This Was A Notorious Act Of
Injustice; And As De Sousa Was Naturally Of A Haughty Disposition, None
Of His
Officers dared to remonstrate; but Pedro de Faria, then
four-score years of age, trusting to his quality and the
Great offices
he had held, repaired late one night to the governors tent, and
prevailed upon him to desist from so unjust an undertaking. Next day the
governor abandoned his design, pretending various reasons of delay, and
returned to Goa, carrying Meale Khan along with him.
At this time Aceda Khan died, who was the contriver of this discord, and
Adel Khan descended the gaut mountains with a powerful army to reduce
the rebels, recovering possession of the Concan in a few days. But as
Adel Khan was still fearful of Meale Khan, he offered the lands of
Salsete and Bardez to De Sousa, on condition of delivering him up,
which were valued at 50,000 ducats of yearly revenue. De Sousa refused
to give up this man who had confided in him for protection; but offered,
if put in possession of these districts, that he would remove Meale to
some place where he could give no disturbance to Adel Khan. These
conditions were agreed to and performed by Adel Khan, but evaded by De
Sousa, who sent Meale to Cananor and brought him back to Goa. Some
alleged that this was done to overawe Adel Khan, while others said it
was meant as a bait to extort presents; and it was certain that some
were actually sent.
In this treaty, Adel Khan had agreed that De Sousa was to be put into
possession of the vast treasures which had been left by the rebel Aceda
Khan, said to amount to ten millions of ducats, and which at his death
had fallen into the hands of Khojah Zemaz-oddin, who persuaded De Sousa
that it was only one million, and delivered that sum to him. Adel Khan
afterwards gave notice to De Sousa of the vast fraud which had been used
in the pretended delivery of the treasure; but all his efforts to secure
the defaulter were in vain.
Sultan Mahmud, sovereign of Cambaya or Guzerat, was desirous of
recovering possession of the castle built by the Portuguese at Diu, and
of freeing himself by that means from the trammels which had been thrown
in the way of the trade of his dominions. In the late treaty between him
and the Portuguese, it had been stipulated, with the consent of the
viceroy Don Garcia, that the government of Cambaya might erect a wall
between the city of Diu and the castle. This wall was accordingly
commenced; but as Emanuel de Sousa, who commanded in the castle of Diu,
considered that the wall now building was of a very different
description from a mere boundary, as intended in the treaty, and
appeared to be destined for hostile purposes, he drove away the workmen,
threw down the wall, and made use of the materials for strengthening the
defences of the castle. Mahmud was highly offended at this procedure,
and at the instigation of his great minister Khojah Zofar, he secretly
used every possible means to stir up enemies to the Portuguese,
endeavouring to form an union of the Indian princes to expel them not
only from Diu but from all India.
In the course of this year 1544, the great Khan of the Tartars invaded
China and besieged Peking with a prodigious army, amounting to
millions of men. A large detachment from this vast army, among which
were 60,000 horse, was sent against the city of Quamsi, which was
plundered, and an immense number of the inhabitants put to the sword.
While on his return with this part of the army, Nauticor the Tartar
general attempted to reduce the fortress of Nixiancoo, but was
repulsed with the loss of 3000 men, on which he was disposed to desist
from the enterprise, deeming the place impregnable. Among the prisoners
taken at Quamsi were nine Portuguese, one of whom named George Mendez
made offer to the Tartar general to put him on a plan for gaining the
fortress of Nixiancoo, on condition that he and his companions were
restored to liberty. The general agreed to his proposal, and gained the
fort by the advice of Mendez, with the slaughter of 2000 Chinese and
Moguls. In pursuance of his promise, the general obtained the liberty of
the Portuguese from his sovereign, but prevailed on Mendez to continue
in his service by a pension of 6000 ducats. The Tartar emperor was
constrained to raise the siege of Peking and retire to Tuymican his
residence in Tartary, after having closely invested the metropolis of
China for almost seven months, with the loss of 450,000 men, mostly cut
off by pestilence, besides 300,000 that deserted to the Chinese.
In 1545, Martin Alfonso de Sousa became exceedingly dissatisfied with
his situation as governor-general in India, being threatened on every
side by a combination of the native princes, and having no adequate
means of defence either in men or money. Only a few days before the
arrival of his successor, he declared to Diego Silveyra who was going to
sail for Portugal, that if the king did not immediately send out a
successor, he would open the patents of succession, and resign the
government to whoever he might find nominated for that purpose. He was
soon afterwards relieved by Don Juan de Castro, whose journal of the
expedition into the Red Sea we have laid before our readers in the
preceding chapter, and who arrived at Goa in August or September 1545,
to assume the government of India.
SECTION IV.
Government of India by Don Juan de Castro, from 1545 to 1548.
Khojah Zofar, who was now chief minister and favourite to the king of
Cambaya, though he continued to keep up a fair correspondence with the
Portuguese, yet, with the perfidy so natural to a Moor, never ceased
persuading his sovereign to endeavour to shake off the yoke by a second
attempt to reduce the castle of Diu.
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