1508.

He equipped a fleet of four ships under the command of Diogo Lopez de Sequeira, which sailed from Lisbon on the eighth day of April 1508 with orders to explore and establish connexions in those eastern parts of Asia.

1509.

After touching at Madagascar Sequeira proceeded to Cochin, where a ship was added to his fleet, and, departing from thence on the eighth of September 1509, he made sail towards Malacca; but having doubled the extreme promontory of Sumatra (then supposed to be the Taprobane of the ancients) he anchored at Pidir, a principal port of that island, in which he found vessels from Pegu, Bengal, and other countries.  The king of the place, who, like other Mahometan princes, was styled sultan, sent off a deputation to him, accompanied with refreshments, excusing himself, on account of illness, from paying his compliments in person, but assuring him at the same time that he should derive much pleasure from the friendship and alliance of the Portuguese, whose fame had reached his ears.  Sequeira answered this message in such terms that, by consent of the sultan, a monument of their amity was erected on the shore; or, more properly, as the token of discovery and possession usually employed by the European nations.  He was received in the same manner at a place called Pase, lying about twenty leagues farther to the eastward on the same coast, and there also erected a monument or cross.  Having procured at each of these ports as much pepper as could be collected in a short time he hastened to Malacca, where the news of his appearance in these seas had anticipated his arrival.  Here he was near falling a sacrifice to the insidious policy of Mahmud, the reigning king, to whom the Portuguese had been represented by the Arabian and Persian merchants (and not very unjustly) as lawless pirates, who, under the pretext of establishing commercial treaties, had, at first by encroachments, and afterwards with insolent rapacity, ruined and enslaved the princes who were weak enough to put a confidence in them, or to allow them a footing in their dominions.  He escaped the snares that were laid for him but lost many of his people, and, leaving others in captivity, he returned to Europe, and gave an account of his proceedings to the king.

1510.

A fleet was sent out in the year 1510 under Diogo Mendez to establish the Portuguese interests at Malacca; but Affonso d’Alboquerque, the governor of their affairs in India, thought proper to detain this squadron on the coast of Malabar until he could proceed thither himself with a greater force.

1511.