vessels, and acquired great plunder, and destroyed a vessel of great size, richly adorned, and containing several splendid apartments like a palace, all covered with gold and ivory, which the king kept as a pleasure-yacht for his own use.  Exasperated against Gonzalez for his treachery, the king ordered the nephew of that lawless ruffian, who was in his power as a hostage, to be be impaled.  But Gonzalez, being a person utterly devoid of honour, cared not at whose cost he advanced his own interests; yet the guilt of so many villanies began to prey upon his conscience, and he became apprehensive of some heavy punishment falling upon him, which he had little means to avert, as all men considered him a traitor unworthy of favour; those of Aracan, because he had betrayed them to the Moguls; and the Moguls, because he had been false to those that trusted him.  He afterwards met his just reward under the government of Don Jerom de Azevedo[431].

[Footnote 429:  Perhaps the island now called Balonga on the coast of Aracan.—­E.]

[Footnote 430:  Probably a desert or uninhabited island among the Sunderbunds, in the Delta of the Ganges.  Indeed the whole geography of this singular story is obscure, owing to the prodigious change in dominion and names that have since taken place in this part of India.—­E.]

[Footnote 431:  Owing to the want of interest in the transactions of these times, as related in the Portuguese Asia, and the confused arrangement of De Faria, we have in this place thrown together the principal incidents in the extraordinary rise of these two successful adventurers, Nicote and Gonzalez, leaving their fate to be mentioned in the succeeding section.—­E.]

The Hollanders, becoming powerful at the Molucca islands, and forming an alliance with these islanders, who were weary of the avarice and tyranny of the Portuguese, expelled them from Amboyna and established themselves at Ternate, whence the Portuguese had been formerly expelled by the natives.  By the aid of the king of Ternate, the Hollanders likewise, about 1604, got possession of the fort of Tidore, whence about 400 Portuguese were permitted to retire by sea to the Phillipine islands, where they were hospitably received by Don Pedro de Cunna, who commanded there for the Spaniards.  In February 1605, Cunna sailed from the Philippines with 1000 Spanish and 400 native troops, and recovered the fort of Ternate, chiefly owing to the bravery of Joam Rodriguez Camelo, who commanded a company of Portuguese in this expedition.  De Cunna thence proceeded for Tidore, which he likewise reduced, by which conquest the Molucca islands became subject to Spain.