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. For this purpose he collected a
powerful army, yet endeavoured in the first place to attain his ends by
the most infamous means of secret policy. With this view he gained over
a Portuguese of a base character, named Ruy Freire, to poison the
great cistern or reservoir of water, to set the magazine of the castle
on fire, and to admit him by a concerted signal into the place. But this
treacherous design was frustrated by the information of an Ethiopian, a
Turk and a female slave, who revealed the plot to the commander, Don
Juan Mascarenhas, who had succeeded Emanuel de Sousa. As Mascarenhas
became aware of the storm that was gathering against him, he prepared to
meet it as well as possible, and sent notice of his danger to the
governor-general, Don Juan de Castro, and to all the neighbouring
Portuguese commanders. The garrison in the castle of Diu at this time
amounted only to 210 men: Of these Mascarenhas assigned 30 for the
defence of each of the four bastions; his lieutenant had charge of a
tower or bulwark over the gate with 20 men; other 20 were placed in a
small detached work; and he retained 50 men as a body of reserve under
his own immediate command, to act wherever the greatest danger might
call for his presence.
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