At this time, the Moguls undertook the conquest of the kingdom of Balua[428], and as Gonzalez considered this conquest might prove dangerous to his ill-got power, Balua being adjoining to his own territories, he entered into a league with the king of Aracan for the defence of that country.  Accordingly, the king of Aracan took the field with an immense army, having 80,000 of his own native subjects, mostly armed with firelocks, 10,000 Peguers who fought with sword and bucklers, and 700 elephants with castles carrying armed men.  Besides these, he sent 200 sail of vessels to sea, carrying 4000 men, ordering this fleet to join that of Gonzalez, and to be under his command.  According to the treaty, Gonzalez, with the combined fleet, was to prevent the Moguls from passing to the kingdom of Balua, till the king of Aracan could march there with his army for its protection; besides which it was agreed, when the Moguls were expelled from Balua, that half the kingdom was to be given up to Gonzalez; who, on this occasion, gave as hostages, for the safety of the Aracan fleet, and the faithful performance of his part of the treaty, a nephew of his own, and the sons of some of the Portuguese inhabitants of Sundiva.

[Footnote 428:  There still is a town named Bulloah, to the east of the Barrampooter and directly north of Sundeep, which may then have given name to a province or small principality, of which Comillah is now the chief town.—­E.]

According to treaty, the king of Aracan entered the kingdom of Balua with his army, and expelled the Moguls; but Gonzalez did not perform his part of the agreement in preventing the Moguls from penetrating into that kingdom, some alleging that he had been bribed by the Moguls to allow them a free passage, while, according to others, he did so from revenge against the king of Aracan, for the Portuguese who had been slain by that king in Bangael of Dianga[429].  However this may have been, Gonzalez was guilty of a most execrable treachery, as, by leaving open the mouth of the river Dangatiar, he left a free passage to the Moguls.  After this he went with his fleet into a creek of the island Desierta[430], and assembling all the captains of the Aracan vessels on board his ship, he murdered them all, seized all their vessels, and killed or made slaves of all their men, after which he returned to Sundiva.  Soon afterwards the Moguls returned in great force to the kingdom of Balua, where they reduced the king of Aracan to such straits that he made his escape with great difficulty on an elephant, and came almost alone to Chittigong.  Immediately upon this discomfiture of the Aracan army, which was utterly destroyed by the Moguls in Balua, Gonzalez plundered and destroyed all the forts on the coast of Aracan, which were then unprovided for defence, as depending on the peace and alliance between their king and Gonzalez; he even went against the city of Aracan, where he burnt many merchant