A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 844 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 844 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09.
treasure, and servants, were all conveyed over the breach in the wall, and not a single Englishman called or allowed to see what they carried out with them.  Not only they, but all other Mahometans and Banyans, with their treasure and best things, were conveyed out of the castle in the same manner; whole bales of goods, with boxes and caskets full of treasure, to an unknown amount, were carried at the same time over the breaches.  No sooner were the gates opened for letting out the Portuguese, but at least forty Persians got in and spread themselves about the castle, besides whom, some of the ruder sort among the English got in likewise, whose coming in I fear was the cause of the Persians doing the same, judging themselves as worthy of this liberty as our people.

Before mid-day of the 24th, both the Persians and English began to pillage in a most shameful manner, so that I was both grieved and ashamed, yet could see no means of remedy.  The Persians drove out the poor sick, wounded, and scorched Christians, who were not able to help themselves, so that my heart yearned with compassion to see their woeful plight.  In the evening, the Khan of Shiras came over, as if in triumph, to view the castle and its great ordnance, of which there were near three hundred pieces,[311] part of which belonged to the galleons, and the rest to the castle.  This evening, the commanders and I, wishing to retain possession of the church in which we had placed a quantity of plate and treasure, for its better security against being embezzled, our design was utterly denied by Pulot Beg, who told our commanders, in plain terms, that they might lie out of doors.  Being justly incensed at this, we all three left the castle, the two captains going on board their ships, while I went to the city; but, as the tide was up, and I could not get a boat, I had to remain at the castle wall till near midnight.  At this time there came about sixty Persians, by their own report, sent by the Khan to prevent the Arabs from conveying away any of the ordnance which lay by the shore, but I suspect their real object was to cut the throats of the poor Christians who lay at the shore, for want of boats to carry them on board; but fortunately they were protected by an English guard.  Our chief business the whole of this day was to see the poor Portuguese sent safely out of the castle, most of them so weakened by divers maladies, but chiefly by famine, and many of them so noisome by their putrified wounds, and scorchings with gunpowder, that their pitiful cries and complaints might have moved pity in a heart of stone; yet such was the cruel disposition of the Persians, that they drove them out of the castle like so many dogs, stripping many of them even of their shirts.

[Footnote 311:  In a shorter relation of this siege, by Mr W. Pinder, the ordnance in the castle of Ormus are thus enumerated:—­Fifty-three pieces mounted, of the following descriptions,—­four brass cannons, six brass demi-cannons, sixteen brass cannons-pedro, nine brass culverins, two brass demi-culverins, three iron demi-culverins, ten brass basses, one iron minion, one iron culverin, one iron cannon-pedro.  Besides ninety-two brass pieces not mounted, and seven brass bastels which they had landed from the ships that were sunk.  In all, 152 pieces.—­E.]

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.