When Don Garcia de Noronha went viceroy to India, Don John was captain of one of the ships in his fleet; and when about to embark, the king sent him a commission by which he was appointed governor of Ormuz, and a gift of 1000 ducats to bear his charges till he obtained possession.  He accepted the latter, because he was poor; but refused the government, saying that he had not yet deserved it.  After the expedition to Suez[253], contained in the present chapter, he returned into Portugal, and lived for some time in retirement in a country house near Cintra, giving himself up entirely to study.  He was recalled from this retreat by the advice of the infant Don Luys, and sent out governor-general to India in 1545; where he died with the title of viceroy in 1548, when 48 years of age.  We shall hereafter have occasion to speak farther of this great man, who made himself illustrious in the second siege of Diu by the forces of the king of Guzerat.  In his life, written by Jacinto Freire de Andrada, there is a particular account of this siege, with a map to illustrate its operations.  The author also treats of the Discoveries, Government, Commerce, and affairs of the Portuguese in India.  This book was translated into English, and published in folio at London in 1664.

[Footnote 253:  De Faria in his Portuguese Asia, says that Don Juan went up to Mount Sinai, where his son Don Alvaro was knighted.  But this does not appear in his journal.—­Astl.  I. 107. a.]

Such was the illustrious author of the following journal, which was never published in Portuguese; but having been found, if we are rightly informed, on board a Portuguese ship taken by the English, was afterwards translated and published by Purchas.  Purchas tells us that the original was reported to have been purchased by Sir Walter Raleigh for sixty pounds; that Sir Walter got it translated, and afterwards, as he thinks, amended the diction and added many marginal notes.  Purchas himself reformed the style, but with caution as he had not the original to consult, and abbreviated the whole, in which we hope he used equal circumspection:  For, as it stands in Purchas[254] it still is most intolerably verbose, and at the same time scarcely intelligible in many places; owing, we apprehend, to the translator being not thoroughly acquainted with the meaning of the original, if not to the fault of the abbreviator.  These two inconveniences we have endeavoured to remedy the best we could, and though we have not been always able to clear up the sense, we presume to have succeeded for the most part; and by entirely changing the language, except where the places were obscure, we have made the journal more fit for being read, and we hope without doing it any manner of injury[255].

[Footnote 254:  Pilgrims, Vol.  II. p. 1122, under the title of A Rutter, or Journal, &c. from India to Suez, dedicated to the Infant Don Luys.—­Astl.  I. 107. b.]