Then Landing At Bazaim We Were Received By Our Fathers
With Their Accustomed Charity, And Nothing Was Thought Of But
How to
put the unpleasing remembrance of our past labours out of our minds.
Finding here an order of the
Father Provineta to forbid those who
returned from the missions to go any farther, it was thought
necessary to send an agent to Goa with an account of the revolutions
that had happened in Abyssinia and of the imprisonment of the
patriarch. For this commission I was made choice of; and, I know
not by what hidden degree of Providence, almost all affairs,
whatever the success of them was, were transacted by me. All the
coasts were beset by Dutch cruisers, which made it difficult to sail
without running the hazard of being taken. I went therefore by land
from Bazaim to Tana, where we had another college, and from thence
to our house of Chaul. Here I hired a narrow light vessel, and,
placing eighteen oars on a side, went close by the shore from Chaul
to Goa, almost eighty leagues. We were often in danger of being
taken, and particularly when we touched at Dabal, where a cruiser
blocked up one of the channels through which ships usually sail; but
our vessel requiring no great depth of water, and the sea running
high, we went through the little channel, and fortunately escaped
the cruiser. Though we were yet far from Goa, we expected to arrive
there on the next morning, and rowed forward with all the diligence
we could. The sea was calm and delightful, and our minds were at
ease, for we imagined ourselves past danger; but soon found we had
flattered ourselves too soon with security, for we came within sight
of several barks of Malabar, which had been hid behind a point of
land which we were going to double. Here we had been inevitably
taken had not a man called to us from the shore and informed us that
among those fishing-boats there, some crusiers would make us a
prize. We rewarded our kind informer for the service he had done
us, and lay by till night came to shelter us from our enemies. Then
putting out our oars we landed at Goa next morning about ten, and
were received at our college. It being there a festival day, each
had something extraordinary allowed him; the choicest part of our
entertainments was two pilchers, which were admired because they
came from Portugal.
The quiet I began to enjoy did not make me lose the remembrance of
my brethren whom I had left languishing among the rocks of
Abyssinia, or groaning in the prisons of Suaquem, whom since I could
not set at liberty without the viceroy's assistance, I went to
implore it, and did not fail to make use of every motive which could
have any influence.
I described in the most pathetic manner I could the miserable state
to which the Catholic religion was reduced in a country where it had
lately flourished so much by the labours of the Portuguese; I gave
him in the strongest terms a representation of all that we had
suffered since the death of Sultan Segued, how we had been driven
out of Abyssinia, how many times they had attempted to take away our
lives, in what manner we had been betrayed and given up to the
Turks, the menaces we had been terrified with, the insults we had
endured; I laid before him the danger the patriarch was in of being
either impaled or flayed alive; the cruelty, insolence and avarice
of the Bassa of Suaquem, and the persecution that the Catholics
suffered in Aethiopia. I exhorted, I implored him by everything I
thought might move him, to make some attempt for the preservation of
those who had voluntarily sacrificed their lives for the sake of
God. I made it appear with how much ease the Turks might be driven
out of the Red Sea, and the Portuguese enjoy all the trade of those
countries. I informed him of the navigation of that sea, and the
situation of its ports; told him which it would be necessary to make
ourselves masters of first, that we might upon any unfortunate
encounter retreat to them. I cannot deny that some degree of
resentment might appear in my discourse; for, though revenge be
prohibited to Christians, I should not have been displeased to have
had the Bassa of Suaquem and his brother in my hands, that I might
have reproached them with the ill-treatment we had met with from
them. This was the reason of my advising to make the first attack
upon Mazna, to drive the Turks from thence, to build a citadel, and
garrison it with Portuguese.
The viceroy listened with great attention to all I had to say, gave
me a long audience, and asked me many questions. He was well
pleased with the design of sending a fleet into that sea, and, to
give a greater reputation to the enterprise, proposed making his son
commander-in-chief, but could by no means be brought to think of
fixing garrisons and building fortresses there; all he intended was
to plunder all they could, and lay the towns in ashes.
I left no art of persuasion untried to convince him that such a
resolution would injure the interests of Christianity, that to enter
the Red Sea only to ravage the coasts would so enrage the Turks that
they would certainly massacre all the Christian captives, and for
ever shut the passage into Abyssinia, and hinder all communication
with that empire. It was my opinion that the Portuguese should
first establish themselves at Mazna, and that a hundred of them
would be sufficient to keep the fort that should be built. He made
an offer of only fifty, and proposed that we should collect those
few Portuguese who were scattered over Abyssinia. These measures I
could not approve.
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