A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 750 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 750 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06.
flourishing his sword said that was his commission for punishing all who were disobedient, and immediately cashiered them all.  During the continuance of this winter, the Portuguese fleet suffered extreme hardships, especially from scarcity of provisions; and on sailing from thence after the cessation of winter[121], they discovered four sail which they supposed to have been Turks, or Mamelukes rather, but on coming nearer, they were found to be a squadron from Portugal under the command of Diego Mendez.  Besides these, the king had sent out this year other seven ships, under Sequeira, who arrived at Cananor soon after Albuquerque; and a third armament of two ships to settle a trade at Madagascar.

[Footnote 121:  By winter on the coast of Malabar, must only be understood, the period of storms and excessive bad weather which occurs at the change of the monsoons, when it is imminently perilous to be at sea.—­E.]

On the return of Albuquerque from Goa to Cananor, he was much rejoiced at the prospect of such powerful succours, and communicated his intentions of immediately resuming his enterprise against Goa, but was overruled in the council by Sequeira, on which Albuquerque went to Cochin, and obtained a victory over the Malabars of Calicut, who endeavoured to obstruct the Portuguese from loading pepper.  Having dispatched Sequeira with the homeward bound ships, and soon afterwards Lemos with four more, he determined to resume the enterprise upon Goa.  As Diego Mendez, who had formerly been favourable to this design, and several other captains, now opposed it, because it interfered with their intentions of going to Malacca, as directed by the king, Albuquerque commanded them all under the severest penalties not to quit the coast without his orders.  Though much dissatisfied, they were obliged to obey.  Accordingly, having fitted out twenty-three ships at Cananor, in which he embarked with 1500 soldiers, he proceeded to Onor to join his ally Timoja, whom he found busied in the celebration of his marriage with the daughter of a queen; and being anxious to have the honour of the viceroys presence at the wedding he invited him to land, which proved very dangerous, as they were kept on shore for three days in consequence of a storm, and when Albuquerque returned to the ships a boat with thirty men was lost.  On leaving Onor for Goa, Timoja sent three of his ships along with Albuquerque, and promised to join him at Goa with 6000 men.

Albuquerque anchored for the second time before the bar of Goa on the 22d of November 1510.  Impressed with a strong recollection of the dangers he had escaped from on the former attempt, and anxious to sooth the discontent which he well knew subsisted among some of his principal officers on account of having been reluctantly compelled to engage in this expedition, he addressed them in a conciliatory harangue by which he won them over entirely to concur with him in bringing the hazardous enterprise in which he was engaged to

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.