Moghul’s army
at the end of the seventeenth century noted: “All this artillery, especially
the heavy, is under the direction of Franks or Christian gunners, who have
extraordinary pay; especially the Portuguese, English, Dutch, Germans, and
French, who go from Goa, or run away from aboard ships. Some of them
formerly had 200 rupees a month; but now the Moguls have learnt some¬
what of the art they have less.”18 Their pay was not always promptly
forthcoming, and irrespective of the amount, most of it was squandered on
the Indian nautch-girls, as Tavernier noted when Mir Jumla’s European
gunners received their arrears of wages in September 1652.1,1
One reason why European-cast cannon were preferred over the Indian
variety is given by Jean de Thevenot, who visited India in 1666. Writing
of the army of the Great Moghul, he observes: “They have cannon also in
their towns, but since they melt the metal in diverse furnaces, so that some
of it must needs be better than others when they mingle all together, their
cannon commonly is good for nothing.”20 I do not know whether this
applied to the Malays as well; but at any rate we find them equally anxious
to obtain European cannon, which they rated much higher than their own.
When Albuquerque captured Malacca in 1511, the booty included a large
number of guns, though these seem to have been mostly primitive bombards
and hand-guns, apart from one large cannon which had been recently pre¬
sented to the Sultan by the Samuri of Calicut. However, as in the case
of Goa, the defenders were unable to make any effective use of their artillery,
judging by the fact that the two or three thousand “guns” allegedly found
at Malacca had not inflicted a single fatal casualty on the attacking force.21
In later years, the Indonesians became more skilful in the use of firearms,
particularly the Achinese, who also had Turks to cast cannon for them in

18. S. Sen (ed.), Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri (Delhi, 1949) 244. This parti¬
cular remark seems to have been taken from the earlier Travels of F. Bernier (1665
68). For German gunners in the Persian-Indian Khandahar campaigns of 1649-50,
see Jurgen Andersen, Orientalische Rcisebrschrcibunge (Schleswig, 1669), Book III,

19. "They had no sooner received this money than they treated one another, and the
Baladines [Indo-Portuguese Bailhadeiras, dancing-girls] received more than half of it.”
(J. B. Tavernier, Travels in India, ed. Ball & Crooke. I, 231).
20. S. Sen., Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri (1949), 62.
21. Cf. the discussions by Gibson-Hill in JMBRAS, XXVI (1), 145-47, and M. A. Meilink
Roelofsz, Asian Trade and European influence in the Indonesian archinelapo 1500
1630 (The Hague. 1962), 123. '

162
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Asian Potentates and European Artillery

the reign of Sultan Ala ad-Dln Ra'ayat Shah, according to Diogo do Couto,
Decada VIII, ch.21. Even so, in all the many sieges of Malacca by the
Malays, Javanese, and Achinese between 1511 and 1629, it does not appear
that the besiegers made effective use of any guns which they might have
had, though at one time and another thev secured quite a lot of cannon from
Portuguese ships they had taken, or which had been wrecked on their shores.
John Davis, who visited Achin at the end of sixteenth century, noted that
the Sultan “had great store of brass ordnance which they use without carriages,
shooting them as they lie upon the ground.” The absence of gun-carriages
may help to account for the relative ineffectiveness of the Achinese artillery,
which James Lancaster termed in 1602, “great store of ordnance of brass, and
those very great and massy.”

In April 1563, the survivors from the outward-bound Portuguese East-

Indiaman, S;lo Paulo, which had been wrecked off the west coast of Sumatra
just about where the Equator meets the island, made their way in a few
small craft to the realm of a petty ruler somewhere in the region between
Padang and Indrapura. The Portuguese had managed to salvage a few
small pieces of artillery from the wreck, and these aroused the covetousness
of the local Sultan, who called himself a son of the King of Minangkabau.
“He said that he would be very pleased if we would sell him our artillery,
which he desired greatly, or that we should give it to him in exchange for
some large ship, in which we could sail away. The captain excused himself
with fair words, saying that it belonged to the King of Portugal and not to
him, and that he would have to account for it to the Viceroy of India from
whom he had received it. But that if His Highness had any war with some
others on his frontiers then we would go there and fight in his service. With
which the king was satisfied and took his leave, saying that he would send
his Bctulahara to explain and arrange everything for us, begging us to
bring the artillery up the river, as he would very much like to see it.” In
the upshot, the natives treacherously attacked the Portuguese a few days
later, though whether to secure the coveted cannon (in which they failed),
or else to secure a beautiful young Portuguese lady (in which they succeed¬
ed), is not clear from the confused accounts given by the survivors of this
incident.22

22. Viagem c naufragio da Nao Sam Paulo, que foi/ pera a India o anno de 1560 (Lisboa,
1565), fls. [20J - [21]; Frazao de Vnsconcelos, Naufni^io da Nau "S. Paulo" cm um ilhc.u
proximo de Sarnatra uo ano de 1561, escrita em Goa em 1562 pelo Padre Manuel
Alvarcx S'./., (Lisboa, 1948), 42 47.

163
VII

The most interesting of the numerous old bronze cannon, whether of

European or Indonesian make which survive in Indonesia have been exhaus¬
tively described by the late Dr. K. C. Crucq in the articles published in the
TBC between 1930 and 1941, as stated at the beginning of this essay. The
Portuguese and other cannon supplied to the celebrated Sultan Agung of
Mataram between 1613 and 1645 have also been discussed more recently by
Dr H.J. de Graaf, so they need not detain us here.23 Less well known are
the early efforts of the rulers of Macassar to provide themselves with Euro¬
pean qannon. In 1638 the Viceroy of Goa wrote to the Grown that he had
received a request from the King of Macassar “to be allowed to cast a few
bronze guns in the city of Macao at his own cost and charges. The King
had assured the Vicerov that he only required these cannon to defend him¬
self against his enemies, and that the Dutch would gladly give him artillery
in exchange for his friendship. The Vicerov finished his dispatch by stating.
“1 have not vet decided what to do in this matter, although I am assured
that this King’s friendship is so genuine that we are taking very little risk
in granting him this concession.’24 I do not know the upshot of this parti¬
cular request; but in later years both the Portuguese and English traders at
Macassar supplied the local rulers with cannon and firearms, though not on
any lavish scale. The cannon so obtained were augmented by Dutch guns
salvaged from the loss of the Indiamen De Walvis (1662) and De Leeutvin
(1663), respectivelv. The Macassars’ disinclination to restore these cannon
was one of the reasons for the renewal of the war in 1667, ending in the sub¬
jugation of “the fighting-ciocks of the East” bv Comelis Speelman after a hard-
fought campaign. The Muslim defenders' cannon included a locally-cast
great gun known as “Macassar’s glory”, but it does not seem to have been
so effective as some cannon manned bv the English residents or sailors in
the port.2-’’

The variegated nature of the European (and other) cannon which were
scattered over the Malay Peninsula, the Indonesian archipelago and the
Philippine Islands, as a result of trade, wars, diplomatic presents, and ship¬
wrecks, can be seen from the detailed list of the artillery available at Manila
in 1607. They included locally-cast guns of infinite variety, and others cast

23. K. C. Crucq, in TBC,, I.XX (1030), 105-20'). Ibidem. I.XXVI1 (1037). 105-130;
Ibidem. LX XV111 (1038), 350-02; Undent, 93-111; Ibidem, \ .XXX ( 1040), 34-60;
Ibidem, I.XXXI (1041), 74-00. II |. de Craaf, De lit gering van Sullen Agnng, Vorst
van Mataram, 16131645 (The Hague, 1958), 55-56. 129-31, 167, 169, 229-30, 267.
24. The Viceroy of Goa to the Crown, Goa, 30. viii. 1638, afiud H. Leitio, 0.5 Fortugueses
em Solor e Timor, 1515-1702 (Lisboa, 1948), 201-02.
25. C. Skinner (trans. and ed.), Sja'ir Ferang Mengkasai. The tln/nud chionicle of tin
Macassar War (The Hague, 1963), 4-5, 266; Crucq in TBC, LXXX (1941), 74-95.

164
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Asian Potentates and European Artillery

at Genoa, Mexico City, Peru, Portugal, Flanders, England, Acapulco, besides

a few of unspecified origin.26 When the Spaniards took Ternate in the
previous year, they captured another heterogenous lot of guns. Most of
them, like the fortress, were of Portuguese origin, but there were two Danish
sakers and nine guns of Dutch origin — these last presumably relics of the
Dutch ship Trouw, taken by the Portuguese off Tidore in January 1601.27
When the governor of the Philippines, Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera,
temporarily subjugated Jolo in 1637, the booty included another very mixed
bag of artillery, including guns of English, Portuguese, Dutch, Macao, Manila,
and even Siamese origin.28 Not surprisingly, some of the Portuguese cannon
which appear in these Philippine lists were prettv old, several of them dating
from the reign of Dom Sebastiao (1557-1578), and a few guns from the time
of Dom Joao III (1521-1557).26 At a later period the Portuguese settlements
(such as they were) at Solor, Flores, and Timor were mainly supplied with
cannon from Bocarro’s gun-foundry at Macao; and if I am not mistaken,
some of these pieces mav still be seen at Larantuka on the eastern tip of
Flores. The guns captured by the Portuguese from the Achinese fleet which
was annihilated at Malacca in 1630, were also distributed throughout the
Portuguese ports in South-east Asia; while cannon cast in Japan, as well as
those brought from Europe also found a resting place on many Dutch forts
in the Spice Islands.

Resuming our survey northwards from Malaya and Indonesia, we may

pause briefly at Indochina, where Portuguese (and presumably Indian) guns
were introduced in the sixteenth century by the Lusitanian mercenaries who
served the Kings of Pegu and of Siam in their wars with each other. The
Dutchman, Joost Schouten, who compiled a summary description of the king¬
dom of Siam in 1636, which subsequently went through many editions in
various languages, noted: “Most of their force consists in some hundreds of
trained elephants, each of them furnished with three armed men; and they
have a good quantity of cannons, but do not well know how to use them.
At sea his Majesty hath several gallies and frigots well provided with great
guns, though the seamen and mariners are but pitiful.”30 Neither the Siamese

26. Francisco Colin, S.J. - Pablo Pastells S.J., Labor Evangclica da los obreroi de la
Compania do Jesus cuius islas Filipinos (3 vols., Barcelona, 1900-1904), 111, 228-230.
27. Colin-Pastells, Labor Evangrlica, III, 50-51.
28. Colin-Pastells, Labor Evangrlica, III, 532-33.
29. Colin-Pastells, Labor Evangclica, I, 140n; 142n; Ibid, II 27n.
30. C. R. Boxer (ed.), A True description of the mighty kingdoms of Japan and Siam by
Francois Caron and Joost Schouten (London, 1935), 102. Schouten s work on Siam
was first published in 1638, the above text being taken from the English edition of
1663.

165
VII

nor the Burmese ever developed their artillery into a really effective arm,
and the Indochinese? country which made the best use of this weapon was
Annam, or Cochin-China as it was called by the pioneer Jesuit missionaries
and other European visitors in the seventeenth century.

The Italian Jesuit, Cristoforo Borri, who had lived for some years in
Annam, wrote an account of the country after his return to Rome, which
became a classic on its publication in 1631. In cb. VII of this work, describ¬
ing the military and naval strength of that kingdom, he has some interesting
observations on the origin of the Annamite artillery.31 “It hath been touched
already, in the beginning of this history, how that Cochin-china being a
Province, dismembered from the great kingdom of Tunchim, was usurped
unjustly by the grandfather of the King that now reigneth,33 who having the
government, rebelled against the King of Tunchim: Whereunto he was not
a little emboldened, when he saw himself suddenly furnished with divers
pieces of artillery recovered and gotten out of the ship-wreck of sundry
ships of the Portugah and Hollanders, which were afterwards gathered up
by those of the country. Whereof there are to be seen at this day, three
score of the greatest in the King’s palace alone yet remaining. The Cochin-
cliinois being now become so expert in the managing of them, that they
surpass our Europeans: For indeed they did little else every day. but exercise
themselves in shooting at a mark. Whereupon they became so fierce and
so glorious, and to have so great an opinion of their own valour, that as
soon as they perceived any of our ships of Eurofre to come towards their
ports, the King’s cannoniers presently presented them with defiance: But ours
understanding now that they were not comparable unto them, avoided the
trial as much they could, knowing well by experience, they were grown
more certain to hit where they would with their artillery, than others are
with the Harquebusse; which also they are ready and well practised in,
going out daily by troops into the field, to exercise it. Moreover, that which
further encouraged him much to that resolution of revolting, and banding
himself against his Prince, was the sight of a hundred gallies and more of
his own; by which means, being become to be powerful at sea, as well as
he was by his artillery at land, it was easy for him to accomplish his design
against the King of Tunchin his lord.On the sea he maketh war with

31. Cochin-China: Containing many admirable varieties and singularities of that country.
Extracted out of an Italian Relation, lately presented to the Pope, bu Cristophoro
Borri, that lived certain years there. And published by Robert Ashley (London,
1633), pp. [52] - [57] Cristophoro Borri left the Society of Jesus and died at Rome
in 1632, shortly after the publication of the original Italian edition.
32. Nguyen Phuc-Nguyen (1613-1635).

166
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Asian Potentates and European Artillery

his gallies, each ot which hath six pieces of cannon, and is also well furnished
with musket-shot.3,1

Successive Nguyen riders of Annam showed themselves very anxious to

secure cannon from the Bocarro’s celebrated gun foundry at Macao, which
functioned between 1627 and 1680 (or thereabouts) and produced what were
acknowledged to be the finest bronze guns in the East. It was their superior
artillery which enabled the forces of the Nguyen to resist the more numerous
armies of the Trinh for so long. Though fundamentally hostile to the propa¬
gation of the Christian faith in their territory, the Nguyen more or less con¬
nived at the presence of Roman Catholic missionaries largely with the object
of obtaining guns and gunners from Macao. For this reason, when the
latter were slow in coming, the Nguyen brought pressure on the missionaries
and threatened to expel them, relaxing the persecution when the coveted
cannon arrived. For the same reason, the missionaries found that for many
years their chief prop and stay in Annam was the Macaonese gun-founder,
Joao da Cruz, who gave them alms and hospitality and often interceded for
them at the Court of Hue. An inscription on a gun cast by this man in
1661 reads as follows: Dc Cochinchina Champa i Camhoia loan da Crus
a jc,s cm l(ih l ( “of Cochin-China, Champa and Cambodia, Joao da Crus made
it in 1664”). Unfortunately I have mislaid the reference to tho present where¬
abouts of this cannon which was given me together with a photograph of
tire inscription by the Japanese historian of firearms, Captain S. Arima I.J.N.
(retd.) in 1932. But it is (or was then) preserved in the same place together
with an English cannon bearing the following inscription: Richard: Philipps:
made: this: peer: ano: Dili: 1601:111 During the seventeenth century both
the Trinh and the Nguyen also secured cannon from the Dutch, by gift, by
purchase, and above all, by confiscating the guns from Dutch ships wrecked
off their respective coasts. But it would seem that by the year 1715 the
Annamites had lost their former skill in using cannon, as the survivors from

33. The reference is, of course, to the struggle between the Nguyen of Hue and the
Trinh of Hanoi, which lasted from 1020 to 1074.
34. If I remember rightly. Captain Arima told me (in 1932) that these two guns were
then somewhere in China. For Macao guns and gunners in Annam and Tongking,
and especially for the relations of Joao da Cniz with the Roman Catholic missionaries
in Indochina, see Joseph Tissanier, S.J., Relation (In Voyage depuis la France, iusquau
Royaume dc Tunquin, avee ce qui s’est passe dc plus memorable dans' cette mission,
du'rant les amices 165S, 765.9 ct 1660 (Paris, 1003), 79. 82, 92: II. Chappoulic,
Rome et les missions d’Indochine an XVII1' siecle (2 vols. I’aris, 1943-48), Vol. I.
pp. 30. 108, 171-74, 183-85, 327, 335, 338, 309, Joao da Cruz was still alive and
active in 1670. He had a son, Clement, who may have succeeded him as gun-founder.

167
VII

the wreck of the Aiivn off the Paracdls (9 November 1714) found that the
Indochinese did not know how to handle a gun salvaged from the wreck.™

It seems probable that the Indochinese were acquainted with the use
ol cannon by the Chinese long before the arrival of the Portuguese, since
bombards and other primitive forms of artillery were being used in China
by the middle of the fourteenth century and probably much earlier. But
as with other Asians, the Chinese quickly developed a preference lor Euro¬
pean guns when they first had the chance of comparing them with their own.
Writers of the Ming dynasty admitted that Chinese cannon were inferior to
those of the “Franks" or Fo-Unig-cJii, and the early European visitors to the
Middle Flowery Kingdom were almost invariably scornful about the inferiority
of Chinese artillery and the incompetence of Chinese gunners.™ Never¬
theless, when the Portuguese first started to cast cannon at Macao in 1623,
it was to the local Chinese that they turned for gun founders. The original
contract made with “Quinquo and Haizon, long-haired heathen Chinese’ in
October 1623 still exists in the Portuguese archives.'7 These Chinese were
soon supplanted by Manuel Tavares Bocarro, the Eurasian son of Pedro
Dias Bocarro, the Master gun-founder at Goa, who is one of the few con¬
temporaries of Diogo do Couto who recieives a favourable mention in the
cantankerous old soldier-chronicler's “Dialogue of the Veteran Soldier."™ As
stated previously, Manuel Tavares Bocarro brought the Macao gun-foundry
to an unrivalled pitch of excellence, but I have been unable to ascertain for
how long it functioned. Tavares Bocarro served as Captain-General and Gov¬
ernor of Macao in 1657-1664, and it seems hardly likely that he still continued
to act as a gun-founder when exercising this office. A fine bronze gun in
the Military Museum at Lisbon is inscribed “Luis de Melo Sampayo a mandou
fazer sendo Geral de China em Dezro de 1679“ (Luis de Melo Sampaio had
it made when General of China in December 1679), which implies that this
gun was cast at Macao in that year. But the wording is a trifle ambiguous;
and it could mean that the gun was actually east at Goa (or elsewhere) by
order of the then captain-general of Macao.™

35. VV. ). M. Both, “La Compagnie ties Indes Neerlandaises et l’lndochine-” in BEFEO,
XXXVI (1930), 131, 13.3, 144, 150, 170, and HEEEO, XXXVII ( 1937). 129, 132.
138-39, 141, 151, 159, 105, 171, 174, for references to Dutch guns in Annani and
Tongking.
30. C. R. Boxer, South China in flit Sixteenth Centun/ (London, 1953), 273, and the
sources there quoted.
37. "Contracto que o Capitdo Geral D. Francisco Mascarenhas celebrou, para fundirem
pe?as de artelharia de ferro coada,” d. Macao, 13 October 1623, with the original
Chinese signatures (Biblioteca Publica de Evora, Codice CXVI/2-5, fl. 272 11.).
38. Diti/ogo do SoIiIikIo Erotica Portuotiez (cd. A. Gaetano do Amaral, Lisboa, 1790), 37.
39. Catdloea do Muscti Militar (ed. 1930), 143, Nr. 19.

168
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Asian Potentates and European Artillery

The Bocarro's gun-foundry at Macao specialised in the casting of Both

bronze and iron cannon, and it can safely he assumed that most if not all of
the workmen were Chinese. In the years 162535 there was even a demand
for the services ol Chinese gun-founders to east iron gnus at Coa, where it
was alleged—incredible as it may seem—that the Portuguese could only cast
bronze cannon and not iron ones. In the last years of the Ming dynasty,
the Portuguese of Macao supplied guns and gunners on several occasions
(1621, 1624, 1631, 1643, 1646) to help the Chinese against the invading
Manchus and some of them rendered yeoman service in the defence of Teng-
chow in Liaotung province in 1631-32.40 The part played by the Jesuit
missionaries, Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest, in casting cannon
for the occupants of the Dragon Throne is too well known to need more
than passing mention here. Some of these guns, embossed with the Jesuit
monogram IHS, are still to be seen in China. Less well known is the fact
that as late as 1717, the Captain General and Senate of Macao presented two
large bronze guns originally east in Bocarro’s foundry, to the provincial officials
at Canton, alter the latter had offered to buy them. Another of these Boearro
guns was taken by the English in Kwangtung province in 1841 and sent as
a war-trophy to England, where it is still preserved in the Tower of London.41

It has been alleged that guns were used in Japan before the arrival of
the Portuguese in that country (c.1543); but, if so, they must have been
primitive and inellective copies of Chinese bombards, judging by the enthu¬
siasm with which the Japanese welcomed European firearms of all kinds. It is
true that cannon and matchlocks did not displace the sword and the bow
as the traditional Japanese weapons, and the outcome of all battles was deci¬
ded by those arms and not bv artillerv down to the arrival of Perry in the
mid-nineteenth century. The Japanese also followed other Asians in prefer¬
ring European guns to their own, even though the cannon that they made
sometimes aroused the outspoken admiration of Western visitors, as exempli
fied in the following extract from the Diary of Richard Cocks, the English
factor at Hirado, on the 6/16 August 1615: “Captain Specx came late to the
English house, and Senlmr Matias with him, and desired my company to go
and see a piece of ordnance cast; which I did, but marvelled at their work¬
manship. For they carried the metal in ladles above 20 yards from the place

40. C. H. Boxer, “Portuguese military expeditions in aid of the Mings against the Manchus,
1621-1647” (T’ien Hsia, August, 1938, 24-36) for details.
41. Arquivos (le Mncau, 2n Serie, II, (Macau, 1964), 268-72. On the “Sao Lourenco”
gun cast by Boearro at Macao in 1627, captured by the English in the Opium War
somewhere in China, and now in the Tower ot London, see Crtieq in 7’BG, Vol. 1 ,XXX
(1941 ). 74-95.

169
VII

where the mould stood, and so put it in, ladlefull after ladle, and yet made
as formal ordnance as we do in Christendom, both ot brass and iron. Captain
Specx told me that neither workmanship nor stuff did not stand him in half
the price it cost them in Christendom.” A few months later Cocks noted in
his Diary (Dec. 26-January 6): “The Hollanders had a demi-eannon of brass
cast this day, lbs. 5,000 weight, a very fair piece.’41'

It would not be difficult to find other eulogistic European references to

the technical skill of Japanese gunsmiths at this period, such as the “Japon
acabuceiro, buen oficial” who was contracted to serve the Spaniards in the
Philippines in 1607.43 More significant was the avowal of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s
"secretary” that he would rather have one gun cast in England” than ten
of those cast in Japan.”44 During the period of seclusion (Sakokujidai) which
extended from 1640 to 1853, the Dutch sometimes imported guns and mortars
into Japan at tire request of the Tokugawa officials, and European gunners
were sometimes brought to instruct the Japanese in their use. But these
sporadic measures did not lead to any increase in the efficiency of Japanese
artillery, which made no further progress after 1640.4r’ Indeed the standard
of Japanese gunnery seems to have regressed in the eighteenth century, as
evidenced by Carl Thunberg’s eyewitness description in 1776: “Cannons are
not the usual arms of this country; although at Nagasaki, in the possession
of the imperial guard, there are some to be seen, which were formerly
taken from the Portuguese; but they are never used for saluting the ships;
and indeed they are very seldom discharged at all. The Japanese have
little or no notion of the proper mode of using them; and whenever they
are to fire them off, which is generally done once every seven years, at
Nagasaki, in order to cleanse and prove them, the adjutant of artillery pro¬
vides himself with a long pole, to which he fixes the match, and not with¬
standing this precaution, sometimes sets fire to the cannon with averted eyes.”*®

42. N. Murakami (ed.). Diary of Richard Cocks, 1615-1622 (2 vols, Tokyo, 1899), 1, 34,
92. I have modernised the spelling of these extracts.
43. Colin-Pastells, Labor Evangelica, III, 231.
44. N. Murakami (ed), Letters written by the English Residents in Japan, 1611-1623
(Tokyo, 1900), 198. The “Secretary” was Honda Sado-no-Kami Masanohu (1539-
1617), daimyd of Takatori.
45. Cf. C. K. Boxer, “Notes on early European Military Influence in |apan, 1543-1853.”
in TASJ, 2J Ser. VIII (1931), 68-93; Ibidem, Jan Compagnie in Japan, 1600-1850
(The Hague, 1950), 24 43. D. M. Brown. "The impact of fire-arms on Japanese War¬
fare, 1543-98,” a well documented study in The Far Eastern Quarterly VII (1948).
236-53, but which seems to me rather to overrate the effects of the impact.
46. C. P Thunberg, Travels in Europe, Africa, and Asia, 1770-1779 (4 vols., London,
1796), IV, 14. The accuracy of this observation is borne out bv the remarks of the
Russian visitors to Hakodate in 1811-13, and by the panic caused at Nagasaki by the
unauthorised Intrusion of the English frigate HMS Phaeton in 1808.

170
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Asian Potentates and European Artillery

This technical inferiority is hardly surprising when we recall that a Japanese

artillery mannual published in 1802, was directly derived from a seventeenth-
century Sino-Jesuit translation of L. Collado’s Pratica Manuale di ArtigUeria,
published at Venice in 1586.47

Thunberg's criticism of the inferiority of Japanese gunnery in 1776 can

be applied to that of all the other Asian nations at this period. The English
factor at Kedah pointed out to his superiors at Madras in 1772: “The King
of Quedah and all the Malay Kings have got guns enough to drive all the
Europeans out of India if they knew how to use them, and yet they want
more.”48 It is clear from the data assembled by Crucq, Gibson-Hill and
other writers, that by 1770 the Indonesian and Malay rulers valued cannon
rather for prestige and sacro-magical reasons than with any serious idea of
using them offensively. In fact, I think it might be argued that the only
instance where Asian rulers made effective use of their artillery against a
European enemy over a considerable period of time was afforded by the
Arabs of Oman in their wars with the Portuguese between 1650 and 1730.
For most of this period the Omani had a fleet of well-gunned frigates which
competed with their Portuguese equivalents on more or less equal terms.48
On the other hand, I am not sure to what extent the Omani relied on Euro¬
pean deserters and renegades to man their guns and build their ships. The
history of the rise and decline of Omani naval power certainly requires much
further investigation and research. Perhaps the first time that the Asians
made really effective use of their European cannon to repel a major Euro¬
pean attack, was the bloody repulse inflicted by the Chinese on the British
force which tried to pass the Talcu forts in June 1859.

The reasons for the failure of the Asian powers and potentates to make
effective use of their cannon over a long period of time with the possible
exceptions of the Omani Arabs and the Annamites or Vietnamese are beyond
the scope of this article. They are disaussed in an interesting little work
by C.M. Cipolla, which came to the writer’s attention as he penned these
lines. Briefly, Professor Cipolla argues that powerful socio-cultural factors

47. C. R. Boxer, Jan Compagnie in Japan (1950), 43.

48 Apud D. K. Bassett, JSEAH, IV (1963), 148.
49. P. Pissurlencar (ed.), Asientoi do Conselho do Estado da India, 1618-1750 (5 vols..
Goa-Bastora, 1953-1957), Vols. 3-5, passim.

171
VII

successfully opposed the assimilation and diffusion of western technology in

Asia, and his hook may he recommended to those who arc desirous of pur¬
suing the matter further/’"

Note:
As the article is not a technical one, 1 have not described the different
characteristics of the various types of cannon involved (culvcrins, demi-ciulvcrins,
sakers, bases, falcons, falconets, etc., etc.,) but those readers interested in
such matters may be referred to Professor Cipolla's book and to Michael
Lewis, Armada Guns (1961).
\

50. C. M. Cipolla, Guns and sails in the iunit/ phase of European expansion, 1400-
1700 (London 1905). The title is something of a misnomer as the book deals with
ships rather than with sails per se as indicated in the title.

172
 VIII

DOM JORGE DE MENESES BAROCHE

AND THE BATTLE OF MULLERIYAWA, 1560

Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche figures prominently in the Decadas of

Diogo do Couto and in the works of other chroniclers of Portuguese
India in the sixteenth century ; but as even Couto, who knew him well,
sometimes confuses him with a younger namesake, Dom Jorge de Me¬
neses, the Alferes-Mor do Reino and captain of Mozambique in 1586,
it will be as well to outline his career in so far as we can disentangle it
from that of his afore-mentioned namesake and from other homonyms 1.
I have not been able to discover either the date of his birth or that of
his death ; but apparently he was the illegitimate son of another Dom
Jorge de Meneses and nephew of Dom Francisco de Meneses, both these
fidalgos being connected with the illustrious Meneses family who were
Counts of Cantanhede 2. The elder Dom Jorge de Meneses was likewise

1 He is sometimes confused with his father, although, so far as I am aware, they

were never actually together in the East, and with Dom Jorge Tello de Meneses,
captain of Sofala and Mozambique in 1544-47, who is often listed without the« Tello *.
We badly need a study of the numerous Meneses in 16th-century Asia on the lines
of the late G. Schurhammer S. J.,« DoppclgSnger in Portugiesisch-Asiens * (in Hans
Flasche, ed., Portugiesische Forschungen der Gdrresgesellscha/t, I, Aufsatze zur Por-
tugiesischen Kulturgeschichte, I, 192-224, MUnster-Westfalen, 1960, reprinted in his
Gesammelle Sludien, II, Orientalia, Rome 1963, pp. 121-47).
2 Cristovao Alao de Morals, Pedatura Lusitana. Nobilidrio de familias de Portugal
(6 vols. in 12, Porto, 1943-48), Tomo II (2), pp. 352, 358, states that Dom Jorge de
Menezes Baroche was the natural son of a clerigo, Dom Estevao de Meneses, third
son of Dom Pedro de Meneses, Conde de Cantanhede, and that the elder Dom Jorge
de Meneses, who was killed by cannibals in Brazil,« nao casou nem deixou gerafao *.
However, the Pedatura Lusitana is notoriously unreliable in many places, and Alao
de Morais compiled his work in the second half of the 17th century. As regards the
paternity of Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche, I prefer the evidence of Dom Joao
de Castro, who, in his long dispatch, d. Diu, 16 December 1546, referring to the
disastrous sortie of the 1 September, wrote :«...Dom Jorge de Menezes (filho bastardo
de Dom Jorge de Menezes), o qual dizem que entrou primeiro que todos... * (apud
Elaine Sanceau, Cartas de Dom Joao de Castro, Lisboa, 1954, p. 256). On the other
VIII

80

of illegitimate birth, being a natural son of Dorn Rodrigo dc Meneses ;

and he was one of those fidalgos who distinguished himself in the East
alike by his energy, his courage, and his ferocity. The sadistic atrocities
of which he was guilty during his governorship of the Moluccas in 1527-
31, have been described in detail by Fernao Lopes de Castanheda, l)iogo
do Couto, and other chroniclers, and they need not detain us here. His
excesses were such that he was sent for trial and punishment to Portugal
by the Governor-General at Goa, Nuno da Cunha. There, however, he
got off comparatively lightly, presumably owing to his influential
relations at Court, being finally sentenced to exile in Brazil. He served
for some years in the struggling captaincy of Espirito Santo, where he
was killed in a skirmish with the local cannibals — « triste sorte para
quern nao temia ferro nem fogo », as Fr. Luis de Sousa scntcntiously
remarked in his Anais de Dorn Joao III3.
I do not know the name and social status of the mother of our Dom
.Jorge de Meneses, nor whether he was educated in Portugal, or ac¬
companied his father to the Moluccas. The former seems to be the more
likely, since he clearly had a good education, as we shall sec. In any
event, he is first mentioned by the chroniclers as sailing to India in the
fleet of the outgoing Viceroy, Dom Garcia de Noronha, in March 1538.
He subsequently served with his uncle, Dom Francisco de Meneses, in
Dom Estevao da Gama’s celebrated expedition to the Red Sea in 1541 ;
and he was probably one of those fidalgos who were knighted by that

hand, Georg Schurhammer S.J., Die Zeitgcndssisc.hen Qucllcn znr (ieschic.hle Por-
lugiesisch-Asiens unci seiner Nnchbarlander, 15.38-1562 (ed. Home, 1962), p. 251 nr.
3851, calendars a document dated 16 March 1518, implying that he was the son of
Dom Estevao. The award of the captaincy of Sao Tom6 de Mcliapur to him on the
25 January 1565, also describes him as «filtio de Dom Estevao de Menezcs*, Luciano
Hiheiro (ed.), Registo da Casa da India (2 vols., Lisboa, 1651), I, p. 149 nr. 644.
In either event, it is clear that Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche was a bastard scion
of the countly house of Cantanhcdc, and that Dom Francisco de Meneses, killed at
Din, 1 September 1546, was his uncle.
3 Anais dc Dam Jndo III (ed. M. Hodrigucs Lapa, 2 vols., Lisboa, 1951-54), Vol. II,
p. I GO, where, however, he is confused with another governor of the Moluccas, Dom
Jorge dc Castro. Cf. also I’cdro Calmon, Hisldria do Drasil (7 vols., Rio de Janeiro
1961), Vol. I, pp. 206-07, and the sources there quoted ; A. Basilio de Sfl, Documen¬
tation para a historia das missoes do Padroado PorluguSs do Orienle. Instil India (5 vols.,
Lisboa, 1954-8), Vol. I, pp. 250-280, passim, 327. The narratives of the chroniclers
on the elder Dom Jorge de Meneses’ scandalous misconduct in the Moluccas are most
conveniently resumed by R. S. Whiteway, Rise of the Portuguese Power in India,
1497-1550 (1899), pp. 333-35. The exact date of his death is uncertain, but it was
certainly after 1515, and not in 1537 as is often alleged.
 VIII

n. JORGE DE MENESES BAROCHE 87

Governor al the Greek church and monastery of St. Catherine at the foot
of Mount Sinai4. I Iis first spectacular feats of arms, however, were made
during the second siege of Diu, in the relief and defence of which he
played an outstanding part. He was one of the first to reach the hard-
pressed defenders with reinforcements from Bayaim, which he did on the
24 August 1546, in a small vessel with a few soldiers against very adverse
conditions of wind and weather. After leading a night sortie when he
captured several of the besiegers’ flags, he participated in the disastrous
sortie of the 1 September, when his uncle was killed, and he wras so severe¬
ly wounded that he was not expected to live — « com huma espingar-
dada e catorze feridas, que viveo milagrosamenlc ». Recover he did,
however, and in time to fight in the final battle of St. Martin’s Day
(12 Nov. 1546), when the besiegers were finally routed by Dom Joao
de Castro and Dom .Joao de Mascarenhas 5.
Despite his decisive defeat at Diu, the young Sultan Mahmud III of
Gujcral (reigned 1537-1554 A.D.) continued his war against the Portu¬
guese, who likewise continued to harry the coastal regions of that king¬
dom with fire and sword. Dom Jorge de Mcneses commanded a squadron
of six small ships in this campaign ; and in September 1547, hearing that
the rich commercial entrepot of Broach was virtually ungarrisoned, he
made a surprise attack on the walled city just before dawn. The surprise
was complete, and many of the inhabitants were killed in their beds by
the assailants, « ein que fizeram grandes cruezas, nao perdoando a
sexo, nem a idadc », as Diogo do Couto wrote. An immense booty was
obtained ; but as the city was too large to be garrisoned by Dom Jorge’s
small force, the Portuguese evacuated it after sacking it at leisure and
blowing up all the artillery which they could not remove. The news of
this exploit made a great sensation, and to quote Couto again : « Dalli
por diante ficou D. Jorge de Menezes lomando aquelle inuito honrado

4 Diogo ilu Couto, Decada V, Livro xi, cap. 8, anil o/>. c/7., livro vii, caps. 5-8 ;
Gaspar CorrOa, I.endas da India (4 vols., I.ishoa, 1858-GG), Vol. IV, p. 1G3.
5 His exploits in tlie second siege of Diu are chronicled, inter alia, by Diogo do
Couto, Decada VI, Livro ii, cap. 7 ; Livro iii, cap. 3, and Livro iii, cap. 6 ; Caspar
CorrGa, Lendas da India, Vol. IV, pp. 509, 513, 519-20, 557-58 ; Leonardo Nunes,
Cronica de Dom Joao de Castro (ed. J. D. M. Lord, Harvard University lJress, 1936),
pp. 96, 100-101 ; Antonio Baiao (ed.), Hisloria Quinhentisla do Segnndo Cerco de Dio
(Coimbra, 1925), pp. 70, 7G (...« loilo atassalhado de cutiladas e co hua espingardada
nu coadril, mujto rojm, c porein sarou » ...), 274 ; R. O. W. Gocrtz (ed.), Diogo de
Teioe, Conimenlarices de rebus a Lusitanis in India ai>ud Ilium gestis (Lisboa, 1973),
pp. 138, 141.
VIII

88

sobre appellido de Baroche, porque foi muito conhecido de todos ». With

their habitual ma lingua, the Goa gossips alleged that Dorn Joao de
Castro, though outwardly complimentary about this exploit, was in fact
rather upset by it, as taking the limelight away from himself and his
son, Dom Alvaro de Castro 6.
Following his spectacular sack of Broach, Dom Jorge participated in
Dom Joao de Castro’s campaign in the Gulf of Cambay, which culminated
rather inconclusively, with both sides evading a pitched battle in the
field 7. He must have returned to Portugal shortly afterwards, as we
find him mentioned as captain of an outward-bound Indiaman, Santa
Anna, which left the Tejo on the 1 May 1550, but was forced to return to
port, having left too late in the season. He sailed again in next year’s
fleet, this time as captain of the Barrileira, but lost this voyage once
more, although the other seven Indiamen which left Lisbon that year
all reached Goa safely. A third try in March 1552, eventually got the
Barrileira round the Cape of Good Hope ; but she was forced to winter
at Mozambique, and Dom Jorge only reached Goa early in September
1553 8.
Although he must have been exhausted and frustrated by three and a
half years of abortive voyages, Dom Jorge sailed in an expedition headed
by the Viceroy, Dom Affonso de Noronha, which left Goa for Malabar
and Cochim at the end of November 1553. At Cochim, the Viceroy met
an outward-bound Indiaman with dispatches from Portugal, which
ordered him, among other things, to arrest the governor of Diu, Dom
Diogo de Almeida, who had incurred the royal displeasure. The Viceroy

8 For the sack of Broach, see Diogo do Couto, Decada VI, Livro iv, cap. 7. Coulo,
who visited the city in later years, describes it as being« about the size of Santarem *,
with a strongly fortified city wall, very narrow streets, and very fine stone houses
with ivory and ebony fittings to windows and doors. Me adds : « Ha nesta cidade
officiaes mui primos de toda a sorte do mccanica, principalniente tecclocs das mais
finas (jue se sabeni no mundo, que sao os bofet&s de Baroche tao estiinados *. Cf. also
Gaspar CorrGa, Lendas da India, Vol. IV, pp. 60G-612 ; Couto, Decada VI, Livro vi,
cap. 6 ; R. S. Whiteway, Rise o/ llie I’orluguesc Rower, p. 318 n, for the snide remarks
(nuirmurafuo) of the Goa gossips.
7 Diogo do Couto, Decada VI, Livro v, caps. 6-7, and R. S. Whiteway, Rise of the
Portuguese Power, p. 315.
8 Diogo do Couto, Decada VI, Livro ix, cap. i ; op. cit., Livro ix, cap. 16, and Livro
x, cap. 14. Simao Ferreira Paes, l\ecopila<;do das famosas Armadas Portuguezas que
para a India foram, 1406-1650 (ed. Rio de Janeiro, 1937), pp. 55-57, gives the name
of Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche’s ship in 1550 as Santa Cruz, but agrees with Couto
about the Barrileira in 1551-53.
 VIII

D. .JORGE DE MENESES BAROCHE 89

reluctantly obeyed this order ; but he found great difficulty in finding a

fidalgo who would volunteer to become interim governor of Din, until
Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche did so. He incurred a good deal of
odium and criticism for so doing, the fidalgos alleging that removing
Dom Diogo de Almeida from his post, « era mais profissao de hum Ba-
charel, que de hum Fidalgo tao honrado, e sobre isso lhe fizeram muitas
trovas ». Dom Jorge ignored these pasquils ; and leaving for Diu in a
small and swift vessel, he assumed the governorship before the 20 De¬
cember 1553 9.
His tenure of office lasted only a few months, since he was relieved by
his successor, Dom Diogo de Noronha, at the end of April 1554. During
the next four years, he served successively at Hachol in 1556, and
subsequently in the armada under the Governor-General, Francisco
Barreto, which sailed to Chaul and Ba^aim in 1557-58 10. Back in Goa,
he was appointed captain of one of the galleons which Francisco Barreto
mobilised in August 1558, for the long-discussed and much-heralded
conquest of Atjeh in North Sumatra — « a mais potente armada que a
India teve, porque erao vinte e cinco galeoes e caravelas : dez gales, e
mais de setenta galeotas c fustas». However, when all was ready, on
the 3 September 1558, a fleet of four ships arrived from Portugal with a
new Viceroy, Dom Constantino de Bragan^a, who, although very much
of a conquistador type himself, and the greatest nobleman yet to hold the
viceroyalty, laid aside this project in favour of others of his own choice,
such as the conquest of Damao n.
Diogo do Couto does not list Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche among
the fidalgos who accompanied Dom Constantino on his expedition to

9 Diogo do Couto, Decada VI, Livro x, caps. 15 and 16. In the ANTdT, Lis
boa, Corpo Chronologico, Parte I, Ma?o 91, doc. 64, is the 2-page fragment of a
letter from Dom Jorge to the King, dated Diu, 20 Dec. 1553, in which he complains
about the lack of adequate reward for his services, and gives a brief account of the
situation at Diu and in Gujarat.
10 Diogo do Couto, Decada VII, Livro iii, cap. 12 ; op. cit., Livro iv, cap. 3 ; op. cit.,
Livro V, cap. 6.
11 Diogo do Couto, Decada VII, Livro V, cap. 8 ; C. R. Boxer, « A note on Portuguese
reactions to the revival of the Red Sea Spice Trade and the rise of Acheh, 1540-1600 *,
reprinted from the Journal of Southeast Asian History, Vol. X (December, 1969),
pp. 415-428, and Idem, • Portuguese and Spanish projects for the conquest of South¬
east Asia, 1580-1600 *, reprinted from the Journal of Asian History, Vol. Ill (1969),
pp. 118-136. Aquilino Ribeiro, Constantino de Braganga VII Vizo-Rei da India
(Lisboa, 1947), although rambling and unhistorical in places, makes some good
points and shrewd assessments in others.
VIII

90

Ba^airn and Damao, but he admits that his list of names is very incom¬
plete. In any event, Dom Jorge was not left unemployed for long, since
in April 1559, the Viceroy nominated him to the chief command in
Ceylon. There is no need to recapitulate here the origins of Portuguese
power in Ceylon, as this subject has been discussed in a definitive article
by Genevieve Bouchon, « Les Rois de Kotte an debut du xvie siecle »
(Mare Luso-Indicum, I, 65-69). Suffice it to recall here, that King
Dharmapalaof Kotte having become a Christian in 1557, he had lost the
support of many of his subjects and was being very hard-pressed by the
warlike young Bajasinha I of Sitawaka (reigned, 1551-1593), the son
of King Mayadunne, who was still living but had refrained from exercis¬
ing effective power.
Although appointed Captain of Colombo in April 1559, Dom Jorge did
not assume this office until October, presumably because of the closure
of the mouth of the River Mandovi and the bar of Goa in the « winter»
months of May-August. lie at once took the offensive against the
Sinhalese forces which were harassing Kotte, but although he gained
some preliminary successes, he likewise suffered some losses. Being a
hot-tempered man and a harsh disciplinarian, he became increasingly
unpopular with the soldiers, despite his undaunted courage and out¬
standing elan. As Diogo do Couto, who knew him well, describes this
campaign in his Sixth Decade : « Ficou assi sendo esta guerra tao im-
portuna, arriscada, e trabalhosa, e sobre tudo dom Iorge tao incasavel, e
mal sofrido com os soldados, que lhe come^arao a fogir poucos e poucos
pera a Cota. Era este fidalgo muito bom cavaleiro, como algumas vezes
temos dito, mas tao arrebatado, e colerico, que de todos era avido por
muito mao de sofrer »12.
According to Couto, after some months of this hard but inconclusive
fighting, Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche gained a fairly substantial
victory over the enemy. This so encouraged him that he then ventured
to attack a superior force under Bajasinha which was encamped in (or
near) a place called Mulleriyawa. The attack was at first successful ;
but the Portuguese then ran short of ammunition, which so discouraged
the soldiers that some of them began to retreat, leaving Dom Jorge and

12 Diogo do Couto, Decada VII, Livro ix, caps. 6-7, for Dom Jorge’s campaign in
Ceylon, October 1559-December 1560. The relevant passages are translated and
edited by Donald Ferguson in Journal of the Ceylon Branch of lhe Royal Asiatic
Society, Vol. XX, 1908 (Colombo, 1909), pp. 204-211, as part of his • History of
Ceylon from the Earliest Times to 1600 a.d., as related by Joan [sic] de Barros and
Diogo do Couto *, which comprises the whole of Vol. XX, No. 60.
 VIII

D. .JORGE DE MENESES BAROCHE 91

the vanguard unsupported. At this critical juncture, Rajasinha rallied

his men and counter-attacked fiercely, his war-elephants causing confu¬
sion and havoc among the Portuguese. They retired in considerable
disorder, and Dorn Jorge was lucky to be able to fight his way clear, after
losing at least sixty men, including several fidalgos. He was so mortified
at this reverse, that on reaching his encampment with the survivors,
he threw himself on the ground, cursing and swearing 13.
As Diogo do Couto’s account of this battle is fairly accessible in
Donald Ferguson’s translation, I will not reproduce all of it here. But as
the picturesque version in the ltajavaliya is less accessible, I venture to
reproduce it in full, by way of background to the hitherto unpublished
document of Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche which is printed below and
which clearly refers to this epic fight, as well as to the previous action 14.
« When news was brought to Raja Sinha that the Portuguese had come
to Maedanda on their way to attack Sitawaka, he marched out with his
large army and halted at Hewagauna. Vikramasinha Mudali advanced
to give battle and met the Portuguese in the village of Mulleriyawa,
where the fight commenced. In this battle thousands of Vikramasinha
Mudali’s army fell : Vikramasinha Mudali was himself wounded, and
being defeated retreated to Hewagama. The Portuguese, having made
much slaughter and obtained victory, rested at Mulleriyawa.
King Raja Sinha, seeing how Vikramasinha Mudali had been routed,
gave him elephants and targe-bearers to fight on the right and left wings.
Summoning to him the Arachchies of Aturugiri Korale, Hewagam Kora-
le, and Koratola, and bringing up the Hbkandara fighting men, and
adding 1,000 targe-bearers trained in fencing schools, he sent them to
charge and cut down [the enemy] in the rear. He himself went to make a
front attack on the Portuguese army drawn up in the open at Mulleri¬
yawa. The force sent to charge the rear joined in the fight. The elephant
Viridudassaya of the Jayasundara Division seized a standard [of the
enemy] : the elephant Airavana of the Vijayasundara Division seized a
shield and chain 16. King Raja Sinha, mounted on a horse, kept his

13 « E dom Jorge se passou &s suas tranqueiras, tao magoado daquella perda, e
desastre, que se lan£ou pela chao, esbrauejando, e dizendo mal a sua ventura »(De-
cada VII, Livro ix, cap. 7).
14 B. Gunas^kara, The Rdjdvaliya : or, a historical narrative of Sinhalese Kings
from Vijaya to Vimala Dharma SCirya II (Colombo, 1900), p. 87. There is another
edition (? facsimile reprint ?) of 1954, which I have not seen.
15 Compare the certiddo of Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche printed below, and Cou-
lo. Derada VII. f.ivro ix. can. 7. • Aqui se deteve dom lorao cm mnndnr nbrir o
VIII

92

main force from yielding ground, leading it into the thick of the Portu¬
guese. Targe-bearers, elephants, and horses mingled together, prevented
the Portuguese from reloading their muskets ; and Portuguese and targe-
men alike struck each other down clinging to the tails of elephants. The
Portuguese clubbed their muskets and felled the targe-bearers.
King Raja Sinha, mounted on his horse, galloped throughout the
host and urged on the fight. The battle was like a show of fireworks,
and the smoke from the discharges of the muskets resembled mists in
early Durutu. Blood flowed like water on the field of Mulleriyawa.
The Portuguese were attacked in such wise that no chance was left them
of retiring one foot. There fell of the Portuguese army, 1,600, besides
several of the Kott6 men and officers ».
The narratives of the Rdjdvaliija and of Diogo do Couto can now be
supplemented on a point of detail concerning the part played by the
war-elephants. This is related in a certificate signed by Dom Jorge de
Meneses Baroche at Lisbon, thirty years after the battle of Mulleriyawa,
which he evidently recalled vividly if rather ungrammatically.
<i Sertefiquo eu dom jorge de meneses baroche do comselho de sua
magestade que antonio dabreu de llyma que indo eu por capitao he
governador de seilao me madou dom costantino visorei que foy da india
que fose fazer a gera a seilao e o dito antonio dabreu de llyma se embar-
cou comiguo he em todos os emcomtros que tive com ho inimigo ho feri-
rao com duas espingardadas he estando elle com ellas ueio hu allifante
he o partio pello meio com as armas que trazia na tronba he deu a allma a
deos noso senhor [e] porque ysto pasa na verdade a requerimento de seu

camlnho, a que nao pode ser tao depressa, que nao chegassem os Alifantes de peleja,
que o Madune ja tinha mandado de socoiro ao filho : e um delles cliegou a Dom Iorge
pera o levar na tromba, mas um saldado chamado Pedralvarez l'reiie, natural de
Lamego, vendo o Alifante sobre dom lorgc, remeteo a elle com algus pines que levava,
dizemdolhes, aqui fillios, e pondo o arcabuz no rosto, o desparou sobre o do Alifante e o
fez virar peia tras com a dor da ferida sobre os seus, atropellando algus delles, e dom
Iorge teve tempo de escapar. Aqui chegarao ontros Alifantes (que elles forao os que
desbaratarao os nossos). E remetendo um com o Alferez da bandeira de dom Iorge,
virou elle o pique em que levava a bandeira, e lho pos nos testos, onde Iho quebrou,
mas nem por isso pode escapar ; porque como elle ya com aquella furia, lancoulhe a
tromba, e deu com elle por esses ares, e o fez em pedafos. Outro Alifante chegou a
outro soldado, chamado Gregorio Botelho, soldado velho da India, e nacido nella ;
que vendoo sobre si, virou a elle com grande animo, e lhe pos hua alabada nos testos
com tanto forfa, que com a dor da ferida o fez deter, com o que elle teve tempo de se
por da outra banda do vallo ».
 VIII

D. JORGE DE MENESES BAROCHE 93

irmao llionel dc llyma he [= euj pasei esta certidao a seu requerimeato.

feita am llysboa a doze de marso de 90 anos.

baroche
Jorge de meneses >>lfl.

4j*2/£ss

«* ■*%«»
JO.-awf--- -.

16 Original in the writer’s collection. The handwriting is very awkward and the
syntax worse. It will he noticed that although Doni Jorge uses the « Dom * in the
first line of the document, he dispenses with it in the signature. I have not identified
the fidalgo victim of the war-elephant In such obvious sources as I have consulted,
including the Visconde de Lagoa s Grandes t Humildes na epopeia Porluguesa do
Orlente (2 vols., Lisboa, 1942-43), but there were plenty of Abreus de Lima around
In 16th-century • Portuguese Asia *. On wai>elephants In India and Ceylon
see Simon Digby, War-Horse and Elephant in the Delhi Sultanate. A
Study of Military Supplies ( Orient Monograph, Oxford, 1971 ).
VIII

94

Comparing the narratives of Diogo do Couto and Dom Jorge de Me-

neses Baroche with that of the Rajdvaliya, we can confirm the justice
of Jean Aubin’s observation concerning a careful comparison of Portu¬
guese with Asian sources : « Mais la oil ils coincident, ils accusent de
remarquables convergences, et ils sont etroitement complemcntaires »
(Mare Luso-Iiidicum, I, p. ix). In the present instance, both sides,
inevitably, exaggerate their opponents’ casualties, but they agree on the
decisive part played by the war-elephants, and we even have the names
of two of these beasts and of two of their victims.
One thing which is not easy to establish is the exact date of this
battle. Couto is very sparing with dates in his Decadas, and, where he
does give them, they are quite often wrong. The Rajdvaliya is even more
unreliable in this respect, since chronology was of no great significance
to its compilers. Fernao de Queyroz, S.J., writing over a century later,
gives us two dates for this campaign, but they are completely contra¬
dictory — October 1560 and September 1561. However, we know that
when the Viceroy, Dom Constantino de Bragan^a, who was then on the
island of Manar afLer his abortive expedition to Jaffnapalam, heard
of the defeat at Mulleriyawa, he relieved Dom Jorge of his command and
sent Balthasar Guedes de Sousa to replace him 17. This indicates that
in all probability the first dale given by Queyroz for Dom Jorge’s
preliminary victory, 24 October 1560, is correct, and that Mulleriyawa
was fought a few days later, probably before the end of that month.
In any event, it is certain that Dom Jorge handed over his responsibilities
to his successor after serving for almost exactly a year, since he rejoined
the Viceroy at Cochim early in 1561, and arrived with him at Goa at
the end of February 18.
As usual, he did not remain unemployed for long, sailing as captain
of a galliot in a fleet which left Goa for Ormuz in the 12 April 1561.
Dispersed by a storm some 150 leagues from the coasl of India, some of

17 Couto, VIE, ix, 10; Fernao de Queyroz S.J., Conquisla Temporal e Espiritual
de Ceijldo (ed. Colombo, 191G), I.ivro 3, cap. 1, pp. 319 (... « a causa desta mu-
daiifa de Capitao, forao queyxas da condifao de D. Jorge de Menezes, e de nao
reparar em arriscar os soldados Portuguezes na guerra, & conta de desbaratar o
Iniinigo »), and 323 (...« Mas como o VRey nao aprouava arrisear-se tanto a si, e aos
mays ; com bos termos o mandou recolher *). For Queyroz’s account of the campaign,
rather confused and not entirely reliable, but which contains details that are not
mentioned elsewhere, see op. cit., Livro II, caps. 26-27, pp. 276-82 ; Livro III, cap. 1,
pp. 319-23.
 VIII

D. JORGE DE MENESES BAROCIIE 95

the ships, including Dom Jorge’s galliot, put back to Damao. Here they
joined forces with another flotilla under the command of Dom Antonio
de Noronha, which had left Goa on the 22 of April, with orders to take
over the great Gujarati port of Surat, which its governor had offered to
surrender to the Portuguese. 1 Ie subsequently went back on his promise ;
but in the ensuing fighting around the mouth of the river Tapti, a
picturesque incident occurred which is narrated by Diogo do Couto,
who sailed in Dom Jorge’s galliot. On this occasion, when Dom An¬
tonio de Noronha decided to attack, he came alongside this galliot, and,
in order to inform Dom Jorge of his decision, quoted the first line of the
old Spanish romance :
Vamonos, dixo mi lio, a Paris essa ciudad ;

to which Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche immediately replied with the

second line of the same romance :

No en trajes de romeros, porque no os conosca Galvan ;

thus affording an example of that union of arms and letters on which so

many Iberian conquisladores prided themselves 19.
The remainder of Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche’s services in the
East need only be briefly recalled here. He served in an armada of 140
sails under the Viceroy Conde do Bedondo, which left for Cochim and
Cape Comorim in December 1561, «em que levava mais de coatro mil
homens, a mais limpa e lustrosa gente que nunca sayo de Goa »20.
In January 1567, he commanded a squadron of four galleons and five
smaller vessels which was sent to intercept the « great ships from At-
jeh » (as ndos do Achem) bound for the Bed Sea, in the Maidive Channel
and off Cape Guardafui21. None of them were sighted in either of these

19 Couto, VII, ix, 11, 12. Aubrey Bell, Diogo do Coulo (Oxford, 1924), in recording
their literary exchange, corrects Couto’s version of the second line of the Romance
to : En jiguras de romeros no nos conozca Galvan (op. cit., pp. 9-10, 03). A similar
exchange between Hernando Cort6s and Alonso llcrndndez Puertocarrero at San
Juan de Ulua before the march on Mexico-Tenochtitl&n is recorded by Bernal Diaz
del Castillo in ch. 36 of his Verdadera Hisloria, from the • Ballad of Conde Monte-
sinos *. Cf. Manuel Alvar, El Tlomancero viejo y Iradicional (Porrua, Mexico, 1971),
pp. 84, 347.
20 Couto, VII, x. 9.
21 Couto, VIII, 17. « Levava regimento pera ir esperar as naos do Ach6m nas Ilhas
de Maldiva, e de ahi ir a Monte de Felix esperar que fossem pera o estreito ». Monte
de Felix is the modern Bas Filuk, a promontory 800 feet high, about 40 miles west of
VIII

96

regions, so he wintered with most of his squadron at Ormuz. Back at

Goa, he embarked in the armada of the Viceroy Dom Antao de Noronha,
which sailed on the 8 December 1567 to attack Mangalore. He fought
with great distinction in the disastrous night-action of the 3 January
1568, when a sudden sortie by the defenders took the Portuguese com¬
pletely by surprise in their encampment. He was largely responsible
for saving the situation when a panic-struck fidalgo came up to the Vice¬
roy and urged him to embark, since all was lost and the enemy were
coming on with a victorious rush. The Viceroy answered, as he lowered a
halberd which he held in his hand : « Primeiro os Mouros passaram
pela ponta desta alabarda ». At the same time, Dom Jorge de Meneses
Baroche shouted loudly that the battle-cry of Santiago should be given
as a signal to charge, and that whoever wanted to embark should be
given tamborines to play with 22. A counter-attack eventually drove
off the assailants, and the city was taken by storm on the Day of Kings
(6 January 1568) as Couto relates in his graphic eyewitness account.
In the following year, Dom Jorge was Captain-Major of an armada to
the North (January 1569), and in December of this year he accompanied
the expedition of the Viceroy, Dom Luis de Ataide, to Barcelor. During
the great siege of Goa by the Adil Shah of Bijapur in 1570-71, he played a
prominent part in the defence, before leaving for Chaul as captain of
that stronghold, which was even more closely and dangerously besieged
by the Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar 23. It is clear that he was in Portugal

Monumenla Cartographica, Vol. I, Plate 96A (Lisboa, I960), and W. II. Schoff, The
Periplus of the Erithrean Sea (1912), pp. 85-86.
22 « Ao inesmo tempo chcgou D. Jorge Baroche... c gritou alto, (pic dcssc Sant¬
iago : e que a quern quizesse embarcar-se, mandasse dar pandciros pera folharcm *
(Couto, VIII, 19-20). Cf. A. I’’. G. Bell, Diogo do Couto (1924) pp. 11-14.
23 Couto, VIII, 29, 32, 37-8. At a viceregal council held at Goa to discuss whether
to hold or to abandon Chaul: « Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche, que estava despa-
chado com aquella Fortaleza [de Chaul], de que sc dava por aggravado por scus ser¬
ves serem dignos de maior mered, de que se tinha queixado a El Rey, c dito por
muitas vczes ao Viso-Rey, e aos Prelados que nao havia de servir naquella Fortale¬
za, vendo-a agora andar como ein almoeda, buns larga, outros nao larga, se levantou
em meio de todos os do Conselho, e votou largo sobre se haver de sustentar Chaul,
assim por servifo de El Rey, como por credito do Estado, ...mas que agora, que ella
estava naquelles trabalhos, a tinha pelo melhor, e mais avantejado despacho de scus
merecimentos, e de todo o Oricnte : que ellc queria ir entrar a servir na mered que El
Rey lhc fizera, c com grande gosto ; c tirando do pelto a patentc, a appresentou ao
Visorel, pedinho-lhe o despachasse, porque se queria logo embarcar: o que lhc die
agrada?eo muito da parte de El Rey, e lhc disse que se lizesse prestes * (Couto, VIII,
37). Dom Jorge de Meneses Barochc’s exploits in the defence of Goa and Chaul, ar
 VIII

D. JORGE DE MENESES BAROCHE 97

iR the year 1575, when he acted as conductor to Zahir Beg, envoy of the
Adil Shah of Bijapur, at his interview with King Dom Sebastiao on the
10 October of that year. A Jesuit eyewitness of this audience describes
him as being « hum fidalgo velho mui veneravel, de 39 annos da India
por nome Dom Jorge de Meneses Barroche, o qual certo parece ainda
decus et ornamenlum antiquae Lusitaniae 24.
His outstanding services for a period of some forty years were reward¬
ed by a grant of the captaincy of Cochim, which he seems to have served
for all or (more probably) part of the triennial term of 1580-83 25. He
returned to Portugal at an unascertained date, nor have I been able to
find the time and place of his death. It can hardly have been very long
after he wrote the certificate referring to the battle of Mulleriyawa,
which is reproduced above. But few if any other fidalgos could have
boasted of such an active life in the service of the Portuguese Crown in
Asia. At any rate, I cannot offhand recall another who had served in
the four outstanding exploits comprising the expedition of Dom Estevao
da Gama to Sinai in 1541, the second siege of Diu in 1546, and the epic
defences of Goa and of Chaul in 1570-71.

also related at length by Antdnio de Castilho, Comenlario do Cerco de Goa e Chaul, no

anno de M.D.LXX. Visorey Dom Luis de Ataide (Lisboa, 1573; reprinted, 1736).
24 Carta de Fcrnao Guerreiro, S.J., [post 10 October) 1575, apud Joseph Wicki,
S.J., (ed), Documenta Indica, X, 1575-1577 (Romae, 1968), pp. 1058-62.
25 Con to, X, iii, 13, and X, iv, 13 ; Jurarnento da cidade de Cochim a cl-rci I). Felipe
I (September 1581), in As Gavetas da Torre do Tombo, III (Lisboa, 1963), p. 57-67 ;
Alvard de Lembraiu^a, d. Lisboa, 15 July 1588, to Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche.
The grant of the captaincy of Cochim had been made to him on the 18th Feb. 1576.
For this grant and others for some of his sons and daughters, see the above-quoted
alvard of 15 July 1588, and Luciano Hibeiro (ed.), Regislo da Casa da India, I, nos.
 IX

A NOTE ON THE PORTUGUESE TRANSLATION

BY FRANCISCO ROS S.J. OF AN OLA FROM THE SAMORIN
OF CALICUT TO ANDRfi FURTADO DE MENDOZA (1599)

The document published below does not need a lengthy introduction

or commentary. It concerns the preliminaries of the joint expedition
by the Samorin of Calicut and a Portuguese force commanded by
Andr6 Furtado de Mendoza against the famous Muhammad Kunhali
Marakkar, usually termed Cunhale Marca in the Portuguese sources.
This campaign was copiously covered by contemporary Portuguese
and by later European historians, as can be seen from the accounts
utilised by the undersigned and the late Frazao de Vasconcelos in their
joint publication, Andrd Furtado de Mendonqa 1558-1610 (Lisboa,
AgSncia Geral do Ultramar, 1955), p. 21-35, 97-116 *. Unfortunately,
there is no similar account from the Indian side, owing to lack of Indian
sources1 2. The life and times of the translator of the ola, the Catalan
Jesuit, Francisco Ros, have also been treated in considerable detail
by Angel Santos, S.J., in two lengthy biographical articles, « Francisco
Ros, S.J., Arzobispo de Cranganor, primer Obispo Jesuita de la India,
1557-1624 » (Missionalia Hispanica, V, p. 325-93, Madrid 1948, and
op. cit., VI, p. 79-142, Madrid, 1949) 3.
However, Fr. Angel Santos S.J., in his chapter on « Ros en la Corte
del Zamorin» (Missionalia Hispanica, V, 354-363) has not utilised the
account given by Diogo do Couto, in his Decada XII (ed. Paris 1645).

1 The spelling of the surname Is given indifferently as Mendofa and Mendon^a

in documents of the period ; but I have retained the former here as being that used by
Ros and by the majority of Andr6 Furtado’s contemporaries.
2 Hence the inadequacy of O. K. Nambiar, The Kunjalis-Admirals of Calicut
(London, 1963), although this is an improved version of his earlier Portuguese Pirates
and Indian Seamen (1955).
3 This work is usefully supplemented and in some places corrected, in so far as
Ros’s archipiscopal career is concerned, by Jacob Killaparambil, The Archdeacon of
All-India (Kottayam 10, Kerala, India, 1972), p. 97-122.
IX

90

Couto, who knew Ros personally, obviously relied heavily on the Cata¬
lan Jesuit for his own narrative ; although he calls the latter by the
Portuguese form of his name, Francisco Rodrigues, and gives no hint
that his nationality was other than Portuguese. But some of Couto’s
observations are particularly relevant here. He tells us, what is natural
enough, that the Hindu Samorin and the Christian Andr6 Furtado,
disliked and distrusted each other intensely. The uneasy alliance was
more than once in danger of dissolving ; but Francisco Ros with his
exceptional diplomatic tact, always succeeded in smoothing things
over and averting a breach. Couto informs us that on one occasion
Andr6 Furtado sent an insulting message to the Samorin : « 0 Padre
Francisco Rodrigues, que era o Interprete destas cousas, me disseram
os Padres da Companhia, que nao quizera dizellas ao Samorin tao
cruas, e seccas, como lho elle mandava dizer, e assim com sua prudencia
foi temperando o Qamorim, e tendo mao nas cousas, porque via que se
se desconcertassem, se perderia aquella jornada ». On another occasion,
the Samorin learnt that Andr6 Furtado had written a derogatory letter
about him to the King of Cochin. Couto comments : « Parecia certo
nestes desconcertos, que andava o demonio desenfreadamente metido
nestas cousas, pera estorvar hum negocio de tanta importancia ao
Estado da India ; porque o Qamorim, que foi sabedor da carta de Andr6
Furtado, esteve pera romper de todo com elle ; mas o Padre Francisco
Rodrigues o foi sempre moderando, e tendo mao em sua paixao, e
divertindo-o della, fazendo nisso todos os officios, que lhe parec&ram
necessarios, pera que se nao levasse mao daquelle negocio, que estava
em muito bom estado »4.
The document transcribed below is not dated ; but from the context,
it was obviously written before Andr6 Furtado and the Samorin had
joined forces, and while the former was still at Goa. Since Andre Fur¬
tado finally left Goa with his armada of 37 sails on the 3 December 1599,
the original ola was probably written in September, as Andr6 Furtado
is therein requested to effect the junction with the Samorin in October.
Antonio Matoso, presumably took this ola with him when he went
as the Samorin’s envoy to Goa. The Viceroy Dom Francisco da Gama,
Count of Vidigueira, sent Matoso back in the same capacity to the
Samorin, as Couto relates :«0 Qamorim mandou logo visitar o Capitao
M6r [Andr6 Furtado] pelo Padre Francisco Rodrigues, da Companhia

4 Diogo do Couto, Decada XII, Livro 4, cap. vii. This Decada contains many other
references to Padre Francisco Rodrigues [= Ros], S.J.
 IX

AN OLA FROM THE SAMORIN 91

de Jesus, e seus Regedores ; em cuja companhia foi tambem Antonio

Matoso, casado em Cananor, que o Conde tinha mandado em f6ima
de Embaixador ao £amorim, em cuja companhia andava, pera o fazer
proseguir na guerra, por ser muito seu amigo, e conhecido, e pratico
nas cousas do Malavar»5.
The endorsement, in another hand, on the verso of the document
shows that it was sent later on to Pedro de Mariz (c. 1550-1615). This
literary figure, best known as the author of the biography of Camoes
prefixed to the 1613 edition of Os Lusladas, was engaged on compiling a
« life and times » biography of Andr6 Furtado (Vida, e feitos de Andre
Furtado de Mendoza) at the time of his death, as Barbosa Machado
informs us in his classic Bibliotheca Lusitana 6.

Traslado d’olla que escreve o Samorim ao Senhor

Andr6 Furtado de Mendoza

Com a alegria que tivemos sabendo que Vossa Merce vinha por capi-
tao do mar, lhe escrevemos muytas ollas, depois do qual desejando nos,
ver a Vossa Merce com armada pera depressa acabar ao inimigo, pera
falar em isto com o visorei e com Vossa Merce e pera lhe dar informa^ao
de muytas cousas, nos parefeo necessario mandar a Goa a Antonio
Matoso embaxador, o qual tratara com Vossa Merce tudo o que nos
pare^eo necessario advertir pera Vossa Merce vir bem aparyebido por
nao haver falta em os petrechos necessarios, de modo que sobeje antes
que falte, de modo que se saiba em todas as partes que nunqua capitao
mor houve tamanha e tao provida e aper?ebida armada como Vossa
Merce traze, pello que pidimos a Vossa Merce venha no principio de
oitubro, porque assi em oitubro e Novembro fazendo guerra ao inimigo,
o acabemos, e assi com honrra possamos yr a nossa Mamanga 7 e assi

5 Diogo do Couto, Decada XII, Livro 4, cap. 1.

6 Possibly at the suggestion of his elder brother, Joao Furtado de Mendoza (or
Mendonga), who had likewise served in India for some years 1576-86, and as Governor
of Angola (1595-1602), before being appointed a member of the Conselho de Portugal
at Lisbon in December 1608, where he succeeded another brother, Pero deMendo?a :
Francisco Mendes da Luz, 0 Conselho da India (Lisboa, 1952), p. 153-55 ; C. R.
Boxer & Frazao de Vasconcelos, Andrl Furtado de Mendonga (1955), p. 77-78. On
Pedro de Mariz, see the article by Joao Palma Ferreira, in Arquivos do Centro cultural
portuguts, 7 (1973, Paris), p. 471-484.
7 Couto gives a description of this Hindu festival in his Decada XII, Livro 4,
cap. iv. The Mahamakham (‘great sacrifice’) was held every twelve years. Cf.
IX

92

outra vez lhe pidimos que com tempo e depressa e com abundan^ia
seja a vinda de Vossa Merce que todos com alvoro^o estamos esperando.
Trasladado por mini Padre Francisco Ros da Companhia de
Jesus.
Fco Ros

red
laqucr
seal8
Verso : Ao Senlior Andre Furtado de Mendoza
Do Samorim
Para Pedro de Maris
Traslado de hua carta do Samorim para o Senhor
Andre Furtado de Mendoza.

We are not concerned here with the part played by Francisco Ros
S.J., in the Synod of Diamper (June, 1599) before the final and success¬
ful campaign against the Kunhali, nor with his subsequent career as
a supporter of Roberto de’ Nobili (1577-1656), and Archbishop of Cran-
ganor. All this has been exhaustively treated by modern historians,
Indian and European, though often from differing viewpoints 9. But
I will conclude this note with a reference to him in later life, which
seems to have escaped his biographers.
In November 1614, Juan de Ribera S.J., who was then in his second
term as Rector of the Jesuit College at Manila, was sent by the Governor
of the Philippines, Don Juan de Silva, to ask the help of the Viceroy
of Goa, Dom Jeronimo de Azevedo, in an ambitiously planned Hispano-
Portuguese naval operation against the Dutch, which would crush the
heretic intruders once and for all. On his way to Goa, Ribera visited
the Portuguese stronghold of Cochin for two months. During his stay
there : « Levaronme a Caranganor, cinco leguas de alii, por rios muy
amenos en una embarcacion como casa, que era del senor Arfobispo
de la Sierra, el Padre Don Francisco Ros de nuestra Compania, natural

Diogo Gonsalves S. J., Historia do Malavar, ed. Josef Wicki, Mtlnster, Westf. 1955,
p. 43 and sources quoted.
8 The red lacquer seal is in Malayalam script, and appears to be the word sri, but
the reading is uncertain.
9 Beginning with Antonio de Gouvea O.E.S.A., lorncida do Arcebispo de Goa Dom
Frey Aleiro de Menezes Primaz da India Oriental .... Quando fotj as Serras do Mala¬
var e lugares em que morao os anligos ChristSos de S. Thomas, etc. (Coimbra, 1609).
 IX

AN OLA PROM THE SAMORIN 93

de la Ciudad de Girona en el Principado de Cataluna ; cuya mano

descava yo besar. Ilallamosle en Peru [ ? Parur?] : pareciome un
Sanlo, y diziendole a la priincra salulucion, a proposilo del retiro, y
pobreza con que le hallava : Qui Episcopalian dcsiderat, barium opus
desiderat, respondio : Nueslro Caldeo buelbe : lionam servitulcm quaerit.
Es docto en aquella lengua en que rezan, y celebran con particularcs
ceremonias sus Clerigos. Ilallamosle tan a lo Apostolico, que ni tuvo
casa en que hospedarnos a ocho de la Compafiia, que alii ibamos, y
entre ellos el Hector de Cochin, Padre Caspar Fernandez, ni que darnos
de comer ; y assi nos bolbimos a la embarcacion, que era mas commoda
que la casa» 10.
This visit took place in February or March 1615, and Archbishop
Francisco Hos died at his post on the 13 March 1621.

10 Letter of .Juan de Ribera S. J., n.d.n.p., but probably written at Goa or Malacca
in 1616, a pud Francisco Colin S. J. Labor EvangHica de los obreros de la Compilnla de
Jesus en las Islus Filipinos (cd. Pablo Pastclls S. J., 3 vols Barcelona 190J), vol.
Ill, p. 576-80, especially p. 577. English Translation in E. II. Blair & Robertson,
The Philippine Islands (55 vols, Cleveland, Ohio, 1903-09) Vol. XVII, 1609-1616
p. 262-272, of the Taiwan reprint edition by the late Domingo Abella.
.

Ant6nio Bocarro and the «Livro do Estado
da India Oriental*
A bio-bibliographical note
One reason why the Portuguese
Eastern empire of the early seven¬
teenth century is so frequently misun¬
derstood and misrepresented is that
there is no adequate edition of the
greatest contemporary work describ¬
ing the «Estado da India». I refer,
of course, to the manuscript Livro do
Estado da India Oriental, originally
compiled by Antonio Bocarro with
the assistance of Pedro Barreto de
Resende in 1633-35, and of which
Resende completed an enlarged and
corrected version some ten years
later. Before discussing briefly the
scope and value of this truly monu¬
mental work, it will be well to
summarise what is known of Bocar-
ro’s. career, since all previous refe¬
rences to him have been either inac¬
curate or incomplete.
According to his own account,
Bocarro was born in 1594 but his
birthplace is variously given as
Abrantes (Doc. II) and Lisbon
(Doc. I). In any event, he spent part
of his childhood at Abrantes and was
educated at the Jesuit College of
X
Santo Antao at Lisbon. His father,
a Lisbon physician named Fernao
Bocarro, and his mother, Guiomar
| Nunes, both belonged to the unfor-
! tunate class of Cristaos-Novos, but
I his paternal grand-father had been a
: soldier of renown and captain of
Safim, one the Portuguese fortresses
in Morocco.
As was usual in these crypto-
-Jewish families, Antonio Bocarro
was baptized and brought up as a
Christian until he was a sixteen-year
old student at Santo Antao. In 1610
or thereabouts, one of his elder bro¬
thers, Manuel Bocarro Frances, who
was then likewise a student at the
Jesuit College but who later achieved
a European reputation as physician,
mathematician and astrologer, secre¬
tly converted him to Judaism (*).
(i) Pedro de Azevedo, «0 Bocarro Frances
e os Judeus de Cochlm e Hamburgo», in Ar-
chivo Historico Portuguez, VIII (1910), pp. 15-
-20, 185-198, whence document II below. For
a list of the works of Manuel Bocarro Frances
(1588-1602), cf. Barbosa Machado, Biblioteca
Lusitana.
 X

204

Although the young Antonio at first 1622, Bocarro began to have doubts
hesitated to accept his brother’s ex¬ concerning the validity of the Mosaic
position of the validity of the Mosaic Law, and reading the Symbolo de la
Law, he became an enthusiastic con¬ Fe of Fr. Luis de Granada, O. P.,
vert once his doubts had been resolv¬ and other pious Catholic works, he
ed. Anxious to become conversant found himself gradually drawn back
with orthodox Jewish ritual and towards Christianity. After two or
practice (for the crypto-Jews of the i three years of wrestling with his
Iberian peninsula had by this time i conscience, he made a full confession
only a smattering of many essen¬ to one of the local Jesuits, Sebastiao
tials), he enlisted as a soldier for Dias, from whom he received abso-
service in India, where he thought it i lution and readmission to the faith.
would be easier to get in touch with | On the advice of his Jesuit confessor,
an actively orthodox Jewish commu¬ he went to Goa early in 1624, where
nity. He sailed for India in the fleet he made another full voluntary con¬
which left Lisbon in April 1615, and fession before the Inquisition. He
soon after his arrival at Goa was denounced his parents and several
sent northwards in the armada of of his relatives as crypto-Jews, but
Rui Freire de Andrade in November carefully excepted a (? younger)
of the same year. Returning to Goa brother named Francisco who had
in April 1616, Bocarro subsequently come out to India as a soldier with
served in other fleets along the west him.
coast of India, but hearing of the The Inquisitors were apparently
existence, of a comparatively flourish¬ convinced of his sincerity, and after
ing Jewish community at Cochim, abjuring his errors in private session
he contrived to be posted there for he was evidently released, as we find
garrison duty. him serving in various armadas and
Bocarro remained in Cochim on at Cranganor during the years 1626-
and off for nearly nine years, first 32 (Doc. I). Luckily, most of those
as a soldier and later (after 1624) persons whom he had incriminated
as a casado or married settler, his saved themselves by timely flight
wife being named Isabel Vieira. from arrest by the metropolitan
Although he soon got in touch with Inquisition. It is just possible (though
the local Jews, their Rabbi refused unlikely) that Antonio Bocarro had
to circumsize him or admit him into himself warned one of his relatives
the orthodox Jewish faith, fearing by letter of his impending betrayal
(rightly as it proved) that Bocarro of them before he made his confes¬
might revert to Christianity at any sion to the Inquisition at Goa in
time. His Jewish mentor was there¬ February 1624.
fore a layman, Samuel Castiel, who However this may be, Antonio
was the official interpreter to the Bocarro was recommended to the
Rajah of Cochim. About 1621 or attention of the Viceroy Dorn Miguel

Antonio Bocarro and the «Livro do Estado da India Oriental»
de Noronha, Conde de Linhares, in
1631. This nobleman was a far-sight-
ed and tolerant character, being
famous — or according to his enemies
infamous — for the grace and favour
which he accorded to the hated
Cristaos-Novos. In a dispatch to
the Crown, dated 19 August 1631,
the Conde de Linhares explains how
he came to appoint Antonio Bocarro
to the post of Chronicler and Keeper
of the Archives at Goa which had
not been satisfactorily filled since the
death of Diogo do Couto in 1616.
«Senhor: — V. M. me manda por
apertadas ordens que busque homem
que continue com a Historia da India;
e cometendo ao Dr. Gongalo Pinto
da Fonseca, chanceler deste Estado,
o exame das pessoas que podiam
servir a V. M. nesta ocupagao, no-
meou pera ela a Antonio Bocarro por
pessoa de talento e em quern me
afirmou concorrem algumas mui boas
partes para a dita ocupagao: porque
neste Estado, Senhor, ha grande
falta de sujeitos. Passaram-se-lhe os
despachos necessarios para servir
juntamente de guarda-mor da Torre
do Tombo.
E porque tenho por noticia que
Diogo do Couto escreveu ate o tempo
de Dom Jeronimo de Azevedo e ca
nao ha estes livros; e tenho ouvido
que o marques de Castelo Rodrigo
tern parte deles de letra de mao, sir-
va-se V. M. de mandar que se envie
uma copia deles, para se emendar a
parte em que ele houver sido dimi-
nuto, e se porem nesta Torre do
Tombo, que esta em tal miseria que
nao ha nela um so papel em que se
X
206
| faga fundamento, nem ainda para
' dar lume a historia; a que tenho grao
lastima, e vou dando o remedio que
: me e factivel. Deus guarde etc. — De
I Goa, a 19 de Agosto de 1631» (2).
Bocarro s appointment as official
chronicler was dated 9 May 1631
(Doc. I), and he evidently got to
work at once, although, as can be
seen from other entries in this last-
quoted document he still served as
a soldier in various local and tempo¬
rary emergencies. The Viceroy testi¬
fied his satisfaction with Bocarro’s
zeal and assiduity in a paragraph of
his dispatch to the Crown dated
23 February 1635 which was worded
as follows:
«Antonio Bocarro guardamor da
Torre do Tombo deste Estado e
Chronista delle progede com satisfa-
gao em seu offigio e em outras matte-
rias de que o encarrego fora delle,
nas descripgoes das fortalezas deste
Estado que este anno enuio a Vossa
Magestade teve grande trabalho e
as fez com muita diligengia e cui-
dado . Goa 23 de Feureiro de
1635. O Conde de Linhares» (").
Bocarro evidently held the post of
chronicler and keeper of the archives
at Goa until his death (in 1642 or
1643), but finding it difficult to
(0 Arqulvo da Torre do Tombo, Livros das
Mongoes, Llvro n." 29, fl. 89 printed inter alia
In O Oriente Portugu.es (1.* Serle), V (1908), pp.
132-3, and A. C. Germano ,da Silva Correia,
Histdria da Colonizagao Portuguesa no India,
IV (1952), pp. 417-8.
(a) Arqulvo Hlstorlco do Estado da India,
Livros das Mangoes do Reino, n.° 19-B, fl. 606.
 X
206
provide for his wife and five children
in 1638, he petitioned for and se¬
cured the post of Customs-House
broker for whoever would marry one
of his daughters (Doc. I). In
March 1643, the Crown reserved the
post of secretary of the customs at
Muscat for whoever would marry
another of his daughters (* *), but the
wording of the following dispatch
of the Viceroy Conde de Aveiras
dated 22 August 1643, shows that
Bocarro was dead by the time that
this grant reached India.
«Dom Joao etc. Aos que esta carta
virem fago saber que tendo respeito
ao que na petigao atras escrita diz
Isabel Vieira, viuva de Antonio
Bocarro, guarda-mor da Torre do
Tombo da cidade de Goa e cronista
do Estado da India, achando-se pobre
e tendo filhos a sustentar, a saber,
dois machos e tres femeas, hei por
bem e me praz de fazer merce do
cargo de guarda-mor da Torre do
Tombo e cronista do Estado da India
para dote e casamento da sua filha
mais velha para a pessoa que com
ela casar sendo apta e suficiente e
tanto que for recebida a face da
Igreja por certidao do cura ou viga-
rio se lhe passara a respectiva pa-
tente. Notifico assim ao meu vice-rei
do Estado da India, ao Vedor da
Fazenda Real, e mais ministros e
pessoas a que pertencer que guar-
dem, cumpram e fagam inteiramente
(4) A. C. Germano da Silva Correia, Bistdria
da Colonizagdo Portuguesa na India, IV, 418.
guardar e cumprir esta carta tao
inteiramente como ela se contem.
Dada na minha cidade de Goa aos
22 de Agosto de 1643 — O Conde
de Aveiras». This document is en¬
dorsed in the margin: «Por este re-
gisto se nao fara obra, porquanto em
virtude da carta de que ele trata se
passou outra a Antonio Ferreira por
casar com a filha mais velha de An¬
tonio Bocarro, que vai registada no
Livro 6.° dos Registos Gerais, a
fls. 157 — Goa, a 10 de Setembro de
1644» (»).
The bereavements of Bocarro’s
widow were not yet at an end, as
can be deduced from the following
extract from a petition dated 17
September, 1649:
«Isabel Vieira veuva de Antonio
Bocarro, Chronista e Guarda Mor
da Torre do Tombo requere a V. M.
satisfagao e merces pela morte do seu
filho Fernao Bocarro afogado na ar¬
mada de Dom Felipe Mascarenhas
em 1645 e ser hua viuva pobre e ter
duas filhas casadas e hua donzella
...Goa, 17 de setembro de 1649» (8).
The last echo of this case that I
have been able to find is the follow¬
ing royal dispatch of June 1651:
«Em uma carta patente passada
em meu nome por D. Felipe Mas¬
carenhas, meu vice-rei, a 29 de Julho
(s) Arqulvo Hlst6rlco do Estado da India,
Cartas Patentes e Alvards, Livro n.” 22 (1643),
fl. 110, apud Germano da Silva Correia, op. cit,
416-7.
(•) Arqulvo Hlstdrlco Ultramarino, cddlce
n.» 445, H. 16.

Antonio Bocarro and the «.Livro do Estado da India Oriental»
de 1649, pela qua! fiz merce a Isabel
Vieira do cargo de escrivao da rece-
bedoria de Salsete por seis anos, em
virtude duma carta que mandei es-
crever ao dito vice-rei, em 12 de
Abril de 1647, por que ordenei .
de posse do oficio de guarda-mor
da Torre do Tombo de Goa a Fran¬
cisco Moniz de Carvalho, desapos-
sando-se dele a Antonio Ferreira,
genro do dito Bocarro a quem se
havia dado em dote de casamento, e
que as filhas e a mulher do dito An¬
tonio Bocarro fossem . noutra
coisa a satisfa^ao dos seus servigos
. Hei por bem e me praz de fazer
merce a dita Isabel Vieira do cargo
de escrivao da feitoria de Jafnapatao
por tres anos, na vagante dos pro-
vidos antes de 10 de Junho de 1651,
ficando sem efeito a merce anterior-
mente feita de esctivao da recebedo-
ria de Salsete . Dada em Lisboa
a 10 de Junho de 1651 —Rei» (’).
A list of Antonio Bocarro’s works
during the dozen or so years in
which he held the office of chronicler
and keeper of the archives at Goa
will be found in Barbosa Machado’s
Biblioteca Lusitana. To these should
be added the chronicle of the deeds
(*) Arqulvo Hlst6rIco do Estado da India,
Cartas Patentes e Alvar As, Livro n.“ 35 (1650-
-1652), fl. 47-v, apud Germano da Silva Correia,
op. cit., 514-5. Contrary to what Dr. Silva Cor¬
reia states, Antdnlo Ferreira did function as
cronista e guarda-mor da Torre do Tombo do
Estado da India lor some years, as documents
signed by him In that capacity, 1643-1646, are
extant. For a list of the occupants of that post
between Couto and Bocarro see article In O
Ortenfe Portuguts (1* S6rle), V, 127-33.
X
207
of Sancho de Vasconcellos, one of
the leading Portuguese conquistador
res in the Moluccas during the
second half of the 16th century,
which is mentioned in Document I in¬
fra. The first of Bocarro’s manus¬
cript works to be published in full
was his continuation of Diogo do
Couto’s Decadas covering the years
1612-17. Although this Decada XIII
(belatedly published in 1876) osten¬
sibly covers only the five years of
Dom Jeronimo de Azevedo’s viceroy¬
alty, it actually includes a good deal
of earlier material relating to the rule
of Rui Louren<;o de Tavora (1609-
-1612), and proves Bocarro to have
been a worthy successor to Barros
and Couto. One of the most interest¬
ing features of Bocarro’s Decada
XIII is his exhaustive description of
the Zambesi river valley and its
hinterland (chapters 122 to 151),
including the remarkable overland
journey made from Tete to Kilwa by
Gaspar Bocarro (possibly a relation
of Antonio) in 1616, to which insuf¬
ficient attention has been paid by
most writers on the history of African
exploration (').
Another noteworthy point about
Bocarro’s Decada XIII is the amount
of space which he devotes to the Far
East. This was something which
Couto tended to neglect (save only
in his Decadas V and XII), on the
(*) An exception la Armando Cortesfio,
whose study of Bocarro's work In his Cartogra-
fia e Cartdgrafos Portugueses dos SAculos XV
e XVI, II (1935), pp. 92-103, la the best to date.
 X
208
plea that the Jesuits with their
learned Japan missionaries were bet¬
ter placed to write about such matters
than himself. Bocarro, on the other
hand, though reconciled to Chris¬
tianity through the medium of a
Jesuit from Coulao (Quilon), shows
himself a severe critic of the allegedly
arrogant behaviour of some of the
Jesuit missionaries in Japan. He was
never in Japan himself, and his in¬
formation was evidently derived from
Macao merchants or from the Spa¬
nish friars who were such bitter critics
of the Jesuits’ methods. While it
must be treated with reserve, it
should not be ignored by historians
of European activities in the Far
East at that time (B).
Valuable as is Bocarro’s Decada
XIII, it is his encyclopedic work on
the contemporary Estado da India
which is his most lasting monument.
The nature and scope of its contents
can best be gauged from a trans¬
cription of the unwieldy title: Livto
das Plantas de todas as Fortalezas,
Cidades, e Povoagoens do Estado da
India Oriental com as descripgoens
da altura em que estao, e de tudo
que ha nellas, Artilharia, Presidio,
gente de Armas, e Vassalos, rendi-
mento, e despeza, [undos e baxos
das Barras, Reys da Terra dentro, o
poder que tern, e a paz, e guerra, que
guardao, e tudo que esta debaxo da
Coroa de Espanha. Dedicado a Se-
(®) Cf. C. R. Boxer, The Christian Century
in Japan, 15\9-1650, (University of California
Press, 1951), pp. 226, 238, 475, 479.
renissima Magestade del Rey Felippe
o IV das Espanhas, e III de Portu¬
gal, Rey, e Senhor nosso. The
dedication is dated Goa, 17 February
1635, being the same date as that of
the second volume of Decada XIII,
showing that both these works were
sent to Portugal at the same time.
The Livro do Estado da India Orien¬
tal lives up to its lengthy tittle, for
it describes all the Portuguese fortres¬
ses, settlements, colonies and «fac-
tories» ([eitorias) between Sofala in
S.E. Africa, and Solor on the con¬
fines of the Pacific Ocean, in the
compass of some 250 large folio
leaves and some 50 maps and
plans (10). As indicated in the word¬
ing of the title, the work is by no
means confined to purely Portuguese
possessions, but gives us many inter¬
esting glimpses and sidelights on the
East African and Asian potentates
and peoples who were their neigh¬
bours for some five thousand leagues.
This encyclopedic work was not
the first of its kind, for Joao de
Barros and Diogo do Couto had
compiled similar works in their time
(both of them since lost), and there
0°) In addition to the contemporary copies
at fivora and Madrid, described In A. Cortes&o,
op. et loc. cit., another original via (which was
once In the library of the Cadava! family and
later In that of Queen Marla Christina of
Spain) was recently offered for sale by A.
Rosenthal of Oxford for £ 6,000. This copy
comprises 254 leaves and 48 double-page colour¬
ed plane and maps. There would appear to be
still another original codex in the Cadava!
archives, and later 18th-century copies are
extant In London, Washington (DC), Lisbon,
Paris etc.

Antdnio Bocarro and the «.Livro do Estado da India Oriental*
are notices of other efforts at the
turn of the 16th century (n). But
Bocarro’s was undoubtedly the most
exhaustive, although even it was
improved upon when Pedro Barreto
de Resende, who was Bocarro’s
unacknowledged collaborator in the
compilation of the 1635 Livro, com¬
piled an extended and amended ver¬
sion of which there is a copy in the
British Museum (Sloane Ms. 197)
entitled: Livro do Estado da India
Oriental repartido em tres partes, a
primeira contem todos os retratos dos
Vizorreis que tem avido no dito es-
tado athe o anno de 634. com des-
cripsois de seus governos. A segunda
parte contem as plantas das Fortale-
zas que ha do cabo de boa esperanga
athe a [ortaleza de Chaul e com
larga descripgao de tudo ho que ha
em cada hua das dittas fortalezas,
rendimento e gasto que tem, e tudo
o mais que Ihe toca. A terceira con¬
tem as plantas de todas as fortalezas
que ha de Goa athe a China, com
descripgao da mesma forma e vao
juntamente plantas das fortalezas que
nao sao do estado que por estarem
nas mesmas costas se puzerao por
curiozidade. Feito pello capitao P.°
Barretto de Resende cavalleiro pro-
fesso da ordem de Sao Bento de
Avis, natural de Pavia Anno de
1646.
(«) Cf. A. Botelho da Costa Veiga, Relag&o
das plantas, do dezcripsdes de todas as fortale-
zas, cidades, e povoagOes que os Portuguezes
tem no estado da India Oriental (Lisboa, 1036),
pp. xvlll-xlx, and A. Cortesfio, op. cit., pp. 103-
-104,for one of 1582i Orcareento do Estado
da India 1574, Feito por nandado de Diego
Velho.(ed.Aguedo de Oliveira, Lleboa 19o0)
X
209
This particular codex comprises
some 416 folio leaves of text, illus¬
trated with 44 coloured portraits of
viceroys and governors (based on
those in the galeria of the viceregal
palace at Goa), 66 plans or panora¬
mic coloured drawings of forts and
settlements, with nine charts or maps,
eight of which are signed by the
French hydrographer-friar, Pierre
Berthelot (,J). From Resende’s pre¬
face, we learn that it was he who
drew the plans in Bocarro’s original
manuscript, while the latter was res¬
ponsible for the text. It is interest¬
ing to note that Resende pays a
handsome tribute to Bocarro’s indus¬
try and zeal in compiling the 1635
Livro (ia), whereas Bocarro in this
work makes only an oblique and
(«) Cf. Charles Br6ard, Histoire de Pierre
Berthelot pilote et cosmographe du Roi de Por¬
tugal aux Indes Orientates, carme dichaussi
(Paris, 1889).
(js) «...as quaes fez Antonio Bocarro chro-
nlsta d’este Estado da India com Immenso tra-
balho culdado e desvello de que eu fuy teste-
munha; porque tendo eu dado principlo 4s
plantas deste livro e determlnando fazel-o da
mesma forma que elle est& para mlnha curlo-
sldade, mandou Sua Magestade ao Conde de
Llnhares, vlrey da India meu senhor lhe man-
dasse hum livro desta forma; e remettendo o
Conde Vlrey ao chronlsta Antonio Bocarro para
que o flzesse, lhe respondeo que as descrlpgftes
farla elle por ser cousa tocante ao seu officio,
mas que as plantas era lmposslvel podellaa elle
fazer se lh’as eu nfio desse, por ter J& a malor
cantldade d’ellas; e ordenando-me o Conde meu
senhor o flzesse, deslste de certos lntentos que
tlnha e as dey com condlgfto que me desse elle
descrlpsdes d’ellas. Em esta conformldade se
acabou o livro que foy a Sua Magestade...»
Resende’s preface from which this extract Is
taken Is not preserved In the British Museum
Codex but In one of the two Paris codices
(Ponds Portugals I).
 X
210
derogatory allusion to Resende’s con¬
tribution without mentioning him by
name (“). At the same time, it must
be admitted that the main body of
the work is by Bocarro. It will be
seen that Resende’s 1646 version was
expanded to include biographical
sketches of the viceroys and gover¬
nors of the Estado da India down to
1635, and a chronological list of
ships which made the India voyage
between H97 and 1635. He claims
to have checked Bocarro’s revenue
figures and to have amended them
where necessary, but his text follows
that of Bocarro very closely with
only minor alterations and additions
in so far as I have been able to
compare the two versions. Resende’s
version of the Livro do Estado da
India Oriental survives in a contem¬
porary copy in the Bibliotheque
National, Paris (Fonds Portugais I),
another in the British Museum, Lon¬
don (Sloane Ms. 197), and in other
(n) Bocarro In his dedicaUon of 17 February
1635, merely states that «o grande trabalho que
me custou, n&o foy alnda bastante para o fazer
na forma que o lntentel e desejava com as plan-
tas arrumadas, e demarcadas, e compassadas
por petlpA o que nunca fol posslvel pela grande
falta que ha neste Estado de pessoas sclentas
nas dltas Artes, mormente sendo as fortalezas
em tanta copla, e asslm para a refels&o dlsto
procurel p6r tudo na descrlQ&o, como vay, &
qual he que se deue dar intelro credlto, n&o se
baseando na planta das Fortalezas e Cldades
mats que a forma e flgura dellas». For a
detailed collation of the maps and plans In the
Bocarro Evora-codex and the Resende Parls-
codex cf. Ernesto de Vasconcellos, CataJogo da
Exposigio de Cartographia National, 1903-1904
(Lisboa, 1904), pp. 29-42.
posterior copies which are not worth
mentioning here (,5).
The only complete edition of Bo¬
carro’s Livro of 1635 is the version
of the Evora Codex published se¬
rially by A. B. de Bragan<;a Pereira
in the Arquivo Portugues Oriental
(Nova ediqao), Tomo IV, Vol. II,
Parte I; Tomo IV, Vol. II, Parte II;
Tomo IV, Vol. II, Parte III (Bas-
tora, 1937-38). Unfortunately, this
edition leaves a great deal to be
desired, and is in some respects
worse than useless. The proofs were
evidently corrected very carelessly
or not at all, so that the text teems
with misprints and misreadings. Mor¬
eover, the notes provided by the
editor make no attempt to clarify or
illuminate the text, but consist of a
mass of miscellaneous documents (or
extracts from documents) ranging
from the early 16th to the early 19th
century, uncritically selected, and
printed without any order or system.
For example, on p. 447 of Tomo IV,
Vol. II, Parte II, he prints a document
dated 10 February 1796, with the
(i») Although the British Museum codex
(Sloane 197) of Resende’s Livro is dated 1646,
the original draft must have been completed
in 1636, since Resende left Goa with the Conde
de Linhares to return to Portugal In March
1636, and this is the last date mentioned in the
text. During his stay at Goa (1629-1636),
Resende, apart from being private secretary to
the Conde de Linhares, also served on occasion
as contador da matricola geral and secretario
do estado. He died at Lisbon in 1651, having
been awarded a pension just before his death
for his services In Tangier, India and Brasil
(Inventario dos Livros das Portarias do Reino,
I (1909), p. 370).

Antonio Bocarro and the «Lrivro do Estado da India Oriental*
preliminary assertion: «Em 1796 os
ingleses bombardearam Diu. O Cas-
telao comunicou ao Governador Ge-
ral» etc. On reading the Castellan’s
dispatch which follows, we see (as
might have been expected) that the
ships in question were not English
but French. Using a very common
ruse de guerre, they approached the
stronghold flying English flags, but
as soon as they opened fire «arrearao
logo a bandeira Ingleza, e issarao a
Franceza». The rest of the editing is
on a par with this effort, so a trust¬
worthy critical edition of the Livro
do Estado da India Oriental still
remains a prime desideratum.
Pending the publication of such a
complete edition, which will be of
great value not only to the students
of «Asia Portuguesa» but to those
of Asian maritime trade and inter¬
course in the seventeenth century,
attention may be drawn to the fol¬
lowing portions which are available
in print, but are so widely dispersed
that this is the first time they have
been enumerated together.
(a) The descriptions of Sofala,
Zambesia («Rios de Cuama»), Sen¬
na, Tete, and Mozambique, are print¬
ed from the British Museum (Ms.
Sloane 197) Resende — codex in G.
McCall Theal, Records of South-
Eastern Africa, Vol. II (Cape Town,
1898), pp. 378-426, together with an
English translation, but without any
notes or comments.
(b) The descriptions of Basra,
Curiate, Ormuz, Sinde, Chaul, Goa,
Onor, Maldives and Malacca were
published in the original Portuguese
X
211
from the British Museum Resende-
codex by W. de Gay Birch in his
translation for the Hakluyt Society
(4 vols., 1880-1884) of the Com-
mentarios of Afonso de Albuquer¬
que, Vol. Ill (1880), pp. 265-305,
and Vol. IV (1884), 229-251. No
notes are provided, nor is a trans¬
lation.
(c) The descriptions of Basra,
Quatif (Catifa), Kung (Congo),
Dobbah (Doba), Khor Fakkan (Cor-
focam) and Sohar (Soar) are sum¬
marised in English translation from
the British Museum Resende-codex
by C. R. Boxer in E. Prestage [ed.],
Chapters in Anglo-Portuguese Re¬
lations (Watford, 1935), pp. 125-9,
with brief notes.
(d) The descriptions of Diu, Da-
mao, Ba^aim, and Chaul were pu¬
blished serially from the Evora Bo-
carro-codex by J. H. Cunha Rivara
in O Chronista de Tissuary, Vols. 3
& 4, n°‘ 28-39 (Nova Goa, Abril
1868-Marzo 1869), but without any
notes or comments.
(e) The description of Malacca
was translated into English from the
British Museum Resende-codex and
published in an annotated translation
by W. G. Maxwell in the Journal of
the Straits Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society, No: LX (1911),
pp. 1-18.
(f) The description of Macao was
printed from the Evora Bocarro-
codex, and published together with
an annotated English translation by
C. R. Boxer, Macau na epoca da
Restauragao. Macau three hundred
 X
212
years ago (Macau, Imprensa Nacio-
nal, 1942), pp. 21-47.
(g) The descriptions and plans of
old and new Iacatara (or Batavia),
are compared and collated from both
the British Museum and the two
Bibliotheque National versions of the
Resende-codex and discussed in
an article (in Dutch) by C. C. F. M.
Le Roux, «Twee Portugeesche plat-
tegronden van Oud-Batavia uit den
stichtingstijd der stad», in the Tijd-
schrift von Indisch Taal-Land-en
Volkenkunde, Vol. LXXVIII (Ba¬
tavia, 1938), pp. 515-35.
(h) The plans of the forts at
Ende and Solor in the Indonesian
archipelago are discussed from the
British Museum and the Bibliotheque
National versions of the Resende-
codex by G.' P. Rouffaer in his
article «Naschrift over het Oud-
Portugeesche fort op Poeloe Ende;
en de Dominicaner Solor-Flores Mis-
sie, 1561-1638», in Nederlandsch
Indie Oud en Nieuw, Vol. 8 (The
Hague, 1923/4) pp. 124-6 and 219.
A number of the maps and plans
have been reproduced from both the
London and Paris codices of the
Resende Livro do Estado in the
above mentioned works and in other
articles and periodicals; but the only
complete reproduction is that of the
plans in the Paris codex «Fonds
Portugais I», which A. B. de Bra-
gan^a Pereira used to illustrate his
above-mentioned edition of the
1635 Evora-codex in the Arquivo
Porfugues Oriental (nova edigao),
Tomo IV, Vol. II, partes 1-3. Several
of the maps and plans concerning the
Red Sea and Persian Gulf regions
are also reproduced in Albert Kam-
merer, La Met Rouge, I’Abyssinie at
lArabie depuis l’ Antiquite. Les guer-
res de poivre. Tome II (Cairo, 1935).
In most ways, however, the London
codex (Sloane Ms. 197 )* is superior
to the Paris versions, and a critical
edition of the Livro do Estado should
primarily be based on the former.
It is needless to stress the value
of Bocarro’s great work whether in
the original draft of 1635 or Resen-
de’s expanded version of 1646.
Orientalists and historians of Euro¬
pean activities in Asia will find it of
great value, although it is not, of
course, without its errors and anach¬
ronisms. Thus Bocarro’s statistical
account of the Chinese empire is an
unacknowledged rehash of that print¬
ed in Gongalez de Mendoza’s His-
toria de las cosas mas notables, ritos
y costumbres del gran reyno de la
China, (Rome, 1585) which was in
its turn derived from a digest of the
Kuang-yii-t’u or some similar Chi¬
nese work which Fr. Martin de Rada
O. E. S. A. brought back with him
from Fukien to Manila in 1575 (1B).
Even so, this text was evidently the
best source available to Bocarro in
1635. Generally speaking, his work,
like that of Barros and Couto, stands
the test well where it can be checked
(ie) Cf. C. R. Boxer, South China in the 16th
Century. Being the narratives of Galeote Pe¬
reira, Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O P., Fr. Martin de
Rada, O. E. S. A., 1650-1576 (London, Hakluyt
Society, 1953), pp. 268-9, 276-7, 359.
 X
Ant&nio Bocarro and the * Livro do Estado da India Oriental» 213

against Asian sources. Much of the soldier-historians who have written

statistical information which it gives
on trade, wages, and prices is to be
found nowhere else. An accurate
edition of the Livro do Estado da
India Oriental would supplement
most usefully the information about
such matters which is given in the
English Factories in India, 1618-
1684 (17 vols., Oxford, 1906-1955),
and in the Dagh-Register gehouden
in’t Casteel Batavia, 1624-1682 (23
vols., Batavia, 1887-1932).
Meanwhile, the name of Antonio
Bocarro, crypto-Jew and chronicler,
can be added to the list of those
some of the best accounts of the
Portuguese empire in the seventeenth
century: Diogo do Couto, Pedro
Teixeira (also a cristao-novo), Joao
Ribeiro, and Antonio de Oliveira de
Cadornega (”).
(”) Diogo do Couto, Dicadas IV-XII, and
Dialogo do Soldado Pratico, originally written
between 1575 and 1616; Pedro Teixeira, Rela-
ciones de Jos Reyes de Persia y de Hormuz,
y de un viage hecho por el mismo autor desde
la India Oriental hasta Italia por Tierra (1610);
Joiio Ribeiro, Fatalidade Historica da Ilha de
Ceilao (1685); Antdnio de Oliveira de Cador¬
nega, Historia Geral das Guerras Angolaruis
(1680-1).

DOCUMENTO I

Servi$os de Antonio Bocarro, 1615-38 (*)

Antonio Bocarro filho de fernao Bocarro e de Guiomor nunes natural de Lisboa

que do Reino veyo o ano de d!5

Por certidoes authenticas e justifica- hum paro, e recontro de 35 que fugirao

das que aprezentou consta ter servido a
V. Magestade de soldado em suas arma¬
das e fortalezas fronteiras 13 annos
pella maneira seguinte.
Por certidao da matricula geral consta
ter servido dous annos, e nao ter verba
em seu tittulo e servir o cargo de guar-
damor e chronista da torre do tombo
com o ordenado do Eegimento.
Por duas certidoes de Pero Barreto de
Resende contador da matricola geral
passadas dos alardos que estao na torre
do tombo em vertude de hum despacho
do Conde de Linhares visorrey por o dito
Antonio Bocarro ser parte nellas consta
que em novembro de 615 se embarcou na
armada do norte de que era capitao mor
Ruy freire dandrade no navio de Belchior
de Contreiras e se achou na tomada de
e se recolheo em Abril de 616.
Em janeiro de 617 se embarcou na ar¬
mada do cabo do Comorim de que era ca-
pitam mor Constantino dessa de noronha
no navio de Balthezar mendez e a vista de
Calecut se achou na briga com os mou-
ros do Samorim, que quizerao deffender
tres paros que estavao em seu porto com
rojeiras em terra em que morrerao mui-
tos dos mouros desfazendosse os paros
as falcoadas, e no rio de Paliporto pele-
jandosse a entrada deste em alguns dias
por se entender que o samorim com
(i) Arquivo Histdrico do Estado da India,
Goa (Livro de consultas n.° 1, fls. 29 a 31).
Unfortunately this document Is badly damaged
by the traga in parts as can be seen from the
gaps in the transcription.
 X
214
ajuda dos Ingreses faria dano a ElRey
de Cochim, e chegando as naos carregas
no mar se lhe impedio por debaixo de
sua artelheria nao tomando huma galiota
em que hia o capitam da fortaleza de
Soar impedindose-lhes tambem que nao
tivecem communicagao com o Samorim,
e se recolheo em mayo seguinte.
Por outra de Ruy dias da Cunha que
fez o officio de capitao mor do malavar
por morte de francisco de Miranda
Henrriques consta que em novembro de
618 se embarcou na dita armada no
navio de Dom Diogo coutinho, e che¬
gando a mangalor por estar de guerra
se achou na saida que o capitao mor
Luis de Brito fes contra os inimigos, e
em mangalor fes particulares servigos a
V. Magestade.
Por outra de Dom Diogo Coutinho
capitao de Cochim consta que perto de
dez annos assistio na dita cidade conti-
nuam." sendo soldado, e despois cazado
e no dito tempo servio a V. Magestade
com todo o zelo, fervor e satisfagao, assy
nas occasioes de guerra com sua pessoa
e armas para os socorros da fortaleza
de Cranganor por muitas vezes, e sahio
aos paros e em todos os recados e emba-
xadas que no dito tempo mandou aos
Reys circunvizinhos em que se ouve com
suavidade e melhoramento da ehristan-
dade e bom governo, e que por esta causa
o obrigou que assistisse com elle, e que
tern boas partes para todas as cousas de
servigo de Deus e de V.Magestade afir-
mando que servio a V.Magestade melhor
no dito tempo de que em nenhumas
armadas o podia fazer.
Por outra de Antonio moniz Barreto
capitao da fortaleza de Cranganor consta
que do anno. ate o anno de 628 e do
ano de 630 te o de 632 foi todos os
annos . com sua pessoa e armas, e
es. assistindo por algumas vezes.
fazendo muita estimagao de sua pessoa,
e comunicandolhe todas as particulares
que se offereciao com os Reis vezinhos
achandoo com bons . que se podiao
esperar.
Por outra de Manoel mascarenhas
dalmada capitao da mesma fortaleza de
Cranganor consta que em huma occaziao
que o samorim espetou hum portugues
foi de Cochim em huma das manchuas
que Dom Diogo coutinho mandou dar
socorro aquella fortaleza de que era capi¬
tao Manoel Sanches Sarmento a sua
custa e por nao haver que obrar se re¬
colheo.
Por outra de Antonio Jorge Patrao
mor da ribeira consta que o anno de 623
sahio de Cochim em hum pataxo que a
seu cargo mandou o capitao de Cochim
Dom Diogo Coutinho contra 14 paros
que tinhao cercado o pataxo de Joao de
Sequeira dalboquerque, e sendo a vista
dos paros o deixaraao com esse socorro.
Por outra de Ruy dias da Cunha capi¬
tao mor de duas gales consta que no
anno de 626 se embarcou na sua armada
em hum dos navios da armada e foi ate
onor donde voltou a esta cidade em Ja¬
neiro de 627.
Por outra de Diogo mendes de Brito
capitao de hum dos navios que forao
buscar o Bispo de meliapor governador
deste estado consta que o acompanhou
por soldado no dito seu navio.
Por outra de Dom francisco de moura
Almirante da armada com que o Conde
de Linhares visoRey passou a Costa do
malavar consta que em fevereiro de 631
se embarcou na gale do dito Almirante
e foi ate cochim donde se recolheo a Goa.
Por outra de Dom fernando de noro-
nha capitao da gal6 que assistio em
guarda de duas naos do Reino que em
634 partirao para la consta que se em¬
barcou na dita gale e assistio nella te
fevereiro seguinte em que se fizerao a
vella.
Por duas certidoes de Andre coelho da
fortaleza de Agoada na barra de goa
consta que estando sitiada aquella for¬
taleza com sete naos e tres pataxos
olandezes de outubro de 636 16 mayo de
637 foi a ella, e assistio por vezes e em
especial no tempo das batalhas que os
nossos galeoes lhe derao.

Antonio Bocarro and the «.Lnvro do Estado da India Oriental»
E que da mesma maneira assistio
nella muitas vezes com sua pessoa e
armas em tempo que 16 embarcagoes
tiverao de cerco a dita fortaleza de outu-
bro de 637 te mayo de 638 e o dia da
batalha acudio a ella fazendo muita conta
de sua pessoa por ser necessario tella
provida.
Pellas folhas corridas pella fazenda
contos e crime consta nao dever nada a
fazenda de v.magestade nem ter crime.
Pella certidao da secretaria da India
consta que em 9 de mayo de 631 ouue
merce do cargo de chronista do estado
da India, e de guardamor da torre do
tombo com o ordenado do regimento e
todos os proes e percalgos que lhe per-
ten... tendo respeito a ser capaz.
.ouue merce de trezentos xerafins
no thezoureiro Manoel. gouerno do
VisoRey Pero Jeronimo dazauedo. ...
... fortalezas do estado e outra do tempo
do gouverno do. ouue merce com pa-
recer do Concelho do despacho que.
duzentos e cincoenta xerafins de tenga
em cada hum. dos quinhentos que o
o seu antegessor Diogo do Couto.do
dito cargo de guardamor allem de orde¬
nado com. consulta mostraria con-
firmagao do Reino. a fazenda de
v.magestade o que tiuege arrecadado.
.ouue merce no thezoureiro Mi¬
guel pereira baracho . que teue nos
dous liuros que escreueo hum . do
estado da India e outro dos feitos de
sancho de uaz [concellos] (J) nas par¬
tes do Sul, que forao a v. magestade.
(•!) Sancho de Vasconcellos, was captain of
Ambolna, c. 1571-1591, and built a new fortress
on Tldor In 1578. He figures prominently In
Diogo do Couto's Decadas (cf. Index to the 1788
edition), and hie three daughters later entered
X
215
. .— v. magestade lhe faga merce em
satisfagao dos ditos seruigos. da ma-
tricola geral ou de corretor . dalfan-
dega desta cidade para os poder
renunciar em pessoas. aptas uisto
estar elle seruindo a v.magestade na
ocupagao da. [hisjtoria da India que
nao da lugar a outra cousa alguma.
E tendosse dado uista destes seruigos
ao doutor Luis mergulhao [respondeo o
seguinte].
.Antonio Bocarro consta hauer
seruido a v. magestade . com assis-
tencia de sua pessoa, armas . e na
fortaleza de Cranganor achandosse
em . res e maiauares e tres nas ar¬
madas de Remo.
Aprezenta suas folhas corridas .
fazenda e contos e certidao das merces
da secretaria, excepto a sentenga de
christao velho, V. magestade mandara o
que for do seu Real seruigo. goa a 16 de
nouembro de 1638. Luis mergulhao bor-
ges.
Antonio Bocarro.
Assentouge En conselho uniforme-
mente que se lhe degem tres annos do
cargo de corretor mor desta alfandega
de Goa nao pera o seruir senao pera o
poder dotar Em quem cazace com huma
de suas filhas sendo pessoa suficiente e
a satisfassao. do VisoRey da India, no
mesmo tempo deste prouimento antes de
vinte tres de dezembro de mil e seisgen-
tos e trinta e oyto com cujos vottos se
conformou o VisoRey.
Copiado por A. Mascarenhas.
the convent of Santa Monica at Goa. Cf. Fr.
Agostlnho de Santa Marla, O. E. S. A., Histd-
ria da Fundagao do Real Convento de Santa
Mdnlca (Lisboa, 1699), pp. 474, 531, 660-2, 716-8.
 X

21G

DOCUMENTO II

Culpas contra muitas pessoas tiradas do processo do Antonio Bocarro christao

novo natural da Villa do Abrantes solteiro resident© nestas partes na cidade de
Cochim filho de Fernao Bocarro, medico na cidade de Lisboa, e de Guiomar
Nunes sua molher christaos nouos (')

Este Antonio Bocarro nao estando
dellato se veio accusar de culpas de
judaismo e foi bom confitente e sem ser
accusado foi despacbado e recebido abju-
rou in forma na mesa com habito peni-
tencial que lhe foi tirado nella, e em sinco
sessoes de noue que com elle se fizerao
disse contra muitas pessoas contheudas
nellas, e sao as seguintes:
l.a Sessao.
Aos vinte outo dias do mez de feue-
reiro de mil e.seiscentos e vinte quatro
annos em Goa na casa do despacho da
Santa Inquisigao na audiencia de pella
menha estando presentes os senhores
inquisidores apparegeo sem ser chamado
Antonio Bocarro de idade de trinta annos
que disse ser natural da Villa de Abran¬
tes solteiro que nunca casou hora resi-
dente nestas partes da India em casa de
Dom Diogo Coutinho capitao de Cochim
filho de Fernao Bocarro christao nouo,
medico morador em Lisboa e de sua
molher Guiomar Nunes christaa noua ao
qual foi dado o juramento dos Santos
euangelhos e sob cargo delle prometteo
fallar verdade e ter segredo. Perguntado
a que vem a esta mesa, disse que a des-
carregar sua consciencia e confessar
suas culpas que tern comettido contra
nossa Santa fee Catholica, e sendo pri-
meiro arnoestado quam bom conselho
nisso tomaua e que dicesse sso a verdade
de suas culpas nao pondo sobre si nem
sobre pessoa algua falso testemunho pera
descargo de sua consciencia e se poder
com elle usar da misericordia que a Santa
madre igreja concede aos bons e verda-
| deiros confitentes e que de puro coragao
! a ella se convertem, e por dizer que
| assim o faria logo confessando disse que
sendo de idade de desasseis annos pouco
mais ou menos, andando nos estudos de
Santo Antao de Lisboa co hu irmao seu
por nome Manuel Bocarro frances que
oje faz officio de medico e lhe parece que
I reside em Madrid ou em Lisboa, e lhe
i mostraua hu liuro dos da Biblia das
prophecias que lhe ouuia explicar por
modos que erao contra a Lei de Christo
j a que elle confitente por entao alguas
vezes lhe contradice, mas despois con-
uencido das resoes que o dito Manuel
; Bocarro lhe deu, veio assentar na crenga
j da Lei de Moises, e a ter por boa e ver-
j dadeira, e ambos dahi em diante se
I declarauao por iudeus e fallauao nas
I cousas da lei de Moises desdenhando das
cousas de igreja catholica, zombando do
vso das santas imagens, dizendo e repe-
tindo por ellas o da escretura pedes ha-
bent et non ambulant, aures habent et
non audiunt, e outras semelhantes blas-
femias que tirauao de hu liuro de
Lactantio Firmiano na parte onde re-
proua os idolos dos gentios acomodando
o que contra elles dis ao uso das Santas
imagens da igreja, e quando em quinta
feira de endoengas, e pella Somana Santa
se faziao os officios diuinos diziao ambos
hu com outro do chelo morto, e do chelo
viuo e com hu Fernao Gomes Pimentel
christao nouo filho de Diogo Gomes Pi¬
mentel e de Isabel Francesa sua mo¬
lher mercader que moraua em Lisboa
(i) Reprinted from the Archivo Historico
Portuguez, Vol. VIII (Lisboa, 1910), pp. 185-7.

Antonio Bocarro and the «Livro do Estado da India Oriental»
na rua dos Escudeirds (o qual Fernao
Gomes se passou despois com sua maj
pera as partes de Flandes) e assim com
o dito Fernao Gomes se declaraua tam-
bem elle confitente por iudeu e o dito
seu irmao Manuel Bocarro, e zombauao
das cousas da igreja quando hiao a ella
e por obseruancia e guarda da dita Lei
de Moises se abstinha elle confitente de
comer porco e cousas de carne tempera-
das com manteiga e do pescado nao
comia peixe sem escama, como camarao,
raia e outras cousas todas de marisco, e
quando acertaua de as comer por se
achar ,em companhia de outras pessoas,
e soldados com que sempre andou nestas
partes o fazia por contemporizar e nao
dar de sim sospeita, mas achandosse so
em casa choraua a Deos aquelles pecados
por entender que o erao e que fazia con¬
tra sua lej, e lhe pedia c5 muitas lagri-
mas remedio de comodidade pera perfei-
tamente poder goardar sua lei asim
como os judeus a goardao e o principal
intento que teue de se embarcar de Por¬
tugal pera a India foi por lhe parecer que
por esta via iria dar em algua terra onde
os judeus habitassem para co elles viuer
e goardar perfeitamente a lei judaica e
assim chegando a goa, ouuindo dizer que
em Cochim de Sima auia judeus se foi
pera la como teue occasiao e se declarou
co hu judeu de Cochim de Sima em sua
casa que tern no dito Cochim de Sima
que se chama Samuel Castiel que he
lingoa delRey de Cochim e com outros
judeus de Cochim de Sima, a que nao
sabe o nome por ser gente menos conhe-
cida e declarandosse co o Moliar que he
o Rabino deaquelles judeus chamado
Leui por se nao confiar delle confitente
parecendolhe que o enganaria, e lhe fica-
ria isso em culpa vindo a nossas terras,
o langou de si, e nao quis tratar com elle
das cousas da lei de Moises e pello que o
dito Samuel judeu lhe disse e aconselhou
desejou muitas vezes de se passar a Paru
por os christaos nao terem ahi forga
coactiua e auer ahi muitos judeus, e o
deixava elle confitente de fazer por nao
X
217
deshonrar seus parentes em Portugal
que estao em boa reputagao porque da
propria se lhe nao daua tanto, porque
nao queria mais que viuer c5 Deos em
sua Lei e se retardou tambem em o fazer
alguas vezes por temer que o mandassem
ali matar, ou que viesse a poder da igreja
por aquella terra ficar vizinha de Co¬
chim, e ser de hu regulo que por pouco
o faria, e desejou sempre muito de se
circucidar, e auera dous annos que
estando doente em Cochim cuidando que
morria esteue pera se circudar, e buscar
pera isso meios secretos por entender
que se nao podia saluar sem ser circum*
cidado pello que lhe tinha dito o judeu
Samuel e quando ouuia missa e se leuan-
taua a hostia sagrada dizia elle confi¬
tente sempre a oragao seguinte Solo
altissimo domino Deo Israel debetur
omnis honor et gloria quia ipse est Deus
super omnes Deos, et dominus super
omnes dominos, benedictum, laudatum,
et super exaltatum sit solum nomen
Sanctueius ex hoc nunc et usque in Sae-
culum et in Saeculum Saeculi e resaua os
psalmos penitenciaes sem gloria patri e
os mais psalmos do psalteiro de Dauid e
outras oragoes dos profetas que annun-
ciauao e promettiao a vinda de Megias
esperando ainda por elle como os judeus
esperao e quando hia o Santissimo Sa¬
cramento fora a algu enfermo que o
acompanhaua e via ir resando os psalmos
choraua por ver que se lhe diziao aquel¬
les louuores que erao diuidos so ao Deos
de Israel a nao ao Santissimo Sacramento
pello nao ter por Deos, e deseiou muitas
vezes fazer liuro em que reprouasse
muitas cousas que via entre os christaos
assim tocantes a fee como aos costumes
moraes e pera isso desejaua de se sair
dantre elles e ir viuer em algua terra de
judeus e nesta crenga esteue e lhe durou
treze pera quatorze annos pouco mais ou
menos do dito tempo em que o dito Ma¬
nuel Bocarro seu irmao o ensinou ate o
anno passado pello tempo da quaresma
em que se determinou a fazer verdadeira
confissao de seus peccados por de antes
 X
2 IS
auer ia dous ou tres annos que andava
muito abalado de duuidas que o angus-
tiauao acerca da lei verdadeira em que
auia de viuer pera o que se aproueitou
muito do simbolo da fee de frei Luis de
Granada e de outros liuros pios e doutos
que leo pera isso com muitas oragoes e
rogos que fazia a Deos pedindolhe que
alumiasse e ensinasse a Lei que auia de
seguir por que tinha entendimento fraco
e limitado e nao queria confiar delle
materia de tanto porte, e assim so com
a inspiragao diuina confiado puramente
em que a misericoria de Deos a ninguem
queria enganar, vendo no tempo em que
dantes era christao as muitas merces
que recebera de Christo nosso Senhor,
principalmente da Virgem Nossa Se-
nhora do Rosario de que foi e he muito
deuoto, veio a deixarse nas suas maos e
seguir o que o coragao e a conscientia
Ihe dizia que he a puresa da lei christaa
e em todo o dito tempo nao cria em
Christo nosso Senhor, nem o tinha por
Deos, antes que fora homem que mor- !i
rera iustamente por suas culpas por se
chamar filho de Deos, nem cria nos Sa-
cramentos da igreja e se confessaua e
comugaua por comprimento do mundo
sendo pella quaresma proxima passada
em que se confessou ia perfeitamente
conuertido a nossa Santa fee e se confes¬
sou de todos os ditos erros e de todo o
tempo que nelles viueo e andou de que o
absolueo hu padre da Companhia no
collegio de Cochim chamado Sebastiao
Dias natural de Coulao por lhe mostrar
poder do Sumo pontifice pera absoluer
em todos os casos de heresia com tanto
que viesse denunciar dos complices a
esta Santa mesa, adoecendo despdis
achandose mal mandou chamar ao proui-
sor do bispado de Cochim pera fazer esta
denitciagao pera o que lhe deu conta de
tudo, e a deixou de fazer diante delle por
lhe dizer que erao pera isso necessarias
outras pessoas de quern se pejaua como
era qualquer escrivao do ecclesiastico
por onde despois melhorando com pare-
cer do mesmo prouisor se determinou a
vir em pessoa a este Santo officio e que
desta confissao que fez na quaresma
passada cree em Christo Nosso Senhor
e o tern por Deos, e em sua Santa Lei a
fee Catholica Romana se espera saluar
e morrer por ella pedindo perdao e mise-
ricordia de suas culpas com mostras e
sinaes de arrependimento e por ser a
hora dada nao foi a sessao mais por
diamte e foi amoestado em forma por di¬
zer que tinha que continuar e dizer de
seus complices e asinou aqui, e os Senho-
res Inquisidores mandarao ter segredo.
Francisco da Costa o escreui. — Antonio
Bocarro. — Francisco Borges de Sousa
— Jodo Fernandez <TAlmeida.
 XI

Captain Joao Ribeiro and his History of Ceylon,

1622-1693

T HE Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,

vol. x, nr : 36, pp. 263 -309 (Colombo, 1890), contains an article
by Donald Ferguson entitled “ Captain Joao Ribeiro : his work on
Ceylon and the French translation thereof by the Abbe Lc Grand
The present article summarizes what has been discovered about
Ribeiro and his work since that date, and makes a brief comparison
of his Fatalidade Historica da ilha de Ceilao with the more celebrated
Historical Relation of the island of Ceylon by Captain Robert Knox.
The article of 1890 proved that the faulty French version
published by the Abbe Le Grand in 1701 was derived from an
incomplete and corrupt copy of the original manuscript, thus
accounting for most of the French editor’s omissions and blunders.1
Ferguson’s work was written with his usual thoroughness, and
requires correction in only one point. He was much puzzled by an
inscription in the faulty Portuguese manuscript from which Le
Grand worked (and which in the last century came into the hands
of Ferguson himself), to the effect that in September, 1676, it
belonged to a Dominican convent in Leon. A close inspection of
the manuscript (reproduced in facsimile on p. 275 of the JCBRAS.,
x) shows that Ferguson misread the date and place in the inscription,
which really reads Sdo Domingos de Lxa [= Lisboa] de Setembro de
1686, thus showing that this particular copy was then in the
Dominican convent at Lisbon.
The biographical details given by Ferguson were derived from a
few passing allusions in Ribeiro’s own work ; nor was anything more
known of his life until 1928, when Senhor Frazao de Vasconcellos
published some extracts from relevant documents in the archives at
Lisbon. A brief reference was made to this new information in the
preface to the fourth edition of Dr. P. E. Pieris’ English translation

1 Histoire de I'i.ile de Ceylan, Ecrilc par le capitaine Jean Ribei/ro, <1- presentee an
Roy de Portugal en 1685, Paris, 1701. Cf. JCBRAS., x, 203 IT. for this and other
editions.
XI

2 CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND IIIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1622-1693

of Ribeiro’s work, where, however, his erroneous assertions in the

original preface to the third edition are somewhat incongruously
retained.1 A recent visit to the Lisbon archives having enabled me
to amplify Senhor Frazao de Vasconcellos’ discoveries, I give the
gist of our joint researches here.
Joao Ribeiro was born at Lisbon in May, 1622, son of poor but
honest parents, his father, Domingos Ribeiro, being a cap-maker
(barreteiro) from Viseu in the province of Beira, and his mother
Gracia de Aragao, the daughter of a Lisbon colleague.2 We know
nothing more about him until his embarkation for India as a private
soldier in the armada which left Lisbon in March, 1640, under the
command of the Viceroy, Count of Aveiras. This armada reached
Goa on the 19th September ; and a fortnight later the eighteen-year-
old Ribeiro was sent to Ceylon as one of a reinforcement of 400
soldiers, experiencing his baptism of fire when the Portuguese retook
Negombo from the Dutch in November.
For the next eighteen years Ribeiro served in Ceylon, taking part
in all the chief engagements and jungle-warfare against the Dutch
on the one hand and Raja Sinha’s men on the other. During these
campaigns—virtually continuous save for the truce of 1645—1652—
he was promoted from the ranks through sergeant to captain, which
last post he occupied three times. He was wounded on several
occasions, notably at the epic siege of Colombo, where he was badly
burnt by exploding hand-grenades. On the fall of Colombo (May,
1656), he was sent with the few survivors of the garrison to Nega-
patam, whence they marched overland across the Deccan and the
Ghats to Goa, and were forthwith shipped off again to Jafnapatam,
the last Portuguese stronghold in Ceylon. Ribeiro’s service in Ceylon
ended with the capture of this fortress by the Dutch in June, 1658,
when he was sent a prisoner to Batavia. He seems to have remained
here for about a year before being shipped to Holland, whence he
was repatriated to Portugal in 1660.3
The ex-prisoners from Ceylon were formed into a company attached
to the Ter^o da Atnuula Real, or Regiment of the Royal Navy

1 The Historic Tragedy of the island of Ceilao, Colombo, 1048.

1 Ribeiro’s baptismal certificate <1. 17th May, 1022, and other relevant docu¬
ments printed by Frazao de Vasconcellos, Subsidies lneditos sobre o capital) Joao
Ribeiro, reprinted from Brasoes e Genealogias, iii-vi (Lisboa, 1927), pp. 8 9.
3 Arquivo da Torre do Tombo, Lisboa, “ Livros de registos do Concclho da
guerra,” Livro 30 (1661-1665), fls. 20-20v ; Arquivo Historieo Ultramarino,
Lisboa, “ Cod. do Consclho Ultramarino,” No. 84, fls. 128 ; 137y.
CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1622-1693 3

(corresponding to our Marines), with which unit Ribeiro served

until the end of the war against Spain in 1668. He took part in the
summer campaign of 1661, in the unsuccessful bombardment of
Vigo in 1662, and particularly distinguished himself in the battle of
Ameixial (8th June, 1663), where he fought in the vanguard “ killing
and wounding many of the enemy, and at the height of the conflct
. . . he captured an Ensign, seizing his flag which he flourished aloft
while pursuing the enemy, who frequently tried to kill him on
account of this, and after their defeat he came and lowered the flag
in front of our men.” After participating in the recapture of Evora
a few weeks later, he was promoted captain for his bravery in the
field, and this time the promotion proved permanent.1 In 1664 he
served at the siege and capture of Valera de Alcantara, where he
was severely wounded in the head. Although he nearly died of this
wound, he recovered in time to fight in the last great battle of the
war, Villa Vitjosa or Montes-Claros (June, 1665), the result of which
eventually forced the Spaniards reluctantly to recognize the inde¬
pendence of Portugal.
As a reward for twenty-seven years of continuous active service,
Joao Ribeiro was granted a knighthood in the Military Order of
Christ, the King “ dispensing ” as the term was, with his working-
class origin, in view of his exceptional record as a fighting-man.2 On
the conclusion of peace with Spain (February, 1668), he was posted
as garrison commander to Funchal, the capital of the island of
Madeira. Here he met the sister of one of his old comrades from
Ceylon, Mathias Catanho, who shortly before had been killed in a
naval action against Algerine pirates. This lady, Dona Felipa
Catanho, came of a noble family of blood and coat-armour ; but the
Lisbon cap-maker’s son had now risen sufficiently in the world to
aspire to her hand. Possibly she was the readier to accept him,
since her father and both brothers had been killed in the wars, so
she was left with the alternative of finding a husband or entering

1 TT Lisboa, “ Livro 30 dc rcgistos do Conselho dc gucrra,” II. 20-20m, his com¬

mission being dated 25th September, 1GG3. Kibciro’s name should be added to tho
list of officers whose biographies are given by Gastao de Melo de Matos, Noticias do
Ter$o da Armada Real, 1618 1707 (Lisboa, 1932), 145-196. The Joao Ribeiro listed
on p. 1G5 of this book was a homonym of the Ceylon veteran, and a third officer of
this name is also mentioned in these records. (Conselho de Guerra, “ Livro Registo ”
35 (33) fls. 2, 124w.)
2 AHU, Conselho Ultramarino No. 84, fls. 128, 137m ; Frazao de Vasconcellos,
Subsidios lniditos, pp. 10-11.
XI

4 CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1622-1693

a convent.1 llibeiro remained at Funchal until he was recalled to

Lisbon and placed on the retired list in 1680, after serving, as he
wrote, “ for over forty years without missing a single day.” It was
now that he settled down to write his Fatalidade llislorica da ilha de
Ceilao, the preface to which is dated Lisbon, 8th January, 1685.
Three years later Joao llibeiro, “ still by the mercy of Clod in
perfect health and understanding,” wrote his last will and testament.
He was by this time, if not previously, a deeply religious man, and
his will includes an exhortation to his “ wife and lady ”, whom he
made his sole heir and legatee (apart from some charitable bequests
of a religious nature), which throws a curious sidelight on his own
character. “ Do not,” he adjured her, “ trust in self-love, nor let
flesh and blood claim your attention, for our own body is our worst
enemy. ... It does not matter whether we pass through life’s
journey rich or poor, but with an inward peace, and this I hope in
the divine mercy will be given you. If you will keep my words in
your heart, you cannot have a richer treasure, because nobody born
wishes you better than I who tell you this. Although you may not
think so, he who loves us best is not he who makes us laugh con¬
tinuously, but he who makes us weep incessantly. If you have
found me rather cross-grained sometimes, it was because I treated
you like a good artificer does a piece of steel which he wishes to forge
into a strong spring, heating it in the fire and hammering it into
shape as often as necessary ; until after repeated welding and filing,
plunged and tempered in the water of mortification and endurance,
it becomes a very strong and resilient spring which can last for ever.
Thus I hope in God (who is the true artificer) that you will perfect
yourself, since he knows that there was not an hour or a day in
which I failed to love you after my fashion.” 2
Joao Ribiero died five years later (November, 1693), but his
counsels of perfection to his widow went unheeded. Either because
she was not left with sufficient money to support herself after all
his pious bequests had been paid, or because she had not been
sufficiently “ tempered in the water of mortification and endurance,”
she sought consolation in the arms of a second (and evidently a

1 Mathias Catanho was killed when the frigate Bao Bernardo was accidentally
blown up during a tight against Algerine pirates off the Portuguese coast, with the
loss of all on board save five or six men ; Mercurio Borlitguez dc Ouctubro de 1665 ;
Frazao de Vasconcellos, Subsidios ItMitos, p. 12.
2 TT Lisboa, “ Livro 08 dos rogistos dos testamcntos,” fls. 74-77 rcrso.
 XI

CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1G22-1G93 5

younger) husband, marrying her own nephew, Manuel Telles de

Menczes.1
As mentioned previously, llibeiro dedicated his work to King
Pedro II in January, 1G85, but it remained unpublished in his own
language until the Lisbon Academy of Sciences printed it in 1830,
and this edition still remains the only one in Ribeiro’s mother-
tongue.2 The work had, however, a fairly wide circulation in manu¬
script, three copies signed by the author being recorded. The first
of these is the one in the library of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences
from which the 183G edition was printed; although the map of
Ceylon which it then contained is no longer to be found in the codex.3
The second signed copy is preserved in the National Library at
Lisbon,4 and the third is in my own possession.5 I have examined
all three, and there can be no doubt that the signatures of Joao
Ribeiro arc all by the same hand. Comparison of these with the
signature of Joao Ribeiro reproduced by Senhor Frazao dc Vas-
concellos from a document of 16G5,6 * 8 proves that all four are in the
autograph of Joao Ribeiro, thus allaying the doubts not unreason¬
ably expressed by Ferguson when he wrote “ it is strange that, while
confessedly so little is known of Captain Ribeiro, the editors of the
[Academy] MS. should be able to pronounce with such assurance
upon his signature, etc.”
The texts of the Lisbon Academy and National Library codices
appear to be in the hand of the same amanuensis, who evidently also
wrote the title-page of the MS. in my possession. The text of this

1 Frazao do Vasconcellos, Subsidies fiu'dilos, p. 12.

2 In vol. v of the Cullr.rcdo dr notirias para a historia c urografin das napJcs ultra-
marinas publirada prla Academia Ileal das Sciencias, Lisboa, 183(5, x | 288 pp.
3 BAS, Lisboa, “ Cod. Aztil ”, 211. Ornamental title-page and five preliminary
leaves followed by 1/55 numbered leaves of text, and list of contents on three
unnumbered leaves. 4to ; modern binding ; the map of Ceylon has been removed
from between leaves 45 and 40, but a reproduction of it will be found in the 183(5
edition. It. is obviously based on the one by Cipriani) Sanches first printed in
Mercator’s Atlas of 1007. Cf. the reproduction from my copy {1*1. I).
1 BXL, “ Fundo Coral,” no. 518. Ornamental title-page and three preliminary
leaves, followed by 212 numbered leaves of text and list of contents; 4to ; con¬
temporary leather binding. Cf. Frazao de Yaseonccllos, Subsidies Incditos, p. 0,
note (3).
6 Plain title-page and three preliminary leaves, text on 209 numbered leaves,
list of contents on four unnumbered leaves ; 4to ; modern binding. Cf. Maggs
Bros., Jlihlintrco Asialica, Pt. I (London, 1924), item nr: 351 (this copy).
8 Certificate dated 2nd January, 1005, in Frazao de Vaseoneellos, Subsidies
] n edit os, />. 11. The signature from my copy is reproduced on p. 12 infra.
XI

G CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1022—1693

last is, however, in a more ornamental hand than are those of the
first two, and each “ Livro ” or “ Book ” has a separate title-page
with curious and complicated pen-and-ink decorations.1 This copy
also has the map of Ceylon drawn on vellum, whereas it is on paper
in the BNL copy and was apparently so in the Academy copy.2
Finally, my copy has some corrections and additions made in a
hand which appears to be that of the author, judging by comparison
with the signature ; and these indications lead me to believe that
it was probably Ribeiro’s own copy, or was at any rate corrected by
him.3 On the other hand, my copy lacks the lavishly decorated
title-pages present (in slightly differing but generally similar forms)
in both the Academy and National Library copies.
In addition to these three signed copies, I have examined three
other unsigned and later copies,4 and others are known to exist.
One of these latter is in the Esperanga Library at Evora, and is
briefly described by Ferguson from an article by A. F. Barata. I
have not had the opportunity of examining the Espcranga codex
myself; but from the details given in Barata’s own article,5 it is
clear that his claim that this codex represents a vastly improved
version of Ribeiro’s original manuscript of 1G85 is untenable. The
instances which he gives in support of his theory nearly all indicate
(as Ferguson noted) exactly the contrary ; the rendering of the 1685
version being in almost every instance, clearer, more concise, and
more correct, than the pompous and inflated prose of the parallel

1 This and other indications suggest that each of the copies was composed anew
from Ribeiro’s original draft, as the throe manuscripts agree in general form but
present minor variations throughout.
2 There arc slight differences in the nomenclature of the three maps ; that in the
BNL lists sixty-four place-names, the Academy copy (when extant) lifty-eight, and
that in my possession sixty.
3 For instance, the passage in the MS. which corresponds to that printed in
Livro 3, ch. iv, p. 233, line 15 of the 183(i edition, reads "... havia outra Ilha c
pouoa^iio scmclliante do Rurtugue/.es c ha mu da Timor . . these last two words
having been inserted by Itibeiro.
4 BNL, “ Fundo Gcral ” nr: 530, an inferior 18th-century copy; and ibidem
nr: 531, an 18th-century copy of Book III only. A 17th-century copy of 232
quarto pages (but without the map) in a contemporary vellum binding, is priced
at over £30 in a Lisbon bookseller’s recent catalogue, Cahtloqo dr linos sclcrionados
poslos a vrnda por o Mnndo do Livro (Lisboa, 1952), nr : 1922.
6 A. F. Barata, Breve confronto de um impresso da Academia Real das Sricncias
com um manuscripto do exccllentissimo senior Visronde da lCspnanqa sobre a hisloria
da illia de. (,'eilao, Evora, 1880. This library has recently been purchased by tho
Portuguese government, and tho MS. should therefore he available for inspection
before long.
 XI

CAPTAIN JO AO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1G22-1G93 7

passages in the Esperamja codex.1 Moreover, the list of the Captain-

generals of Ceylon as given by Barata from this codex is garbled and
incorrect, containing such glaring errors as Manuel Mascarenhas
Magalhdcs (instead of Manuel Mascarenhas Homem), and placing
Dom Felipe Mascarenhas after D. Antonio Mascarenhas and Manuel
Mascarenhas Homem, instead of between them.
In our own day, Ribeiro has found a competent translator and
editor in the Sinhalese scholar, Dr. Paul Pieris, four editions of whose
translation were published in Ceylon between 1909 and 1949.2 This
is in itself sufficient testimony to the value and interest of Ribeiro’s
work, and 1 will confine myself to considering points which have not
hitherto attracted the notice of his editors and commentators.
Joao Ribeiro must have begun his Historical Tragedy of the island
of Ceylon about the same time as Robert Knox was finishing his
Historical Relation of the island of Ceylon, which was published at
London in 1681, with a brief commendation by Sir Christopher
Wren, and a lengthy preface by Dr. Robert Hooke.3 This celebrated
work was greatly admired by Daniel Defoe and is said to have
influenced his Robinson Crusoe. As might be expected, the two works
dovetail into and complement each other on many points, as Ribeiro
served in the lowlands of Ceylon from 1640 to 1658, whereas Robert
Knox was a prisoner at large in the Kandyan highlands from 1660 to
1679. Between them, they therefore cover most of the long and
eventful reign of Raja Sinha II (1629-1687).
Knox learnt the language and Ribeiro did not, but the elegance
of the Sinhalese tongue and its musical qualities strongly appealed
to them both.4 They both considered that the Sinhalese more
closely resembled Europeans in physical appearance than did any
other Asians. Ribeiro wrote, “ their features are well formed and in
no way different from those of us Portuguese ” ; whereas Knox
observed “ In carriage and behaviour they are very grave and
stately, like unto the Portugals,” and again “ I know no nation in
the world do so exactly resemble the Sinhalese as the people of
Europe ”.5

1 Of. Ferguson’s article in JCDRAS., vol. x, pp. 299 ff. After reading Barata’s
article, I consider Ferguson’s comments to be unduly lenient.
1 Quotations in this article are from the fourth edition, Colombo, 1948.
3 Quotations in this article arc from the MacLcho.se edition, Glasgow, 1911.
4 Ribeiro, Book I, ch. 10, p. 52 ; Knox, Pt. Ill, ch. 9, pp. 108-109.
6 Ribeiro, Book I, ch. 10, p. 51 ; Knox, Pt. Ill, ch. 1, pp. 98, 103.
XI

8 CAPTAIN JO AO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1G22-1G93

Both Ribeiro and Knox were evidently something of misogynists.

Knox remained an unrepentant bachelor all his life, and Ribeiro, by
his own admission, was a rather crusty husband. Yet both found
much to admire in the Sinhalese women, Ribeiro eulogizing their
“ beautiful eyes ”, cleanliness, and neatness, and their tasty cooking,
lie thought that their dress, which they wore “ in a very dignified
and stately fashion ”, was superior to that of his countrywomen in
India. Knox, too, commended their stately deportment “ after the
Portugal manner of whom I think they have learned ” ; but what
chiefly appealed to his thrifty soul was that “ it is a disgrace to them
to be prodigal, and their pride and glory to be accounted near and
saving ’h1
Both stigmatized the islanders as generally treacherous, lazy,
covetous, and lascivious, although many instances in their own
works prove the contrary. Ribeiro, for example, admits that the
arms-coolies who served in the Portuguese flying columns were very
loyal and reliable, “ and in case of a defeat they would rather lose
their lives than abandon their loads.” 2 He also states that the
Sinhalese lascarins (as the Portuguese called their auxiliary troops)
under similar circumstances would save the lives of their Portuguese
Dissavas “ even at the cost of their own ”.3 Both Knox and Ribeiro
admired the skill of the Sinhalese herbalists in curing wounds and skin
diseases ; but it was Ribeiro who followed the Sinhalese practice of
bathing twice a day as a preventive against disease, “ with the
result,” he writes, “ that for sixteen years I never had a pain in hand
or foot.” Finally, it is worth noting that although the English sailor
was kindly treated by his captors and lived (relatively speaking) the
life of Riley in Lotus-land, whereas the Portuguese soldier was
engaged in savage jungle-warfare for most of his time in Ceylon, yet
the Portuguese is far more enthusiastic in his account of the island
than is the Englishman.
Robert Knox epitomized the vicissitudes of the fighting between
the Portuguese and Raja Sinha II as follows : “ There were great
and long wars between the King of Ceylon and the Portuguese :
and many of the brave Portugal Generals are still in memory among

1 Ribeiro, Book I, eh. 10, p. 01 j Knox, l’t. Ill, ch. 1, p. 104.

2 Ribeiro, Book I, ch. 10, p. 20. These bearers were all drawn from the wood¬
cutter caste.

3 Ribeiro, Book T, ch. 10, p. 52. Disava (Sinhalese, Disaua) was I he equivalent of
a provincial governor.
CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1622-1693 9

them . . . great vexations they gave the King by their irruptions into
his dominions, and great mischefs they did him, though often-times
with great loss on their side. Great battles have been lost and won
between them, with great destruction of men on both parts. But
being greatly distressed at last, he sent and called in the Hollander
to his aid. By whose seasonable assistance, together with his own
arms, the King totally dispossessed the Portuguese, and routed them
out of the land. Whose rooms the Dutch now occupy, paying them¬
selves for their pains.” 1 2
It is the history of these “ great and long wars ” which forms the
second part of Ribeiro’s work, which here evokes comparison not so
much with Knox’s History (hearsay evidence on this point), as with
the memoirs of the German mercenary soldier, Johann Jacob Saar
of Nuremberg, who served the Dutch East-India Company in Ceylon
from 1647 to 1659.2 Whereas Ribeiro was twice captured by the
Dutch, Saar was once a prisoner of the Portuguese, when the treat¬
ment he received made him a much bitterer man than Ribeiro, who
is on the whole remarkably fair-minded in his comments on the
heretic Hollanders. Taken together, the recollections of Saar and
Ribeiro give us a graphic picture of the fighting in Ceylon from the
viewpoint of the rank and file. Admittedly, their dates and figures
are seldom reliable, Ribeiro in particular being prone to use the
multiplication table when estimating the enemy’s casualties. For
example, when describing the defeat and death of the Sinhalese
commander, Siyane Korale Bandar, after the recapture of Negombo
in November, 1640, he states that the enemy numbered 20,000 men,
a figure which has been accepted unquestioningly by all subsequent
writers. Yet we know from the official dispatches of the Captain-
General, Dom Felipe Mascarenhas, that Dom Balthezar’s force
numbered only 3,000 men, the same strength as that of the Portu¬
guese and their lascarins.3 However, inflated casualty claims are

1 Knox, Pt, IV, ch. 13, p. 283.

2 Saar’s Ost Indianische FUnfzehenjdhrigc Krirgs-Dicnst von 1640 bisz anno 1660,
was first published at Nuremberg in 1062, and reprinted in an enlarged edition ten
years later. The best modern edition is that edited by S. P. L’ilonore Naber (The
Hague, 1930). A useful summary in English will be found in JCliRAS., vol. xi
(1889), pp. 1-84. Saar enlisted as a cadet but never rose above the rank of corporal.
3 Ribeiro, Book II, ch. 8, p. 113 ; dispatches of D. Felipe Mascarenhas and of the
Viceroy of Cloa, 12th November, 1640, and 19th January, 1641, in “ Livros das
Monroes ”, Livro 47, fls. 85-86 (India Office Transcripts). Riyane Korale Bandar
was known to the Portuguese as Dom Balthezar.
XI

10 CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1622-1693

still a feature of communiques from the battle-front to-day, so

Ribeiro need not be criticized too severely on this score.
The highlight of Ribeiro’s second part is the great siege of
Colombo, which lasted from October, 1655, to May, 1656. He him¬
self played a distinguished part in the defence, and although he does
not directly allude to his own services, he may, I think, be identified
as the hero of two incidents which he recounts at some length. In
the first of these he describes the mining and counter-mining beneath
the bastion of Sao Joao, and explains how the sentry-post in the
Portuguese counter-mine was manned under such appalling condi¬
tions that out of eighty men who volunteered for this duty, “ only
three went through with this horrible and unbearable ordeal till the
end, a period exceeding three months. Of these one was Manoel de
Sousa, a native of Villa Vi^osa, who was called Sousinha owing to
his small size : the second was Francisco Pereira, a native of the isle
of Terceira : and the third was a native Captain of this City.” 1
“ This city ” was of course Lisbon, where Ribeiro was writing his
book ; and the third captain must have been Ribeiro, as he always
gives to others the honour which was their due, specifically men¬
tioning their names when recounting their services.
The other incident relates to the unsuccessful Dutch assault on
the city on 12th November, 1655. Ribeiro describes how during the
height of the struggle the Captain-Major, Caspar Figueira de Serpe,
received a report that the Dutch had carried the breastwork on the
shore. “ To repel this danger he ordered a captain whom he trusted
to hasten to its relief. This he did, and thinking that the soldiers
were following him, he found himself at the entrance thereto with
only one follower, and that post abandoned by the townsmen who
were manning it. These two men fell on the enemy who were within
and compelled them to jump down on to the beach, thus blocking
the entrance of those who were trying to get in. The enemy, thinking
that a large reinforcement had arrived, threw many grenades inside,
which set fire to the powder-pans with which all our bastions were
well supplied, and thus our captain did not escape being burnt. On
seeing the fire, some of the soldiers and townsmen who had aban¬
doned the position hastened back to its defence, through shame at
seeing that two men alone had expelled the enemy.” Here again, a
comparison with the official citations of Ribeiro’s services in Ceylon

1 Ribeiro, Book II, ch. 24.

 XI

CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1622-1693 11

leaves no doubt in my mind that Ribeiro was the gallant captain

concerned.1
The third part of Ribeiro’s book is an indictment of Portugal’s
colonial policy in the East, and this may explain why it was not
published until 1836. His chief criticism is that Portugal overtaxed
her strength in trying to control far more than her meagre resources
and population could support. “ From the Cape of Good Hope
onwards,” he writes, “ we were unwilling to leave anything outside
of our control ; we were anxious to lay hands on everything in that
huge stretch of over 5,000 leagues from Sofala to Japan ; and what
was worse, was that we set about this without calculating our
strength, or thinking that even with the natives themselves this
conquest could not last for ever.” In his view, the Portuguese should
have been content with Affonso de Albuquerque’s original plan of
holding Goa, Ormuz, and Malacca, as the three essential naval bases
for the maritime domination of the Indian Ocean—and with the
conquest and colonization of Ceylon, “ the finest piece of land which
the Creator has placed upon this earth.” 2
The Portuguese record in Ceylon has often been criticized, and
not without good reasons. The atrocities they committed, the
temples they destroyed, and the wrongs they inflicted have been
fully recorded by many historians, and not least by their own
chroniclers, Diogo do Couto, Antonio Bocarro, Ferniio de Queiroz,
and by Ribeiro himself. Yet there is another side to the picture.
Robert Knox, who only set foot in the island after Ribeiro and his
countrymen had left it for ever, noted that the inhabitants of the
lowlands “ formerly were in subjection to the Portuguese, whereby
they have been exercised and acquainted with the customs and
manners of Christian people. Which pleasing them far better than
their own have begot and bred in them a kind of love and affection
towards strangers, being apt to show pity and compassion on them
in their distress. And you shall hear them oftentimes upbraiding the
highlanders for their insolent and rude behaviour.” 3
There is no need to take Robert Knox’s strictures on the sturdy

1 Ribeiro, Book II, ch. 23. My translation of this passage differs slightly from
that of Dr. I’icris. Cf. also the citations of Ribeiro’s services listed in p. 2, note (3)
above.
2 Ribeiro, Book II, ch. I ; Book 111, ch. 1 (“ o melhor peda<p> da terra (pie o
Crcador pos ncste inmulo.’’).
3 Knox, Pt. IV, ch. 2, p. I!>,1.
XI

12 CAPTAIN JOAO RIBEIRO AND HIS HISTORY OF CEYLON, 1622-1693

Kandyan highlanders (by whom, after all, he was remarkably well

treated) too seriously ; but it remains true that many of the con¬
verted low-country Sinhalese clung to the Roman Catholic religion
after the enforced departure of their priests and despite active
persecution on the part of the Dutch. Finally, although comparisons
between different colonizing powers are probably more odious than
most, yet it is worth recalling that the Sinhalese proverb “ I have
given pepper and got ginger ”, spoken with reference to a man who
makes a bad exchange, was applied by the Sinhalese to the Dutch
succeeding the Portuguese in their island.1
1 Knox, Pt. Ill, ch. 9, p. 171.

APPENDIX

List of Names on Ribeiro’s Map of Ceylon, 1685

1. Col uni bo 21. Ilha de Manar 41. Morotto

2. Cotta 22. Amantota 42. Panature
3. Callituro 23. Serra de Grudumalo 43. M&cune
4. Allicao 24. Phatalao 44. Bellitotte
5. Galle 25. Negumbo 45. Totegao
6. Belligao 26. Chilao 46. Mapollegania
7. Mature 27. Maluana 47. Cogolla
8. Bentotta 28. Ruanella 48. a Cura£a
9. l’agode de Tananare 29. Ceitauaca 49. a Cumana
10. Greuaya 30. Manicauarc 50. Villdcem
11. Ballane 31. Candia 51. Cutiar
12. Batecaloa 32. Vua 52. Praia de Aripo
13. Marinhas do Sal 33. Pico de Adao 53. Sette Corlas
14. Capello de frade 34. Dinauaca 54. quatro Corlas
15. Triquimale 35. Matalle 55. Salpiticorla
16. Abitaijao dos Bedas 36. Sofregao 56. Reigancorla
17. 0 Vani 37. Serra de Ballane 57. Pasdumcorla
18. A ponta das pedras 38. Verganpetim 58. Corla de Galle
19. Jafnapataofortaleza 39. Tranqueira grande 59. Gurubebe
20. Rio Salgado 40. Callane 60. Angoratotta

The original spelling has been retained.

ap of Ceylon on vellum in Captain Joao Ribeiro’s MS. Historical Tragedy of tee
Plate I.

Island of Ceylon (1685) (collection C. R. Boxer).

 XII
A Glimpse of the Goa Archives 1

HIS article is primarily intended as a “follow-up” of two previous ones

A on the historical records of Portuguese India, thus serving to remind
historians of the importance of these documents. The articles to which I refer
are “A preliminary report on the historical records at Goa”, by Surendra
Nath Sen (88 pp., Calcutta, 1925, reprinted in his Studies in Indian History
(1930)), and “Portuguese India and its historical records”, by the late
J. LeRoy Christian (Hispanic-American Historical Review, vol. xxv, pp. 140-151,
February, 1945). These two articles are all that I have been able to find in
English about the Goa archives, and they are complemented by the recently
published “ Roteiro do Cartorio Geral do Estado da India ”, by Panduranga
Pissurlencar, reprinted from No. 309 of the Bolelim Geral das Colonias (Lisboa,
1951). This fourteen-page summary catalogue of the Goa archives by their
scholarly director advantageously replaces the ostensibly fuller “ Index
alfabetico, chronologico e remissivo ”, published serially by Tovar de
Albuquerque in the Orienle Portuguez (first series, 1910-1918), which is so riddled
with mistakes, and compiled with such lack of system, as to be worse than
useless as a guide to the material in the archives. In so far as possible, I have
avoided repeating what is already recorded in the previous articles of Nath
Sen and LeRoy Christian, confining myself to amplifying or correcting their
statements where necessary. I have also limited m)’self to describing the
codices which I studied during my stay at Goa in September-October, 1951.
As will be seen from a comparison of the codices described hereunder with
those listed in Dr. Pissurlencar’s Roteiro, I was only able to study a relatively
small proportion of the whole ; nor was a thorough examination of all of those
which I did see possible in the month at my disposal. Since virtually everything
dated prior to 1600 which still exists in the archives has already been published
by Cunha Rivara and others,2 I confined my own investigations to the period

11 owe the fact that I was able to visit Goa in September and October, 1951, primarily to tho
munificence of Princeton University, having received the Benjamin D. Shreve Fellowship from
that 6eat of sound learning in 1951. More than formal thanks are also due to H.E. Commandante
M. Sarmento Rodrigues, the Portuguese Overseas Minister, for his kindly interest and patronage ;
to H.E. Commandante F. de Quintanilha e Mendon^a Dias, the Governor-General of Portuguese
India, whoso fidatguia hospitality I enjoyed at Goa ; and to Dr. Panduranga Pissurlencar, the
Director of the Cartorio Geral do Estado da India, as the historical archive at Goa is officially
(if somewhat inaptly) called. These three gentlemen most courteously facilitated my research in
every way and I am profoundly indebted to them all.
*S. H. Cunha Rivara, Archivo Portuguez Oriental (8 volumes, Nova Goa, 1857-1876). The
Are. Port. Or. edited by Cunha Rivara should not be confused with the second series of the same
title edited by A. B. de Bragan?a Pereira (11 volumes, Bastord, 1936-1940). This latter makes
extensive use of the records in the archives at Goa, particularly the series Livros das Mongoet,
Beta Vizinhos, and Regimentoa e inslrucfdes ; but the work has been compiled, edited, and printed
so carelessly that its numerous omissions, misreadings, and misprints render it in many ways
more of a hindrance, than a help. Cf. note 1, p. 324.
All

300

1600-1740, the later date being taken as marking the end of effective
Portuguese power in India with the loss of the “ provincia do Norte ” to the
Marathas after the disastrous if hard-fought Bassein campaign of 1707-1739.
My own interests being chiefly concerned with the Far Fast, I naturally
concentrated on Macao and Timor ; but 1 trust that I have noted sufficient
material dealing with East Africa, the Persian Gulf, India, ('eylon, and Malacca,
to show the variety and richness of this little-used archive. Il may be added
that much of the material relating to India proper has been printed in the two
series of the Archivo Portuguez Oriental, in the two series of O Oriente Portuguez,
and in the Boletim do Institute Vasco da (lama, as explained in the final note to
this article.
Before describing the documents themselves it may be as well to state that
they are carefully bound and kept in locked cabinets with glass doors reaching
to the ceiling. Dr. Pissurlencar rightly boasts that not a fragment of paper has
left the archives since lie took charge in 1931 ; and although I he scrupulous
care with which lie has collected, collated, and bound (In' documents has led
to the binding and preservation of many fragments and of leaves which are
quite illegible, this is a fault on the right side. The student may rest assured
that nothing has been discarded on the grounds that it was wholly or partly
unreadable. As regards facilities for the copying and reproduction of documents,
these are now as follows. A microfilming machine has just (January, 1952)
been installed at Goa. Padre Antonio da Silva Itego, of the Escola Superior
Colonial, at Lisbon, who was at Goa for several months in 1951, brought a
microfilming machine with him and took many thousands of feet, of microfilm,
which presumably either are or will be available to students at the Arquivo
Historico Ultramarino (former Arquivo Historico Colonial), at Lisbon. Local
photographers’ charges for photography and photostats, as distinct from micro¬
films, at Goa are very high (15 rupees per page), but substantial reductions may
be made for large orders. There are at present only two employees of the archive
who are reliable palaeographers, and they are quite rightly not allowed to copy
documents during the official opening hours (8.30 a.m. to 1 p.m.), so the work
of copying is necessarily slow. The charges vary between 12 tangas and 1 rupee
per typed foolscap folio page. Plans for an expansion of the staff have been
approved by the local government, but it will be some little time before the
necessary personnel can be trained and utilized to the full. A list of the
documents now being prepared for publication is appended to this article ; but
although this list has been approved by the government the order of publication
will not necessarily be the same.
After this somewhat lengthy preamble I pass to a description of the codices
which I had time to examine, citing the various collections by the titles and
in the order in which they are listed in Dr. Pissurlencar’s “ Roteiro do Cartorio
Geral do Estado da India ” of 1951. It will be seen that the title does not always
quite accurately reflect the contents of the volume concerned.
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 301

1. Livros das Monroes do Reino (1574-1914). 4G7 folio volumes

I examined the first sixty-four volumes of this series (the largest single
collection in the archives), which cover the period down to 1700 inclusive. This
collection originally comprised (or should have done) the orders and dispatches
received yearly at Goa from Lisbon in the monsoon of September-October,
together with copies of the replies and reports sent from Goa to Portugal in
the homeward-bound Indiamen of the following December-March. LeRoy
Christian states that the collection is “ essentially complete ”, but there are, in
fact, many gaps during the seventeenth century. On the other hand, there is
also a good deal of duplication in some years. In some cases the queries of the
home government are present, but not the answers of the authorities at Goa.
In other instances the replies from Goa are present but not the original questions
or orders from Lisbon. In some cases both sides of the correspondence are
preserved, but are bound in different codices ; while in others marginal replies
are written on the original dispatches from home. The preservation of so much
of this correspondence, despite centuries of neglect and the ravages of insects
and climate, is due to the fact that most of it was written in triplicate at least.
Despite some unexpected deficiencies the collection on the whole is one of
great interest and value. Apart from the direct correspondence between Goa
and Lisbon it contains a great mass of “ relevant papers ” (os papeis que accuza),
both originals and contemporary copies. It would be very useful to have
a printed list of the contents of each volume for comparison with the similar
but smaller collection of the same title in the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do
Tombo at Lisbon. Many documents are to be found in both collections, but
I have the impression that the Goa collection is by far the richer of the two.
I may add that many of the Goa volumes are provided with lists of contents—
some contemporary, others nineteenth-century, and others with both—but
these indices do not always agree with the present pagination or with each
other and should not be trusted as invariably accurate. The condition and
legibility of the different volumes varies widely, the contents of some being
as perfect as when they were written, while others are reduced to a few barely
decipherable fragments.
Vol. 1 (1574-1594) is identical with Tomo I of the Ordens Rtgias series,
q.v. below. Vol. 2a (1593-1595) ; Vol. 2n (1595-1601) ; Vol. 3\ (1585-1589) ;
Vol. 3h (1589-1593) ; Vol. 4 (1595-1598). The material in all these volumes
has been printed by J. H. Cunha Rivara in the first Archivo Portuguez Oriental
(8 vols., Goa, 1857-1876).
Vol. 5 (1595-1690). A curious jumble, containing miscellaneous documents,
mostly statements and certificates of services, and alvards (decrees), of the
years 1580-1602 and 1630-1650, together with correspondence with the viceroy
of India in 1633, and with the governor of India in 1689-1690.
Vol. 6a (1604-1606); Vol. 6b (1605); Vol. 7 (1601-1603); Vol. 8
(1601-1602); Vols. 9-11 [bound in one vol.] (1604-1609) ; Vol. 12 (1613-1617).
Much of the earlier material in these volumes has been printed in the first
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Archivo Portuguez Oriental, and in the Documentos Remettidos da India ou

Livros das Mangoes (5 vols., Lishoa, 1880-1935). There is a gap in the Goa
archives from 1009 to 1012, and another from 1018 to 1028 ; but these years
are partly covered by Tomos T, II, and V of the Lisbon Documentos Remettidos
series, and partly by Vol. 22n of the present MSS.
Vol. 13a (1629-1630); Vol. 1 3b (1629-1630); Vol. 14 (1630-1631);
Vol, 15 (1631-1632) ; Vol. 16a (1632) ; Vol. 16b (1632) ; Vol. 17 (1632-1633) ;
Vol. 18 (1633) ; Vol. 19a (1633-1634) ; Vol. 19b (1634-1635) ; Vol. 19c
(1634-1635) ; Vol. 19i) (1633-1635); These thirteen volumes,
Vol. 20 (1634).
averaging about three hundred leaves each, give a very full and detailed picture
of the viceroyalty of Dom Miguel de Noronha, Conde de Linharcs, especially
when taken in conjunction with his diary for part of 1034-1035, first published
at Lisbon in 1937. The great bulk (probably all) of his correspondence with
the home government is preserved in these codices, and there are also many
original related documents. Among these latter are : a list of the capital sent
annually from Lisbon to Goa for the purchase of pepper in 1011-1020, with
details of how it was expended (Vol. 13a, fls. 101-179) ; detailed list of all
goods dispatched through the Goa customs-house for the three homeward-
bound Indiamcn of February, 1030 (Vol. 13b, fls. 392 419) 1 ; intelligence
reports from Surat (ibid., fls. 438 445) ; treaty with the Kaffir King of
Monomatapa in June, 1029 (ibid., fls. 458-459) ; translation of a letter of
Hamada Yahioyc, the Japanese buccaneer, on his kidnapping of Pieter Nuyts,
the Dutch Governor of Formosa,1 2 in 1028 (Vol. 14, fls. 237) ; a very detailed
inventory of prize-goods taken on board two Indian ships seized off Surat in
April, 1030 (ibid., fls. 249-323) ; much correspondence with Macao over the
Japan and Manila voyages (Vol. 19b, fls. 1008-1000, and fls. 1108-1182). The
bulk of all this correspondence is in good condition save for Vols. 15-19a, which
have suffered in parts from damp, fading, and white ants.
Vol. 21 a (1640) and Vol. 21 n (1640-1641) coincide with the last years of the
union of the Portuguese with the Spanish Crown. There is a rather surprising
and unexplained gap of a decade from the time when news of the accession of
Dom Joao IV to the throne was received in India (September, 1041), part of
which, however, can be filled from other sources, including the Asscnlos do
Conselho de Estado described below.
Vol, 22a (1652-1653). Scattered throughout this volume are a number of
interesting documents concerning Mozambique, including an original letter of
Dom Francisco de Lima, the governor of that colony, 23rd August, 1052
(fls. 23-4). Fls. 164-175 comprise interesting papers on Macao, including
original letters from the Senate and from the Captain-General, Joao de Sousa

1 A very inadequate summnry of this list is printed by Cunha Rivara, Chronista dc Tissuary,
i (Nova Goa, 1806), 156-8.
2 f'f. the version printed in the very rare Avizos del feliz sucesso de los casos espirilualcs y
lenrporales en diversae provincias de la India, conquislas, y navegactones de los Porlugueses por los
aiios 1628 y 1629 (Lishoa, 1630), which is likewise based on this letter.
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 303

Pereira, dated 1651. Some of the documents cited in the preliminary list of
contents as being in this volume are really in the next
Vol. 22it (1620-1653), which documents very fully the first months of the
viceroyalty of the Condo de Obidos, before his deposition by a popular revolt
in Goa. Beginning with fl. 438 this volume jumps back to 1620, and on fl. 475
jumps forward to 1646.
Vol. 23a (1653-1654). This volume is particularly rich in original papers
connected witli the Luso-Dutch war in Ceylon, including some ciphered
dispatches from Colombo. It also has a good deal of correspondence concerning
the abortive negotiations with the English factors at Surat for an Anglo-
Portuguese alliance against the Hollanders, including letters in Latin from
Jeremy Pearce and Edward Blackman (April-October, 1653). There are also
a lot of original papers concerning disputes with the Nestorian Christians of
Malabar, and interesting reports from the Persian Gulf (fls. 357-8), and from
Macassar (fls. 364-8).
Vol. 24 (1615-1654). Apart from a few legal documents dated 1615 which
are bound up at the end of this volume (and a stray document of 1720) the
great bulk of the 400 leaves which this codex comprises are concerned with the
years 1654-1655. Ceylon naturally figures most prominently, and on
fls. 308-322 is the original correspondence with the Dutch chief (G. Pclgrom)
and factors at Surat concerning the exchange and ransom of prisoners in 1654.1
Fls. 331 IT. contain original letters by and relating to the Frenchman, Francois
Flacourt (January, 1654).
Vol. 25 (1654-1656). Ceylon still dominates the scene in this volume of over
500 leaves, which contains a number of very interesting original letters of the
Captain-General, Antonio de Sousa Coutinho, during the last siege of Colombo
in 1655-1656. There are also some interesting papers concerning the Persian
Gulf (fls. 15-18) and Macao (fls. 200-214 and 384-417), the latter of which
include documents dealing with Indochina, Manila, and Macassar. At fl. 483
is a letter from the Kaffir King of Monomatapa announcing his conversion and
baptism (20th August, 1652).
Vol. 26a (1656-1658). The last days of the Portuguese in Ceylon and the
efforts to fit out a high-seas fleet (armada de alto-bordo) under Luis de Mendoga
Furtado are covered by the contents of this volume, whose preliminary leaves
are in a very poor condition.
Vol. 26it (1657-1660) contains inter alia some interesting correspondence
with Macassar, including letters from local dignitaries with Muslim.seals and
signatures (fls. 368-372). Much of the correspondence dated 1659 is hadly
faded and partly or wholly illegible. This volume also contains a great deal
about the unruly canons of Goa cathedral and the resultant broils between
ecclesiastics, which caused great scandal at this period. There is no volume
lettered 27.
1 These and other Dutch (and English) documents in the Goa archives are accompanied by
translations in Latin or in Portuguese.
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304

Vol. 28a (1661-1663) contains a good deal of correspondence on the siege

of Cochin and its epic defence by Inacio Sarmento de Carvalho (fls. 2, 51-62).
FIs. 242-252 contain interesting letters and reports from Francisco Vieira de
Figueiredo, at Macassar.
Vol. 28n (1662-1663). Despite the lettering on the spine this volume
contains a lot of earlier papers, dated 1652—1655 relating to Diu and its
misgovernment by Dom Joao Manuel, and the efforts of his successor, Inacio
Sarmento de Carvalho, to repair the damage thus wrought to the local baneanes
(vaniya) or Hindu traders (fls. 349-399, 421-6, 451-2). This correspondence
includes original letters and petitions from these Gujarati merchants to the
authorities at Goa. There is also a lot of material concerning the troubles with
the cathedral chapter of Goa ; and the debates of the viceroy and his council
on whether to hand over Bombay to the English as stipulated in the Anglo-
Portuguese marriage treaty of 1661.
Vols. 29 and 30 [in one volume] (1663-1666). Bombay ; peace negotiations
with the Dutch ; efforts to fit out galleons ; toleration or otherwise of Hindu
marriage ceremonies ; and conditions in Mozambique, comprise the principal
matters dealt with in this volume.
Vols. 31 and 32 (1664-1665). Contains interesting letters and reports from
Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo, at Macassar 1 (fls. 9-17), concerning Timor and
Solor, etc. ; and from Andre Gomes, at Batavia (fls. 134-150) ; original
letters in Dutch and Batin from Rykloff van Goens, on the coast of Malabar
(fl. 108 ff.) ; original dispatches from the Captain-General, Manoel Tavares
Bocarro, and the Senate at Macao (fls. 152-7), apart from many documents
concerning the final decision of the Viceroy and his council to surrender Bombay
to the English.
Vol. 33 (1666-1667). Royal letters of March, 1666, with the viceroy’s
answers of January, 1667. On fls. 20-1, Joao Nunes da Cunlia, an ardent
friend of the Jesuits, defends the Fathers from the attacks to which they were
subjected because in many places (such as Chaul) the Crown had given them
the exclusive right to administer all funds earmarked for local fortifications.
The viceroy avers that the Jesuits should always be entrusted with this work,
“ porque em todas as partes donde elles nao correm com as administragoes, sao
tantos e taes os furtos que nao se podem encare^er e assy eu lhes fis restituir
as mesmas administrafoes donde lhe estavao tiradas, e os obrigey muito contra
suas vontades a torna^em a padecer as calumnias e opprobrios que padegem
por nao deixar ingulir aos ladroes dos capitaes as pedras das mesmas fortalesas,
assy que Vossa Magestade nao admita aos padres escuza, nem ou9a sobre este
particular aos intere9ados, que querem athe com a mao dos Padres roubar a
Coroa e os Povos.”

1 Cf. my article “ Francisco Vieira do Figueiredo o os l’ortuguescs em Macassar o Timor na

epoea da Restaura<;ao (1040-1008) ”, in the Boletim Eclesiaslico da diocese de Macau, Ano 36,
num. 434, pp. 727-741 (May, 1940), and the sources there quoted, the chief of which is the
Datjh-Register gehottde.it ini Casteel Batavia, Anno 1664, Batavia, 1893.
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 305

Vol. 34 (1668-1670). Royal letters of November-Deccmber, 1668, with the

Governors’ answers of December, 1669-January, 1670. The Governors of India,
Antonio de Mello de Castro and Manoel Corte-Rcal do. Sampaio, were not so
friendly to the Jesuits as their predecessor had been. In the course of corre¬
spondence with the Crown concerning the landed properties possessed by the
Religious Orders in India they wrote, “ a mayor queixa neste particular he
o muyto quo possuem os Padres da Companhia de que Vossa Alteza por repetidas
vezes foi informado e tern confirma^ao com todas as clauzulas, ainda as
extraordinarias a seu favor, por alvara passado em 8 de Fevereiro 1667, com
o que se escusao as listas das fazendas que estes lteligiozos possuem.” FIs. 295 ff.
contain some notices of the sack of Diu city by the Arabs of Muscat in December,
1668, and of the fiasco of the relieving armada which was sent from Goa.
Vol. 35 (1665-1669). FIs. 43-51 give an interesting account of the situation
at Macao and of the embassy of Manuel de Saldanha in China. This volume also
contains numerous documents relating to the belated surrender of Bombay to
the English and reports from the Viceroy, Antonio de Mello de Castro [not to
be confused with the later Governor of the same name cited above], on the
behaviour of the Religious Orders and missionaries in India (fls. 125 ff., 119 ff.).
Vol. 36 (1670-1672), This volume is in poor condition, much of the first
half being illegible. Fls. 28-9, complaints of Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo
and others on the scandalous behaviour of the Dominican missionaries in
Timor, Solor, and Flores. Similar complaints are scattered throughout these
volumes during the whole of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At
fl. 257 is an interesting royal order dated 21st March, 1671, ordering the
Viceroy to enforce previous royal decrees in favour of Christianity, but adding
“ nfio c.onscntireis que faijiio nenhuas conversoes por for<;a, senao voluntaria-
mente, e inenos que aos paes gentios se tomem seus fillios por for^a para os
baptizarem, e so os filhos orfaos na forma que sempre houve nesse Estado ”.
The viceroy, Luis de Mendo5a Furtado, Conde de Lavradio, pointed out in
his reply that this forcible conversion of Indian orphan children was one of the
main reasons why so many Indians left Portuguese territory for English Bombay.
A petition of the “ ]>ovo gentilico de Bagaim” to this effect, with the original
signatures in Gujarati and Kanarese, is attached at fl. 259. The Viceroy also
pointed out that Dom Affonso Mendes, the Jesuit Patriarch of Ethiopia in
1623-1656, had petitioned the Viceroy, Conde de Aveiras, to allow the Hindus
of Diu to rebuild and repair their temples, since these Gujarati merchants had
been so helpful to him when he was in Abyssinia. The full correspondence is
printed in the Oriente Portugues (II Series), nos. 7-9, pp. 200-4 (1934-1935).
Fls. 273 -4, a very curious petition of the moradores of Timor, Flores, and
Solor (d. Larantuka, 1st September, 1677) with numerous autograph signatures,
protesting against a reported proposal to send Jesuit missionaries to the Lesser
Sunda islands, and stating that the inhabitants only wanted the Dominican
friars, who were their spiritual fathers and who had converted their ancestors—
“ dies sfio os que ensinarao a nossos antepassados e avos, e de presente ensiniio
XII

306

a nossos filhos ; com elles nos criamos ; nao he rezao que os largemos para
tornarnos a outros, pois cumprem com as obriga9oes de sen officio com a
satisfmjao que deuem FIs. 280-7, detailed complaints against Dom Alvaro
de Silva, the Governor and Captain-General of Macao, in 1667-1670.
Vol. 37 (1667-1673). Scattered throughout this volume are numerous
references to Mozambique, including (fls. 72-3) a list of twenty-four artificers,
stone-masons, smiths, etc., who had been sent from Portugal as part of a
colonizing expedition to Zambesia. Fls. 132-6, decrees and dispatches con¬
cerning Macao and the organization of trading voyages to Manila and Timor.
FI. 232, the Viceroy sends the ex-Governor of India, Antonio de Mello de
Castro, home in disgrace for making an unauthorized peace with the Arabs
of Mecca. He adds that the lack of adequate punishment for such offences
“ se tern originado tantas perdas, quantas se tern visto neste estado;
e Mofambique em perigo de se perder e Dio saqueado dos Arabios, sem por isso
sair ninguem castigado pellas deva9as que do cazo se tirao, antes servirem para
sairem por ellas canonizados os culpados ” (Goa, 2nd January, 1673).1
Vol. 38a (1672-1673). Among the papers in this codex are reports sent
from Portugal to Goa with news of the French victories in the early stages of
our Third Dutch War (fls. 81-111). The Viceroy drily replied that whatever
might happen in Europe, the French were vastly inferior to the Hollanders in
Asia, and had already lost all their ships there. Fls. 128-132 contain interesting
material on Solor and Timor. A good many documents concerning Mozambique
and Zambesia are scattered throughout this volume.
Vol. 38b (1673). Contains many papers relating to an ecclesiastical junta
convened to discuss such perennial problems as whether Hindu orphans should
be taken from their relatives and converted to Christianity and whether Hindu
birth and marriage ceremonies should be permitted in Goa. It also contains
duplicates of many documents in the previous two volumes.
Vols. 39 and 40 [in one vol.] (1673-1676). FI. 113. The Viceroy reports that
he is sending back to Lisbon for trial Fenao Martins de Ponte, an ex-Governor
of Timor, whose wealth would assure his acquittal if tried at Goa, where “ so nos
pobres se executa a justuja ” (25th January, 1675). Fls. 117-120, interesting
papers on Macao.
Vol. 41 (1676-1677). In poor condition, much being illegible due to fading.
Fls. 13-19. Interesting reports on the hinterland of Portuguese East Africa
entitled “ pera informa9ao do que sao os Rios, Terras, e Serras de Cafraria que
possuem na Africa os vassallos de Sua Altesa ”, including a letter of Don
Andres de Vidas y Albarado, “ Administrador e Ensayador das Minas d’Ouro
e Prata ” (Senna, 22nd July, 1633). References to Mombassa frequently occur
in this volume.
1 One of the unexpected lacunae in the archives is the absence of the devafaj or proceedings of
the courts of inquiry which were held to determine the responsibility for the loss of Malacca
(1641), Muscat (1650), Cochin (1663), and Mombassa (1729). There are references and allusions
to them but the devafan themselves are missing. The originals were presumably sent to Portugal,
but it is odd that no oopies should have been preserved at Goa.
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 307

Vol. 42 (1675-1677). This codex has a lot of material on the Christianizing

of Hindu orphan children (fls. 135-200) ; on the real or alleged designs of the
Dutch in the Persian Gulf; and on disputes with the English at Bombay. The
next volume in this series is lettered
Vol. 44 and 45 (1677-1681). This volume has a good deal on the missionaries
in China and the rights of the Portuguese padroado or Crown patronage
(fls. 39-42, 69, 1G3-5, etc.); on the transplantation of pepper and cinnamon
plants to Brazil1 (fls. 68, 72, 76, 120-1) ; and lists of the colonists sent from
Portugal to Zambesia in 1678 (fls. 135-8).
Vol. 46a (1681-1682). Most of this volume is concerned with the state of
affairs at Diu, and the shortcomings of captains of fortresses in connexion with
an abortive proposal to make Diu the “ praga de armas do Estado da India ”.
There is also a good deal of documentation on Hindu birth and marriage
ceremonies at Goa and their contaminating influence on local Christians. The
trade of Zambesia is also dealt with at some length. The pagination jumps from
fl. 271 to fl. 406 for no apparent reason. At fl. 427 the Viceroy complains that:
“ Xao he outra a occupafao das Armadas que em roubar as embarca9oes dos
Reis amigos com pretextos fa^os, nauegando todas com nossos cartazes, o que
sobre nos tirar aquella estima9ao que tanto conservamos e nos fizerao respeitados
pello mundo, somos hoje de todo elle aborre9idos.”
Vol. 46 b (1680-1682) contains a lot about Mozambique and Zambesia.
Fls. 170-6 are concerned with the transplantation of cinnamon and pepper to
Brazil.
Vol. 47 (1681-1683), fls. 33-7. Duplicates of previous correspondence on
the transplantation of spices to Brazil. Fls. 248-283, documents concerning the
loss of the homeward-bound East-Indiaman Nossa Senhora de Ajuda, which had
left Goa for Lisbon in 1674, very richly laden, and which was believed to have
been taken in the Mozambique channel by English pirates who massacred all
on board. This codex contains inter alia the minutes of the judicial examination
of three English witnesses in the jail at Goa who were alleged to have belonged
to the pirate ship. This allegation made a great sensation in Lisbon, and the
reports of the English envoy and consul in the Portuguese capital on its reper¬
cussions can be found in the London Public Record Office, “ State Papers
Portugal,” 89/15 (1682-1683).
Vol. 48 (1683-1684). In poor condition. Much fading and tra$a. This
volume has a lot about the Viceroy Conde de Alvor’s pet project of transferring
the capital from Goa to Mormugao.2

1 For attempts to transplant spices from India to Brazil, cf. A. Sergio [ed.] Antologia dos
Economistas Portugueses, Seculo XVII (Lisboa, 1924), pp. 379-382 ; Documentos Historicos.
Provisoes, patentes, alvaras, cartas, 1648-1711, vol. xxxiii (Rio de Janeiro, 1930), pp. 387-390 ;
Ibidem. Registo de Cartas Rigias, 1683-1697, vol. lxxxiii (1949), 103-109; Ibidem. Consultas
do Conselho Ultramarino, 1673-1683, vol. Ixxxviii (1950), 235-237, 273-5.
2 Most (if not all) of the papers relating to this proposal are printed in Cunha Rivara’s well-
documented series of articles, “ Tentativa de mudan^a da Cidade de Goa para Mormugao,”
published serially in O Chronista de Tissuary, i-ii (1866-1867).
XII

308

Vol. 49 (1683 1685). Likewise in poor condition, much of the first half being
illegible. FIs. 328-331. Two interesting letters from Gaetano de Mello de
Castro, Governor of Zambesia, dated Senna, 20th and 28th June, 1084.
Vol. 50 (1685). Entirely devoted to claims for rewards for services rendered
in the East. Of biographical interest only.
Vol. 51a (1684 1685). FIs. 8-22. Criticisms of the Condo, de Alvor's.project
to move the capital to Mormugao. FI. 25, proposal to send eight families of
Kanarese cultivators of pepper and cinnamon to Brazil. FIs. 219-300. Numerous
original letters, papers, and reports concerning the embassy of Pero Yas de
Siqueira from Macao to Siam in 1084-1080, including translations of corre¬
spondence with the Siamese authorities.1
Vol. 51 n (1685 1686). FIs. 23-43. Orders and affidavits against the con¬
struction of any new churches, convents, or ecclesiastical buildings in Goa.
FIs. 100-177. Original papers concerning Mombassa and operations against
rebellious Sheiks at Patta (Pate) and other places on the East African coast.
Vol. 52 (1686 1688). FIs. 277 283. More original documents concerning
the operations around Mombassa and Patta. Jrl. 330 382, a very detailed and
statistical “ Rellayam do que rende a Sua Majestade cm cada anno as prayas
e terras que tern na India, e dos pagamentos ordinarios c despezas assentadas
nella ” (September, 1087). The codex also contains a great deal on the proposed
transfer of the capital to Mormugao.
Vol. 53 (1687-1689). In poor condition. Largely of administrative and
ecclesiastical interest (reorganization of the Vedor da Fazenda’s duties and of
the missions to the heathen) ; but on fi. 287-31 1, judicial inquiry on the loss of
Patta to the Arabs of Muscat. FIs. 341-4, report on Macao, China, and Timor
by Francisco Nogucira, dated Macao, 12th November, 1G87. The Marathas
likewise figure prominently in this and subsequent volumes.
Vol. 54 (1689-1690). Royal letters of March, 1G89, with replies from the
Governor of India (Dom llodrigo da Costa), of January, 1G90. FIs. 151-178,
interesting documents on the mission of the Portuguese Jesuits in China and
their rivalry with the French Jesuits at Peking.
Vol. 55a (1690-1691). Royal letters of January-March, 1G90, with the
Governor’s replies of January, 1G91.
! ol. 55n (1690-1691). Continuation of the foregoing volume. FIs. 205-295,
documents concerning Solor and Timor, “ c vao os papeis que acuza.”
FIs. 348-359, transplantation of spices to Brazil. FIs. 440 -7 and 549-552,
narratives of the Siamese palace revolution of 1088, death of Constantine
Phaulkon and expulsion of the French from Siam. This volume is also well
documented on the controversy between the Portuguese missionaries of the
1 Them- papers :m<l others on Siam, listed in Vol. 55n below, give additional details and
another viewpoint when compared with the French and English versions utilized by
E. \\ . Hutchinson, Adventurers in Sitnn in the seventeenth centuri/ (London, 1040), and J. Drams &
11. lieruard, N.J., Mi moire du I’ere de li'eze sur hi vie dr Constance Phaulkon, premier ministre du
lioi de 8iam, l’liru Aarai, i t so trisle fin suivi de lettres el de documents d'nrchivcs de Constance
I’haulkon (Tokyo, 1047).
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 309

Padroado and the French and Italian missionaries of the Propaganda. It

likewise has a good deal of material on Zambesia, Mozambique, and Mombassa,
including (fl. 51) a carta cm sifra quo nao sc sabc o que conthom por nao
achar a chave della
1 ol. 56 (1690-1691). FIs. 87-93, concerning the coiifjrua of the Bishop of
Macao, Dom Joao do Casal. FIs. 14G-15G, “ Sobre se ordenar a Cidade de
Macao para nao deixar passar missionaries quc nao vierem por Portugal sendo
estrangeiros, e vao os papeis que accuza.”
Vol. 57 (1691-1693). Contents similar to those of the preceding two volumes,
being largely concerned with the Padroado and the missions.
Vol. 58 (1693-1694). FIs. 177-198, 370. Interesting papers on Timor and
Solor, and the death of Antonio Ilornay.
Vol. 59 (1694-1699). Largely concerned with missionary controversies and
the war with the Arabs of Oman. FIs. 115-122, curious papers on Macao and
its moradorcs.
Vol. 60 (1696-1697). Deals mainly with the disputes between the
missionaries of the Padroado and the Propaganda, and the war with the Arabs
of Oman. FIs. 218-221, interesting reports on Macao and Timor.
Vol. 61 (1696-1698). FIs. 74-5 and 116-121 contain interesting details of
the government of Timor and Solor by Antonio da Mesquita Pimentel. He fell
foul of the Dominicans, with whose order he had previously had trouble in
Macao when governor of that colony.
Vol. 62 (1697-1698). In poor condition, with much of it illegible. Contains
a good deal on the abortive efforts of the Crown to organize a Portuguese East-
India Company on the Dutch, French, or English model.
Vol. 63 (1698-1699). Deals largely with the abortive “ Companhia do
Comercio ” and with East Africa (expeditions for Mombassa). The list of
contents mentions an item, “ sobre nao sejao expulsos deste Estado os gentios
que nelle rezidem como reprezentao os Inquizidores e que sobre o seu culto se
observem as ordens,” but it is wanting in the body of the codex, where the
pagination jumps from fl. 199 to fl. 239. FIs. 300-7 comprise a very interesting
series of original papers and reports on Timor and Flores, mainly concerned with
the expulsion of Antonio da Mesquita Pimentel. FIs. 418 451, “ Sobre so haver
dc abrir comercio do Brasil para Mozambique c papeis que acuza.”
Vol. 64 (1700). Condition very poor; much bad fading. Fl. 189, Royal
letter dated 22nd March, 1700, on the importance of the viceroy finding\3ome
means of paying the stipends of the Italian bishops of Peking and Nanking, as
otherwise the Propaganda will use the non-payment of these stipends as an
excuse to intensify its attacks on the rights and claims of the Padroado—
“ sera de grande argumento a Propaganda ter a noticia de que se lhes falta com
as congruas, porque fara argumento ou da pouca atenfao que se tern com os
Bispos nesse Estado, ou da impossibiladade que nelle ha para poderem sustentar
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310

os Prelados ”.1 FIs. 100-173, papers concerning the proposal to allow free
trade between India and Brazil, including copies of letters of the Governor-
General at Bahia.

2. Livros das mcrccs gcrais (1617-1883). 50 volumes

The first sixteen volumes of this collection were examined but many of
them were in very poor condition, with a great part of their contents wholly
illegible owing to damp, worming, and fading. Most of them have an index of
sorts, but it is usually fragmentary and incomplete. The documents are
records of awards, honours, local titles, and grants ot lands in return for services
rendered to the Crown and, where legible, are useful in tracing biographical
data. Volumes are either quarto or else small folio size.
Vol. 1 (1612-1830). Although lettered in this way most grants are of the
years 1 (MO, l(i!)3, 1595, and 1714.
Vol. 1\ (1607-1611). Is in very bad condition and very badly written.
Vol. 2 (1617-1622). Index illegible. Text in fair condition but entries very
brief.
Vol. 2a (1617). No index and text in very bad condition.
Vol. 3 (1624-1714). What few documents arc legible mostly date from the
years 1G24-1G25 and 1GG7-1G70.
Vol. 4 (1626-1629). In pretty good condition and with a serviceable index.
Vol. 5 (1640-1642). In reasonably good condition but lacks an index.
Vol. 6 (1652 1655). Fair condition but only A-B of index.
Vol. 7 (1652-1719). Badly wormed. Save for one stray document of 1G52
the rest of this bulkv
J
volume relates to 1714-1719.
Vol. 8 (1655-1662); Vol. 9 (1663-1670); Vol. 10 (1671-1677) are all in
poor condition and only partly legible.
Vol. 11 (1675-1677); Vol. 12 (1678-1681) ; Vol. 13 (1681-1687) ; Vol. 14
(1681-1690); Vol. 15 (1687-1690) ; Vol. 16 (1683-1692) are all in pretty fair
condition.

3. Carlas, Patentes e Alvaras (1596-1884). 2G8 volumes

This collection, as indicated by its title, is for the most part a record of posts,
ranks, honours, and employments conferred on different individuals in return
for services to the Crown. As may be seen from the following list, however, a
number of other (and more interesting) documents have got mixed up with this
collection and been bound with it. As with the former collection, many of the
codices are partly illegible ; and the indices are often partial or fragmentary
where they are not wanting altogether. Sizes of volumes vary from large folio
to small quarto.
Vol. 1 (1596-1601). Poor condition.
Vol. 2 (1611). In better condition but written in a very poor hand.
1 The Crown’s forebodings were correct and this is exactly what did happen. Cf. A. van den
Wyngaert, O.F.M., “ Le Patronat Portugais et Mgr. Bernardin Della Chicsa,” in Archivum
Frnnrinraninn Historie.um, xxxv (1942), fase. i-ii.
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 311

Vol. 3 (1613—1614). Contains interesting nlvards (decrees) concerning

Ormuz, Malacca, and Macao.
Vol. 4 (1616). Contains an interesting petition of Diogo do Couto, the
original State Archivist at Goa (Guarda-mor da Torre do Tomho do lisfado da
India), dated September, 1616, stating that he is “ muito mal e rc9.ee que com
esta lima se vfi ”, and asking for his post to be given after his death to Domingos
de Castilho, who had married his adopted daughter.1
Vol. 5 (1617-1622). Poor condition. Index fragmentary.
Vol. 6 (1620-1621). Good condition. Indexed.
Vol. 7 (1620-1621). Large folio volume. Good condition. No index.
Vol. 8 (1622). Small volume. Poor condition. No index.
Vol 9 (1629-1630). Good condition save for preliminary pages. No index.
Vol. 10 (1630) and Vol. 11 (1630-1631). Good condition on the whole.
Vol. 12 (1631-1632) and Vol. 13 (1632). Very bad condition and legible only
in scraps.
Vol. 14 (1633). No index but in good condition.
Vol. 15 (1633-1635). Poor condition. Contains material on East Africa.
Vol. 16 (1635-1636). Fair condition.
Vol. 17 (1636-1637) ; Vol. 18 (1637-1644) ; Vol. 19 (1639-1641) are all in
poor condition, with either no or else fragmentary indices.
Vol. 20 (1639-1652). Bad fading, but where legible much more interesting
than (he previous codices. This volume is really the copy-book of all letters
and dispatches exchanged between the viceregal government at Goa and the
Captain-General and Senate of Macao from 1639 to 1652. As such it covers one
of the most important decades in the colony’s history, including the loss of the
Japan trade, the break with Spain and Manila, and the conquest of China by
the Manchu Tartars. It contains 180 folio pages, but unfortunately some of
these are quite illegible and others legible only in part.
Vol. 21 [I have no record of this codex].
Vol. 22 (1643) ; Vol. 23 (1643-1644) ; Vol. 24 (1643-1644) ; Vol. 25 (1646) ;
Vol. 26 (1646-1647) ; Vol. 27 (1647) ; Vol. 28 (1647-1655) ; Vol. 29
(1648-1659) ; Vol. 30 (1648-1667) ; Vol. 31 (1648-1683) ; Vol. 32(1649-1650)
are all in bad condition, particularly Vols. 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 32, which
are virtually illegible.
Vol. 33 (1650) is in fairly good condition, at least by comparison with
foregoing.
Vol. 34 (1650-1651) is in good condition but has no index.
Vol. 35 (1650-1652) ; Vol. 36 (1655-1656) are both in very bad condition.
Vol. 37 (1656-1657) ; Vol. 38 (1657) ; Vol. 39 (1657-1658) arc all in fair
condition but have no proper indices.
1 His request was granted, as can be seen from the alvara appointing Domingos de Castilho
which is transcribed with Couto’s petition. Cf. nlso the letter of the Viceroy, D. Jeronimo de
Azevedo, to the Crown, Goa, 30th December, 1610, printed in J. M. Carmo Nazareth’s article,
“ A Torre do Tombo da India e sous gunrdas-mores ” (0 Oriente Portnguez, v, 127-133, Nova Goa,
1908).
XII

312

Vol. 40 (1657-1661) is misplaced here, being really the “ Livro de registo

das cartas dos governadores da India ” for those years. Legible on the whole.
Vol. 41 (1658-1659) ; Vol. 42 (1659-1660) ; Vol. 43 (1661-1662) ; Vol. 44
(1662-1681) ; Vol. 45 (1663-1664) ; and Vol. 46 (1667) are mostly in fair
condition but with defective indices or none at all. I had no time to examine
more than the first forty-six volumes in this collection, but with the exception
of the misplaced vols. 20 and 40, their contents are rather disappointing, due
to their poor condition and legibility.

4. Cartas, patentes, provisoes, alvaras, etc. (1531 [sic]-705). 59 volumes

Only the first six volumes of this series were examined as the remaining
fifty-three relate to the nineteenth century. The collection is uninteresting and
mainly a record of payments.
Vol. 1 (1605-1611); Vol, 2 (1703-1705); Vol. 3 (1712-1721); Vol, 4
(1723-1727); Vol. 5 (1753-1754); Vol. 6 (1799-1800). All these volumes are
in good condition on the whole. It will be seen that the years 1612-1702,
1706-1711, 1722, 1728-1752, and 1755-1798 are wanting.

5. Provisoes dos Visoreis (1602-1621). 3 volumes

A small but very varied collection of documents relating to trade and
navigation, with (in the case of Vol. 3) grants to individual fidalgos. The bulk
of the documents cover the years 1599-1609, and 1621. The pagination is very
erratic.
Vol. 1 (1602-1609). In poor condition but includes original documents
concerning the illegal voyage of Don Rodrigo de Cordova from China (Macao)
to Peru ; certificates of seaworthiness of the homeward-bound carrack Sdo Jocio
(November, 1600) ; instructions for the Vedor da Fazenda, Joao Rodriguez de
Tones, on his visit of inspection to the North (January, 1601); smuggling in
Ormuz and Muscat; petition and protest of the merchants of Chaul; pepper
from Malacca; regulations for lading homeward-bound East-Indiamen;
customs-houses in Diu and Pegu ; list of rents farmed out in the islands of Goa,
Chorao, and Divar, together with other items, all of economic interest. A few
of the documents are dated 1612.
Vol. 2 (1606-1609). In worse condition than Vol. 1. Mainly concerned with
lading of homeward-bound Indiamen and with custom-house regulations in
Baryelor and Ormuz. It has a few documents dated 1602.
Vol. 3 (1621). Much more legible than the other two volumes. Includes
papers on the Japan voyages of Jeronimo Macedo de Carvalho and Lopo
Sarmento de Carvalho; but the bulk of this codex is concerned with merges
(grants) to individual fidalgos, and it is of less interest than the first two.

6. Registo dos alvaras e cartas rdgias (1610-1645). 1 volume

This volume is in good condition though some of the documents are written
in very difficult notarial hands. It is particularly rich for the period 1610-1630
and chiefly of interest to the economic historian. It contains, inter alia, nominal
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 313

rolls of seamen ; salary-lists of viceroys and captains ; regulations for the size
of India carracks ; privileges of captain-majors of Indiamen ; documents on
pepper and saltpetre ; Joao Serrao da Cunha and his Japan Voyage of 1G14 ;
the Duke of Braganga and his quota of duty-free spices ; “ alvara por que ha
por bem de franquear e deixar livre a todos em geral o comercio e navegagao
destas partes da India ” (Lisboa, 12th December, 1642), etc.

7. Livros das Cartas e ordens [e portarias] (1609-1865). 130 volumes

I examined the first twenty-six volumes of this collection, covering the
years 1609-1740. Many of them are in bad condition and legible only in parts.
The material which they contain, however, is very varied, rich and detailed,
particularly for administrative history.
Vol. 1 (1609-1706). A late eighteenth-century copy. The period covered is
really 1607-1620 and 1705-1706. The most interesting portions of this codex
are those concerned with Timor and Solor, particularly fls. 102-210, which
deal at great length with Antonio Coelho Guerreiro and his governorship of
Timor in 1702-1705.1
Vol. 2 (1653 -1656). In very bad condition and only partly legible.
Vol. 3 (1653-1658). This is really a livro-copiador with copies of the viceroy’s
letters to Cochin, the Christians of Sao Thome, the Samorin of Calicut, and other
places on the Malabar coast. Unfortunately much of it is illegible and the
remainder very hard to read.
Vol. 4 (1666-1668). Also in very bad condition. It includes a lengthy but
fragmentary list of rendas and properties in the island of Bombay, 1668.
Vol. 5 (1686-1691). Also in very bad condition and illegible in many places.
Vol. 6 (1698-1723). In good condition. This is really a letter-book of vice¬
regal correspondence with East Africa and is of great value. It includes
interesting accounts of Zambcsia (1698) and letters for the Queen of Zanzibar,
Arab Sheiks, and so forth. It consists of 138 leaves.
Vol. 7 (1699-1703). Really the letter-book of viceregal correspondence with
the local authorities at Goa (Senate ; the “ Generals ” of Salcete and Bardez,
etc.) and includes copies of edicts promulgated for local consumption.
Vol. 8 (1704-1706). As above and including dispatches for commanders of
the coastal convoys to Kanara, Bassein, etc. In very poor condition.
Vol. 9 (1706-1709). As above but in even worse condition. Bulk illegible.
Vol. 10 (1709-1712). The legible part of this volume mostly contains corre¬
spondence with Joao da Silva Carquejo, the governor of Anjediva island.
Vol. 11 (1715-1717) and Vol. 12 (1717-1719) mainly consist of corre¬
spondence with the Governor of Anjediva. Nothing for the year 1720.
Vol. 13 (1721-1722). Contents are more varied than in the previous three

1 From these papers it is clear that my suggestion that Antonio Coelho Guerreiro went from
Batavia to Goa as a passenger (incognito) in Alexander Hamilton’s ship (Fidalgns in the Far Fast,
1550-1770, Hague, 1948, pp. 187-8) is unfounded. He went in a Dutch ship from Batavia to
Cochin, where he trans-shipped in a smaller vessel for Goa (11. 109 of this MS.),
XII

314

volumes, as correspondence with Chaul, Bombay, Kanhojt Anuria, the Maratha

chiefs, and the Portuguese provincial authorities in the north.1
Vol. 14 (1722-1724). Particularly detailed record of viceregal correspondence
with local civil and ecclesiastical authorities at Goa.
Vol. 15 (1724 1726) ; Vol. 16 (1726 1727) are in poor condition and there
is no volume for the years 1728-1730.
Vol. 17 (1731-1732) is mainly illegible but contains stray documents of 1743.
Vol. 18 (1733-1734) and Vol. 19 (1734-1735) arc mainly concerned with
local Goa correspondence. Both are in good condition.
Vol. 20 (1736-1737). Correspondence with the junta de comercio de
Mozambique figures prominently in this volume.
Vol. 21 (1735-1746) is more varied in contents but mainly concerned with
Mangalor and the Kanara coast.
Vol. 22 (1737). Local (Goa) correspondence; but the contents reflect the
repercussions of the Maratha war in the Province of the North, as do Vol. 23
(1737-1738) ; Vol. 24 (1738-1739); Vol. 25 (1739) ; and Vol. 26 (1739 -1740).
Many of these documents are printed in Arq. Port. Or. (1940), Tomo I, vol. iii,
pt. v. I had no time to examine the rest of this collection but was assured that
it was complete for the remainder of the eighteenth century. It will be seen
from the above that the years 1G20 1G52, 1G59-1GG5, 1GG9- 1G85, 1G92-1G97
are missing from the volumes covering the seventeenth century.

8. Livros de rrgimentos e instrucqbes (1564-1869). 25 volumes

The first thirteen volumes of this collection, covering the period down to
1745, were examined. Here again, the condition of many of the volumes is poor,
but some of the instructions and orders recorded herein are likewise available
in other collections, such as the Segredos and the Livros das Monqdcs. Mostly
folio volumes in size.
Vol. 1 (1564-1631). The sixteenth-century material in this volume has been
printed by Dr. Pissurlcncar, Regimentos das Forlalczas da India. Estudo e
Notas (Goa, 1951).
Vol. 2 (1596-1640). Despite the dating on the title it contains documents
dated 1G43, 1GGG, etc. Most of the entries are very brief and the bulk of the
codex is badly faded.
Vol. 3 (1636-1640). Contains a great number of interesting orders and
instructions for captains of fleets and ships, governors, and other ollicials pro¬
ceeding to Ceylon, Malacca, Macao, the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, and
elsewhere. Pagination is confusing.
Vol. 4 (1640-1646). Contains similar material to the preceding.
Vol. 5 (1647-1657). Especially rich in material on Macao.
Vol. 6 (1657-1666). Preliminary leaves comprise original documents con¬
cerning the Captain-General Luis de Mendoza Furtado and his Armada de

1 The Province of the North wan the name given by the Portuguese to their possessions along
the west const of India from Din to Bassein.
 XII

A OUMV.SK OF THE OOA ARCHIVES 315

alto-bordo (December, 1057-March, 1658). There is also a good deal concerning

the campaigns against the Dutch in Malabar, 1(559 1003. There is a gap in this
series from 1007 to 1083, inclusive.
Vol. 7 (1684-1710). The original title of this codex was “ livro dc segredo ”.
(Cf. next item, nr : 9 infra.) It is mainly concerned with the orders given to
captains of homeward-bound Indiamen during this period ; but the last leaves
contain the vias dc succcssao of the government of Timor in 1709-1710.
Vol. 8 (1696-1704). Includes instructions for commanders of the fleets
operating in the Persian Gulf; the ambassador, Gregorio Pereira Fidalgo, in
Persia ; reinforcements for Mombassa ; orders for Governors of Mozambique,
Zambesia, Macao, and Timor.
Vol. 9 (1704-1717). Includes all the orders and instructions given to the
capitdo-de-niar-e-guerra of the frigate which was sent yearly from Goa to Macao
during this period. It also covers naval expeditions to the. Persian Gulf,
Malabar coast, and Timor.
Vol. 10 (1711-1738). Contents similar to previous volume but its condition
is so bad that no document is legible in its entirety.
Vol. 11 (1711 1727) is especially valuable for Macao and Timor.
Vol. 12 (1727 1737) contains the orders and instructions for the com¬
manders of the armada which retook Mombassa in 1727, and for the governors
of Mombassa and Patta during the ephemeral Portuguese rcconquest of the
East African littoral in 1728-1729.
Vol. 13 (1737-1745) covers the Bassein campaign and war with the Marathas.

9. Livros da correspondence a secrela (segredos) (1635-1713). 2 volumes

Vol. 1 (1635-1647). Large folio. In good condition. This codex contains
chiefly orders and instructions given to the commanders and pilots of homeward-
bound East-lndiamen, as also of ships bound for Malacca, Macao, and elsewhere.1
Some of the ships were freighted from the English at Surat. There are also some
papers concerned with the Portuguese embassy to Japan in 1047, including
those already published in my The Emf>assy of Captain Goncalo de Siqncira de
Souza to .Japan in 1644-1647 (Macao, 1938). Most of the documents in this
volume arc contemporary copies, but among the originals is one, “ Instrucyao
socreta de que ha dc uzar Gomes Freire de Andrade, capitao do galeao Sdo
Francisco Xavier na volta que nolle ha de fazer de Machao ” [by the straits of
Bali], dated February, 1042. Among the signatories to this document is an
English pilot (? Richard Adams).2 Another interesting item is the
“ Interrogatorias sobre a perda da fortaleza de Malaca que os Olandezes
tomarao a 14 de Janeiro dc 1040 ”, dated 21st July, 1042 ; but unfortunately

1 LeRoy Christian's description of theso two codices ns “ a record in two volumes of Portugal’s
secret negotiations with the Kings of Ceylon during the period 1635-1715 ”, is most misleading.
2 For proposals to avoid the Dutch blockade of the straits of Singapore by using the Bali
straits and alternative passages, cf. L. Bourdon, “ AntAnio Fialho Ferreira ct le projet de liaison
Mncao-Lisbonne en droiture (1640-1045),” an article reprinted from Rome unspecified Portuguese
magazine (Lisbon, 1051).
XII

316

the resultant devaga or judicial inquiry into the fall of Malacca is not present
here or elsewhere. There is a gap of over sixty years between the contents of this
volume and the next, which is
Vol. 2 (1711-1715). This contains much viceregal correspondence with the
Captain-General and senior officers in the Province of the North. It has a great
dedl of material on the naval war with the Arabs of Muscat in the Persian Gulf
and Indian Ocean, but nothing connected with voyages to Macao and Timor.

10. Livros da Consulta (1614-1742). 12 volumes

These are records of the services of Portuguese fidalgos and soldiers in Asia
who were claiming grants or rewards from the home government. The collection
is not, of course, complete, but gives valuable biographical details of those
concerned. Several volumes are badly wormed.
Vol. 1 (1614-1649). Very badly wormed and legible only in parts. One of
the most interesting (and legible) certificates relates the services of Antonio
Bocarro, the famous chronicler and compiler of the IAvro do Estado da India
Oriental (1G35). This confirms that he was a brother of the celebrated
physician Manoel Bocarro Francez, but shows that he was born at Lisbon (and
not at Abrantes as hitherto supposed) and that he came out to India in 1615
and not in 1622. It further proves that he served for thirteen years as a soldier
in the fleets and garrisons along the west coast of India before being given a
secretarial position by the Viceroy, Conde de Linhares.1
Vol. 2 (1629-1679). This volume has a gap from 1G42 to 1G77 but it has
several documents concerning the attempt to settle white colonists in Zambesia
in this latter year.
Vol. 3 (1652-1618) [sic]. Apart from certificates of services this volume also
contains a large number of carlazes or passports issued to shipping belonging to
Indian princes for the years 1618-1621. These should logically be bound with
the collection entitled Livros dos cartazcs, which comprise six volumes covering
the years 1704-1817 but which I had no time to examine. This volume also
includes material of the sixteen-eighties.
Vol. 4 (1663-1666), Vol. 5 (1666-1680), Vol. 6 (1673-1674), and Vol. 7
(1688) require no special comment. There is a gap till 1700 and then come
Vol. 8 (1701), Vol. 9 (1717-1723), Vol. 10 (1724-1732), Vol. 11 (1736), and
Vol. 12 (1742), all of which are indexed.

11. Petigdes despachadas no Conselho da Fazenda (1682-1808). 24 volumes

I examined cursorily the first six volumes of this series, which go down to
the year 1717. They are of great importance for the economic history of
Portuguese Asia. The contents include petitions by religious orders con¬
cerning their dues, pensions, and hospitals ; details of passages and accom¬
modation on homeward-bound Indiamen ; petitions of Indian merchants ;
1 I may add that in the Arquivo Historico Ultramarine at Lisbon (codex no. 445, fl. 116) is
a petition by Bocarro’s widow, Isabel Vieira, dated 17th September, 1649, which proves that he
was dead before that date.
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 317

records of payments of all kinds ; the assentos or resolutions of the Conselho da

Fazenda at Goa.
Vol. 1a (1682-1684) ; Vul. Ill (1684-1686) ; Yol. 2 (1686-1691) ; Vul. 3
(1706-1708); Vol. 4 (1708-1710) ; Vol. 5 (1715-1717).

12. Livros da ccrlidocs (1602-1877). 7 volumes

This series is in very bad condition due to extensive worming, fading, and
damp. Many of the documents are quite illegible.
Vol. 1 (1602-1628). Mainly dealing with questions of landed property.
Vol. 2 (1640 -1644). Mostly concerned with certificates of service of fidalgos
and soldiers who had come out to India in 1G19 and 1624.
Vol. 3 (1646). Mostly illegible, but what remains is interesting.
Vol. 4 (1672-1694) ; Vol. 5 (1733-1768) ; Vol. 6 (1766-1800) ; and Vol. 7
(1857-1877) are in poor condition.
The years 1629-1639, 1645, 1647-1671, 1695-1732, 1801-1857 are missing.

13. Livros da correspondencia de Claud (1663-1740)} 2 volumes

Vol. 1 (1663-1672). The first fifteen leaves consist of illegible fragments and
the remainder of this volume is in very poor condition.
Vol. 2 (1734-1740). Covers the viceroyalty of the Condo, de Sandomil and
closes with the viceroy’s orders for the evacuation and abandonment of Chaul
to the English and Marathas in December, 1740. The years 1673 1733 arc
missing. Some of the correspondence in the second volume is printed in
Arquivo Pori. Or. (second series), Tomo I, vol. iii, pts. iv and v (1940).

14. Livros da corrcspondvncia do Ba^aim (1639 1739). 7 volumes

Vol. 1 (1639-1660). In bad condition. There is a gap from 1646 to 1652
and the bulk of the documents for the years 1652-1660 are completely illegible.
Vol. 2 (1678-1681). Likewise in very poor condition due to fading, damp,
and worming.
Vol. 3 (1699-1706). The documents for 1699 are in fragments only, but those
for 1700-1706 are mostly legible.
Vol. 4 (1693-1698); Vol. 5 (1727-1732); Vol. 6 (1735-1737) arc all in
pretty poor condition from damp, fading, and worming.
Vol. 7 (1737-1739) is in good condition and contains a lot of interesting
letters and dispatches on the Maratha war. Many of these letters have been
printed in extract by Dr. Pissurlencar in his articles “ Portugucses e Maratas ”,
published serially in the Bolctim do Imtituto Vasco da Gama (Nova Goa,
1926-1934), and by Bragat^a Pereira in the Arq. Port. Or. (2nd series), Tomo I,
vol. iii, pts. iv and v (1940).

1 LcUoy Christian's account of Chaul (11 AllII, xxv, 14(1), which in evidently taken from
Murray’s Handbook fur Travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon (ed. 15438), con fuses Upper with
Lower Chaul. Far from “ not a trace remains of the once famous city ” there are substantial
ruins to be seen of “ Chaul de baixo “ Chaul de cima ” was a purely Indian city never possessed
by the Portuguese.
XII

318

15. Livros da Correspondencia de Macao [e dc Timor c da Canard] (1677-1861).

9!) volumes
This is one of the richest anil most important collections in the archives at
Goa, but 1 only had time to examine the first ten volumes.
Vol. 1 (1677 1681). Contains copies of viceregal correspondence wit h Macao,
Kanara, Siam, Lesser Sunda Islands (Flores, Solor, Timor), and Manila. It is
wrongly lettered on the spine 1(577-1781. In pretty good condition.
Vol. 2 (1682). Despite the lettering on the spine this volume contains
transcripts of many documents of the sixteen-fifties and sixtecn-nincties. It also
includes correspondence with the Portuguese padres of Peking. In pretty
good condition.
Vol. 3 (1704-1708). In very bad condition, only a few indecipherable
fragments of the first twenty-five leaves remaining and much of the remainder
is badly wormed. The letters and dispatches copied in this codex deal with
Macao, Siam, Timor, and Solor.
Vol. 4 (1718-1736). In fair condition on the whole but illegible in parts.
Deals with Macao, Timor, and the problems of the Portuguese Padroado and the
Chinese Rites. There arc also a few transcripts relating to Cambodia and Siam.
Vol. 5 (1736 -1746). Chiefly of interest for the viceregal correspondence with
Timor and with the Portuguese padres at Peking. In good condition.
Vol. 6 (1747-1756). Likewise includes correspondence with Timor, the China
Jesuits, and the Dutch Governor-General at Batavia.
Vol. 7 (1777-1784). This volume contains not only transcripts of ollicial
correspondence but some original papers. Correspondence with Manila is
included in this and the following volumes.
Vol. 8 (1778-1784); Vol, 9 (1783-1784) ; Vol. 10 (1784) are all in good
condition and contain original papers as well as contemporary transcripts.
Leltoy Christian’s remark that this collection is concerned with Japan as
well as with Macao, China, Manila, and Timor is somewhat misleading. The
only references to Japan are connected with the abortive elfort to reopen
intercourse with that country in 1G85 and are of no importance.

1(5. Livro dc rcccila c despeza do Colcrp'o dc Macao (1693 -1736).

This codex (which is not recorded in Pissurlencar's Holciro) is in excellent
condition. It gives full details of the income derived by the Portuguese Jesuits
of the China Mission from their landed property in the Province of the North
and of the expenses of their missions in China and Indochina. It is essential for
a thorough understanding of the financing of their missions in the Far East
during the first half of the eighteenth century.

17. Livros de Homena<jcns (1638-1805). 8 volumes

This is a remarkable collection of the forms of oath taken by governors,
captains of fortresses, armadas, etc., and other senior officials on assuming
office. They arc invaluable for compiling biographical data and ascertaining the
exact dates when any particular incumbent assumed or relinquished his post.
 XII

A nUMPSE OF THE OOA ARCHIVES 319

Tlicy arc the originals with autograph signatures. Although the collection is
not absolutely complete for all years it is a remarkably representative one on
the whole.
Vol. 1 (1638-1646). Some damage from damp but bulk legible.
Vol. 2 (1656-1678). In very poor condition from damp, bulk being illegible.
Many documents in this volume are wrongly bound and a number of assentos,
regimen I os, and bandos of the years 1658-1078 have been included by mistake.
1 ol. 3 (1667-1689). Likewise damaged considerably by damp.
\'nl. 4 (1680-1698) (alias 1049-1099], The first eighty-nine leaves cover the
years 1049-1055. Then there is a gap to 1091, when the documents carry on
to 1099.
Vol. 5 (1689-1716). This volume, is particularly full and detailed for the
years 1700-1715.
Vol. 6 (1713 1737). Badly wormed but bulk legible.
1 ol. 7 (1842-1877) and 101.8 (1744-1805) should be transposed. It will
be seen that the years 1047-1055 and 1738-1743 arc wanting.

18. Livros (Ins ordens regias (1630-1824). 84 volumes

Only the first six volumes of this series were examined by me.
Vol. 1 (1574-1594). Identical with Vol. 1 of t he Livros das Monroes, q.v.
svpra (p. 301, item no. 1).
Vol. 2 (1630 1638). In eighteenth-nineteenth century copies. It has a
serviceable list of contents. It contains copious extracts from official corre¬
spondence of 1030-1038, and much of the matter is duplicated in the Livros
das Mon goes scries and in the assenlos of the Consclho do Estado described
infra. Els. 184 195 comprise an interesting report on the condition of the
Dutch, English, and Danish settlements and enterprises in Asia, dated 1038.
Vol. 3 (1637-1645). Despite the lettering this volume includes documents of
1080-1G81 on trade with Zambesia and on the transplantation of spices to
Brazil, and a number of documents dated 1077 concerning East Africa.
FIs. 381-409 contain transcripts of documents concerning the Pernambuco
rising against the Dutch and the resultant hostilities in Brazil, 1045-1040.
Vol. 4 (1660-1666). Contains, inter alia, transcripts of the letters written to
the home government by the Governors of India in 1001. Other matters dealt
with at length in this codex are the broils originated by the unruly canons of
Goa Cathedral, and the misdeeds of Dom Francisco dc Lima, formerly governor
of Mozambique.
Vol. 5 (1688-1773), Vol. 6 (1725-1733), and subsequent volumes are almost
entirely concerned with correspondence between the home government and the
“ administradores da Junta de Tobaco ” at Goa.

19. Livro do registo da correspondencia relativa a uma embaixada da China

(1669). 1 volume
This codex of fifty-six leaves is an original letter-book (on Chinese paper) of
Bento Pereira de Faria, the Macaonese secretary to the embassy of Manuel de
XII

320

Saldanlia in 1607-1070.1 Nearly all the documents transcribed in this codex

are authenticated by Bento Pereira and have his autograph signature. Most
of the documents arc records of appointments made by Manuel de Saldanlia,
who in addition to being ambassador and envoy-extraordinary to the. young
Manchu Emperor was also invested with viceregal powers over all Portuguese
subjects and settlements east of Malacca. From the documents transcribed
in this curious codex it is clear that the ambassador was reduced to great straits
at Canton, where he had to wait for over a year before receiving permission to
proceed to Peking. He was compelled to sell his household silver to pay for food
for his suite ; and the embassy was only able finally to get to Peking by means
of a loan raised from the King of Siam by the city of Macao.

20. Livro de assentos do Conselho de Estado (1618 -1740). 10 volumes

This series is in some respects the most interesting and valuable of all.
Although the minutes of the meetings of the Viceroy’s advisory council of state
for the years 1024-1028, 1723-1720, and 1728-1730 are missing, most of the
assentos for the other years are preserved in this collection. It thus gives a very
good picture of “ Asia Portuguesa ” in the seventeenth and first half of the
eighteenth centuries, and a clear idea of the problems confronting those at the
helm of government in Goa, and the ways in which they tried to solve them.
Some of these assentos are contemporary transcripts, but the majority are the
original minutes with the autograph signatures of those who attended the
meetings. It is clear from a perusal of these minutes that although the viceroy
(or governor) did not always follow the advice of the majority of his councillors
on any given problem he usually did so. Moreover, the councillors were seldom
“ yes-men ”, but spoke their minds freely ; so the decisions of the C'onselho
de Estado da India were not always unanimous. Finally, a study of these
documents leads to the conclusion that while the viceroy did not invariably
submit questions of high policy to the Consclho de Estado lie certainly did so
more often than not. The position of councillor was evidently a coveted one and
usually given only to fidalgos with a record of long and distinguished service.
Sometimes they were nominated directly by the Crown ; at other times by the
viceroys, subject to confirmation by the Crown. Once nominated, a councillor
usually served until his death or until incapacitated by old age or disease, and
hence the turnover was relatively slow. This made for continuity of policy and
balanced the fact that the viceroy (or governor) of India was usually restricted
to a three-year term of office. Most of the volumes are large folios in size.
Vol. 1 (1618-1624). The first thirty leaves are in very bad condition and

1 For the embassy of Manuel de Saldanlia, cf. (.!. It. Boxer and J. Braga (eds.]. Breve Relaqdo
da jornada <pie fez a Corte de Pekini n senhnr Manuel de Saldanha, embaixador extraordinario del
Bey de Portugal ao Emperador da China e Tartaria (1667-1670), cscrila pelo Padre Francisco
Pimentel e documentos contempnrancos (Macao, 1942) ; D. It. Fires de Lima, A Embaixada de
Munuel de Saldanha ao imperador K'hanghi em 1667-1670 (Lisboa, 1930) ; C. It, Boxer [ed.],
Azia Sinica e Japonica. Obra postuma e inrilita do frade Arrabido Jose de Jesus Maria, ii (Macao,
1950), 76-80.
 XII

A (SMMPSE OF THE OOA ARCHIVES 321

legible only in fragments. Among the matters discussed in this codex are the
treaty made at Malacca with the Malay Queen of Patane (30th April, 1619) ;
operations against the Persians and English in the Persian Gulf (Constantino do
Si! wrote from Muscat in May, 1G22 : “ O Inglez faz-nos guerra com benevo-
lencias, e os soldados nfio hao dc j)elejar senao enforcarcm alguns de Queixome
e de Ormuz, o que eu fareij se os encontrar . . .”) ; Macao, and the Japan
voyages in 1G22-1624.1
Vol. 2 (November, 1629-November, 1635). Many of the minutes for 1G33,1634,
and some for 1635 are missing ; but this codex throws new light on such matters
as the Conde de Linhares’ projected expedition to Ceylon in 1G31 ; the loss and
recapture of Mombassa ; the preliminary negotiations for a truce with the
English ; news from the Court of Bijapur (March, 1631). I may mention in
passing the council held on 11th March, 1G33, to discuss the news of the capture
of the Portuguese settlement at Ilugli by the army of the Great Mogul, “ e de
saber o modo que se avia de ter com este Kci c se se devia dissimular com elle
carregando a culpa aos Portugueses, e tornar outra vez a abrir o dito porto por
razao dos mantimentos que dally hiao a fortalesa de Malacca.”
Vol. 3 (Derr.mbcr, 1635-December, 1639). Badly wormed but transcribed in a
very neat hand; This codex is particularly rich in material on the armada de
allo-bordo of Antonio Tclles, and on Muscat, Ceylon, Bijapur, and Malacca.
Most of the documents arc dated 1G36, there being very few of 1639. In view of
the exaggerated statements sometimes made, as to the numbers of missionaries
in Portuguese Asia the following official figures as recorded in a council-meeting
of 3rd January, 1636, are interesting :—
Franciscan friars .... 060
Dominicans ..... 250
Jesuits ...... 660
Augustinians .... 220
Barefooted Carmelites ■10

Total of members of religious orders. 1,730

which, as their prelates argued, was not an excessive number considering the
vastness of the mission-fields and the “ maligima clima ” of Goa.
Vol. 4 (1639 1645). In good condition with only minor worming. This
volume contains much material on the negotiations for a truce with the Dutch
in 1641-1644, the war in Ceylon, and dealings with the ‘Add Khan of Bijapur.
There arc also some curious references to the offers of the Danish Resident at
Tranquebar to help the Portuguese against the Dutch by allowing the use of
Danish shipping and neutral flag. He even offered to make a voyage to Japan on
Portuguese account, and he regularly supplied the authorities at Goa with
intelligence of the Dutch movements. A council meeting on 18th August, 1640,
decided to accept his offer and stressed the importance of the “ avisos que fazia

1 These documents complement those printed in my As viar/ens de Jujmo r os sous capildes-

rnorcs (1550 1640) (Macao, 15)41).
XII

322

o Dinamarqua os quaes conforms a experieneia dos passados erao ccrtlssimos

por serem tirados do dentro dos cocoes dos mesmos olandcses
Vol. 5 (1646-1655). In fair condition. The entries for H>4<> arc obviously
incomplete and many of those for 1(551 and 1052 have been bound in the wrong
order. Most, of the material is concerned wit h Ceylon and the Dutch war; but
there is also a good deal about Bijiipur, Onor, and the unruly August inian friars.
Vol. 6 (1655 1676). Mostly legible, despite much worming. The Dutch war
is still the main preoccupation of the council down to 1004 but there is a good
deal of material in this codex connected with the rise of the Maratha chief
Shivaji and the increasing menace of the Arabs of Oman in the Persian Gulf
and Indian Ocean. There is surprisingly little about Bombay before 1008 but
a good deal afterwards. There is very little on Macao and Timor.
Vol. (Wo number. Lettered 1676, but eovers 1676-1698.] Among the matters
dealt with at some length in this codex arc Goanese Hindu marriage ceremonies ;
disputes with the English of Bombay ; war with the Arabs of Oman ; the
occupation of Anjediva island, so as to anticipate its expected seizure by the
Maratha chief Shambhiijl; ecclesiastical and missionary disputes (Padroado
and Propaganda) ; and the disastrous Maratha war of 1083.
Vol. 7 (1693-1698). In poor condition but the bulk of the documents are
legible. Mainly concerned with the expedition of the Oonde de Villa-Verdc to
the north ; the Marathas ; Bijapur ; siege and attempted relief of Mombassa ;
and the seizure of Indian ships unprovided with Portuguese passports (carlazes).
Vol. 8 (1699-1712). The number of annual entries seems to be tapering off
in this volume. It nevertheless contains a lot of material on the abortive
Companhia Geral do Comcrcio da India ; futile efforts to relieve Mombassa ;
rise to power of KanhojI Angria ; the Maratha and other “ Reis vizinhos ”.
There is relatively little about Macao and Timor, but these colonies are
adequately covered by the corresponding material in the Macao correspondence
described in item nr. 8 above.
Vol. 9 (1712-1721) [alias 1740]. The struggle with the Arabs of Oman, with
Angria, and (from 1737) with the Marathas, supply most of the material for
the entries in the volume. There are also some interesting assentos
(15th December, 1718 ; 9th and 21st August, 1721) on the proposed alliance
with the English of Bombay against Angria. The documents relating to- the
campaign (December, 1721-January, 1722) in the IAvros das Monroes and other
codices will be found printed in the Arq. Port. Or. (2nd series), Tomo I, vol. iii,
pt. iii (1940). It is interesting to note that the decision of the Viceroy, Francisco
Jose de Sampaio e Castro, to join with the English in attacking Angria’s strong-

1 The Resident at Tranqucbar was Barend Pessaert (Bnrent l’clser), a renegnde Dutchman,
who having qunrrellcd with his superiors had left their service and become head of the Dnnish
factory at Tranqucbar in 1030. He boasted to the Portuguese that he had been on friendly terms
with several of the leading daimyd in the dnys when he had been in Japan in the Dutch company’s
service. He sailed for Japan in 1044 but his ship was seized by the Dutch and taken to Batavia.
In May, 1045, he was allowed to go to Manila and spy for the Dutch, but was murdered there
shortly afterwards.
 XII

A GLIMPSE OF THE GOA ARCHIVES 323

hold at Kolaba, was unanimously opposed by the councillors and affords one of
the rare instances when a viceroy disregarded their advice. The councillors con¬
sidered that the Portuguese had enough wars on their hands already, that the
English were not to be trusted, and that the Indian auxiliaries (Bhandaris and
Kanarese) of both parties were hopelessly inferior to Angria’s men as fighting
material.1 The years 1723-1720 and 1728-1730 are missing, so there is very
little about the ephemeral Portuguese reoccupation of Mombassa and Patta in
1728-1729. On the other hand, the disastrous Maratha war of-1737-1739 is
well documented.

To sum up, it may be said that the student who is not looking for anything
in particular but who wishes to gain a general idea of Portuguese Asia in its slow
decline, will do well to begin by perusing the Assentos do Conselho de Eslado
and the Livros das Mongoes. Those who wish to concentrate on economic or on
ecclesiastical history can then study more specialized codices-such as the Petigoes
despacltadas no Conselho da Fazenda (1682-1808), the Provisoes a favor da
Christandade (1562-1843), or the Livros de papeis dos exlintos conventos
(1620-1841), and others of a similar nature which are listed in Dr. Pissurlencar’s
catalogue. Indian historians will, no doubt, be chiefly interested in the twenty-
two volumes of the Livros dos Reis Vizinhos (1619-1842), but many of the
documents in this collection arc already available in print, cither in whole or in
part, in the scholarly and voluminous articles of Dr. P. Pissurlcncar.2 It may be
added that there are numerous references to Indian affairs scattered throughout
the Livros das Mongoes series. These have also, in so far as Bijapur, the
Marathas, and Angria are concerned, been laid under contribution by
Dr. Pissurlcncar and by others ; but the references to Cochin, Golconda, and
other more distant states have not yet been thoroughly studied. The Portuguese
maintained Hindu, Parsee, and other agents at (or near) several Indian courts,
particularly at Bijapur until its conquest by Aurangzlb, and later on at Poona.
Much of the information which they supplied is embodied in the scries Livros das
Mongoes and Reis Vizinhos, but its value naturally varied with time and place.
Sometimes it was merely bazaar-gossip, at other times it came from people who
really were “ in the know ”. So far as I can judge, the Portuguese had no check
on the accuracy of these reports, as very few of them ever troubled to learn to
read and write the Indian scripts fluently. There were some good scholars
among the Jesuits, but these employed their talents on religious rather than on

1 “ Somelhante gento into serve pnra ataear hua Fortaleza <lo tanta supoziyao coma Cullaho,
c os nossos Canarins do Goa siio da niosino eategoria, ou pcoios,’’ as one ol the eouneillors wroto
of the Indian auxiliaries.
s As, for instance, in the following, among many others : The attitude of the Portuguese towards
Shivaji during the campaigns of Shaista Khan and Jai Singh (Calcutta, 1927) ; Prince Akbar and
the Portuguese (Calcutta, 1928) ; Portuguese records on llustamji Manockji (Goa, 1933); Agentes
Hindus da diplomacia Portuguesa, I, Cotlhari (Goa, 1933); A campanha Luso-Marata de Bagaim
(Bastora, 1942).
XII

324

political themes. For translations of Indian intelligence reports the Portuguese

depended entirely on the government interpreter(s) (Lingoa do Esfado) whose
office was for long hereditary in certain families. Dr. Pissurlcncar, who is best
qualified to judge, believes that while the Portuguese intelligence of Indian
affairs was not as a rule up to the standard of that received by the Dutch or
even by the English, it forms, nevertheless, a valuable supplementary source.
In any event, it is quite certain that no adequate history of Portuguese activities
in Asia can be written without making good use of the rich store of unpublished
material at Goa, or until more copious selections therefrom have been printed
for the use of historians elsewhere.1

APPENDIX
Programme of future puulications of documents from the Goa Archives

A. In I he Press.
(1) Agentes Hindus, Mugulmanos, Judeus e Parses da Diplomacia Portuguesa
na India.
B. Publication Approved in Principal.
(2) “ Foral de Salsetc (1067-1568).”
(3) “ Assontos do Consolho do Estado (1618 1740).”
(4) “ Relates externas de Portugal no Orientc.” Subdivided into :—
(a) Holandcses, Dinarmarquezes, Franceses e Ingleses.
(b) Mogol, Sultanados do Decao, Naiques de Inquiri e outros
Reis de Canara.
(c) e (d) Maratas.
(e) Haidar e Tipu.
(/) Outros potentados.
(5) “ Tratados da India.”
(6) “ Documentos em linguas orientals com as suns tradu^ocs on sumarios
cm portugues.”
(7) “ Subsldios para a Historia da Marinha Portuguesa na India.”
(8) “ Subsldios para a Historia do Exereito de Portugal na India.”
(6) “ Subsldios para a Historia da Igreja na India.”
(10) “ Roteiro dos Arquivos da India.”
(11) “ Indices de documentos de varias cole?6es do Cartorio Geral.”
(12) “ Galeria dos Vice-reis.”
As noted previously, the order of publication will not necessarily be that which is
given here and which is taken from the programme as approved by the Government-
General of Portuguese India, 12th December, 11)49.
1 It may be convenient to resume here the principal Goanese serial publications in which
documents from the local archives nre printed. As is only natural, the bulk of the documents
published therein refer to India proper, but Zambesia, Mozambique, and Mombassa are likewise
well represented for certain periods. Only the Bolelim do Institute Vasco da Gama is still in course
of publication, the other reviews having run their courso or been abandoned. O Gabinete
Litterariu das Fontuinlias. Publicaqd) Mensal (4 volumes, Nova Goa, 184(5-1848). 0 Chronista de
Tissuanj. Pcriodico Mensal (4 volumes, Nova Goa, 1866-180!)). Archivo Porluguez Oriental
[ed. Cunha Kivara] (8 volumes, Nova Goa, 1857-1876). Arquivo Portugues Orienlul (Nova Ediqdo)
[ed. Bragnn<;a Pereira] (II volumes, Bastora, 11)30-1940). O Oriente 1‘orluguez (17 volumes. Nova
Goa, 1904-1920). 0 Orientc Portugues (new series] (nos. 1-28, Nova Goa and Bastora, 1931-1941).
Polctim do lnstituto Vasco da Gama (nos. 1-66, Nova Goa and Bastora, 1926 -1950). Apart from
these magazines a large number of documents from the Goa archives were published in the local
government gazette, lhlelim do governo do Estado da India, by Cunha Kivara in 1857-1874.
 XIII

More about the Marsden Manuscripts in the British

Museum

A PART from a few brief notes of a general nature, the Marsden

manuscripts were first described in any detail as a collective
whole, by Father H. Hosten, S.J.,in the Journal of the Asiatic Society
of Bengal, August, 1910 (New Series, vol. vi, No. 8, pp. 437-461)
from material supplied to him by Messrs. Philipps and Beveridge.
With the transfer of the most valuable portion of William Marsden’s
magnificent Library from King’s College to the School of Oriental
Studies in 1918, the Marsden MSS., both those in the British
Museum and those now in the School, formed the topic of two articles
in the Bulletin of the S.O.S.—-the first by Sir Denison Ross in vol. ii,
pp. 513-538 (1923), and the second by Father Hosten, S.J., in
vol. iii, pp. 129-150 (1925). A few years later Sir Edward Maclagan,
who had already published some documents in extract in the
JASB. for 1896, catalogued those dealing with Northern India
and Bengal amongst the Letters, and Reports which he listed on
pp. 369-388 of his standard work, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul
(London, 1932).
These three writers were primarily interested in India or
Abyssinia, so they naturally did not concern themselves with those
documents dealing with the Far East. Unlike my predecessors,
it is the Jesuit mission-fields from Malacca to Japan which chiefly
attract me, so the Indian balance of former investigators is now
tipped on the other side. I have not, however, omitted the Indian
MSS., since my object has been to give a complete catalogue of the
Marsden manuscripts dealing with the Jesuit missions in Asia as
a whole. It is intended for the benefit of those who cannot directly
consult the originals, but who wish to obtain a clear idea of their
scope. In order to enable students to decide whether any given
MSS. has been published, in whole or in part, I have made a
tentative concordance with the works of Maclagan (Jesuits and the
Great Mogul), and Streit (Bibliotheca Missionum, vols. iv and v,
Aachen, 1928-9), which I hope will prove useful in this respect.
It only remains to add that although the reader will see from
64 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

this concordance that a number of the documents have been printed

in one form or another, the published versions are mainly abbreviated
translations ; whereas these Marsden manuscripts are the original
Portuguese records taken from the Jesuit Archives at Goa, after
the dissolution of the Company of Jesus in the Lusitanian domains
by Pombal in 1759. Who subsequently stole them I cannot say,
but it certainly was not Marsden, who was then only five years old.

Additional MSS. 9852.

fls. 1-37. Sumario de las cosas que pertengen a la Prouincia
de la India Oriental y al gouerno della compuesto por el padre
Alexandro Valignano Visitador della, y dirigido a N. Padre
General Euerardo Mercuriano en el Ano de 1579. The year 1579
has been added in another hand, and erroneously, as can be seen
from the conclusion of this treatise on fl. 37 where the date of
completion is given as August, 1580. Valignano made an expanded
version of this preliminary report which he sent to the new Jesuit
General, Claudio Aquaviva, nearly four years later. There is a
copy at
fls. 38-68. Sumario de las cosas que pertengen a la Prouincia
de Jappon, y al gouierno della, compuesto por el padre Alexandro
Valignano Visitador de los Indios de Oriente, dirigido a N. P. general
Claudio Aquaviva. Dated Cochin, 28th October, 1583. Portions
of this work were embodied in his Historia del Principio y progresso
de la Compania de Jesus en las Indias Orientales (1542-1564),
edited and printed by J. Wicki, S.I., at Rome in 1944, but the bulk
of it remains unpublished. An eighteenth century transcript of
this document (made from another sixteenth century copy at Macao
in 1745) is to be found at the Ajuda Library, Lisbon (Jesuitas na
Asia, Codex 49-iv-56), and a much truncated version in the
Public Library at Evora (Codex a nr : 44, p. 21).
fls. 69-70. Catalogo de las casas de Jappon y delo que coda ano
han menester, n.d., n.p. but circa 1580.
There is an eighteenth century transcript of this piece in the
Ajuda Library (Jesuitas na Asia, Codex 49-iv-56 at fl. 94).
fls. 71-88. Consulta hecha en Jappon por el padre Alexandro
Valeoniano [sic], Visitador de la Compania de la India, en el ano
de 80 y 81. Containing a detailed analysis of twenty-one problems
connected with the Japan mission and raised at various missionary
conferences held in Kyushu between October, 1580, and December,
 XIII

MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 65

1581, where such thorny topics were ventilated as whether mission¬

aries of the Mendicant Orders should be allowed to help in the
evangelization of Japan ; whether native Japanese should be
received into the Company of Jesus ; how to avoid friction between
Europeans and Japanese ; the financial support which the mission
derived from trading and so forth, all set out at great length with
the arguments pro and contra.
fls. 89-96. Resoluciones que el padre Visitador da aqerca de los
preguntos de la consulta que se hizo en Iappon en diversas partes
el ano de 1581. Dated 16th January, 1582. Unsigned, but the last
four lines appear to be in Valignano’s autograph ; the remainder
of this piece, like the text of the rest of this codex, being written
in a singularly neat hand by some contemporary copyist. These
Resolutions contain Valignano’s answers to the twenty-one problems
propounded above, with the reasons for his decision, often expressed
at great length. A very brief version of the Consulta and Resoluciones
was printed in F. de Sousa Oriente Conquistado, vol. ii, pp. 533-552
(Lisboa, 1710). For a full list of Valignano’s works cf. the article of
Jack Braga, The Panegyric of Alexander Valignano, S.J., on pp.
523-534 of vol. v of Monumenta Nipponica (Tokyo, 1942), and
Pasquale d’Elia, S.I., Fonti Ricciane, vol. i, pp. 144-6 (Roma, 1942).

Additional MSS. 9853.

fls. 2-12. Anna de Vice prouincia do Sul de 1601. Collegio de
Cockim e suas residencias na vice Prouincia do Sul. Mostly about
Southern India and Bengal (Chatigao) but has a short final section
entitled Collegio de Nossa Senhora de Monte de Malaca [e] Residencias
de Maluco e Amboino, fls. llv-12r, alluding to English ships and
Javanese threatening Amboina. Written in a small neat hand,
the ink acid having corroded the paper in parts. Unsigned. Dated
Goa, 29th December, 1601.
Obviously the basis of Fernao Guerreiro’s Relaqam Annual for
1600 and 1601, chapters x-xxii (Lisbon, 1603).
fls. 13-16. Anua de Maluco e Amboino [de 1602]. Divided into
two parts ; the first, De Maluco de 602 (fls. 13r and v) is undated
but signed Luis Fernandes, with last few words in his autograph.
The second part, headed Anua de Amboino, is in the hand of the
same copyist as the first, but is more extensive (fls. 14-16) and is
signed and dated Louren^o Mansonio, Amboino, 10th May. No
year is given but the context shows it to be 1602.
XIII

66 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

Printed in Fernao Guerreiro’s Relagam Annual for 1602 and 1603

(Lisboa, 1605), ch. xiv-xix.
fls. 17-20. Alguds cousas de edificagao do Padre Nuno Roiz
Prouincial que Joy desta Prouincia e faleceo sendo Rotor deste Collegio
de Sao Paulo [in Goa] a 2a vez em o primeiro de Margo de 604. The
original draft, written in two different hands, fls. 18t> and 19r
are blank. Unsigned. Cf. JAS. Bengal, vol. vi (New Series),
p. 442 (Calcutta, 1911), for further details.
fls. 22-31. Anna do Sul de 602. Mostly concerned with southern
India, but has a section (fls. 29v-30) on Residencia de Maluco e
Amboino, and another (30v-31r) on the Residencia de Ceildo. Un¬
dated and unsigned but obviously written up at Goa. Likewise
utilized in Fernao Guerreiro’s Relagam Annual, op. cit.
fls. 32-5. Relagam da Christandade de S. Thome feito pelo reverendo
senhor Bispo Francisco Roz da Companhia de Jesus e primeiro
Bispo latino daquella Christandade. Another hand has added Em
Tempo de Matthias d’Albuquerque fez esta enformagam feito pello
Pe francisco Roz. The ink acid has corroded the paper so badly
that the whole is virtually illegible. Cf. R. Streit, Bibliotheca
Missionum, vol. iv, p. 297 (Aachen, 1928).
fls. 36-61. Annua da Vice Prouincia do Malauar da India Oriental.
Another hand has added pera saber na prouincia de Goa. Despite
its title, this very lengthy report includes sections on Ceylon,
Coromandel and Bengal, as well as Malacca (59), Moluccas, and
Amboina (fl. 59-61). The letter is signed and dated Cochim, 15th
January, 1604, by Manoel Roiz, but the bulk of it is by different
copyists. The final section on Amboina includes a copy of part
of Padre Louren^ Mansonio’s letter of 10th May, 1602, on fls. 14-16
supra. For the Indian interest of this letter cf. JAS. Bengal, vi
(New Series), pp. 444-7, and Streit, op. cit., pp. 18-19.
fls. 62-84. Annua da Prouincia do Malauar da India oriental
do anno de 1604 e de 1605. This extensive report is not confined
to Malabar, but includes Coromandel, Bengal, Pegu, and (fls. 81-4)
Malacca and the Moluccas. The ink acid has corroded the paper so
badly in parts, that whole pages are virtually illegible. The report
is dated Cochim, 25th September, 1605, and signed Manoel Roiz,
though the text is not in his own handwriting but that of a copyist.
It forms the basis of Book III, chapters 1-9 in Fernao Guerreiro’s
Relagam Anual for 1604 and 1605 (Lisbon, 1607).
fls. 86-99. Relagao sohre a Serra. An anonymous treatise,
 XIII

MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 67

apparently drafted in 1604, on the Nestorian or Saint Thomas
Christians of Malabar. There appears to be something wrong
with the original pagination. Probably a version of the relaqao
of Bishop Francisco Roz embodied in Guerreiro, op. cit., ch. v.
fls. 100-119. Annua da Prouincia de Cochim do anno de 1612.
Not confined to Southern India, but deals also with Ceylon, Bengal,
Pegu, and (fls. 116-117) Malacca and the Moluccas. Dated Cochim,
2nd December, 1612, and signed Pero Francisco, but the report is
not in his handwriting but that of a copyist.
Probably the basis of the Italian Jesuit Relations for 1612,
apud Streit, Bibl. Miss, v, pp. 67-9.
fls. 120-136 Carta Annua da Prouincia do Malauar do anno de
1613 para o R. P. Geral Claudio Aquaviva. Includes sections on
Bengal and Pegu, but does not deal with the Far East. Dated
Cochim, December, 1613, and signed “ por commissao do Padre
Prouincial ” by M. Barradas. Ink acid has badly corroded the text
in many places.
Manuel Barradas was the author of a treatise on Hindu mythology,
Livro das Seitas dos Indias Orientaes (Sloane MSS., 1820).
fls. 137-144. Carta Annua da Prouincia do Malauar do anno de
615 para o M. R. P. Geral Claudio Aquaviva. Has sections dealing
with Malacca and the Moluccas on fls. 139-140. Dated Cochim,
20th November, 1615, and signed por commissao do Padre Pro¬
uincial by M. Barradas.
fls. 145-159. Anua da Prouincia de Cochim do anno de 619 pera o
MRP em xto P. Mutio Viteleschi. Signed and dated Cochim, 20th
November, 1619, by Padre Manuel Barradas. Has a lengthy section
on fls. 149-152 entitled Collegio de Malaca, e missoes do Macassar
e Bima, and a shorter one on fls. 152-3, Residencias de Maluco.
fls. 160-173. Annua da Missao de Madure desd’Outubro de 1656 te
septT0 de 659 ao Nosso Reverendo Padre Geral Gossvino Nickel. Dated
Trigerapally, 22nd July, 1659, and signed Antam de Proe^a.
This is the holograph original.
Printed in French translation in Bertrand, Ixi Mission du Madurt.
iii, pp. 41-76, Paris, 1850.

Additional MSS. 9854.

fls. 1-4. A.L.s. of Padre Rodolfo dated fultepur [Fatehpur Sikri],
27th September, 1582 ; addressed to the Jesuit Provincial Rui
68 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

Vicente. With seal. This letter has been printed more than once.
Cf. JAS. Bengal (New Series), vol. vi, p. 452.
fl. 5. Portuguese translation of the Emperor Akbar’s farman
in favour of the Padre Provincial, February, 1583. Printed by
E. D. Maclagan in the JAS. Bengal, vol. lxv, part i, pp. 38 ff.
(Calcutta, 1896).
fls. 6-19. A.L.S. of Padre Jeronimo Xavier, Agra, 6th September,
1604, addressed to the Jesuit Provincial Padre Manoel da Veiga
at Goa. Printed in extract in the JAS. Bengal vol. lxv, part i
(Calcutta, 1896), by E. D. Maclagan.
fls. 20-9. A.L.s. of Padre Manoel Pinheiro, Lahore, Pith August,
1605, addressed to the Jesuit Provincial Padre Manoel da Veiga
at Goa. Annexed is a Portuguese translation by Pinheiro of a
farman given by order of “ Jalaladin Mahomed, Great King and
slayer of infidels ”. Printed in extract by E. D. Maclagan in JAS.
Bengal (1896), pp. 98-106.
fls. 30-7. A.L. of Padre Manuel Pinheiro. Incomplete, since last
page(s) missing; endorsed in another hand 12th August, 1605.
Obviously another via or draft of the foregoing. Cf. E. D. Maclagan,
The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, p. 373 (1932).
fls. 38-52. A.L.s. of Padre Jeronimo Xavier, Lahore, 25th Sep¬
tember, 1606. Substance given in Guerreiro’s Relagam Anual
for 1606 and 1607. Maclagan, op. cit., p. 373.
fls. 53-63. A.L.s. of Padre Jeronimo Xavier, Lahore, 5th August,
1607. Endorsed on verso of last leaf, “ Points for the Annual [letter]
of the Lahore Padres for the year 607.” Substance given in Guerreiro
op. cit. Cf. Maclagan, p. 373.
fls. 64-76. A.L.s. of Padre Jeronimo Xavier, Agra, 24th September,
1608. Cf. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, pp. 374.
fls. 77-81. Discursso, sobre a Prouincia de Indostan, chamada
Mogdl e corruptamente Mogdr, com declaragao do Reino guzarate,
e mais reinos de seu distrito, ordenado por Manoel Godinho de Eredia,
cosmographo-mor do estado da Indias Orientaes, Anno 1611. This
brief cosmographical description of Hindustan, the Mogul Empire
and the principality of Gujarat, by the famous cartographer Manuel
Godinho de Eredia, is a fuller version of the very sketchy chapter 10
(Do Indostan) in his Declaraqam de Malaca e India Meridional com o
Cathay, etc., drawn up by him at Goa in 1613, and printed with a
French translation by L. Janssen under the title of Malaca, L'Inde
Mtridionale et le Cathay (Brussels, 1882). Although unsigned, this
 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 69
Discurso appears to be in the holograph of Manuel Godinho de
Eredia, judging by other autograph documents of his which I have
examined. I cannot find any reference to this particular MSS.
in any likely source which I have consulted, and therefore presume
it to be unpublished.
fls. 82-6. A.L.s. of Padre Jeronimo Xavier, Agra, 23rd September,
1613.
fls. 87-91. A.L.s. of Padre Francisco Corsi, Agra, 28th October,
1619, addressed to the Jesuit Padre Provincial Jacome de Medeiros
at Goa.
For printed versions in Italian, Latin, and English, cf. Maclagan,
op. cit., p. 376.
fls. 92-107. A.L.s. of Padre Antonio de Andrade, Agra, 14th
August, 1623. Antonio de Andrade, S.J., founded the Tsaparang
(Tibet) mission in the following year.
fls. 108-115. A.L.s. of Padre Francisco Corsi, Agra, 22nd January,
1627, with postscript dated Agmir (Ajmir), 3rd April, 1627,
Addressed to the Jesuit Provincial at Goa. Cf. Maclagan, op cit.,
p. 378.
fls. 116-132. Relaqao d’alguas comas que passarao na Missao
do Mogol, desdo fim do anno 627, tA ao dia presente 13 de junho do
anno 1628. (Narrative of some things which happened in the
Mission of the Mogul, from the end of the year 1627 to this present
day, 13th June, 1628.) Despite the reference to the 13th June,
the report is actually dated Agra, 6th October, 1628, and signed by
Francio Learn, in whose holograph it is. Cf. JAB. Bengal, xxxi,
1925, pp. 56-7.
fls. 133-6. Annuae Literae Collegij Agrensis e missionis Mogo-
rensis ; collectae ex parte anni 1648 e parte anni 1649. This unsigned
undated, and possibly unfinished annual report for 1648-9 on the
Agra College and Mogul mission is in Latin throughout. Cf. Maclagan,
op. cit., pp. 381-2.
fls. 137-140. A.L.s. of Padre Antonio Botelho, Agra, 20th January
1652. Addressed to Padre Bento Ferreira. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit.
pp. 382.
fls. 141-2. A.L.s. of Padre Antonio Botelho, Agra, 1st February,
1652, to Provincial at Goa. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit., pp. 382.
fls. 143-4. A.L.s. of Padre Antonio Botelho, Agra, 1st February,
1652, addressed to Padre Bento Ferreira at Goa. With seal. A
virtual duplicate of the foregoing.
Aill

70 MORR ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

fls. 145-8. Relaqdo da missao de Mogor do anno de 666 ate o anno

de 71 indusivo o estado Temporal. Anonymous narrative, unsigned
and undated, of the spiritual and temporal condition of the Mogul
mission in 1666-1671. Maclagan (op. cit., p. 384) reads 1675 where
I read 1671. 0
fls. 149-150. Two certificates of inspection of the Mogul mission’s
expense account books, signed by Padre Antonio de Magalhaes,
Agra, end February, 1681. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit., p. 384.
fls. 151-8. Carta Annua da Missao do Mogol para o padre Gaspar
Affonso Prouincial da Prouincia de Goa. This annual report on the
Mogul mission is dated Agra, 17th September, 1686, and signed
Ignacio Gomez. Maclagan (op. cit., p. 385) reads 7th September
where I read 17th.
fls. 159-172. Carta da Missao do Mogul dirigida a N.M.R.P.G.
que content os succesos do anno de 1688, athi o de 1693. This anony¬
mous and undated annual report for 1688-1693, addressed to the
Jesuit General in Rome, has an undated note in Italian inserted
at fl. 161. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit., p. 385.

Additional MSS. 9855.

fls. 1-16. Summa Memorandum verum, quae apud Magni Mogoris

Regnum vidit, et obseruavit Pater Antonius Botelho societatis Iesu
Goanae Provinciae Praepositus Prouincialis, intra sexennium, qud
illic superior uixit et Missionarius. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit., pp. 383-4.
fls. 17-45. Rellagao das cousas mais notaueis, que obseruei no
Reino do Gram Mogol em perto de seis annos, que nelle estiue por
Missionario, e superior daquella Christandade. This extensive
narrative by Padre Antonio Botelho of the six years he spent
in the Mogul mission-field is the Portuguese version of the pre¬
ceding Latin Summa Memorandum. Extracts of this latter are
given in JAS. Bengal, vol. lxv (1896), and in (New Series) vi,
pp. 453-461, and sources there quoted.
fls. 46-51. Narrative of events in the realm of the Great Mogul
after the arrival there of Padre G. de Sousa. The last few pages
are missing, but this report is ascribed to Padre Sousa by a con¬
temporary annotation in another hand. The narrative begins
with the writer’s departure from Goa, 15th February, 1620. Not
cited in Maclagan’s catalogue of Jesuit Letters and Reports from
Mogor.
 XIII

MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 71

fls. 52-76. Annua da Missao do Mogor do anno de 1650. Anony¬
mous annual report on the Mogul Mission in Portuguese. Cf.
Mitclagan, op. cit., p. 382.
fls. 77-82. Carta Annua da missao do Mogol do anno de 1668 que
escreveo o Padre Manoel de Valle. Annual report on the Mogul
mission for 1668. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit., p. 383.
fls. 83-103. Carta Annua da Missao do Imperio do Grao Mogol
do anno de 1670 at o de 1678 para o nosso M. R. P. loam Paulo
Oliva Preposito Geral da Companhia de Jesus Annual report on the
Mogul mission for 1670-8. Dated Goa, 27th December, 1678,
and signed Joseph Freire. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit., p. 384, for other
versions and translations of this MSS.
fls. 104-111. Instrument do milagre do bem aventurado Sancto
Ignacio tirado a Dio. This is written in, to me at least, a largely
indecipherable hand, but it appears to be a notarial attestation
concerning a miracle wrought by the intercession of the blessed
saint Ignacio Loyola. Although the latter was only canonized in
1623, the document seems to be about twenty years earlier judging
from the handwriting or rather scrawl. Possibly the endorsement
was added later. Philipps was quite wrong in supposing this MSS-
to be written in Tamil (JASB., op. cit., p. 449).
fls. 112-18. Interrogatorios que se Mo de fazer as testemunMs
sobre a Canonizaqao do Padre Francisco Xavier por virtude das
remissorias Apostolicas, followed by the Artigos propounded by
Padre Bras Luis, S.J. [n.d.,n.p. but] Goa circa 1600. On fl. 118 is
an interesting list of witnesses.
fls. 119-124. Three A.L.s. of Padre Gregorio Roiz, S.J., dated
26th April, 1674, 5th July, 1675, and 19th February, 1676, written
from the Jesuit College at Agra to Padre Bento Ferreira, the
Provincial at Goa. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit., p. 384.
fl. 125-126. Apontamentos de hum caso de edificaqao succedido na
Missao de Mogol, tirados de hua carta do Padre Joao Leitao, escrita em
Agra a 12 de Dezemlrro de 1677. Endorsed on the back as Notes of
the Mogul Mission for the Annual Letter (of 1677).
fls. 127-8. Treslado da carta do Padre Prouincial Fernao de Queiroz,
ao Padre Prouincial de S. Agostinho sobre a Missao nova de Bengala.
Goa, 7th October, 1678. Copy of Padre Fernao Queiroz’s letter
to the Augustinian Provincial at Goa on the establishment of a
new Bengal Mission. Cf. Maclagan, op. cit., p. 384.
fl. 129. Copy of a letter of Padre Marco Antonio Santucchi
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72 MORE ABOUT THE MAR8DEN MANUSCRIPTS

written from Patna in Bengal, 29th August, 1679, to the Jesuit

Padre Provincial at Goa.
fls. 130-1. Regimento para os Padres Missionaries das Missdes
de Napal, Patana, e Bengala. Goa, 29th April, 1680. Cf. Maclagan.
op. cit., p. 387.
fls. 132-4. A.L.s. of Padre Marco Antonio Santucci, Hughli,
16th November, 1680, addressed to the Jesuit Padre Provincial,
Femao de Queiroz, at Goa. Cf. Maclagan, ibid.
fls. 135-6. An unsigned letter from a Jesuit missionary at Chapora,
Patana, 20th March, 1681, addressed to the Padre Visitador Antonio
de Magalhaens. Cf. Maclagan, ibid.
fls. 137-8. Copies of correspondence between the Missionary
Junta at Goa and Padre Gregorio Roiz, the Preposito Provincial
at Goa, 11—21 st January, 1682. Deals with the refusal of the
Portuguese authorities to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Bishops
sent out by the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide at Rome,
and instructing all Portuguese missionaries to refuse to take the
oath of obedience to such Bishops or Vicars-Apostolic. Not men¬
tioned in Maclagan’s The Jesuits and the Great Mogul.
fl. 139. A.L.s. of Padre Manoel Saraiva, Basna, 28th December,
1683, addressed to Padre Simao Martins, the Jesuit Praeposito
Provincial at Goa.
fls. 141-2. A.L.s. of Padre Ignacio Gomez, Basna, 17th December,
1683, to the same.
fls. 143-4. A.L.s. of Padre Marco Antonio Santucci, Noluacot,
21st June, 1682, to the same.
fls. 145-8. A.L.s. of Padre Joao Leitao, Patna, 15th September,
1682, to Padre Philippe Vagra.
fls. 149-150. A.L.s. of Padre Marco Antonio Santucci, Patna,
26th January, 1684, to Padre Simao Martins.
fls. 151-2. Portuguese translation by Padre Joao Leitao of a
petition in Persian presented to the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb.
Agra, 20th July, 1684.
fls. 153-5. Portuguese translation of an older letter of xaalandy
mamede [Shah’ Alawd din Muhamad] written from Agra to the
Jesuit Superior at Goa, 1st June, 1638.
fl. 156. The original petition of Shah’ AJaud din Muhamad.
fl. 157. A.L.s. of Padre Joao Leitao, Agra, 16th June, 1684, to
Padre Provincial at Goa.
fl. 158. Portuguese translation by Padre Joao Leitao of a petition
 XIII

MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 73

addressed t,o Emperor Aurangzeb, Agra, 20th July, 1684, asking

for the Jesuits to be exempted from payment of the poll-tax.
fl. 159. The original Persian petition.
fls. 160-7. Two A.L.s. of Padre Marco Antonio Santucci, Hughli,
20th August, 1684, for the Padre Provincial at Goa. Apparently
duplicates.
fl. 168. Document in Persian (Shikasta), apparently dated
circa 1628.
fls. 169-170. A.L.s. of Padre Marco Antonio Santucci, Hughli,
20th December, 1684, addressed to the Padre Provincial at Goa.
For particulars of the three Persian documents in this codex cf.
JAS. Bengal (New Series), vi, pp. 452-3. This article also contains
biographical notes on most of the Jesuit missionaries mentioned
in this codex, and further details can be obtained from the works of
Streit, Bibliotheca Missionum, iv, v (Aachen, 1928-9), and of Sir
E. D. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul (London, 1932).

Additional MSS. 9856.

fls. 1-114. Apologia e resposta feito pello Padre Valentim Carvalho
da Companhia de Jesus Prouincial nesta prouincia de Iapao e China,
a hum tratado do Padre Frei Sebastiao de Sao Pedro da ordem de
Sao Francisco, que se intitula recupilaqd das cauzas porque o Empera-
dor de Japao desterou de seus Reinos todos os padres. This polemical
treatise in defence of the Jesuits against the Franciscan Friars
also contains a mass of detail on Hispano-Portuguese rivalry
in the Far East in the first quarter of the seventeenth century.
Dated in the Jesuit College at Macao, 27th May, 1617.
Some extracts are printed in Colin-Pastells, Labor Evangelica,
vol. iii, pp. 378-396 (Barcelona, 1904). For the original Relacion
de la grande persecueion que ha auido contra la Xpandad en los reinos
de Japon of Padre Frey Sebastian de San Pedro (or Sebastian
Bemairohoa), O.F.M., which has likewise only been printed in a
very summarized form, cf. Streit, Bibliotheca Missionum, v, pp. 432-3.
Carvalho’s account is of special interest to English readers,
since he often quotes Will Adams, the Kentish pilot who became
a sort of unofficial adviser on foreign affairs to the Tokugawa
Sbogunate in 1600-1620. Adams told Domingos Francisco, a
Spanish envoy from Manila in 1612, “ You will see that there will
not be a single Padre left in Japan within three years from now.”
Francisco repeated this warning to his colleague, Oratio Nerete,
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74 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

the Portuguese envoy from Macao, who passed it on to Carvalho.

Adams’ prophecy—or threat—came to pass when the Roman
Catholic missionaries were all formally banished on pain of death
in 1614. This Apologia also gives a succinct account of the sus¬
picions aroused by Will Adams in the mind of Ieyasu, through the
charting of the south-east coast of Japan by Sebastian Vizcaino>
chief pilot from Mexico, in 1611. The matter is discussed on
pp. 485-492 of vol. ii of James Murdoch’s History of Japan, but
Murdoch and later historians, both Japanese and foreign, have
fallen into the error of assuming that Vizcaino was merely a sub¬
ordinate of Dom Nuno Sotomayor, usually described as a Spanish
envoy. This latter fidalgo was in fact a Portuguese ambassador,
sent from Macao to renew commercial relations between the Portu¬
guese colony and Japan which had been abruptly terminated by
the destruction of Pessoa’s carrack off Nagasaki in January, 1610.
In this Sotomayor was successful, but he had nothing to do with
Vizcaino’s mission.

Additional MSS. 9857.

11s. 1-140. Libro Primero del principio, y progresso de la Religion
Christiana en Jappon y de la especial prouidencia de que Nuestro
sehor usa com aquella nueua Iglesia. Compuesto por el Padre Alex¬
andra Valignano de la Compania de Jesus en el ano 1601. Neatly
written MSS. of 280 pp. in the hand of a contemporary copyist.
The work is divided into a Dedicatory Epistle addressed to the
Padre General, a Preface to the reader, and twenty-six chapters
dealing with the history of the Jesuits’ mission in Japan from its
discovery in 1542 to the death of Padre Cosme de Torres, one of
Xavier’s companions, in 1570. Valignano states in his dedication
that the work was begun on the 25th March, 1601, and the colophon
states it was finished on the 25th July of the same year.
There is an eighteenth century transcript, made at Macao in
1747, in the Ajuda Library at Lisbon (Jesuitas na Asia, Codex
49-4-53), from which a few short extracts were printed in Padre
Cros’ Saint Frangois Xavier, vol. ii (Toulouse, 1900).
Valignano knew Japan well as a result of three lengthy visits
he had there in his capacity of Visitor of the Jesuit Missions in
the Far East. Though incomplete, this work is comparable in
importance to the Historia de Japam by his contemporary Padre
Luis Frois, of which the first two parts covering the years 1549-1582,
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MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 75

have been published—the first section in German translation by

Voretzsch and Schurhammer, at Leipzig in 1926 ; and the second,
in the original Portuguese, by Okamoto and Abranches Pinto, at
Tokyo in 1938. I understand from these last-named friends of
mine that the third and final section of Padre Frois’ Historia,
in the form of Apparatos (i.e. Drafts or Materials) covering the
period 1583-1593, was ready for the press in 1941, but that publica¬
tion has been indefinitely postponed owing to the war and its
aftermath. After the deaths of Frois (1597) and Valignano (1606)
the work was carried on, after an interval of some years, by Padre
Joao Rodrigues T§uzzu (1561-1634), probably the finest Japanese
scholar of them all, but he likewise died before completing his
Historia da Igreja do Japao. Fortunately, however, a MSS. tran¬
script of his two first Books, containing a general description of
the country and people, has been preserved at Ajuda, and this
supplements to a large extent the missing portions of Frois’ and
Valignano’s works.

Additional MSS. 9858.

fls. 1-4. Certiddo do Senhor Dom Pedro Bispo de Japao acerga
do Estado daquella noua Igreia. This is a violent polemical attack
on the Spanish Franciscan missionaries, refuting their allegations
against the Jesuits and Portuguese, and blaming their own rashness
and folly for bringing on Hideyoshi’s anti-Christian campaign
which culminated in the seizure of the Spanish ship San Felipe
and the Franciscan Martyrdom at Nagasaki in 1597. The Bishop
in question was Dom Pedro Martins, and the document bears
his autograph signature and is dated Macao, 17th November,
1597.
fls. 4-5. Outra certiddo de Buy Mendez de Figueiredo Capitdo
mor da viagern de Japao ; trata da misma materia que a passada.
Evidence of Rui Mendez de Figueiredo, Captain-Major of the Japan
Voyage in 1596-7, to the same effect, Macao, 14th November, 1597.
It is interesting to note that both these certificates of the Bishop
and Captain-Major contain the allegation that a Spanish pilot
aroused the suspicions of the Japanese by telling an interrogator
that the Spanish conquests in America and the Philippines were
facilitated by native Christians who had been converted by the
friars. This allegation was repeated by Charlevoix and other
Jesuit chroniclers, but some modern Church historians have striven
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76 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

to deny that it had any foundation. For other accounts of the San
Felipe affair, cf. Streit, op. cit., iv, pp. 488-498.
fls. 6-7. Breue e uerdadeira Relaqao do triste succeso e perda da
Nao San Phelippe, que partio da manilha, para a noua Espanha,
com lormenta vejo ter a costa de Japdo que o Bispo do mesmo Japao
manda a Sua Magestade. Narrative of the loss of the San Felipe
off Tosa (Shikoku) in 1596, and the misadventures of her passengers
and crew. Drawn up by order of the foregoing Bishop D. Pedro
Martins, S.J.
Gives us inter alia a glimpse of the Spanish-Portuguese rivalry
which embittered their relations in the Far East. The Bishop
alleges that the Spaniards told the Japanese that the Portuguese
of Macao were mere merchants who could not give even the Achinese
a hiding, and that King Philip had conquered their kingdom,
whereas they (the Spaniards) were soldiers and warriors. He then
repeats the story about the friars being the forerunners of the
conquistadores, but adds that he had not heard it at first hand
but only on hearsay.
fls. 7-10. Narrative of the Franciscan Martyrdom at Nagasaki
in February, 1597, and events leading thereto. The blame is placed
on the friars’ own wanton rashness. Cf. Streit, Bibliotheca Missionum,
iv, pp. 496-7.
fls. 10-15. Minutes of missionary discussions on the movements
of the two Bishops of Japan, Dom Pedro Martins and Dom Luis
de Cerqueira, dated respectively Nagasaki, 14th March, 1597, and
Macao, 10th December, 1597.
fls. 16-58. Relacion de las cosas de Japan pera N. P. F. Francisco
de Arzubiaga Commissario general de todas las Indias en Carte.
MSS. notes in another hand at the beginning and end of this report
on the Franciscan mission in Japan, state that it was written by
Frey Martinho at Miaco (Kyoto), 1597. It is a copy and one much
damaged by corroded ink acid. Probably identical with item nr.
1810 in Streit, op. cit., p. 485,
fls. 58-61. Apontamentos sobre o remedio da Christandade de
Jappdo para se aprezentarem ao senhar Visorrey. Anonymous
narrative n.d., n.p. but circa 1598. Obviously drawn up by or at
the instigation of the Jesuits ; it advocates prohibiting all Spaniards,
whether religious or secular, from visiting Japan, and any found
there to be shipped under arrest to Goa. Also advocates increasing
the Bishop of Japan’s temporal authority, since the Portuguese
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MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 77

living or trading in Nagasaki and Kyushu “ would sooner obey

Bishops than Captains Likewise discusses schemes for the
conquest or coastal survey of Formosa, and criticizes the Spanish
tendency to interfere with the countries bordering on the South
China Sea, which the Portuguese regarded as being in their preserve.
fls. 61-80. Seguese hum tratado que os Religiosos de San Francisco
espalharao em Goa, e em Baqaitn no anno de 1598 contra os Padres
da Companhia de Jesus que andao na conversao de Japodo. The
authorship of this venomous anti-Jesuit tract is ascribed to Frei
Marcello de Ribadaneira, O.F.M. This work, which laid the blame
for the martyrdom of 1597 on the Jesuits, was formally condemned
at the request of the latter by the Inquisition at Goa on 14th August,
1598. Cf. Streit, op. eit., iv, p. 493, nr. 1851.
fls. 81-102. Apollogia en la qual se responde a diversas calumnias
que se escriuieron contra los Padres de la Companhia de Jesus de
Japon y de la China. Hecha par el Padre Alexandro Valignano de
la misma Companhia. A MSS. note on fl. 81 (? Yalignano’s holo¬
graph ?) states that this treatise was drawn up as a reply to the
attacks of Frey Martin de la Asuncion [cf. 16-58, supra] and other
Franciscan friars on the alleged misbehaviour of the Jesuits in
Japan and China. Cf. Streit, op. cit., iv, pp. 504-5 for location of
various printed extracts from this Apollogia, which has never been
printed in full. The latest account of the Franciscan
Martyrdom of 1597, is by P. Dorotheus Schilling, O.F.M., Cattura
e prigionia dei sanli Martiri di Nagasaki on pp. 202-242 of the
periodical Antonianum, Ann. xxii, Rome, 1947.

Additional MSS. 9859.

fls. 1-8. Annual letter from Japan dated Nagasaki, 1st October,
1585. The first half and the concluding line is in the hand of Padre
Luis Frois whose autograph signature is on the bottom of fl. 7.
It is addressed to the Jesuit General Claudio Aquaviva in Rome,
and endorsed 2a Via—De Japao ao primeiro de oulubro de 1585--
para se ver na china, Malaca, India e casas de Europa ate chegar
a Roma (2nd copy—from Japan, 1st October, 1585, to be seen in
China, Malacca, India, and in the European houses until it reaches
Rome). On Japanese paper. Printed in Cartas de Iapao e China
(Evora, 1598), 2nd Part, fls. 126-133.
fls. 9-18. Annual letter dealing with events in Bungo from
1st January to 31st July, 1585. Drawn up at Nagasaki on the
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78 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

20th August, 1585, by the Vice-Provincial, Gaspar Coelho, and

endorsed on the bottom of fl. 7 recto by Padre Luis Frois. Addressed
to the General Aquaviva via the Jesuit Colleges of Macao, Malacca,
Goa, Lisbon, etc., in the same way as the former, and written on
Japanese paper. Likewise printed in Part II of the Cartas de Iapao
e China, fls. 133-146 (Evora, 1598).
fls. 19-51. Annual Japan Letter for 1598, headed Annua do anno
de 98 que he como suplemento da que se escreueo em Outubro do mesmo
anno, showing it was a supplement to a previous one of October,
1598. Unsigned but in the same handwriting and on the same
sort of paper as fls. 52-9 Relaqao do Jim, e remate que tiue a guerra
de Corea, narrating the end of Hideyoshi’s disastrous expedition to
Korea, dated 20th February, 1599, by Padre Francisco Roiz
(= Rodrigues). This, however, is not the original but a copy. On
fls. 59-93 follow a detailed description of Jesuit establishments in
China, commencing with the Collegio de Machao, and the embryo
China mission. Drawn up at the College of Macao, 17th January,
1600, apparently by Jeronimo Rodrigues whose autograph signa¬
ture appears on the foot of fl. 93?). Fls. 19-93?) formed one complete
codex originally, endorsed as 2° via (duplicate) sent to the Jesuit
General at Rome through Padre Gil de Mata.
A very full and interesting account which goes far to fill the gap
between the Cartas de Japdo e China published at Evora in 1598,
and Padre Femao Guerreiro’s edition of the Annual Letters for
1600 to 1608, printed at Lisbon in 1603-1611. On fl. 51 is the
interesting statement that 7,300 Japanese were converted to
Christianity despite the unpropitious nature of the times.
fls. 94-148. Annual Japan Letter for 1600. Signed and dated
Nagasaki, 25th October, 1600, by commission of the Padre Vice-
Provincial, Valentim Carvalho. This letter is also on Japanese or
Chinese paper.
The substance was printed in Femao Guerreiro’s Relaqam Anual
for 1600-1601.
fls. 149-192. Annual Japan Letter for 1601, dated Nagasaki,
30th September, 1601. In the hand of an amanuensis but with
autograph signature of Padre Francisco Rodrigues at foot of fl. 191.
Likewise utilized by Guerreiro in his Relaqam Anual for 1600-1601
(Lisbon, 1603).
fls. 193-214. Annual Japan and Macao Letter for 1602-3. The
section dealing with Japan covers the period 1st October, 1601,
 XIII

MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 79

to 1st January, 1603, and is copied from an original by Padre

Gabriel de Matos, dated Nagasaki, 1st January, 1603. The Macao
section on fls. 212u-214 is dated Macao, 27th January, 1604, and
signed by Padre Diogo Antunes. fl. 215 is blank, and fl. 193 recto
is taken up with a report on the Japan mission taken from its
context since it has neither beginning nor end. Evidently fls.
193-214 were all copied at Macao by Diogo Antunes. Utilized for
the second volume of Guerreiro’s compilation.
fls. 216-269. Annual Japan Letter for October, 1605-October,
1606 ; dated Nagasaki, 15th January, 1607, drawn up by Padre
Joao Rodrigues Girao on the instructions of the Vice-Provincial.
This is not the original, but a contemporary copy which is badlv
corroded in many places by ink acid. The substance of these annual
letters is printed in Guerreiro’s third and fourth vols. (Lisbon,
1607-1609).
fls. 270-293. Annual Japan Letter for 1615, drawn up at Nagasaki,
15th March, 1616, by Padre Joao Rodrigues Girao on the instruc¬
tions of the Vice-Provincial. A contemporary copy like the fore¬
going. Contains inter alia a full and vivid account of the siege and
capture of Osaka by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Utilized for the abridged
Italian version (Lettere Annue) published at Naples in 1621.
fls. 294-329. Annual Japan Letter for 1625. It is an incomplete
copy of the 3a via addressed to the Jesuit General Vitelleschi at
Rome, and breaks off in the middle of a description of martyrdoms
in the Kubota district of Northern Japan. An Italian version was
printed at Rome and Milan in 1632. Cf. Streit, op. cit., 487-493.

Additional MSS. 9860.

fls. 1-6. Rol das casas e residencies que tem a companhia na vice-
prouincia de Japao neste mez de Novembro do ano de 92 com os nomes
dos Padres e Irmaos que nellas residem. Detailed list of the Jesuit
establishments in Japan and China, including a roll of all the
Jesuits stationed therein, together with the linguistic or other
qualifications of each one. Endorsed at the end by Padre Alexandra
Valignano, Macao, 19th January, 1593. The original on Japanese
paper. This statistical compilation gives a total of twenty-four
residential establishments with 207 churches, staffed by 154 Jesuits,
of whom 136 belonged to the Japan mission proper (though a few
of them were temporarily in Macao), and eighteen to Macao and the
China mission field. The Jesuit staff in Japan was supplemented by
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80 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

180 Japanese cathecists or acolytes known as dojuku (|pj {§)

wrho were studying for the ministry or filled minor offices like those
of sacristan, gatekeeper, and so forth. In addition to these, there
were a number of servants and watchmen, making a grand total of
670 Jesuits and their staff in Japan who were maintained out of
ecclesiastical funds. There is also a list of the eight principal houses,
sixteen residences, and 146 churches destroyed during Toyotomi
Hideyoshi’s anti-Christian persecution of 1587-1592. The first
leaf of this catalogue is wrongly bound in this codex at fl. 106 infra.
fl. 7. Sixteenth century document (receipt ?) signed by Bartolomeu
Gomez and witnessed by Gaspar Ferreira. Apparently has no
connection with the other documents in this codex.
fls. 8-12. Copy of a letter with news from Japan written by Padre
Francisco Passio, 16th September, 1594. Much damaged by ink
acid corrosion, but legible with difficulty.
fls. 13-22. Instrumenlo aulentico da felice, e gloriosa morte de vinle
e seis xpdos, que morrerdo crucificados por nossa sancta fee catholica
em Nangasaquy a cinco de fevereiro de 1597. Report of the
Franciscan Martyrdom resulting from the San Felipe incident of
the previous year. Contemporary copy of the original attestation
drawn up under the auspices of Bishop Dom Pedro Martins at
Macao, with full transcript of the eyewitnesses’ evidence. For other
accounts, cf. Streit, op. cit., iv, pp. 490-505, and P. Dorotheus
Schilling, O.F.M., Cattura e prigionia dei Santi Martiri di Nagasaki
(Roma, 1947).
fls. 23-32. Five drafts of Letters from the Bishop of Japan, Dom
Pedro Martins, to the Bispo Capellao Mor, the Pope, the King,
and to Pedro Alvares Pereira. They are all unsigned but four
of them, in Portuguese, appear to be holograph. The other one, to
the Pope, is in Latin and in the hand of a clerk. They range between
23rd February and 7th March, 1597, and are all written from
Nagasaki on Japanese paper.
fls. 33-50. Certidoens dos Reitores, Vice-prouincial e Bispo de
Japdo acerca das cousas de Japao iustificadas em Macao. Pera se
uer em Goa, Portugal, e Roma. 2a Via. A very full and interesting
account of the Jesuits’ Japan Mission in 1602, drawn up in due
legal form at Macao in 1603, and containing certified copies of
statements by the Bishop D. Luis de Ccrqueira and others at
Nagasaki in the preceding year. All the establishments and their
personnel are described in detail. There is an interesting account
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MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 81

of the Jesuits’ printing press at Nagasaki on fl. 36, which states,

inter alia, that the bulk of its production was distributed free to the
native Christians. Attached to the press was a painting atelier,
whose products, in oils, water-colours, and engravings, were used
to beautify the Jesuit establishments in China, as well as those in
Japan. On native paper. An abridged version printed in French
translation in Pages, Hisloire, ii, pp. 41-51 (Paris, 1870).
fls. 51-4. A.L.s. of Padre Manuel Frias addressed to the Rector
of the College of Saint Paul [? Goa] giving news of Japan for the
year 1596. N.p., n.d. but the original draft written on native paper,
presumably at Nagasaki.
fls. 55-7. Signed statement of the Bishop of Japan, Dom Pedro
Martins, dated Macao, 17tb November, 1597, on the causes of
Hideyoshi’s martyrdom of the Franciscans at Nagasaki in February
of that year. Bishop Martins ascribes this entirely to their own im¬
prudence and rashness, since the friars refused to follow the Jesuits’
example of “ working in disguise like we do in England nowadays ”,
which they regarded as “ cowardice and weakness ”. Another copy
in the Vatican archives was printed in Labor-Evangelica, ii,
pp. 698-700.
fls. 57-8. Certificate signed by the Bishop of Japan (Dom Luis
Cerqueira) at Nagasaki on the 21st February, 1599, giving a brief
statistical review of the results of the anti-christian persecution of
the preceding two years. Endorsed as the duplicate to be sent to
Portugal of the original sent by Padre Gil de Mata. Unpublished.
fls. 59-60. Draft of a letter (apparently autograph) written by
the Bishop of Japan to Dom Christovao de Moura. No date, but
written at Nagasaki circa 1597. Unpublished.
fls. 61-2. Formal protest of the Bishop of Japan (Luis de
Cerqueira), Padre Alessandro Valignano and other leading Jesuits
of the Japan mission, against the dispatch of Franciscan friars from
the Philippines to what the Jesuits regarded as their own exclusive
preserves. The original, with autograph signatures, dated Nagasaki,
23rd September, 1598.
fls. 63-5. Notarial attestation by Jesuit theologians and the Bishop
of Japan, declaring that various miracles attributed to the Spanish
Franciscan martyrs of 1597 had been investigated and found to be
false and spurious. Nagasaki, 3rd February, 1599. Contemporary copy.
fls. 66-7. Letter from Padre Alessandro Valignano, dated Xiqi
[Shiki], 12th October, 1599, to the Jesuit Provincial at Goa. Original,
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82 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

with autograph signature. Probably the covering letter to the next

item.
fls. 68-83. Annual Letter from Japan, dated 2Gth October, 1599,
compiled by order of Padre Alessandro Valignano. Contemporary
copy. Cf. Streit, op. cit., iv, pp. 510-11, for a printed Italian version
of this annual letter.
fls. 84-6. Newsletter from Japan by Padre Valignano, addressed
to the Rector of the Jesuit College at Malacca, 24th February
and 25th October, 1600. States there were then 190 Jesuits in
Japan. Copy. Unpublished.
fls. 87-8. Transcript of a letter of the Vice-Provincial in Japan
(Francisco Pasio] to the Viceroy of India, dated Nagasaki. 24th
February, 1604. Contemporary duplicate on native paper. Alludes
to Ieyasu’s toleration of Christianity, in consequence of which
the conversion rate had risen to between 4,000 and 5,000 yearly.
Unpublished.
fls. 89-90. Transcript of a letter from the Vice-Provincial in
Japan to the Provincial at Goa, dated Nagasaki, 6th November,
1604. Copy of one sent to the General at Rome. Unpublished.
fls. 91-7. Transcript of a letter from the Bishop of Japan [D. Luis
Cerqueira] to the Archbishop of Goa, on the inconveniences to the
mission resulting from the arrival of Spanish Franciscans from the
Philippines, and suggesting measures to enforce the Papal Brief
forbidding it. Unpublished.
fls. 98-102. Certified copy of a letter of Padre AJessandro Valig¬
nano to the Archbishop of Goa, dated Macao, 7th October, 1605.
The transcript is certified by Padre Valentim Carvalho, Rector of
the Macao College, who states the first copy sent was lost in a ship¬
wreck off Indo-China. It is endorsed as having been read in the
Jesuit College at Chaul, and forwarded to those at Bandora, Basseiti,
and Daman. (? Similar subject-matter to Streit, op. cit.., v, nr. 1033,
p. 380.)
fls. 103-105. [Treslado da] Consulta feita em Nangasaqi aos
15 de Setembro de 1605. Consultation of the principal Jesuits in
Japan concerning a proposal, from headquarters at Rome, to
separate Macao and China from the province of Japan—a sugges¬
tion unanimously opposed by the Japan Jesuits who regarded Macao
as essential to their mission’s well-being.
fl. 106. Wrongly bound. This should be the first leaf in this
codex, being the cover to the Catalogue on fls. 1-6 supra.
 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 83
fls. 107-110. Certiddo do Bispo de Japdo acerca do caso de Omura-
dono. Letter of the Bishop of Japan, dated Nagasaki, 6th March,
1606, on the Daimyo of Omura’s apostacy, and expulsion of mis¬
sionaries from his fief. Original, with autograph signature. Very
valuable for the early history of Nagasaki.
fls. 111-19. Nominal rolls of the Jesuit missionaries, both
European and Asiatic, with their individual location in Japan and
Macao for the years 1606-1608 inclusive. Of great value for the
biographies of these missionaries.
fls. 120-2. Treslado da carta que o padre Valentim Carvalho escreueo
em reposta de hua do padre frei Miguel. Transcript of a letter from
Valentim Carvalhc, S.J., refuting the allegations of padre frei
Miguel dos Santos, dated Macao, 5th October, 1606.
fls. 123-6. Transcript of a letter of the Vice-Provincial of Japan
to the Jesuit General, dated Nagasaki, 18th October, 1606. Endorsed
“ to be read in the Colleges of the North, and returned to this
Secretariat in time to be copied for dispatch to the Kingdom ”
[Portugal]. Probably similar to Streit, v, nr. 1044, p. 382 (dated
14th October, 1606).
fls. 127-8. Copy of a letter from the Vice-Provincial of Japan
to the Jesuit General at Rome. Nagasaki, October, 1607.
fls. 129-135. Relagao da queima da Nao Nossa Senhora da Graga
em que veo por Capitdo Mor da viagem Andr6 Pessoa no anno de
1609. Narrative of the loss of the Macao Carrack commanded by
Andr6 Pessoa who fired his ship rather than surrender on the night
of 6th January, 1610. An abridged English translation will be
found on pp. 52-62 of my Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550-1770, (The
Hague, 1948). The original was compiled by Padre Joao Rodrigues
Girao at Nagasaki in March, 1610.
fls. 136-201. Relagam do martyrio de cinco Christaos Japoens que
for am mortos polla confyssam de nossa Santa [Fe] em Japam no
reino de Fingo o anno de 1609. Narrative of the martyrdom of
five native Christians of Higo province, Kyushu, in 1609. Endorsed
as having been circulated and read to the personnel of the Jesuit
missionary establishments in China. For printed versions of this
martyrdom cf. Streit, op. cit., v, pp. 391-2.
fls. 202-4. Transcript of a letter of the Vice-Provincial of Japan
to the Jesuit General, dated Nagasaki, 15th March, 1610. With
autograph annotations concerning Jesuit martyrs on the verso
of last leaf.
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84 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

fls. 205-8. Sumario da Carta de Jappao do anno del611. Summary

of the annual Japan letter for 1611. Contemporary copy. An
Italian version of the Annual letter for 1611 was printed in full in
1615. Cf. Streit, v, p. 405, nr. 1129.
fl. 209. Account of the celebrations of the Beatification of Saint
Ignacio Loyola at Nagasaki in 1611. Copy.
fls. 210-230. Narrative of the persecution in Japan in 1612-14,
extracted from the annual letters of that period for dispatch to the
Jesuit General at Rome. Dated Nagasaki, 7th November, 1614.
Copy. A Portuguese version was printed in 1616. Cf. Streit, v,
p. 409, nr. 1146.
fls. 231-2. Treslado de alguns capitulos de hua carta quo o Padre
Jeronimo Roiz vice-prouincial de Japao escreueo ao Padre Valentim
Carvalho Prouincial que agora estd em Macao. The original was
dated 31st October, 1615, and concerns the mutual accusations of
schismatics bandied about between the Jesuits and the Mendicant
Orders at Manila. Unpublished.
fls. 233-8. Narrative of the martyrdoms in Japan for the period
March to October, 1617. The original, written hastily at Macao,
14th November, 1617 (Feita em Macao apressadamente em 14 de
nouembro de 617) by Padre Jeronimo Rodrigues. For more detailed
narratives of the martyrdoms of 1617, cf. Streit, v, pp. 434—444.
fls. 239-242. A.L.s. of Padre Jeronimo de Angelis, North Japan,
1st October, 1618, addressed to Padre Afonso de Lucena. Of great
value for the history of Yezo (Hokkaido). For later versions cf.
Streit, op. cit., v, p. 459, nr. 1282.
fls. 243-253. Relaqam breue dos martires de Iapam do anno de 1619.
Brief narrative of the Japan martyrs of 1619 drawn up at Macao,
15th January, 1620, for dispatch to the Jesuit General at Rome.
For a much longer printed Italian version cf. Streit, op. cit., v,
p. 453, nr. 1247.
fls. 254-7. Narrative of the martyrdom of Padre Marcello
Francisco Mastrilli, S.J., at Nagasaki in October, 1637. Copy.
For much longer accounts cf. Streit, v, pp. 547-554.
fls. 258-9. A.L.s. of Padre Manoel Ferreira to Padre Fernao
de Queiroz, dated Goa, 28th September, 1686.
fl. 260. Memorandum on the framing of a Conservatoria addressed
to the Rector of the Jesuit College at Macao. N.p., n.d., but circa 1620.
With marginal notes by the Rector.
fls. 261-4. Memorandum on the pernicious effects of allowing the
 XIII

MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS 85

Philippines to trade with Japan and other topics, circa 1615.

Much damaged by ink acid corrosion.
fls. 265-8. Das cousas que pertencem a Vice Prouincia de Jappao.
Cap. 6. Anonymous memorandum on various administrative
problems connected with the Japan mission. Circa 1600. Copy.
fls. 269-272. Copy of Padre Alonso Sanches’ account of the
beginnings of the Jesuit mission in China. N.d., n.p., but circa 1585.
Probably one of the numerous treatises listed in Streit, iv, pp. 327-
331.
fls. 273-296. Apologia em defensao dos Padres da Gompanhia de
Jesus de Iapdo. Endorsed as being an Apology against diverse
calumnies being soum in this country against the Japan Padres.
No place or date, but a partly erased marginal annotation ascribes
it to Padre Sebastiao Gonsaluez, and from the context it was written
at Goa about 1610. Heavily annotated in a contemporary hand.
fls. 297-304. Treslado de una carta escrita a unprebendado, por cierto
benejiciado de la costa. Anonymous undated satirical tract in Spanish
on the Jesuits’ attitude towards the Franciscan Martyrdom of 1597
and events connected therewith. Endorsed as being sent via Malacca
to Padre Sebastiao Goncaluez ; evidently one of the slanderous
libels on the Japan Jesuits to which the latter replied in his Apologia
supra, fls. 273 ff.
fls. 305-316. Duvidas que se propuzeram de Jappao com suas
repostas. Fragmentary treatise dealing with various problems of
matrimony, slavery, war, and so forth, in the Japan Mission. In
Latin. An incomplete copy, badly corroded by ink acid.

Additional MSS. 9861.

Historia de Ethiopia a alta, ou Abbasia, imperio do Abexim . . .
composto pelo Padre Manoel de Almeida S.J. natural de Viseu.
This codex of Almeida’s famous history of Abyssinia, is fully
described on pp. 520-526 of vol. 2 of the Bulletin of the School of
Oriental Studies (1923), and p. 132 of vol. 3 of the Bulletin (1925),
where comparison is made with another MSS. version, formerly
owned by Marsden, and given by King’s College to the School of
Oriental and African Studies.

MSS. 6878 and 6879.

These MSS. were catalogued in detail on pp. 516-18 of vol. ii,
Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, and again on pp. 130-1
XIII

86 MORE ABOUT THE MARSDEN MANUSCRIPTS

of vol. iii, so there is no necessity to repeat the information here for

the third time of asking, especially since they are of no interest,
save to students of hagiology.

Additional MSS. 9390-9397.

These MSS. belonged to Marsden’s friend, Isaac Titsingh, Opper-
hoofd or Chief of the Dutch Factory of Deshima, Nagasaki, in 1779—
1784, and they are briefly mentioned in connection with other MSS.
from the same source, on pp. 163-5 of my Jan Compagnie in Japan
1600-1817 (The Hague, 1936).
Note.—In the clean sweep made by the School of Oriental Studies
of Marsden’s manuscripts at King’s College, I have found one
solitary survivor, the Martyrology of Portuguese Missionaries
referred to on p. 303 of the Bibliotheca Marsdeniana (London,
1827). This codex does not refer to China or Indochina, as might be
inferred from its place in the Catalogue, but is a general martyrology
of Jesuit missionaries in Asia, evidently compiled in the second half
of the seventeenth century. A preliminary inspection does not
indicate that it contains any material which cannot be found in the
relevant printed sources listed in bibliographies of mission history.
Many pages are badly damaged by ink acid corrosion. I hope later
to examine the Marsden MSS. at the School of Oriental Studies, and
to trace in how far they correspond with those listed in the original
printed catalogue of 1827.

Abbreviations

A.L. — Autograph Letter.

A.L.s. = Autograph Letter signed,
n.p., n.d. = no place, no date.
JASB. = Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Calcutta).
Maclagan — E. D. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul
(London, 1932).
Streit = Rob. Streit, Bibliotheca Missionum. Vols. iv and v,
Asiatische Missionsliteratur 1245-1700 (Aachen, 1928-9).
 XIV

I’l.ATK III.

Minc Emperor and Empress.

XIV

I’latr IV.

A Tagalo Coui’le
 XIV

A Late Sixteenth Century Manila MS.

(PLATES 1II-VI)

H ODGSON’S Sale Catalogue for the 10th July, 1947, of books

from Lord Ilchester’s Library at Holland House, contained a
curious manuscript which was listed as follows under item No. 60.
“ Oriental MS.—75 Coloured Drawings of Native Races in the
Far East, including the Ladrones, Moluccas, Philippines, Java,
Siam, China, and elsewhere, those of China depicting Royalty,
Warriors, Mandarins, etc., in gorgeous Robes, richly heightened until
gold, also 88 smaller Coloured Drawings of Birds and fantastic
animals (4 on a page), all within decorative borders, and a double
folding Drawing of a Ship, and Natives in small craft, with about
270 pages of MS. text, sm. 4to, calf, lettered, Isla del os Ladrones
(eighteenth century).”
Intrigued by this somewhat cryptic description, I acquired this
codex, and found that the text was written throughout in Spanish,
in a late sixteenth century hand, of a type familiar to anyone who
has studied the documents in the Archivo de Indias at Seville. The
paper is not European, but of the brittle so-called “ rice-paper ”
variety, manufactured from some species of the Chinese paper
mulberry. The calf binding, on the other hand, is of a familiar
late sixteenth/early seventeenth century Iberian type, and it is
difficult to tell whether it is the original binding. The colours used
in the illustrations are Chinese paints of the Ming period. The latest
date mentioned in the text, whether directly or by inference, is 1590.
The codex begins with two preliminary blank leaves, neatly
ruled on the bottom margin and each side in blue, as are the rest
of the pages throughout. It seems likely that there was originally
a title-page which has been removed. The third leaf is an oblong
folding one, measuring 24 inches by 8, depicting the Manila Galleon
off one of the Ladrones (Marianas since 1668) islands, surrounded
by native craft, in the course of her voyage from Mexico to the
Philippines in 1590, as reference to the text on 11. 3-4 discloses.
In point of fact, two ships left Acapulco for Manila on 1st March,
1590, with the new Governor, Gomez P6rez Dasmarinas, and his son,
Don Luis. Only the flagship, or Capitana, reached Manila in safety
38 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS.

on the 31st May, the Almiranta being wrecked off the island of
Marinduque. It is therefore, in all probability, the flagship which
is the vessel depicted here. The exact location is not given, but
the Manila-bound galleons usually aimed to reach the Ladrones
between Guam and Sarpana (not to be confused with the more
northerly and nowadays better-known island of Saipan) after a
seventy-day voyage from Acapulco.
The folding plate is followed by a double-page painting of natives
of the Ladrones, whilst the next two leaves contain an account
of the inhabitants of this island group, entitled Relation de las yslas
de los Ladrones. It is from this opening chapter heading that the
binder has taken the lettering on the spine of the calf binding. The
account is unsigned and undated, but it is written (or dictated)
in the first person by somebody who was on board one of the two
ships which passed through these islands in May, 1590. He comments
on the herculean proportions of the naked islanders, describes
the speed attained by their outrigger canoes, and explains how they
bartered fish, fruit, and water, for bits of iron from the sailors of the
passing Spanish ship. He adds that so keenly did the islanders value
metal, that when he held out his sword as if to barter it, the occu¬
pants of all the canoes left off chaffering with the other passengers
and crew, and paddled their craft towards him, offering everything
which they had in exchange. This anecdote indicates that the writer
was a layman, and for reasons which will be adduced at the end
of this paper it is possible that he was either Governor Dasmarinas
or his son.
The next two leaves are blank, and they are followed by a double¬
page portrait of a man and woman from a Cagayan tribe. Leaves
9-11 contain a description of the province of Cagayan and its inhabi¬
tants, and are followed by two blank leaves. Most of this descrip¬
tion is devoted to the drunken debauches for which these indios
valientes were notorious. On the recto of leaf 14 is a painting of
Negrillos (Bushmen), but the succeeding three leaves, which one
would expect to contain the explanatory text, are blank. Leaves
18-22 are occupied by three coloured drawings of primitive Zambales
tribesmen with descriptive text. One of these drawings depicts
them eating the raw intestines of a freshly killed buffalo. Leaves
23-41 contain a most interesting and exhaustive account of the
Bissayas (Visayas), tattooed and otherwise, including two double¬
page coloured drawings of men and women of these tribes. Leaves
 XIV

A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS. 39

41-8 contain an account of the Moros or Moslem tribes of the

Philippines, followed, after two blank leaves, by five coloured draw¬
ings of Naturales or Tagalos, of both sexes. One of these drawings
is reproduced herewith (Plate III). LI. 59-65 contain a closely
written Relation of the Heathen Rites and Ceremonies of the Indians
of the Philippine Islands, more particularly those of Luzon, Panay,
and Cebu, followed (11. 65-8) by another account of the Moros.
Two blank leaves conclude this Philippine section of the codex.
The foregoing accounts of Filipino tribal manners and customs
are unsigned and undated, but they bear a strong resemblance to
similar accounts by Captain Miguel de Loarca (circa 1580), and
Fr. Juan de Plasencia, O.F.M. (1589), which were eventually printed
in whole or in part. This MS. account seems to be a corrected and
expanded version of Loarca’s preliminary report, and was probably
drawn up a decade later. It also may have certain affinities with a
slightly later anonymous MS. report, dated 28th June, 1594, which
is now in the collection of the Madrid bibliophile, Don Antonio
Graino. This last codex comprises 314 leaves of Chinese paper
measuring 290 X 200 mm., and is briefly described by the late
Fr. Lorenzo Perez in his article entitled “ Un Codice desconocido,
relativo a las islas Filipinas ”, in the Franciscan magazine Erudicion
Ibero-Ultramarina. Ano iv, num. 15-16 (Madrid, 1933). Fr. Perez
attributes the authorship of this MS., on rather slender grounds,
I feel, to a Portuguese cosmographer resident in Luzon named
Francisco Domingues. Unfortunately, the outbreak of the Spanish
civil war and the subsequent death of the erudite Fr. Perez, pre¬
vented the printing of more than a few pages of this valuable MS.,
which he had intended to publish in its entirety.1
Leaves 71-86 contain a lengthy description of the inhabitants
of Brunei in North Borneo, originally compiled about 1589, judging
from a passage on 1. 85 verso . . . “ the King is a thick-set man
with a cheerful mien, and was 58 years old in the year 1589.”
The basis of this account, however, was apparently Dr. Francisco de

1 For Loarca’a and Plasencia’a reports on the Philippine native tribes see Colin-
Pastells, Labor Evangelica, i, 66 n. and 77 n. (Barcelona, 1900). Padre Juan
Delgado, S.J., Biblioteca Uislorica Filipina, i, pp. 371-392 (Manila, 1892); Fr.
Francisco de Santa Ines, O.F.M., Crdnica, ii, pp. 692-603 (Manila, 1892); Blair and
Robertson, The Philippine Islands, v, 34-187, and vii, 173-196 (Cleveland, Ohio,
1903). Dr. Antonio de Morga in his famous Suscesos de las islas Filipinas (Mexico,
1609), gives a lengthy account of the principal native races. Cf. pp. 170-198 of the
oopiously annotated reprint by W. E. Retana (Madrid, 1910).
40 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS.

Sande’s (Governor of the Philippines, 1575-1580) report of his

expedition against Sultan Rejar in 1578. Two coloured drawings (?)
of Dyaks (?) precede the descriptive text. Leaves 87-90 contain
two full-page paintings of a man and woman of the Moluccas,
with a short descriptive text. Leaves 91-3 contain a similar summary
of the inhabitants of Java, although in this instance, two Javanese
warriors, instead of a man and a woman, are shown in the coloured
drawings. One of these is reproduced in Mr. Maurice Collis’ book
on Fernao Mendes Pinto, The Grand Peregrination (London, 1949).
Two blank leaves are followed by a painting purporting to represent
a couple of Siamese. Leaves 97-9 are blank. Leaf 100 recto depicts
another odd-looking Siamese man and woman. Chinese characters
are here used for the first time, the painting being headed in letters
of gold $1 3® SIAN. Here, as in the remainder of the illustrations
where Chinese characters are given, they read from right to left, and
the Spanish transliteration is placed alongside.
Leaves 101-129 contain a curious DeRotero y rrelacion que don
joan ribero gayo obispo de Malaca hizo de las cosas de achen para
El rrej Nueslro senor (Rutter and Relation which Dom Joao Ribeiro
Gaio, Bishop of Malacca, made of the things of Achin for our lord
the King). This is divided into forty-six chapters, many of them in
reality mere paragraphs, describing Achin and other Sumatran
states. It is chiefly based upon information supplied by a certain
Diogo Gil, who had been a prisoner there for many years. Chapter 46
warmly advocates the conquest of Achin, in order to ensure effective
Iberian domination of the seas between Ceylon and Japan. It
refers to the siege of Malacca by the Achinese “ in this year of
[fifteen] eighty-four ”, thus indicating the date of the original
Portuguese report. Leaves 129-133 contain another account of
Achin, and the Malay states of Singora and Patani, compiled
by Bishop Ribeiro Gaio from information supplied by Antonio
Diaz, Henrique Mendes, Francisco das Neves and Joao Serrano.
Leaves 133-9 contain a description of Siam, which likewise appears
to have been drawn up at the behest of Dom Joao Ribeiro Gaio.
This prelate was Bishop of Malacca from 1581 until his death in 1601.
He was one of the relatively few Portuguese who was a whole-hearted
adherent of Spanish domination in the Orient. He advocated the
conquest of Siam and Patani (which were within the Portuguese
Padroado or sphere of Crown Patronage) by a Spanish expedition
from Mexico and Manila, which he suggested should be timed
 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS. 41

so as to coincide with a Portuguese attack from Malacca on Achin.

Barbosa Machado, in his Bibliotheca Lusitana of 1747, alludes to two
MSS. works on Achin by this Bishop, which are probably identical
with those copied here, and which he cites on the authority of the
second edition of Antonio de Leon Pinelo’s Epitome de la Biblioteca
Oriental (Madrid, 1737-8); but I cannot trace that any of these
narratives were ever printed, whether in Spanish or Portuguese.1
Leaves 139-149, Relacion que Migel rrojo de brito da de la nueua
guinea (Relation which Miguel Roxo de Brito gives of New Guinea).
This is an account of a voyage of discovery by a Portuguese explorer
who left the Moluccan island of Batchian on the 17th May, 1581.
So far as I can trace, this voyage is hitherto known only through
the brief summary given by Fernao de Quiros in one of his famous
Memoriales,. and reprinted in Don Justo Zaragoza’s Historia del
descubrirmento de las regiones Austriales, vol. ii, pp. 294 -6 (Madrid,
1880).2
Leaves 150-1 are blank. Leaf 152 has a coloured drawing of a
Japanese man and woman, the latter with her hair done in Chinese
fashion—possibly because the pair were drawn from life at Manila.
The accompanying four-page description of Japan (11. 153-4) is
disappointingly brief, the compiler excusing himself from giving
further details on the ground that the Jesuit missionaries had
published full accounts of the country. He refers to the Korean
envoys who visited Japan in April, 1590, and to the preparations
for Hideyoshi’s Korean expedition which materialized two years
later. He does not mention the beginning of the invasion (May,
1592), and this provides another indication that the codex was
compiled in 1590, or in 1591 at the latest.
Leaf 156 depicts a curious couple, apparently intended as an
Annamite warrior and his wife (?), since the drawing is headed
Caupchy ; and Giao-chi, Kaochi or Kochi was the name by
which this part of what is now Tongking was then known. But the
Annamites, so far as I can ascertain, never fought in this guise,
naked save for a loincloth. This was, on the other hand, the usual
“ battle-dress ” of the Japanese Wako (^ *g) pirates who ravaged

1 For the Bishop’s pro-Spanish views and conquistador mentality, see the letter
of Fray Diego Aduarte, O.P., dated Manila, 20.vi. 1590, printed by B. Bicrmann,
O.P., in the Archivo Ibcro-Americano, vol. xxxviii, pp. 455-8 (Madrid, 1935).
J A still briefer German summary will be found in A. Wichmann, Entdeckungs-
geschic.hte von New Guinea, i, 34-5 (Leiden, 1909).
42 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS.

the China coast in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I therefore

suspect that it is a case of mistaken identity, and that the man
represents one of the Wako. I cannot account for the woman, who
recurs which slight modifications in several of the following drawings,
and who seems to have been used by the artist as a stock type to do
duty whenever he was at a loss for a living model. Leaf 158 contains
another and more convincing picture of an Annamite and his wife.
Leaf 162 depicts a couple from ^ Canglan, an Indo-Chinese
state which formerly flourished in the Hue area, and whose name is
usually romanized as Quinam, Kuangnan, or Kwangnam.
Leaf 166 has a picture of the ^ ^ Xaque, evidently intended
for depicting a man and woman of the Hsieh-min aborigines
of the Yao race who live in the Fukien-Chekiang border district of
Eastern China. Leaf 170 depicts an aboriginal man and woman from
tl $£ Cheylam, i.e. Keelung in Northern Formosa. According
to Giles (Dictionary, No. 12, 598) the name was sometimes applied
to the whole of Formosa during the Ming dynasty.
Leaf 174 depicts an odd-looking couple from Charncia.
No doubt should have been written which reads chiam in
the Amoy vernacular. Chiam-sian would thus be “ Chiam city ”
in this dialect, which was a name sometimes given by the Fukienese
to Champa ££ j!j. This supposition is confirmed by the rubric
on leaf 175 which states that it is an independent kingdom bordering
on Giao-chi (Annam). More readily identifiable are the aboriginal
head-hunter and his wife (1. 178) from Tfc Tamchuy, or Tamsui
in N.W. Formosa. Leaf 182 depicts another aboriginal couple,
this time from Jf| Taipue, which is (I am told) a district in the
Kwangsi-Tongking border region. The accompanying rubric
(1. 183) confuses matters by stating that these people closely resemble
the tribes of Luzon, where many of them are to be found—something
not very likely with aborigines from the hinterland of Tongking.
Mr. J. Y. Mills points out that Taipue, or, more correctly, Taimei
means “ tortoise-shell ”, and was applied by the Chinese to many
places, of which the Taimei anchorage in the Lingayen Gulf (Philip¬
pine Islands) is the most likely under the circumstances.
Leaf 186 portrays a fantastic-looking couple, allegedly from ^ i$[
Tampochia, or Cambodia, Tung, being miswritten for Chien.
Leaf 190 depicts a slightly more realistic Malay couple from ^ T
Temquigui, tentatively identified by Mr. J. V. Mills as Pulan
Tinggi, an island off the eastern coast of Malaya. Leaf 194 depicts
 XIV

A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS. 43

an ill-assorted couple (the man being half-naked and the woman

swathed in heavy wraps with a for cap) from ^ Tohany. This
place defied my attempts at identification, but Mr. Mills ingeniously
suggests that it stands for Patani in the Amoy vernacular reading
of toanin. This suggestion is supported by the rubric on leaf 195
stating that it is “ an independent kingdom adjoining Cambodia,
which likewise produces pepper in abundance ”. All the intervening
leaves between the coloured drawings from leaves 156 to 198 are
either blank, or contain a few lines with a brief and vague description
of the people allegedly represented.
What may be termed the China section of the work begins here
with a representation of a -f- D]| Tartaro, or Manchu Tartar couple
at leaf 198. A laconic description of four lines is all that is vouchsafed
by way of explanation on L 199, the two following leaves being
blank. Leaf 202 depicts a Cantonese man and wife, 203 being blank.
Leaf 204 portrays a Jjji ^ Sangley couple, (PI. V) Fukienese traders
“ constantly coming ” to Luzon. Leaf 205 is blank, whilst leaf 206
contains what is probably the finest picture in the whole book,
depicting a -fc Capitan General, reminiscent of one of the three
heroes of Han. Leaf 207 is blank. Leaf 208 portrays a civil mandarin
of the Ming dynasty, 1. 210 a Ming prince of the blood and his
consort, and 1. 212 (vide reproduction) the portrait of a Ming Emperor
and Empress H translated as Rey or “ King ” in Spanish. The
intervening leaves between these portraits are blank.
Leaves 213-239 comprise a Relacion de las cosas de Chine que
propriamente se llama taybin (Relation of the things of China which
is properly called Tai Ming). This is an early copy of the original
narrative of Fr. Martin de Rada, O.S.A., who visited Fukien province
as an envoy from Manila, 5th July-14th September, 1575. Rada’s
original MS. cannot now be traced, but another contemporary copy
formed the basis of Gonzales de Mendoza’s famous Historia de las
cosas mas notables, rilos y costumbres del Gran Reyno de la China
(Rome, 1583), which enjoyed an immense popularity in Europe,
being translated into all Western European languages, and remaining
the standard work on China until the publication of the Belgian
Jesuit Nicholas Trigault’s De Christiana Expeditione apud Sinas
(Augsburg, 1615), which largely superseded it. Mendoza, who was
never in China himself, mixed up Rada’s account with that of Gaspar
da Cruz (Tractado das cousas de China, Evora, 1570), and such
other narratives as he could secure, so that it is not always easy to
XIV

44 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS.

tell where one ends and another begins. A more satisfactory version
of Rada’s manuscript was printed by Hieronimo San Roman in his
Republicas del Mundo, vol. iii (Salamanca, 1595) ; but it was first
printed in its entirety from another copy in the Bibliotheque National
of Paris, by the editor of the Revista Augusliniana, in vols. viii
and ix of this periodical (Valladolid, 1884-5). A critical edition
of Rada’s text, freed from the interpolations of Mendoza, is still
to seek. I hope to supply this deficiency with a forthcoming work
which l am editing for the Hakluyt Society under the title of
South China in the sixteenth century from the accounts of Fr. Caspar
da Cruz, O.I\, and Fr. Martin de Rada, O.S.A. (1556-1575).1
Leaf 240 is blank, but between it and 1. 241 which is unnumbered,
are the stubs of about twelve or fifteen others which were removed
from the MS., presumably before the pages were numbered. These
(or some of them) were evidently the illustrations referred to in
the text of leaf 242 which begins “ El modo y horden que atras
quedo figurado es el que se tiene siempre en la salida del rey de
China fuera de sus palacios ”. (The way and order depicted in
the foregoing is that which is always observed whenever the king
of China goes outside of his palaces.) There is another group of
twelve stubs of missing leaves between 11. 243-4 also unnumbered.
The rubric on 1. 244 states that “ The Chinese and the Tartars join
their battles in the way which is painted in the foregoing . .
which indicates that some at least of these missing leaves contained
a sixteenth century equivalent of the celebrated “ Triumphs of the
Emperor Ch‘ien-Lung
Leaf 241 is wrongly bound. It has a rubric on the verso which
reads “ These figures which follow are the gods and idols which are
worshipped in China ”. It should come after the missing battle
pieces, and be placed immediately before 11. 245-274, which comprise
numerous full-page coloured drawings of Chinese Taoist deities and
more or less historical popular heroes, such as those depicted in the
Feng Sheng Rang £]- j]ji|i p# or Feng Sheng Yen Yi (£}■ ,|p|i |g)
and the San-kuo che-yen-6 (H [eSJ ^ $!|). Leaf 241 and leaves

1 Cf. Santiago Vela, O.S.A., Biblioteca I hero-Americana de la Orden de S.A.,

vol. iii, 226-231 and vii, 440-556 (Madrid, 1917-1920); H. R. Wagner, Juan
Gonzales de Mendoza, Ilistoria de las cosas mas notables, ritos y costumbres del Gran
llcyno de la China and El yiage que kizo Atnonio de Espcjo, reprinted from The
Spanish Southwest (Berkeley, California, 1924) ; R. Streit, Bibliotheca Missionum,
iv, pp. 311-12 (Aachen, 1928).
 XIV

Plate V,

I1

A ‘Sanuley’ (?jS *fft) Couple.

 XIV

I ’late VI.

Fabulous Animals.
 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS. 45

275-8 contain explanatory text and comments on these Chinese

deities and heroes. The romanization of the Chinese names seems
to be in one of the Fukien dialects.
Leaves 279-302 contain eighty-eight coloured drawings of fantastic
animals, mythical monsters, and (at the end) for no discernible
reason, a few ordinary birds such as the goose, heron, and pheasant,
done in a most realistic manner. All these fauna, mythical and
otherwise, are arranged four to a page, with a brief note on each
bird or beast on the verso. Thus, it is noted of a pig-faced and pig-
trottered man eating a snake (vide reproduction pi. YI), “ they say
that this monster has been seen eating serpents.” The origin of all
these pictures is probably not very far to seek. Rada and his com¬
panions brought back with them from Foochow to Manila, many
xylographic books dealing with almost every conceivable aspect of
Chinese life and letters. “ The which bookes and hystories, printed
and set forth in China —to quote Parke’s translation of 1588—
“ were translated into the Spanish toong, by interpreters of the saide
nations.” Obviously these paintings were copied from the illustra¬
tions of some of those Chinese books which were still extant at
Manila in 1590.1
The codex is concluded by a six-page (11. 303-5) account of the
kingdom of Champa, which was probably included as an
afterthought, with two blank leaves at the end.
It will be seen from the foregoing summary of the contents, and
from the typical illustrations which are reproduced herewith,
that this Manila MS. is of exceptional interest and importance.
Not the least curious of its features, is the mixture of Eastern
and Western influence in the coloured drawings and their decorative
borders. The text seems to be written by a Spanish, or possibly
a Filipino clerk ; but the illustrations in all probability are the work
of a Chinese artist. At any rate, the features of the persons portrayed
are mostly of a Mongolian cast, the painter seems to be more at home
with his Chinese than with his other subjects, whilst the ideographs
are too well written to be the work of one of the very few friars or
Jesuits who were capable of wielding a Chinese brush in 1590.
The use of Chinese paper, ink, and paints, also suggests a Chinese

1 Cf. The Hiatorie of the great and mightie kingdome of China, and the situation
thereof . . . translated out of Spanish by R. Parke (London, 1588), pp. 12, 102-105.
From the categories of the Chinese books which Rada brought back, which are listed
in ch. xvii, it will be seen that it was a most comprehensive collection.
46 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS.

artist; although this is not conclusive, as European materials were

so expensive at Manila that Chinese supplies were often used instead.
We know from the correspondence of the first Bishop of Manila,
that in 1590 there were several Christian Chinese artists who painted
devotional pictures for the local churches and monasteries after
the European manner. The same prelate informs us that he had a
Latin book bound by a local Chinese binder in a way which could
not have been bettered in Seville. So skilful was this man, that he
had driven out of business the Mexican bookbinder from whom he
had learnt his craft a few months previously ! 1
The Chinese influence in the coloured drawings of this MS.
is clearly tempered by the use of several Western forms. The
decorated borders of foxes, birds, bees, and flowers, are reminiscent
of the marginal borders designed by the celebrated Parisian artist-
printer, Geoffrey Tory (died 1533) for his printed Books of Hours,
as Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald of Philadelphia first pointed out to me.
Incidentally, the last ten leaves of the illustrations have an entirely
different border of an arabesque type suggestive of Persian or Indian
influence.
The practice of depicting various races in the form of a man
and woman, reminds one of the Japanese work Shi-ju-ni koku
jimbuteu zusetsu ([jg Pictorial Description
of the peoples of 42 countries, where they are similarly portrayed.
This work was first published in book form by the Nagasaki inter¬
preter Nishikawa Tadahide Joken (jg J|| *J* #n jf,) in 1720,
but its prototype in Japan can be traced back to 1647 at least.
I cannot help feeling that this idea is of Chinese rather than of
Japanese origin ; although Chinese scholars to whom I have shown
Nishikawa’s book cannot recall any similar work of the Ming
period. Nevertheless, given Manila’s continual contact with China,
the number of books brought back by Rada from Fukien in 1575,
and the romanization in the Amoy dialect, it seems most likely
that the artist of this codex was a “ Sangley ” working under
European supervision. Judging from the number of minor errors

1 Bishop Domingo de Salazar’s testimony to the skill of the local Chinese artists
and artisans in copying European styles of painting and bookbinding will be found
in his letter of the 24th June, 1690, first printed by W. E. Retana in his Archivo del
Biblidfilo Filipino, iii (Madrid, 1897). An English translation will be found in Blair
and Robertson, op. cit., vii; cf. also Edwin Wolf 2nd, Doclrina Christiana. The
first book printed in the Philippines, Manila, 1593 (facsimile edition by the Library
of Congress, 1947) fora discussion of the friars and the Jesuits who studied Chinese.
 XIV

A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS. 47

in the characters transcribed, he was not a particularly well-educated

man, but then none of the Sangleys were.1
As to who was the original owner, editor, or compiler of this
MS., that is a more difficult question. One thing is certain. He
must have been a rich or influential man, as nobody else could have
afforded to pay the high prices involved by such a lavish use of
gold leaf in the illustrations and chapter headings. The first reaction
is that the codex was probably executed for one of the higher clergy
or the wealthier monasteries, since normally it was only the friars
and the Jesuits who took a cultured or intelligent interest in the
native life around them. In the present instance, however, I am
inclined to think that the original compiler was a layman. In the
first place, there is a remarkable absence of any trace of missionary
zeal, which it would have been very difficult for a friar or a priest
to avoid displaying, if only in passing. The compiler has, of course,
utilized ecclesiastical accounts where these were the best available,
such as that of Fr. Rada for China, and Bishop Gaio’s report on
Sumatra and Malaya. But he does not display the slightest interest
in missionary activity per se, and his idea seems to have been to
get as purely objective accounts as possible. He must also have
been in the good graces of the Holy Office, to have been able to copy
direct from such unedifying books as those of the “ heathen Chinee ”,
As regards the plan of the book, the compiler seems to have gone
about his work fairly systematically. It commences with the
Ladrones and the Philippines, then goes (roughly clockwise) via
Borneo, the Moluccas, Java, up through Sumatra, Malaya, and
Indochina to China. Only the short section on Japan and Formosa,
apart from the sections on Champa deviate from this layout.
As might be expected, his information about the Philippines, and
the places with which Manila was in close touch (Borneo and Fukien,
for instance) is much better than that about remoter regions such

1 For Nishikawa Joken and his work, cf. pp. 6-12 and 16-18 of my Jan Com-
pagnie in Japan, 1600-1817 (Hague, 1936), and C. C. Krieger, The infiltration of
European Civilization in Japan during the eighteenth century (Leiden, 1940), p. 17.
Reproduction of an early woodblock print (1647) of the peoples of forty-two
countries will be found in T. Nagami’s Nagasaki no bijitsu-shi (Tokyo, 1927), on
the plate between pp. 158-9. J. L. Duyvendak (T’oung Pao, vol. xxxiv, p. 394,
Leiden, 1939), states that Chinese illustrated accounts of foreign travels were not
uncommon. Mr. J. V. Mills also pointed out to me the San-Tsai-Tu-Hwin has
pictures of men from Tun-Sun and Java which were reproduced in T’oung Pan,
vol. x. No. 3 (1899).
XIV

48 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS.

as Java, Japan, and Indochina, which were seldom visited by the

Spaniards before 1590. His interest seems to have been concentrated
on what we would nowadays term social anthropology. He records
a wealth of detail about the manners and the customs of the peoples
concerned, but (except in his excerpts from Rada and Gaio) carefully
avoids political considerations and moral judgments.
The accounts are drawn from a wide variety of sources, including
two of Portuguese origin. It is probable that only a senior govern¬
ment official or a high ranking ecclesiastic would have had access
to such confidential documents as Loarca’s report of 1580, and
Ribeiro Gaio’s of 1589, to say nothing of de Brito’s account of his
New Guinea voyage. It will be noticed that he rejeoted Mendoza’s
expanded version of Rada’s narrative, which had been in print
since 1583, and must have been available even at Manila, in favour
of the unadulterated original or a contemporary copy thereof.
When we recall that this MS. begins with things seen from a Manila-
bound galleon off the Ladrones in 1590, and that Governor
Dasmarinas came out with his son that year, it is surely not too
far-fetched to suggest that perhaps one of these two individuals
was the original owner. It is just the sort of handbook which would
have been invaluable to a cultured and inquisitive conquistador,
who wanted to know something about the new worlds to conquer
on the shores of the South China Sea. The elder Dasmarinas was
killed by mutinous Chinese galley-slaves at the start of his abortive
expedition to Cambodia in 1593. This might account for the fact
that the MS. contains no allusion to anything which happened
after 1590-1. On the other hand, the younger Dasmarinas was
likewise keenly interested in Spanish expansion in South China and
Indochina, as his abortive expedition of 1598-9 showed. Moreover,
he had travelled extensively on foot through the tribal country of
Northern Luzon in 1591. All this, however, is pure speculation.
The most that can be said with confidence is that this MS. must
have been executed for one of the principal persons in the Spanish
colony, and illustrated by the most talented Asiatic artist available
at Manila in 1590.1
A final word as to its provenance and condition. I have no idea
when it came to England, but the transference presents no insuper-

1 For evidence of the general culture of the Spaniards at Manila at this time,
cf. the interesting article of Irving A. Leonard, One Man's Library, Manila, 1583,
(Hispanic Review, xv, 84-100, Philadelphia, 1947).
 A LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MANILA MS. 49

able difficulties. It might easily have been picked up during the

sack of Manila by Draper’s expeditionary force in 1762. Alterna¬
tively, it might have been sent to Spain at any date after 1590,
and purchased there for (or by) the third Lord Holland who was
a keen collector of Spanish books and works of art. More remarkable
by far, is its miraculous survival of the bombing of Holland House
in 1942. Where hundreds of stouter volumes were ruined beyond
repair by the fire and subsequent downpour of rain, the fragile
“ rice-paper ” codex survived with nothing to show for its ordeal
but a few stains and foxing on the blank leaves at either end.
I have to thank the following authorities whom I consulted in
connection with various points relating to this MS. :—Sir Henry
Thomas and Mr. Basil Gray, of the British Museum ; Mr. F. S.
Chu, formerly of the Chinese Government Information Bureau,
London; Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald and Mr. E. Wolf, of
Philadelphia ; Messrs. Lewis Hanke, F. R. Goff, and K. T. Wu,
of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. ; Mr. S. Pargeliss and
Mrs. Ruth Lapham Butler, of the Newberry Library, Chicago ;
Mr. John E. McCall, of New Jersey. My principal indebtedness,
however, is to Mr. J. V. Mills, who succeeded in identifying, with
virtual certainty, those of the Chinese names which had baffled
myself and Mr. Chu.
None of these individuals, needless to say, are responsible for the
opinions expressed in the text which are purely personal.
 INDEX

Abbas I, Shah: I 53,54,56-58,63-65, VIII 87,89-90 ; XII 305,313-315

92n ,112 Batavia : 1 1 06 ; V 124 ; VI 7,11,13;
Abreu, Pedro de : IV 119 X 212 ; XI 2 ; XII 304 ,313 ,318
Abreu de bima, Antonio: VIII 92-93 Baticaloa: II 420
Abyssinia : XII 305 ; X111 85 Bengal: XII 321 ; XIII 65-67,71 -72
Acapulco: VI 4-5.10,13;XIV 37-38 Bijapur: I 75n;V! 9 : VIII 96-97;
Acheh (Achin, Atjeh, etc.): I 112; XII 321-23
II 515-527 passim;lll 19-26,134- Bocarro, Antonio: I 51,125;X 203-
135;IV 105-121; VI 5;V11 102-162 21 9 ; XI 1 I ; XII 316
165;V111 89,95;X111 76;XIV 40-41 Bocarro, Manuel Tavares : VI 10;
AcostaS.J., Jose de: III 132 VII 168 ; XII 304
Adams, Richard: XII 315 Bocarro gun foundry: VI 10,11;
Adams, William: XIII 73-74 VII 159,165,167-169
Aden : II 4 15 ; III 120 Bombay: I 105-108 ; XII 304,305,307,
AduarteO.P., Diego: III 130-131 322
Ala' al-Din Ri'ayat Shah al-Kahar, Borneo: III 124;XIV 39-40,47
Sultan: II 4 16,420,425 Borri S.J., Cristoforo: VII 166
Ali Ri'ayat Shah (Ilusayn), Sultan: Botelho S.J., Antonio: XIII 69-70
II 424 ; III 124 Botelho, Nuno Alvarez: I 93-112,
Albuquerque, Afonso de : III 123; 119n,122-123;IV 105-120;VI 8
VII 158, l 62 ; XI 11 Bragamja, Dom Constantino da:
Albuquerque, Fernaode: I 49,71-72, II 4 17; VIII 89-90,94
77,85 Bravo de Araujo, Francisco: V 128
Ali Mughayat Shah, Sultan: II 415 Brazil: VI 4 .5,10 ;XII 307-310,318
Almeida, Dom Diogo de : VIII 88-89 Brito, LuTs de: I 75,83
Alvor, Conde de : XIII 307-308 Broach : VIII 87-88
Amboina: I 1 06 n ; X111 65-66 Burma, see Pegu
America: III 134 ; VI 3-5,10,13 ; XII
307-310,3l8;X111 72;XIV 37-38 Caertekoe, Minne Willemsen: V
Angria, Kanhoji: XII 314,322 126-127
Anjediva island: XII 313,322 Cairo: II 419-421
Annam: VII 166-168;XIV 41-42 Calicut: II 4 21 ; VII 158,162 ; IX 89-93;
Arima, Seiho:VII 167 XII 313
Aubin , Jean : VIII 94 Cambay , Gulf: II 427; VIII 88
Aveiras, Conde de : VI 1 2 ; X 206; Cambodia: III 119,128-132,135 ; V 9;
XI 2 ; XIII 305 XII 318 ;XIV 42-43
Ayuthia : III 128 Canton: III 127,130,131 ,133 ; VII 169
Azevedo, Dom Jeronimo de : I 54-55, Cartazes (sea-passports; navicerts):
7 In ; IX 92;X 205,207 XII 316
Cavalho S.J., Valentim de : XIII 73-
Baab tJ II ah , Sultan of Tern ate : III 118 74 ,78,82
Bab al-Mandeb: I 107-108 ;II 416 Casal, Dom Joao do, Bishop of.Macau:
Bahrein: I 56,58,63,117,127 XII 309
Bantam: VI 3,5,11 Castanheda, Fernao Lopes de:
Baroche, Dom Jorge de Meneses : II 415-416
VIII 85-97 Castro , Dom Joao de : II 4 17 ; VIII 85n ,
Barreto, Francisco: II 417,421; 87
VIII 89 Castro, Dom Martim Afonso de :
Barreto de Resende, Pedro: X 209-210 III 134-135
Basra (Bassora) : I 91,92,123-127; Cavite: VI 9
V 1 28 ; VI11 156 Cerqueira, Dom Lufs de, Bishop of
Basse in (Ha^aim): I 60,114 ; VI 9; Japan: XIII 76-82
 -2-

Ceylon (Sri Lanka): I I14 , 12G; Perguson,Donald : XI 1,6,7

II 121 ; III 1 2 f>; IV 117; V 128; Plores : VI 14; VII 1 65;X11 305,309,318
VI 1 1 , 12,11 ; VII 161 ; VIII 90-94 ; Eormosa (Taiwan): III 132; VI 5,13;
XI 1-2,6-12;XII 303,314,321,922; XII 302 ; XIII 77 ;XIV 42
XIII 66-67 ; XI V 40 Poster, William: I 47
Champa: III 120,132; VII I 67 ; XIV 42, Pranciscan martyrs in Japan: XIII
15,17 73-77,80-81,85
Chaul : I 60-62; VIII R9,96;XII 304, Prazao de Vasconcellos, Jose
312,314 ,317 ; XIII 82 Augusto do Amaral: I 60;XI 1-2
China: II 4 24 .III I 27,1 3 1 -1 33 ; IV 119; Preire de Andrada, Joao : I 60
VII I 68-169;X 2l2;X11 305,308-312, I'reire de Andrada, Rui (Ruy): I 60-
3 18,320; XIII 7R-79;XIV 42-48 78,83-87,89-96,98-119,120-4,
Cochin: I 96n ; V 123 ; VI 8,9;VII 157, 127,128,129;X 204
159;VIII 88,94 ,95,97;IX 90,92-93; Prench : X 211;X11 306
X 204 ; X II 3 04 ,3 13 ; X111 64,66-67 Profs S.J., Luis: XIII 71-75,77-78
Cochin-China: III 13 2 ; V11 166-167 Purtndo de Mendo9n, Andre: IX 89-93
Cocks, Richard: VII 169-170
Coelho Guerreiro, Antonio: XII 313 Gallinato, Juan Juarez: III 130
Coen, Jan Pieterszoon: VI 3 Gama, Dom Prancisco da, Count of
Colombo: VIII 90;XI 2,1 0-11 : XII 303 Vidigueira and Viceroy of India,
Comoro Islands: I 116,123 1597-1600 and 1622-28: I 88-90,
Congo, see Rung 92.106; IX 90
Connock, Edward : I 63,64 Gama, Dom Lufs da: I 54
Cordeiro, Luciano: I 49 Goa, passim
Cordova, Don Rodrigo de : XII 312 -gunfoundry at : VII 159,168-169
Coromandel: I 111 ,116;XI! 314; -gunpowder mill at: VII 159
XIII 65-67 -climate of; XII 321
Corte-Real de Sampaio, Manuel : -intelligence reports received at:
XII 305 XII 323-324
Coutinho, Dom Prancisco: I 98 Godinho de Eredia, Manuel: XIII
Couto, Diogo do : I 60; 11 415-428 68-69
passim;III 1 19-121,134,136; Gombrun : I 56-117 passim,127;
VI 7 ; VII 157,160,163 ; VIII 85.87- VI! 160
92,94-96; IX 90-91;X 205,207; Gomes Gaspar: I 101,103
XI 11 ; X11 311 Guerreio S.J . , Pernao: III 135 -136;
Craesbeeck, Paulo (N.B. not l-ourengo XIII 65-67,73-79
as in text) : I 48 ,49 Gujarat: II 416-417,421,427-428;
Cruz O.P., Caspar da: XIV 43-4 4 111 11 9-120; VII 158-1 59 ; VIII 87;
Cruz, Joaoda, gunfounder: VII 167 XII 304 ,305; XIII 68

Damao: I 60,61 ,84,108,119 ; VI 9,11; Hadramaut: II 418-419,422

VIII 89 ; X 211 llagenaer, Hendrick: I 52,ll8n
Danes : VI I !;XII 322 Hamilton, Alexander: V 123
Danvers , K.C . : I 62n Hernan Gonzalez, Bias Ruiz de :
Dasmarinas, Luis Perez: III 126,129- 111 130-131
l33;XIV 37-38,48 ilirado : VI 11 ; VI! 169
Davalos, Melchor: III 124-125 Hormuz,see Ormuz
Davis, John: III 12 2 ; V11 163 Hornay, Antonio: VI 14 ; X11 309
Della Valle, Pietro: I 49-50,92 Howard, Michael: VI 3,10
Diu : I 61 , 108; VII 159 ; VIII 87-89 ; Hurtado de Corcuera, Sebastian de:
X 211 ; XII 301-307,312 VI 12-13,16
Dobbah (Doba): I 128-129
Downton, Nicholas: I 59,71n lkkeri: VI 11-12
Imam Quli Heg: VII 158n
elephants trained for war Imam Quli Khan, of Shiraz: I 72-85,
-in Acheh : III 122 91,113-119,127; VII 158
-in Siam : VII 165 Indochina:XII 303,318;X1V 41-49; see
-in Sri Lanka: VIII 91-94 A nnam.f'am bod in, Oh am pa, Cochin-China
 -3-

Jaffna: VI 14 ;XI 2.5,6,7 III 118-136 ; IV 105-121 ; V 123-128;

Jalias (Jaleas, Galeas): IV 110 VI 5,8,10,11 .15;VII 162-163,165;
Japan: II 424;VI 11;VII 169-170; X 211;XI 11 ;XII 302,312,314,315,
XII 302,311-313,315.318,321 ;XIII 321 ;X111 67,82;XIV 40
63-65,73-85;XIV 41-42,46,40 Maldives: II 4 16 ,4 19,422 ; VIII 95
Jask: I 55,58,64-70,72,115,120,121 Mangalore: VIII 96;XII 314
Java: II 425; XIII 65;XIV 37,40, Manila: III 126-134 ; IV 119 ; V 124;
47-48 VI 3-17 ; VII 164 ; IX 92 ; XII 311,318;
Jesuit Japan Mission: X 207-208; XIII 73 ; XIV 37-49
XIII 64-85 passim manpower problems : VI 6-9
Jesuit Mogul mission: XIII 67-73 Marathas: XII 308,314-315.317,321-
Jiddah: 11 418-421 ,426-427 ; III 120 323
Johore: II 4 24 ;III 119-123,124,126; Marinho de Azevedo, Luiz : I 49
IV 110,113,115-116,118-120 Marsden, William: XIII 63-64
Julfar: I 114 Martins, Dom Pedro, Bishop of Japan:
XIII 76-81
Kanara: VI 12;X11 313,314,318 Mascarenhas, Dom Felipe: VI 11,12;
Kedah: VII 171 X 206;X 19
Khor Fakkan: I 129 Mataram : VI 13 ; V11 164
Kishm see Qishm Maurits, Johan: VI 5,6
Knox, Robert: XI 7-12 Mecca: II 421 ,427 ;XII 306
Kotte: VIII 90-92 Mello, Simaode: I 75,79,80n,83
Kung (Congo) :I 113,117,124,127-128 Mello de Castro, Antonio de: VI 11;
Kutaraja: II 4 16 ,421 ,4 22 ; III 120-121 XII 305,306
Mello, Sampaio, Caspar de: IV 109;
I.adrones (Marianas): XIV 37-38 120
I.aksamana: IV 110,113,114,120-121 Mendes, Dom Affonso, Patriarch of
Lam, Jan Dirckszoom: VI 5,8 Ethiopia: XII 305
Larak: I 98,99,118 Mendo9a Furtado, Lufs de : XII 303,305,
Larantuka: VI 14 ; VII 165 ; XII 305-306 314-315
Larin: I 127 Mendoza, Gonzales de : XIV 43-44,48
Umos,Jorge de :II 4 23-26 ; III 123-24 Mesquita Pimentel, Antonio de : XII 309
Leupe, P. A . : V 123 Methwold, William: I 119
Linhares, Dom Miguel de Noronha, Mir Jumla, Nawab: VI 11 ;VII 160,
Count of: I 113n , 114,119;IV 112n, 161 .162
121n;VI 12;VII 159;X 205;XII 302, Mo<;ambique: I 88;VI 12,14 ; VIII 85,
316 88; X 211;XII 302-304,306-307,
Linschoten, Jan lluyghen van: II 423; 309,315
III 125 Mocha: II 418
Lisboa, Dom Christovao de , Arch¬ Moghuls: I 55 ; VI 11,14; VII 159-160,
bishop of Goa: I 77-78 162 ; XII 321 ;XIII 67-73
Los Rios Coronel, Hernando de : Moluccas: II 4 25 ; III 124,126,135;
III 132-133 VI 14 ; VII 165 ; X 207 ; XIII 66-67;
XIV 37,40,41
Macao: I 83 ; III 131 ; V 124-125,127; Mombasa: I 115 ; XII 306,308-309,
VI 5,10,11 ; VII 159.167-169.211- 315,321,322-323
212; X 208,21 1 -212 ;X II 302-306, Monlz Barreto, Antonio: II 422-423;
308-309,31 1-315,318-320;XIII 73- III 121
76,78-84 Monnox, Edward: I 63-87,124
Macassar :IV 115 ; VI 11 ,14 ;VII 164; Monomotapa : III 121 ; X11 302
XII 303,304 Morales O.P., Juan Bautista de :
Macedo de Carvalho, Jeronimo: V 124-128
XII 312 Morga, Dr .Antonio de : III 132
Maetsuyker, Johan: VI 13 ; V11 160 Mormugao: XII 307,308
Malabar coast: II 4 20; III 125,133, Mundy, Peter: II 428;V 9
135; VII 158; XII 303-304,313-315; Musa Beg: I 98n,112n
XIII 65-67 Muscat (Muskat):! 68-129 passim;VI 8,
Malacca: I 1 1 2.114 ; II 4 15-428; 14 -15;XII 305,308-9.316.321 -322
 -4-
Nagasaki: V 10,11;VII 170; V 123,128; VIII 94;XI 11 ; XIII 71-72;
XIII 74 -85 passim XIV 41
Nakhilau: I 125.128 Quiroga de San Antonio O.P. ,
Naqd Ali Beg : I 98n Gabriel: III 131
Nautaques: I 128
Navarrele O.P., Domingo Fernandez: liadaO.E.S.A., Martin de: XIV
V 124 43-45.47-48
Negombo : XI 2.9 Raffles, Thomas Stamford: V 123
Nogueira, Francisco: XII 308 Raja Sinha I: VII 161 ; VIII 90-93
Nunes da Cunha, Joao : XII 304 Raja Sinha II: VI 14 ; VIII 90-92 ;
XI 2,7,8-9
Olivares, Count-Duke of: VI 3,6,13 Ras Musandam: I 99,123
Oman: VI 14-15 ; VII 158,171 ; XII 309,322 Ribeiro, Joao: VI 14;XI 1-12
Ormuz (Hormuz):! 48-129 passim;VI 8; Ribeiro Gaio, Dom Joao, Bishop of
VIII 94,96; XI 1 1 ; X11 31 1 ,312,321 Malacca: II 424-425:111 121-123;
Ottomans:! 56-58,91 ,124-26 ; II 415- 126-129;XIV 40-41
4 21 ,423,427;III 119-120,124,126; Rodrigues da Silveira, Francisco:
VII 156-157,159,162 II 4 20; III 125-126,135
Roe, Sir Thomas: I 53,57-58,64
Padroado, Crown patronage of the Rojo (Roxo) de Brito, Miguel: XIV 41
missions: XII 307-310,318,322 Ros S.J., Francisco:IX 89-93;
Paliacat: I 114 XIII 66,67
Pampa-ngas : VI 13
Patani: III 126-129 ; IV 113,116,118; Sa, Constantino de : I 85-87
XII 321;XIV 40,43 Sa, Dom Leonardo de : II 425-426
Patta (Pate): XII 308,309,315,323 Saar, Johann Jacob: XI 9
Pedir: II 415-416 Safi, Shah : I 113,117
Pegu: II 422 ; Ill 121 .129 ; V11 165; Saldanha, Manuel de : XII 305,320
XII 312 ;X111 66-67 Sanchez S.J. Alonso: 111 132,135
pepper trade: II 416,419,420,421, SaoTome.-IlI 125.135 ; IV 115 ; XII 313
426-427;XII 302,307,308,312,313 Sarmento de Carvalho, Ignacio:
Perak: IV 108,119-120 V 125 : VI 8;XII 304
Pereira Fidalgo, Gregorio: XII 315 Serrao da Cunha. Joao: XII 313
Pereira de Faria, Bento: XII 319-320 Sherley.Robert :I 53-58,64,1 lOn
Persians: 1 passim ; 11 423; VI 11,14; Shilling, Andrew: I 67-70
VII 156-158;XII 315 Siam: III 126-129; VII 165-166;
Pessoa, Andre: XII 83 XII 308,318,320;XIV 37,40
Philippines: VI 3-17 ;XIV 39-42,47; Silva, Don Juan de : VI 5,10,17;
see Manila IX 92
Pieris, P.E. : XI 1-2 Silva y Figueroa, Don Garcia de :
Pinheiro de Veiga, Tome: VI 14-15 I 48,57,58.63-64,66
Pinto da Fonseca, Antonio: IV 106, Silveira, Dom Gon^alo da: I 79,83,
109-120 89,91-111.125
Pinto Ribeiro, Joao: VI 3 Silveira, Dom Jeronimo da:
Pissurlencar, Panduronga S.S.: IV 119-120
XII 299-300,323-324 Singapore, Straits: II 424 ;IV 115;
powder-pots (hand-grenades): XII 315
I 81,103,105 Sinhalese, expertise with firearms:
Preah Nareth, King of Siam: VII 161
III 129 Siqueira de Sousa, Gon^alo de :
Propaganda Fide, Congregation of the: I 83,89
XII 309-310,322 Sivappa Naik, Rajaoflkkeri: VI 11-12
Socotora: il 419
Qatif: I 110,111,126-127 Sofala: X 211
Qishm (Kishm): I 63,71-78,93 Sohar (Soar) I 89,129
105,114 Solor: VI 14;X 212;XI1 304,305,308-
Qishn ("Caxem"): II 418 309,313,318
Queiroz (Queyroz) S.J.,Fernao de: Sousa Coutinho, Manuel de: V 125-128
 -5-

Sousa de Castro, Francisco de : Topasses: VI 14

1 96-97;VI It
Turks see Ottomans
Specx, Jacques: VII 169-170
Speult, Herman van: I 106-108 "Union of Arms": VI 6,15
Suahli (Swally): I 59,67,84,89,
92,99-1 17; II 417 Valignano S. J . , Alexandre:
Sumatra see Acheh II 4 22-4 23 ; III 121 ; X 111 64 -65,
Surat: 1 53,55,61,65,67-68,70, 74-75,77 ,79,81-82
77.1 15; 11 417,427;VI 7,14; Vaz Dourado, Fernao: II 422
VIII 95 ; XII 302,303,315 Vaz de Siqueira, Pedro: XII 308
Veloso, Diogo: III 130-131
Tagalogs: VI 9,13 Venetians: II 4 1 9,4 20; V11 157-158
Taiwan see Formosa Vieira de Figueiredo, Francisco:
Tavernier, Jean-Daptiste : VII VI I 1 ; XII 304-305
160,162
Taylor, John, the "Water-Poet": Weddell, John: I 59,71 ,83,85n ,
I 50,94,105n 89,94-95,116-119
Telles de Meneses, Antonio: 1 96, Wilson, Sir Arnold: I 53
99.1 06 ; XII 321 Winterbourne, Thomas: I 83,105
Temudo, Dorn Jorge, Archbishop
of Goa: II 4 2 1 -4 23 ; III 120 Xavier S.J. , Jeroni mo : X III 68-69
Ternate : III 123 , I 27 ; VI 5,14; Xavier S.J., Manuel: IV 106-107
VII 165
Thailand see Siam Yezo (Hokkaido): XIII 84
Thevenot, Jean de: VII 162
Thunberg, C.P. : VII 170 /, nmhezia: X 207,211; XII 306-
Tidore : VI 5; VII 165 309,313,315,318
Timor: VI 14 ; V11 165;XII 304-309, Zanzibar: XII 313
313,316,318 Zuazola, Don lorenzo de: VI 4
Tiwai: 1 107,109
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