fit accompaniment for so large a mind; and of his feats in riding great distances, of walking sometimes forty miles a day, of slaying wild animals, and of his valour in battle, there are many interesting details in his Memoirs. The Jesuits record that he was white like a European; but his son Selim's picture may be nearer the truth, when he describes him as tall of stature, of a ruddy brown complexion, his eyes full and dark, and his eyebrows meeting; while his great breadth of chest, and long sinewy arms, gave him the strength of a lion. CHAPTER XII. OF THE PROGRESS OF THE PORTUGUESE IN INDIA, 1527 TO 1612 (continued from Chapter XXIII., Book III.). ENCOURAGED by the success of his fleet, the King of Guzerat, in 1527, sent it again against the Portuguese, who were at their naval station of Choule; but on this occasion the Portuguese were entirely victorious, and of eighty-three Guzerat vessels, seventythree were either sunk or driven on shore and burned; and the Portuguese followed up their success by an advance by land under Hector di Silviera, in which Tannah, Salsette, and other towns were made tributary. On this occasion, and subsequently, the Portuguese co-operated with the troops of Ahmednugger. In 1530, Antonio di Silviera sacked the rich city of Surat, and burned Damaun; but their greatest expedition was directed against Diu, in 1531. Four hundred vessels of all sizes were assembled in the present harbour of Bombay, under the command of Nuño da Cuerpa, governor-general in India; and conveyed 22,000 men, of whom no less than 3,600 were Europeans. On February 7, the island of Beyt, in the Gulf of Cutch, a strongly fortified position, was carried by assault, with heavy loss to the enemy in men, and sixty pieces of cannon; but the brave Hector di Silviera fell in the attack. The expedition then proceeded to Diu, but was eventually repulsed with heavy loss by its defender, Moostafa Khan, a Turk, and the Portuguese returned to Goa, burning and destroying several towns by the way. But they had by no means given up the idea of possessing Diu. They were joined by the Prince Chánd of Guzerat, who promised them extensive privileges for their assistance; and, ostensibly on his behalf, nearly the whole of the Northern Koncan, including Bombay, was annexed. When the prince's rebellion failed, the governor-general made overtures to the Emperor Hoomayoon, who had invaded Guzerat; but this policy was abandoned for an alliance with Bahadur Shah, the King of Guzerat, who, in his extremity, ceded to them Bassein, and the long-coveted Diu. Bahadur Shah took Portuguese into his pay, and in his contests with Hoomayoon was latterly assisted by a corps of 450 Europeans. On a subsequent visit to the Portuguese at Diu, he was killed, as is elsewhere related. In 1537, after the representations and petitions for assistance of Bahadur Shah had reached Constantinople, the sooltan determined upon an expedition against Diu, and seventysix vessels were fitted out at Suez, carrying 7,000 men. This fleet arrived off Diu in September, at a time when the garrison had been reduced to 600 men, and was straitened for provisions. The Egyptian fleet was supported by a Guzerat land army of 20,000 men. The commander of Diu, Antonio di Silviera, made a noble defence in a close siege of eight months' duration, during which the garrison suffered the extremities of hunger-a crow shot on the dead bodies was a luxury for the sick, and nauseous vermin were used as food. The Portuguese ladies took a noble part in the defence, and the details, as given by Faria y Souza, exhibit the highest qualities of heroism. The siege was raised by a fleet under the command of the viceroy, John de Castro, carrying 1,000 pieces of cannon and 5,000 men. Of the fleet, 93 vessels safely reached Diu, and their progress up the coast had been marked by horrible outrages on the inhabitants of many of the large towns; not only were they pillaged and burned, but men, women and children massacred without distinction, while several thousands of the people were sold into slavery. When the relief arrived, the garrison sallied out and routed the besiegers; and on his return to Goa, the viceroy made a triumphal entry, the particulars of which excited astonishment, even in Portugal. In 1543 Garcia de Noronha being viceroy, the Prince Abdoolla, or Mulloo Khan, of Beejapoor, took refuge at Goa. Assud Khan, the minister, according to the Portuguese historian, offered the whole of the Koncan to him, if the prince should be given up; but the offer was refused. On the death of Assud Khan, it is recorded that they agreed to the demand of Ibrahim Adil Shah, for the delivery of his brother, on condition of receiving the whole of Assud Khan's wealth, and acknowledge to have received ten millions of ducats; but the prince was not surrendered. In 1545, Diu was attacked unsuccessfully by Mahmood Shah of Guzerat, and the siege was renewed in 1548; but the place was relieved by Dom John de Castro, who obtained a great victory, both by sea and land. The King of Beejapoor also renewed his negotiations for the surrender of his brother, which was again refused; and in 1554 the Portuguese assisted him with a force of 3,000 European infantry, with which he took possession of the Poonda ghaut and fort, the pass leading from Goa to the Deccan. Here, however, the intervention seems to have ended; and whether the Portuguese had any political objection, as may have been the case, to entering upon the continent of India, or whether they found Mulloo or Abdoolla's party less powerful than they had supposed, does not appear; but they at once abandoned his cause, and the prince, persisting in his rebellion, was defeated, taken and executed. Had the Portuguese advanced with him, his expedition against his brother, then in the last degree unpopular, would, most probably, have been successful. Ibrahim Adil Shah retaliated by sending a large army to invade the Goa territory; but it was repulsed, though some of the Koncan was lost. In 1570, however, a serious combination was made against the Portuguese by the Kings of Beejapoor and Ahmednugger, assisted by the Zamorin of Calicut. Ally Adil Shah of Beejapoor invested Goa with an immense army, and 350 pieces of cannon of all sizes. The siege continued for ten months, and was ultimately abandoned by the king, who had lost 12,000 men, 300 elephants, 4,000 horses, and 6,000 head of oxen, partly by casualties of the siege, and partly from the effects of climate. The attack upon Goa by the King of Beejapoor was seconded by one on Choule by the King of Ahmednugger, of almost equal magnitude; but it suffered a very severe defeat. At the same time, however, the Zamorin's attack upon Chále, near Calicut, was successful. The fort was surrendered by Don George de Castro, who was afterwards beheaded for imputed cowardice. These efforts on the part of the Portuguese appear to have inspired their enemies with respect, for peace ensued on favourable terms with the Deccan kings. In 1592, Boorhan Nizam Shah of Ahmednugger renewed his attack upon Choule; but this expedition was even more disastrous than the first. Its commander, Furhád Khan, was taken prisoner with his family. Seventy-five pieces of large cannon were captured, and the Mahomedan historian acknowledges the loss of 12,000 men. Khan and his daughters became Christians, and went ultimately to Lisbon. The year 1595 brought the first real interruption to the trade of the Portuguese. The Dutch, their first rivals, had sent two ships to the Indian Archipelago, which were, however, intercepted on their return in 1597. They were followed by a fleet of eight ships, which returned to Holland safely, and henceforth the maritime supremacy of the Portuguese was not only disputed, but afterwards destroyed in the East, by the Dutch and by the English. In 1604 they were expelled from Amboyna, and in 1612 they suffered their first defeat in Indian waters from an English fleet. The Portuguese never aspired to be more than a Furhád maritime and trading power in India, and this continued only so long as they preserved a monopoly. They might have used their opportunity both in Guzerat and in the Deccan to acquire political and territorial influence; but they had apparently no desire for any possessions but what could be guarded by sea. They were excellent sailors: but their never attempting military operations by land, except in the defence of their own seaports, either marks timidity or disinclination, amidst opportunities which few other adventurers would have neglected during a career of more than 100 years. Of their actions, some rise to heroism; but they are deplorably tarnished by cruelty and vindictiveness, which surpassed the acts of their Mahomedan contemporaries, and combined with their unscrupulous avarice, made them in the end detestable. Their history in detail, however revolting in many respects, is extremely curious and interesting, and well repays the perusal of the student from its outset to its close. The acts of the horrible Inquisition of Goa need no exemplification, and the nominal conversion of infidels' to Portuguese Christianity, gave pretexts of persecution and vengeance to this horrible tribunal, at which humanity shudders. CHAPTER XIII. OF THE EARLY ENGLISH VOYAGES TO INDIA, 1553 тo 1613. Robert Thorne's petition. IN the reign of Henry VIII., Robert Thorne, a merchant, who had resided in Spain, addressed a memorial to the king, setting forth the benefit of direct trade with China. The text of this document is extremely curious, as exhibiting the ideas then prevalent, of a passage to India by the northwest, and the information possessed regarding India; and it became the foundation of subsequent expeditions. In 1553, three ships, Sir Hugh under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, with inWilloughby's structions from Sebastian Cabot, sailed from Greenwich on May 10, bearing letters from Edward VI., addressed to all the potentates of the earth, in furtherance of the designs of the expedition. The little fleet was separated in the White Sea. Willoughby's two ships were frozen in, their crews perished during the winter, and one only returned to England. Several other attempts followed, the last by Henry Hudson, in son's voyage, 1597, serving to satisfy even the most sanguine, that a north-west passage to the East was impracticable. expedition, 1553. Henry Hud 1597. Failure to the northward of the American continent induced attempts to the south; and the route of Magellan, in 1519-22, Magellan's Voyage round the globe, 1519-22. Sir Francis follows, 1597. whose expedition had circumnavigated the globe for the first time, was followed by Sir Francis Drake in 1577, who, with five small vessels, the largest of which was barely 100 tons burden, left Plymouth on December 13, and on September 26, 1580, again reached that port. He had crossed the Atlantic and Pacific, had sailed through Drake the Eastern Archipelago, and touching at Ternate, had doubled the Cape of Good Hope from the east; but he had not seen India. Nor was it till his subsequent capture of a Portuguese ship from India, that particulars of trade with, and access to, that country were understood. Drake's voyage was followed by that of Cavendish, 1586-88, which was per- Cavendish's fectly successful, and returned with a large booty from voyage, 1586. ships and countries of all nations, which he seems to have considered lawful prize; and in his report of his voyage to Lord Hunsden, chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth, he expressly states that he had been well treated by the heathen inhabitants of 'Malucoes,' and where our countrymen may trade as freely as the Portugals if they will themselves.' strance by Drake's The supplies of eastern produce to England had hitherto been obtained through the Mediterranean Sea, by means of Venice and Genoa, as also directly from the Levant; and a company was chartered by the queen in 1581, which traded direct Levant comwith the Levant and Turkey; but the eastern trade pany, 1581. had already turned into a different channel, of which, as will have been understood, the Portuguese had the monopoly, and the supplies obtained by the Levant Company were entirely insufficient to meet the demand for eastern produce now rapidly increasing in England. There had been a remonstrance from Spain against Drake's passage through the Eastern Archipelago and Indian Ocean, which the queen treated with character- Remonistic contempt. She declared the sea, as the air, Spain against common to all men; and that her subjects had as good a right as the Spaniards to sail where they pleased. An expedition to India direct was therefore projected, and instructions issued to Mr. Edward Fenton for its fulfilment, which may be read at length in 'Hakluyt,' vol. iii., and Fenton's were admirably adapted for the purpose. Four ships expedition to sailed on May 1, 1582; but the expedition failed signally, only reaching the Brazils, and returning with but one ship out of the four. No attempt whatever appears to have been made to double the Cape of Good Hope; and the failure may be attributed to the ill-conduct and want of enterprise of the commanders. No further attempt was made for several years to renew English enterprise to the east ; but after the failure voyage. Queen Eliza beth's reply. India, 1582. Its failure. |