The Viceroy Accordingly Sent His Nephew,
Antonio De Norenha, To The Assistance Of These Two Kings With 1200 Men
In Nineteen Vessels.
Antonio was joined at Ormuz by 3000 native troops,
in conjunction with whom he besieged Catifa, which was defended by 400
Turks.
After a brave but unavailing resistance, the garrison fled by
night, but were pursued and routed. As the general of the troops of
Ormuz was unwilling to engage for the future defence of this fort, it
was undermined for the purpose of destroying it; but being unskilfully
managed, the mine exploded unexpectedly, and forty of the Portuguese
were buried under its ruins. Noronha then sailed to the mouth of the
Euphrates, on purpose to assist the king of Basrah; but he was induced
to believe, by a cunning Turkish pacha, that the king of Basrah meant to
betray him, on which he ingloriously returned to Ormuz, where he learnt
the deceit when too late.
The sultan of the Turks was so much displeased with the Portuguese for
what they had done at Catifa and attempted at Basrah, that he sent an
expedition against Ormuz of 16,000 men, commanded by an old pirate named
Pirbec. The Turk in the first place besieged Muscat for near a month,
and at length obliged the garrison to capitulate; but broke the articles
and chained the captain and sixty men to the oars. He afterwards
proceeded against Ormuz, where Don Alvaro de Noronha commanded with
nine-hundred men in the fort, where he had provided ammunition and
provisions for a long siege, and into which the king with his wife and
children and some of the chief people of the court had gone for shelter.
The Turk landed his men and raised batteries against the fort, which he
cannonaded incessantly for a whole month; but finding that he lost many
of his men and had no prospect of success, he plundered the city, and
went over to the island of Kishom, to which many of the principal people
of Ormuz had withdrawn, where he got a considerable booty and then
retired to Basrah. The viceroy had been informed of the danger to which
Ormuz was exposed, and fitted out a fleet in which he embarked in person
for its relief; but hearing at Diu, on his way to the Persian Gulf, that
Ormuz was out of danger, he sailed back to Goa. On his return
unsuccessful from Ormuz, Pirbec was beheaded for having acted beyond
his instructions, and Morad-beg was sent in 1553 with fifteen gallies
to cruise in the Persian Gulf against the Portuguese. An encounter took
place between this Turkish squadron and one belonging to the Portuguese
under Don Diego de Noronha, which ended without material loss on either
side; but the Turks were forced to take shelter in the Euphrates, where
the water was too shallow to admit the Portuguese galleons. In the
course of this year 1553, Luis Camoens, the admirable Portuguese poet,
went out to India, to endeavour to advance his fortune by the sword,
which had been so little favoured by his pen.
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