On The Same Day, The City Was Set
On Fire In Several Places, By The Command Of The Persian General, As Was
Reported, Because His Arab Soldiers Lurked Among The Houses, And Could
Not Be Got Forth To Do Any Service In The Siege.
To the number of four or five thousand men, we were now cooped up in a
barren island without
Shelter, producing nothing in itself except salt;
and I know not by what mistaken policy the general had been induced to
send away all the rice and other victuals, by which means we were
reduced to depend upon the continent for a daily supply of provisions,
and even water; so that, if a fleet of Portuguese frigates had come, as
was expected, we must have been famished, as the country boats durst not
have ventured to us from the main. The rain water in the open cisterns
was daily wasted, and became brackish, no care being taken to fill the
jars and private cisterns in almost every house, while it remained good.
The Persians are quite ignorant in the art of war, for they entered the
breach without fear, precaution, or means of establishing themselves;
and they lost with shame what they might have defended with honour. I
observed other defects in their management, even of the very sinews of
war; and I am astonished that Shah Abbas, the wonder of our age, should
have sent his army on this expedition so weakly provided with money,
arms, ammunition, ships, and all other necessaries. I am even satisfied
that all the money belonging to the khan was consumed in one month's pay
to our ships, and I fear we shall have to wait for the rest till the
plunder is converted into money. In regard to arms and ammunition, they
have only small pieces, with bows and arrows, and swords, some of their
chiefs having coats of mail. They were so scarce of powder, that after
blowing their mine, they had hardly enough to supply the small arms for
entering the breach, though furnished with twenty or twenty-five barrels
from our ships. They had not a single scaling-ladder to assist their
entry. Were we to forsake them, they would soon be completely at a
stand, yet they have already broken conditions with us in several
things, and I much fear, when all is done, we shall be paid with
reversions, and what else they themselves please.
Our ordnance so galled the Portuguese ships from the shore, that a
galleon was sunk on the 19th of March, and two more on the 20th and 23d.
The last come ship from Goa, which was their admiral, and one of the
others, were, I think, sacrificed by the policy of the governor, that
the garrison might have no means of escape, and might therefore defend
themselves manfully to the last, in hopes of relief from Goa, though
some thought they went down in consequence of injuries from sunken
rocks, in hauling them so near the castle to get them out of the range
of our battery.
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