Rulers of India: Albuquerque Part 8

'They had a custom that if any Hindu died, the wife had to burn herself of her own free will; and when she was proceeding to this self-sacrifice it was with great merrymaking and blowing of music, saying that she desired to accompany her husband to the other world. But the wife who would not so burn herself was thrust out from among the others, and lived by gaining, by means of her body, support for the maintenance of the paG.o.da of which she was a votary. However, when Affonso de Albuquerque took the city of Goa, he forbad from that time forward, that any more women should be burned; and although to change one's customs is equal to death itself, nevertheless they were happy to save their lives, and spoke very highly of him because he had ordered that there should be no more burning.'[5]

[Footnote 5: Albuquerque's _Commentaries_, vol. ii. p. 94.]

Albuquerque, like Warren Hastings and other English governors-general, understood the importance of keeping his employer in a good temper by looking after his commercial interests. In all his despatches he always set forth the commercial {161} advantages of his different conquests, and excused his imperial ideas by defending them on commercial grounds. Nothing more need be said here on the general question of the advantages and history of the direct trade route round the Cape of Good Hope, but some special instances of Albuquerque's sagacity in commercial matters deserve record. His establishment of a Portuguese factory at Malacca is a striking example of his sagacity. He perceived that though the pepper and ginger which was taken on board in the Malabar ports was grown in India, the cinnamon purchased there chiefly came from Ceylon, and the spices from the Malay Peninsula and the Spice Islands. He therefore took steps to open up a direct trade in cinnamon with Ceylon, and made his famous expedition to Malacca. By such measures he hoped to avoid having to pay the middleman's profits for conveying these commodities to India.

A smaller point also deserves notice. When the Portuguese factory was established at Cochin certain prices were fixed which had to be paid in gold to the Raja's officers for the commodities required. This necessitated a considerable export of bullion from Portugal or else the forced sale of European goods. When Albuquerque was able to dictate terms to the new ruler of Calicut, he bargained that the products of India should be exchanged for merchandise brought from Portugal, and not sold for ready money. This reform was very unwelcome to the Portuguese factors and officials, who had hitherto made large profits by {162} selling the European goods and embezzling part of the price paid for them.

One interesting proceeding of Albuquerque was his establishment of a new coinage, both at Goa and at Malacca. After the first capture of the future capital of Portuguese India, Timoja, whom he had made governor of the island, came with the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of the city and begged Albuquerque to strike some new money. The Governor replied, after holding a council of his captains, that he could not venture to a.s.sume one of the chief prerogatives of royalty without first obtaining the permission of the King of Portugal. But the need of a new currency was so urgent that Timoja and the inhabitants made a fresh pet.i.tion that, if the Governor would not issue coins of his own, he would allow those of the King of Bij.a.pur to pa.s.s current.

This argument was irresistible, and Albuquerque established a mint for the coinage of gold, silver, and copper, under the superintendence of Tristo de Ga. The new money was inaugurated with an imposing ceremony. A proclamation was issued that the King of Bij.a.pur's coins should not be kept or pa.s.sed under severe penalties, and that whoever had any was to exchange it at the mint for the new coins. Albuquerque did not invent new measures of value; he adopted the Hindu values and simply gave Portuguese names to coins which he minted of the size and weight of those then in circulation in the country.[6] In Malacca however he {163} appeared as an originator.

The only coins used there were made of pewter or tin; there was no gold or silver coinage, and trade was carried on by barter. Gold and silver was brought into the Peninsula from China and Siam, but it was used as merchandise and not as money. Albuquerque altered this, and established for the first time a gold and silver currency. But he was too wise to neglect the original native money. The tin mines of the peninsula were made crown property, and tin and pewter coins were struck of the old values. The new currency was inaugurated at Malacca as it had been at Goa, with a grand ceremony, which is fully described in the _Commentaries_, in which it is quaintly remarked that the people especially approved of the distribution among themselves of the new coins, which were scattered by the Portuguese officials from the back of an elephant.

[Footnote 6: A valuable monograph on the Portuguese coinage in India has been published under the t.i.tle of _Contributions to the Study of Indo-Portuguese Numismatics_, by J. Gerson da Cunha, Bombay, 1880.]

It is important to grasp the fact that Albuquerque did not commence the policy of wholesale conversions to Christianity. Franciscan friars accompanied him to India, as they had accompanied his predecessors, but their princ.i.p.al duty was to look after the spiritual welfare of the Portuguese and not to convert the natives.

These friars included men of different types. Some were employed in political capacities, as for instance, Frei Luis, who was sent as amba.s.sador to the Raja of Vijayanagar. Some showed themselves men of the highest character, like Frei Francisco {164} Loureiro, who was taken prisoner by the King of Gujarat on being wrecked on his coast with Dom Affonso de Noronha. The worthy priest was allowed to go to Cochin in order to procure a ransom for himself and his comrades in captivity. This occurred during Albuquerque's absence in Malacca, and the Portuguese officials at Cochin refused to furnish the money required. The friar at once returned to Gujarat to his imprisonment to the great admiration of the Muhammadan king. Some clerics, however, did not show themselves worthy of their profession. One in particular, a Dominican friar, embezzled the property of deceased Portuguese by declaring that they had signed wills in his favour.[7]

This man was promptly sent back to Portugal in disgrace.

[Footnote 7: _Cartas de Albuquerque_, vol. i. p. 30.]

But though the making of converts did not at once become the princ.i.p.al occupation of the Catholic clergy in India, some baptisms on a large scale took place after the capture of Goa. These were princ.i.p.ally of the Muhammadan women, whose husbands had been slain, and whom Albuquerque gave in marriage to his favourites. His marriage scheme itself was severely condemned by some of the friars, and but for his own strong will might have caused a schism. But though he did not make missionary effort a main aim of his policy, like some of his successors, Albuquerque was unfeignedly pious. He built churches at Goa, at Malacca, and in the island of Socotra, and he granted in these instances {165} the whole of the property which had belonged to the Muhammadan mosques to the new foundations. The first Portuguese adventurers in India were too delighted to find Christians at all in India to have time to examine into the difference of their ritual from their own. They were overjoyed to find a cross in digging foundations for a church in Goa. They believed that Christianity would quickly spread over the East. And the religious persecutions which mar the later history of the Portuguese in India were not thought of in the days of the great governor.

The causes of Albuquerque's triumphant progress in Asia may be found in a consideration of certain special and general reasons as well as in his own character.

The chief general cause was the weakness and mutual enmity of the rulers with whom he came in contact. He had not to strive with the great Mughals; he did not come directly in contact with Ismail Shah, who favoured instead of opposing him; nor did he have cause to attack the powerful Emperor of China. The Hindu Zamorin of Calicut, the Muhammadan Nawab of Diu, the half savage Sultan of Malacca, the Arab King of Ormuz, were none of them great and powerful monarchs. All had external as well as internal enemies, and Albuquerque was quick to perceive and make use of this circ.u.mstance. The only great ruler he came into opposition with was Yusaf Adil Shah of Bij.a.pur, who, fortunately for the Portuguese, died in 1510. The division of India into {166} hostile kingdoms was especially favourable to the progress of the Portuguese. Albuquerque was able to play off Hindu Rajas against Muhammadan kings: nor were monarchs even of the same faith necessarily united in bonds of friends.h.i.+p. Thus the Raja of Cochin was the declared enemy of the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Muhammadan kings of the Deccan were too busy in fighting over the disruption of the great Bahmani kingdom to make a general effort against the new-comers. The existence of local jealousies and rivalries enabled Albuquerque, like later European rulers of India, to make good the position of his countrymen.

The special causes of the success of the Portuguese are to be found in the superiority of their s.h.i.+ps, their artillery, and their soldiers. The Portuguese s.h.i.+ps at the beginning of the sixteenth century, though much smaller than the great galleons which they afterwards built for the Indian trade, were much more efficient than the Arab vessels. They had to be both well built and well fitted to accomplish the long and perilous voyage round the Cape of Good Hope, whereas the Arab s.h.i.+ps were only intended to sail across the Indian Ocean with the favourable monsoon and then up the quiet waters of the Red Sea or Persian Gulf. But the Portuguese did not depend on sailing vessels alone in their maritime battles; they built galleys in imitation of the native craft, and secured good sailors for them by offering increased pay.

The excellence of the Portuguese artillery and {167} the skill of the gunners was another main cause of their victories. The natives, indeed, understood the use of powder and of cannon; as many as 300 pieces of ordnance were captured at Malacca; but the Portuguese guns were always better served than those of their opponents. It was noticed at the siege of Benastarim that one of Rasul Khan's guns did more damage than the rest, and it was soon discovered that it was being served by a Portuguese renegade. The arquebuses or clumsy muskets of the Portuguese also did them good service, though they cannot be compared to the more efficient arms of precision which came into use in the next century. Bows and arrows were the chief weapons on both sides, and the superiority of the Portuguese crossbowmen is constantly described in different engagements.

But neither s.h.i.+ps nor arms would have effected much without brave hearts. And the Portuguese, in this their heroic period, gave evidence of a tried and adventurous courage which has seldom been equalled. Albuquerque's most serious repulse, at Aden, was due not to the reluctance but to the over impetuosity of his men. Again and again proofs of conspicuous gallantry were given, and many anecdotes might be quoted which testify to the bravery of both officers and men. But the discipline of the Portuguese was not equal to their courage. The soldiers and sailors were always ready to follow their officers, but the officers were apt to have ideas of their own with regard to the duty of obedience. The {168} insubordination of Albuquerque's captains during his first expedition against Ormuz was imitated on many other occasions. Even the most severe examples failed to establish perfect discipline, and it was by no means the worst of the captains who were the most disobedient. But in spite of this defect the soldiers and the officers of Albuquerque were worthy of their leader. They had inherited their warlike disposition from their fathers; they had been trained to courage and endurance through centuries of fighting with the Moors both in the Peninsula and in Morocco; and their hideous cruelty to their conquered foes was as much a part of their nature as it was typical of the century in which they lived.

Albuquerque's own character counted for much in his success. He was comparatively an old man when he took up his governors.h.i.+p, and his scheme of policy was by that time carefully matured. To that policy he adhered unflinchingly from the beginning to the end of his career.

His extraordinary tenacity of purpose was one of his most remarkable characteristics. He swore at the time of his first repulse at Ormuz that he would return, and he did. He insisted on the capture and retention of Goa, in spite of many varieties of opposition, and he gained his point. There can be little doubt that had he survived he would have succeeded in his cherished ambition of conquering Aden and closing the Red Sea to the commerce of the East.

With this tenacity of purpose went a wide and {169} remarkable tolerance. The favourable countenance he showed to the Hindus was due to his nature as well as to his scheme of policy. With regard even to the Muhammadans, whom he hated, he could show a certain tolerance which would not have been found in a crusader. He sent emba.s.sies to Shah Ismail, and the Kings of Gujarat and Bij.a.pur, and was ready to bear with the Moslems in Malacca and in India, until he grasped the irreconcilable nature of their enmity to the Portuguese. He possessed an intuitive knowledge of the best way to deal with Asiatic peoples.

He understood the importance of pomp and ceremony, and the influence exerted by the possession of the prestige of victory.

Throughout there was something of the grandiose in his nature and his views. His project of establis.h.i.+ng an empire in India naturally seemed absurd to his contemporaries. And the attempt to realise it exhausted the Portuguese nation. But the existence of the English empire in India has shown that Albuquerque's idea was not impracticable in itself; it was his nation which proved inadequate to the task. Albuquerque's courage and his cruelty, his piety and his cunning, were not peculiar to himself; they were shared by other men of his time and country. But his tenacity of purpose, his broadminded tolerance, and his statesmanlike views were absolutely unique, and helped to win for him his proud designation of Affonso de Albuquerque the Great.

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CHAPTER VII

THE SUCCESSORS OF ALBUQUERQUE

_Nuno da Cunha and Dom Joo de Castro_

It is not intended in this volume to give a complete history of the Portuguese in India. But it is both interesting and instructive to examine the policy of the successors of Albuquerque, and to note the growth of the causes which led to the destruction of the empire that he founded. The following chapters are intended to give a short sketch of the leading features of the history of the Portuguese in India, up to the time when Portugal lost its independence and was united with Spain. Special attention will be given to the points in which Albuquerque's successors fulfilled or diverged from his ideas of conquest and government.

Albuquerque's immediate successor, who had been sent out to supersede him, was Lopo Soares de Albergaria, a powerful n.o.bleman and son of the Chancellor of Portugal. He came out to India with the express intention of striking out a line for himself, and his favourite counsellors were the declared opponents of his predecessor.

Nevertheless he dared not abandon {171} Goa, much as that measure was urged upon him, in the face of the marked approval that the King had expressed on the receipt of the important despatch by Albuquerque, which has been printed in full. The new Governor knew that the only way in which he could obtain the favour of Emmanuel was by carrying out the policy of closing the Red Sea. It has been said that the King of Portugal had eventually decided to leave this task in Albuquerque's hands, and that these instructions only reached India after the death of the great captain.

Lopo Soares attempted to fulfil the designs of Albuquerque, and in 1517 sailed with a fleet of over forty s.h.i.+ps carrying 3000 soldiers to the Red Sea. This armament, which far exceeded any that Albuquerque had ever commanded, could easily have accomplished the favourite scheme of King Emmanuel. The politics of the Red Sea were become very complicated since Albuquerque's voyage thither. The Emir Husain on leaving India had betaken himself to Jeddah, where he was endeavouring to construct a fresh fleet. But the Sultan of Egypt suspected the Emir's intentions, and ordered an officer named Rais Sulaiman to establish his authority in the Red Sea. Sulaiman equipped a fleet at Suez, and in 1516 attempted to take Aden. The Arab ruler of that port resisted the Egyptians as st.u.r.dily as he had done the Portuguese, and the Egyptian admiral was forced to retreat. The rivalry between Sulaiman and Husain weakened the position of the {172} Muhammadans in the Red Sea. When, therefore, Lopo Soares with his great armament approached Aden, the Arab ruler, feeling it impossible to resist, owing to the breaches in the fortifications made by the Egyptians, offered to surrender his city to the Portuguese commander. It seems hardly conceivable that Albuquerque's successor rejected the offer, but so it was. Lopo Soares thought he would be doing better service by keeping his forces together and sailing to the attack of one or both of the Muhammadan admirals. But the fates fought against him. Storms scattered his fleet; famine and disease decimated his men; and the captains, now that the strong hand of Albuquerque was removed, were utterly insubordinate.

When the Portuguese Governor got back to Aden he found that the defences had been repaired, and that the Arabs were not inclined to repeat their former offer. With his diminished and dispirited force he dared not attack, and he sailed away to India. On his arrival Lopo Soares found that a high civil official had been sent out from Portugal to take charge of judicial and administrative duties, who was to hold a position independent to the governor. Lopo Soares declined to recognise the new authority, and its first tenant was sent back to Portugal. Though Albuquerque's immediate successor had failed in the Red Sea, he took one important step for the furtherance of Portuguese commerce and dominion. He sailed to the island of Ceylon in 1518 and constructed a fortress in the neighbourhood of Colombo. This was the first {173} step towards the conquest of Ceylon, which was afterwards to be one of the most wealthy and important possessions of the Portuguese in the East.

Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, the discoverer of Malacca, who succeeded Lopo Soares in 1518, and Dom Duarte de Menezes, who held office from 1521 to 1524, did not leave much mark on the history of the Portuguese in the East. The most important event which occurred during their rule in India was the death of King Emmanuel in 1521.

The sagacity of this monarch had done much to develop the Asiatic empire of Portugal. He had chosen his men wisely, and had perceived quickly the most important obstacles in the way; he had not spared money, s.h.i.+ps or forces to develop his new dominions; and he had had the wisdom, for some years at any rate, to leave Albuquerque untrammelled, though he had made the mistake of superseding him at the last. Yet Emmanuel does not deserve very great credit. It was his predecessor, John II, who had directed the explorations which led to such great results, and who had trained the statesmen and captains who achieved those results. Emmanuel showed by his internal policy in Portugal that he was not a great king; his one dream was to secure the thrones of Spain; for this reason he had married in succession two of the daughters of Ferdinand and Isabella; and for this purpose he had consented, at their request, to expel the Jews, to whose commercial enterprise Portugal owed much, from his dominions.

Personally he was an ungrateful and {174} a suspicious ruler. He never employed Vasco da Gama after his second voyage in 1502, and he kept the profits of the commerce which had been opened for Portugal strictly to himself.

John III, Emmanuel's successor, was a more estimable man than Emmanuel; he knew how to recognise and reward ability and valour. But he had one defect which proved fatal to the Portuguese power in Asia: he was a fanatical bigot. He looked upon the Portuguese connection with the East not only as a lucrative monopoly to increase the wealth of the Crown, but as an opportunity for spreading Christianity among the heathen. He sent out missionaries as his father had sent soldiers; he established the Holy Inquisition in Portugal which sapped the intellect and vigour of the Portuguese nation; and it was directly due to his example that the fatal policy of religious persecution was introduced into India as a branch of Christianity.

The first selection which John III made for the government of the Portuguese in Asia was an act of reparation. On his accession to the throne he created Dom Vasco da Gama Count of Vidigueira, and in 1523 he appointed the discoverer of the direct sea route to India to the office of Viceroy, which had not been held since the days of Dom Francisco de Almeida. This t.i.tle carried with it more extensive powers than were exercised by Albuquerque and his next successors.

Such powers were sorely needed. Complaints came yearly from India of the oppression {175} and the peculation of the Portuguese officials in the East. They made use of their positions to pile up fortunes for themselves, and charges of corruption were even brought against the Governor.

Under these circ.u.mstances a man of strong character and high rank was needed to remedy such abuses, and no fitter man could be found than the ill.u.s.trious admiral of the Indian Seas, Dom Vasco da Gama. He justified the opinion held of him by the king. He reached Chaul, where Sequeira had built a fortress, in September 1524; he at once proceeded to Goa, where he degraded the Captain, Francisco Pereira Pestana, and directed that his property should be sequestrated until all charges against him were heard. He then went on to Cochin, and there demanded and received the resignation of the Governor, Dom Duarte de Menezes, on the return of the latter from Ormuz. These salutary examples had a great effect. But the Viceroy was too old to thoroughly reform the abuses which had sprung up. He only held office for four months, and died at Cochin on Christmas Eve, 1524. The great navigator was buried in the Chapel of the Franciscan friars at Cochin, but in 1538 his bones were removed to Portugal, and were interred at Vidigueira.

When Vasco da Gama was sent to India as Viceroy a new custom was inaugurated for the succession of governors. Hitherto much inconvenience had been caused by the interregnum which followed on the death or departure of a governor. Vasco da Gama {176} therefore carried with him sealed packets containing in order the names of those whom the King nominated to succeed him. The care of the sealed packets was entrusted to the high civil official who held the t.i.tle of Controller (Veador) of Indian affairs and had complete charge of administrative and judicial matters. Lopo Soares had refused to recognise this official, but the King insisted on the creation of the office, and took effective means to secure its entire independence of the governors.

On Vasco da Gama's death the first sealed packet was found to contain the name of Dom Henrique de Menezes, who had won golden opinions as Pestana's successor at Goa. This young n.o.bleman died at Cannanore on February 21st, 1526. The name contained in the next sealed packet was that of Pedro Mascarenhas, who was at this time Captain of Malacca.

As he could not arrive for some months, the third packet was then opened, which contained the name of Lopo Vaz de Sam Paio, Captain of Cochin and a former officer of Albuquerque. Frequent complaints were sent to Portugal of the harshness and corruption of this Governor. It is a.s.serted that he was incapable as well as cruel, and that the Portuguese fortresses were in a disgraceful state of neglect. He treated even the royal orders with contempt, and refused to hand over the government to Pedro Mascarenhas, whom he ordered into custody on his return from Malacca to claim his rights.

It was further made known to John III that {177} Sulaiman the Magnificent was setting on foot a great fleet for India. This was mainly due to the constant requests of the Venetians who were being ruined by the Portuguese monopoly, and was in general accordance with the policy of the greatest of the Ottoman rulers of Constantinople.

The war between the Turks and Egyptians, which had allowed the Portuguese to develop in Asia, ended in 1517 with the overthrow of the Mameluke dynasty in Egypt. This great conquest of the Sultan Selim brought with it the submission of Syria and Arabia. Sulaiman the Magnificent succeeded his father Selim in 1520, and began his reign by his famous campaigns in Hungary and against Rhodes. He was quite alive to the importance to Islam of checking the further advance of the Portuguese in the East, and the news that he was building a great fleet at Suez was perfectly true. It was placed under the command of Sulaiman Pasha, and carried many Venetian and Christian adventurers as well as Turks and Egyptians.

Such being the dangers which threatened the Portuguese empire in Asia, John III selected to meet them the first really great successor to the office of Albuquerque, Nuno da Cunha. The new Governor was the eldest son of Tristo da Cunha, the navigator, and had had a large experience of Asiatic warfare. He was knighted by his relative, the great Albuquerque, in 1506, and had ever since been employed in voyages to the East and in hard-fought campaigns in Morocco. His chief feat of arms up {178} to this time had been his conquest of Momba.s.sa on the African coast in 1525, which he had followed up by exacting the tribute promised by the King of Ormuz to the Portuguese.

He left Lisbon in 1528 with a large fleet, carrying 4000 soldiers. He reached Goa in October, 1529, after a long voyage, and at once arrested Lopo Vaz de Sam Paio, and sent him back to Portugal in chains. His first measures were directed to the reform of internal abuses. With great activity he visited every Portuguese factory and fortress, punis.h.i.+ng all evil-doers, and setting himself a n.o.ble example of personal probity. But he was not satisfied, like his predecessors, by merely securing old advantages and maintaining the former centres of trade. He devoted himself to opening up new provinces and developing the Portuguese commerce and dominion in other parts of India. The first Portuguese settlement on the Coromandel coast was at Saint Thome near Madras, which received that name from the supposed discovery of the bones of St. Thomas the apostle of India. But Nuno da Cunha pushed farther up the coast and opened up a political connection with the wealthy province of Bengal.

Hitherto the Portuguese relations with Bengal had been purely commercial. In 1518 the first Portuguese s.h.i.+p, commanded by Joo da Silveira, reached Chittagong, and he there found Joo Coelho, who had arrived some months before from Malacca, having explored the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal in a {179} native craft. Silveira took a rich cargo on board, and after his visit it became an established custom for a Portuguese s.h.i.+p to visit Chittagong every year to purchase merchandise for Portugal. But Nuno da Cunha wished to do more than this, and to establish a regular factory and a political influence in the richest province of India.

An opportunity was afforded him in 1534, when the Muhammadan King of Bengal asked for the help of a Portuguese force against the Afghan invader, Sher Shah. Nuno da Cunha promised his a.s.sistance, and at once sent a fleet of nine s.h.i.+ps, carrying 400 Portuguese soldiers under the command of Martim Affonso de Mello Jusarte. The Portuguese contingent behaved gallantly, and its deeds are described in the first twelve chapters of the ninth Book of the fourth Decade of Joo de Barros, the contemporary Portuguese historian. Nuno da Cunha intended to follow in person, but he was prevented by the condition of affairs in Gujarat. It happened therefore that Portuguese authority was never directly established in Bengal. No royal factory or fortress was erected, and the Portuguese settlement at Hugli, where goods were collected for s.h.i.+pment to Portugal, was loosely considered to be subject to the Captain of Ceylon. The Portuguese in North-Eastern India remained to the end adventurers and merchants, and were never a ruling power.

The important events which prevented Nuno da Cunha from visiting Bengal were closely connected with the threatened approach of Sulaiman the {180} Magnificent's fleet from the Red Sea. It was well understood that that fleet would sail direct to the coast of Gujarat as the fleet of Emir Husain had done thirty years before. This knowledge made Nuno da Cunha very anxious to establish the Portuguese in a strong position on the coasts of North-Western India. Their main station in this neighbourhood had hitherto been the port of Chaul, where they had a factory and a small fortress. Portuguese agents were likewise established in the ports of Gujarat, but they were in no place masters of a strong defensive position.

To obtain a fitting site for a fortress in Gujarat was a princ.i.p.al aim of Nuno da Cunha's policy; not only for defence against the Muhammadans in India, but also as a bulwark against the expected Turkish fleet. Circ.u.mstances favoured him. The Mughal Emperor Humayun was engaged in war with Bahadur Shah, the King of Ahmadabad or Gujarat. In his extremity Bahadur Shah sought to make an alliance with the Portuguese, and for this purpose he granted them the island of Ba.s.sein, which was then separated from the mainland by a narrow creek. Ba.s.sein lies about twenty-eight miles north of Bombay, and afterwards became the northern capital of Portuguese India, almost rivalling Goa in splendour and prosperity. At Ba.s.sein the Portuguese built a fort, but the place was not naturally defensible, and Nuno da Cunha set his heart on the possession of the rocky island of Diu, which had been one of the spots designed by Albuquerque for a Portuguese stronghold.

{181} At last, in 1535, under the pressure of an invasion by Humayun, Bahadur Shah allowed the Portuguese to erect a fortress in Diu and to garrison it with their own troops. The fortress was rapidly and solidly built, and Bahadur Shah and Nuno da Cunha signed a treaty of alliance. Such an alliance was not likely to last, and the murder of Bahadur Shah in 1537, which took place on his return from visiting Nuno da Cunha on board his s.h.i.+p, caused a cry of treachery to be raised. It seems absolutely certain that the death of the King of Gujarat was due to a misunderstanding, but none the less friends.h.i.+p was owing to it replaced by bitter enmity. The fortress was not completed a moment too soon, for in 1538 the Turkish fleet, under Sulaiman Pasha, after taking Aden by a stratagem, blockaded Diu by sea. Muhammad III, the nephew and successor of Bahadur Shah, then besieged the place by land.

Antonio da Silveira, who had been left by Nuno da Cunha as Captain of the fortress, defended it n.o.bly. Brilliant are the feats of gallantry recorded by the Portuguese chroniclers on the part not only of the soldiers but of aged men, boys, and women. The siege lasted many months, during which Nuno da Cunha was succeeded in September 1538 by Dom Garcia de Noronha, Albuquerque's nephew, who had been sent out from Portugal as Viceroy. This experienced officer managed to introduce reinforcements into the fortress in small boats which slipped between the great Turkish galleys. Every a.s.sault was {182} repulsed, and in November 1538 Sulaiman Pasha and Muhammad III abandoned the siege. It does not detract from the glory of Silveira's defence that its final success was mainly due to dissensions among the besiegers. Each of the Muhammadan commanders blamed the other; the King of Gujarat began to fear that the Turkish admiral would attack him, and it was with a sense of relief that he, as well as the Portuguese, saw Sulaiman sail away to Arabia.

It was a melancholy fact that Nuno da Cunha was unable to witness the success of his brother-in-law, Silveira. In spite of his great services he, like his relative Affonso de Albuquerque, whom he resembled in his wide views and his personal disinterestedness, was slandered at the Court of Lisbon. He had taken harsh measures against embezzling officials and insubordinate captains, and during his ten years of government he made numerous enemies. These men persuaded the King that Nuno da Cunha was making a large fortune, when really he was spending his private property for the public service; and, in spite of the arguments of old Tristo da Cunha, Dom Garcia de Noronha was ordered to send the greatest Portuguese Governor of India since Albuquerque home in custody. On his way home Nuno da Cunha died at sea on March 5, 1539, in the fifty-second year of his age, and his last words, when his chaplain asked what should be done with his body, were: 'Since the will of G.o.d is that I should die at sea, let the sea be my grave; for since the land will not have {183} me why should I leave my bones to it.' Nuno da Cunha's establishment of the Portuguese at Diu was the most important event since the conquest of Goa; in temper and in disposition he resembled his great relative; like Albuquerque, he was treated with ingrat.i.tude and died in disgrace.

Dom Garcia de Noronha did not rule long enough to affect the history of the Portuguese in India. He died at Goa on April 3, 1540, and was succeeded as Governor, not as Viceroy, by Dom Estevo da Gama, the second son of the famous navigator. The new governor was an experienced officer; he had been Captain of the Sea during his father's short viceroyalty in 1524; had made more than one voyage to India; and had acted for five years as Captain of Malacca.

The one remarkable event of his governors.h.i.+p was his expedition to the Red Sea. The repulse of Sulaiman Pasha had been followed by his death in Arabia, but Sulaiman the Magnificent did not intend to abandon his projects, and directed the equipment of a new fleet at Suez. In 1541 Dom Estevo da Gama entered the Red Sea. He was repulsed in an attack on Suez, but made a landing in the neighbourhood and a pilgrimage to the monastery of Mount Sinai, where he knighted some of his officers, including Dom Alvaro de Castro, the son of his most distinguished captain, Dom Joo de Castro. Before returning to India the Governor sent his brother, Dom Christovo da Gama, to escort a prelate, {184} whom the Pope had nominated as primate of Abyssinia. But the Christian dynasty in that country was at this time hotly beset by the Muhammadans, and Dom Christovo was killed with his companions.