Diego De Sylveira Was Ordered To Punish That Man, And Went
Accordingly Against Him With A Force Of 450 Men And Sixteen Vessels.
He
accordingly entered the river of Mangalore, where he was opposed by a
great number of ships belonging to the Moorish merchant, which were put
to flight after a short contest.
Sylveira then landed with 240 men and
entered the town without opposition, after which he took the fort whence
the merchant endeavoured to escape, but was slain by a musquet-ball. A
vast booty fell into the hands of the Portuguese, but Sylveira ordered
it all to be burnt, lest he might endanger his ships by overloading
them. As winter was coming on Sylveira dismissed half of his fleet, yet
afterwards had occasion for them all, as he soon after encountered Pati
Marcar, a commander belonging to Calicut, who was going to Mangalore
with sixty paraos. The weather prevented him from fighting at that time;
but Sylveira waited the return of the Calicut fleet, to which he gave
battle off Mount Dely, and sank six paraos, after which he returned to
Cochin. In the same year 1530, Antonio de Sylveira commanded on the
coast of Cambaya with fifty-one sail of vessels, three of which were
gallies and two galliots, in which were 900 Portuguese soldiers. With
this force he went up the river Taptee where he burnt Surat and Reyner,
the chiefest towns in that part of India. Surat on one side of the river
contained 10,000 families, mostly Banians[183] and handicrafts of no
courage; while Reyner on the other side of the river had six thousand
houses inhabited by a warlike race, and was well fortified.
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