In This Deplorable Situation, Incessantly
Battered By The Enemy, Cut Off From All Supplies Of Provisions, Malacca
Had No Adequate Means And, Hardly Any Hopes Of Defence.
In this
extremity Tristan Vaz accidentally entered the port with a single ship,
in which he had been to Sunda for a cargo of pepper.
Being earnestly
intreated by the besieged to assist them, he agreed to do every thing in
his power, though it seemed a rash attempt to engage a fleet of 100 sail
with only ten vessels, nine of which were almost rotten and destitute of
rigging. Among these he distributed 300 naked and hungry wretches; and
though confident in his own valour, he trusted only in the mercy of God,
and caused all his men to prepare for battle by confession, of which he
set them the example.
He sailed from Malacca with this armament about the end of November
1571, and soon discovered the formidable fleet of the enemy in the river
Fermoso. Giving the command of his own ship to Emanuel Ferreyra,
Tristam Vaz de Vega went sword in hand into a galliot, to encourage his
men to behave valiantly by exposing himself to the brunt of battle along
with them. On the signal being given by a furious discharge of cannon,
Tristan instantly boarded the admiral ship of the enemy, making great
havock in her crew of 200 men and even carried away her ensign.
Ferdinand Perez with only 13 men in a small vessel took a galley of the
enemy.
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