A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 750 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 750 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06.

At this time the king of Campar had gone home, intending to return to assume his office of Bendara, but was hindered by Mahomet and the king of Bintang, who fitted out a fleet of 70 sail with 2500 men under the command of the king of Linga, and besieged Campar, in the harbour of which town there were eight Portuguese vessels and some native proas, under the command of George Botello.  Observing this squadron to be somewhat careless, the king of Linga fell suddenly with his galley on the ship commanded by Botello, followed by the rest of his fleet; but met with so warm a reception that his galley was taken, so that he had to leap overboard, and the rest of the enemies fleet was put to flight.  The siege was now raised, and Botello conveyed the king of Campar to Malacca, where he exercised the office of Bendara with so much judgment and propriety, that in four months the city was visibly improved, great numbers of people resorting thither who had formerly fled to Mahomet to avoid the oppressions of Ninachetu.  Perceiving the growth of the city under the wise administration of Abdela, Mahomet determined to put a stop to this prosperity by means of a fraud peculiar to a Moor.  He gave out secretly, yet so that it might spread abroad, that his son-in-law had gone over to the Portuguese at Malacca with his knowledge and consent, and that the same thing was done by all those who seemed to fly there from Bintang, with the design to seize upon the fort on the first opportunity, and restore it to him who was the lawful prince.  This secret, as intended by Mahomet, was at length divulged at Malacca, where it produced the intended effect, as the commandant, George de Albuquerque, gave more credit to this false report than to the honest proceedings of the Bendara, who was tried and condemned as a traitor, and had his head cut off on a public scaffold.  In consequence of this event, the city was left almost desolate by the flight of the native inhabitants, and was afterwards oppressed by famine.

During the year 1513, while these transactions were going on at Malacca, the viceroy Albuquerque visited the most important places under his charge, and gave the necessary, orders for their security.  He dispatched his nephew Don Garcia to Cochin, with directions to expedite the construction of the fort then building at Calicut.  He appointed a squadron of four sail, under the command of his nephew Pedro de Albuquerque, to cruise from the mouth, of the Red Sea to that of the Persian Gulf, with orders to receive the tribute of Ormuz when it became due, and then to discover the island of Bahrayn, the seat of the great pearl-fishery in that gulf.  He sent ambassadors well attended to several princes.  Diego Fernandez de Beja went to the king of Cambaya, to treat about the erection of a fort at Din, which had been before consented to, but was now refused at the instigation of Maluk Azz.  Fernandez returned to Goa with magnificent presents to Albuquerque, among which was a Rhinoceros or Abada, which was afterwards lost in the Mediterranean on its way from king Manuel to the pope along with other Indian rarities.  Juan Gonzalez de Castello Branco was sent to the king of Bisnagar, to demand restitution of the dependencies belonging to Goa, but with little success.

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.