in Vasco’s nature, and his many honours, titles, and estates rendered
him more overbearing. It was on his second voyage to India, in October
1502, that he blew up a peaceful trading ship from Mecca with 380 (or
by another account, 240) men on board, besides many women and children,
after relieving it of all gold and merchandise. As to his overweening
pride, he is said to have signed himself Count in a letter to the King
before the title had been actually conferred.
Despite the crying need for a strong man to restore discipline in India
after Albuquerque’s death, King Manoel did not send Dom Vasco out as
Governor, and it was only in the reign of King João III, and when
Gama was over sixty, that he left Lisbon, in April 1524, as Viceroy
of India, with his sons Estevão and Paulo and a force of 3,000 men.
He reached Goa in September and presently proceeded to Cochin. He
was resolved to bring some measure of order and justice out of the
confusion and corruption of India; and whereas most other Governors on
their arrival were too busily occupied in enriching themselves to pay
careful attention to other matters, Gama bent his whole will to effect
reforms.
The reforms were salutary, but they filled native and Portuguese alike
with consternation and were decreed in a harsh, unconciliatory spirit.
Gama came into conflict with the outgoing Governor, Dom Duarte de
Meneses, and only reduced him to obedience by giving orders to bombard
him in his ship.
The first three months of Gama’s vice-royalty proved that the task of
reforming the rule of the Portuguese in India was work for a younger
man, and on Christmas Day 1524, to the relief of the self-seekers,
to the grief of those who cared for the future of their country, Dom
Vasco da Gama died, exactly twenty-seven years after the sight of Natal
had given him the first real promise of success in his earlier great
adventure.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] This may have been the occasion on which Vasco da Gama, closely
wrapped in his _capa_, one night in the streets of Setubal refused to
reveal his identity to the Alcaide going his rounds, declaring that he
was no _malfeitor_. The Alcaide’s attempt to arrest him failed.
[6] Also apparently called _Berrio_, after the pilot from whom it was
bought (?). Since Berrio = New (Basque _berri_) it was an appropriate
name for a ship going to the discovery of _mares nunca dantes
navegados_.
[7] It is said that only 55 out of the original 170 returned.
[8] This apparently continued to be his home for twelve years, since a
document of November 7, 1519, has “in the city of Evora in the house
in which now lives the magnificent Lord Dom Vasco da Gama, Admiral of
India.”
[9] Now Kilwa; soon, perhaps, Quiloa again.
V
DUARTE PACHECO PEREIRA
(1465?-1533?)
O gram Pacheco, Achilles lusitano.
LUIS DE CAMÕES, _Os Lusiadas_.
Diversas et incredibiles victorias obtinens.
DAMIÃO DE GOES, _Hispania_.
One of the captains who sailed from Lisbon with the cousins Albuquerque
in 1503 was Duarte Pacheco Pereira. Like the great Affonso de
Albuquerque with whom he sailed, he was still unknown to fame. He
may have been between thirty-five and forty years of age, but his
subsequent glory has thrown no light for us on his earlier years; and
beyond the fact that he was born at Lisbon, that he was a knight of
the King’s household, and that under João II he was employed in the
discovery of the west coast of Africa, we have to be content with
silence.
Five years had passed since the Portuguese had first reached India, and
instead of peaceful trade there was war between the King of Calicut and
the Portuguese, and hostilities between Cochin and Calicut by reason
of the King of Cochin’s friendship with the new-comers. The King of
Cochin, indeed, had been uniformly loyal to the Portuguese and had
shown conspicuous firmness of purpose, and to Cochin the Albuquerques
directed their course.
It was in an expedition against one of the King of Cochin’s enemies,
the Lord of Repelim (Eddapalli), that Pacheco first signalised himself
for dashing bravery and learnt what daring and energy could do against
a numerous but ill-equipped and undisciplined enemy. As he returned
in four boats at ten o’clock one night from a long day’s victorious
expedition against six or seven thousand natives he found his progress
blocked by thirty-four ships chained to one another. After encouraging
his men by a stirring speech he locked his own boats together and
forced his way through, and then immediately went about so as to be
able to stop the enemy’s pursuit with his artillery. A fierce combat
ensued, but Pacheco had completed his victory before the Albuquerques
could come to his assistance.
The King of Cochin was so greatly impressed by this exploit that he
henceforth held Pacheco in the highest esteem. He little knew at the
time how intimately their fortunes were to be linked. Before Affonso
and Francisco de Albuquerque left for home it was known that the King
(the Samuri) of Calicut was about to attack Cochin with his entire
forces by land and sea. None of the Portuguese captains evinced any
alacrity to be left behind in its defence, and when Pacheco accepted
with a good will, but “rather to serve God and the King than for any
hope of profit,” those who knew how great was the might of Calicut
said: “God have mercy on Duarte Pacheco and those who remain with
him,” scarcely expecting to set eyes on him again. As it proved it was
Francisco de Albuquerque who perished, on his way home, while Pacheco
died many years later, in peace and on dry land.
Whatever Pacheco’s thoughts may have been at the prospect before him,
he knew that to instil confidence into his men was half the battle;
he said little, but showed by his demeanour that he was perfectly
satisfied, and asked for not a single man beyond those whom the
Albuquerques had found possible to leave him. Thus he remained alone in
India, still an unknown country to the Portuguese, with his own ship
and three even smaller vessels, and, in all, ninety men.
It was little wonder that even the faithful and resolute King of Cochin
began to despair when it was known that the host, or horde, from
Calicut consisted of 60,000 men. He himself could provide about half
that number, but of these three-quarters were actively or passively
hostile. The Moors, moreover, who supplied Cochin with provisions were
minded to abandon the city, and would have done so had not Pacheco
intervened.
He at first determined to hang the ring-leader in this treachery, but
the King declared that, should he do so, the rest would rise in mutiny,
and he accordingly assembled the “honest merchants,” and addressed
them in a speech of such vigour that for the moment he had no further
trouble from the Moors. Purple with rage and speaking so loud that he
seemed to be actually fighting, he offered them his friendship, but
should they thwart him he promised to be a crueller enemy to them than
any King of Calicut. Their respect for Pacheco was further increased
by his astonishing energy, for, after working all day at preparations
against the coming invasion, he spent the nights in forays into the
Repelim country.
Pacheco’s task was to defend the city of Cochin, and the Portuguese
fort recently built by the Albuquerques. The territory of Cochin
was separated from that of Repelim by salt-water channels, and the
preparations of the Portuguese were directed to the defence of the
principal ford, which was only passable at low tide, with deeper water
at each end. With this object stakes were made ready to be driven in
all along the ford in a serried stockade. By the time the King of
Calicut reached Repelim, Pacheco had put a salutary fear into the
hearts of the citizens of Cochin, so that when the news of his arrival
came their first impulse to abandon the city was immediately checked.
The better to inspire them with his own fearlessness, he made his usual
night expedition into Repelim and set fire to one of the villages.
He experienced some difficulty in returning, and five of his men
were wounded, but when the King of Cochin expostulated against this
foolhardiness he merely laughed and said that all he wished for was
that the King of Calicut should advance to attack him.
The first attack at the ford occurred on the last day of March 1504
(Palm Sunday), and the period that followed may well claim to be one
of the most brilliant Hundred Days in history. The enemy on this Palm
Sunday, relying on their overwhelming numbers, crowded down to the ford
at low tide, but the sharp stockade confronted them and the artillery
from the boats stationed in the deep water on both sides of the
stockade cut them down. Their own “cannon” were not very formidable,
for we are told that they did not propel their projectiles with greater
violence than that with which one might throw a stone, and at the end
of the day the Portuguese had but a few injured and none killed. Their
danger was nevertheless great, for although the enemy had suffered
considerably in this first assault they were so numerous that they
could continually renew the attack, and sleepless vigilance, with
intervals of terrific exertion, was necessary to defeat them.
But Pacheco had succeeded in imparting something of his own spirit
to his men. Undeterred by the flight of the Nairs who should have
supported him, he took advantage with his usual energy of the
breathing-space secured by this first victory, ordered his men to make
a show of revelry at intervals during the following night in order to
impress the enemy, and next day with forty men set out and burnt a
village. The enemy’s attacks were repeated on Good Friday and Easter
Sunday and Easter Tuesday, and in the intervals of victory Pacheco kept
on burning villages, to the delight of those in Cochin.
The endurance of the defenders was tested to the utmost when the
King of Calicut attacked on the same day in two places, at the ford
and in a deep water channel. He seems to have made a mistake in not
waiting to attack with his fleet until low tide enabled the infantry
simultaneously to assault the ford, or, at least, the plan did not work
out well, and Pacheco was able to deal first with the numerous fleet of
boats, said to have been two hundred and fifty in number.
The four little Portuguese ships seemed almost lost in the multitude
of the enemy. The darts and arrows, says one of the early Portuguese
historians, were in such quantity that they cast a shadow over the
ships, and so loud were the shouts and cries that it seemed to be the
end of the world. Again and again the enemy’s boats, chained together,
came on to the attack, but they never succeeded in boarding the
Portuguese _caravelas_, although many of the Portuguese were wounded.
Meanwhile twelve thousand infantry had advanced against the ford.
Message after message came to Pacheco for help, but the tide was still
running out and he contented himself with answering that he was still
engaged with the fleet but that this was “not the day of the King of
Calicut.” At the turn of the tide, after having dealt faithfully with
the fleet of the enemy’s boats, he went; but the water was still too
shallow when he approached the ford and the ships grounded. He was
able, however, to work great havoc with his artillery among the many
thousands of assailants, although he could not come up to fight with
them at close quarters.
For a long hour the low water at the ford gave every advantage to the
enemy. Crowds of them surrounded the stranded ships, thousands rushed
forward to attack the ford. The water was tinged with red. And still
the ships refused to move. At last they floated, and as the tide rose
the danger of the attack grew less and less, till at dusk it ceased
entirely.
Another most formidable battle was fought at the beginning of May when
the King of Calicut in person attacked the ford. The Nairs from Cochin
who were to have defended the stockade deserted their post, many of the
enemy actually succeeded in crossing, and it was only by unparalleled
exertions that Pacheco, after being retained with his ship by the low
water, was able to hurl them back with great loss. A cannon-shot aimed
at the King of Calicut, which succeeded in killing several persons
near him, profoundly discouraged him in what began to seem a hopeless
enterprise, instead of child’s play as at first.
But the strain on Pacheco was not relaxed, and he spent night and day
watching and fighting. One Sunday as he sat at his midday meal in
his caravel after keeping watch all night, the look-out man sighted
eighteen hostile craft approaching. He determined to attack, but when
he arrived in mid-stream another fleet of sixteen, and then eighteen
more, darted out suddenly from behind a promontory, and it proved no
simple affair to beat them off.
The King of Cochin came up in time to witness Pacheco’s victory, and
after congratulating him reproached him for having exposed himself
alone to such a risk. Pacheco did not think it advisable to tell the
King that he had attacked in the belief that the enemy were only a
third of their real number, and his prestige with the natives was still
further enhanced.
The King of Calicut was in despair, and his forces were already reduced
from 60,000 to 40,000 men by battle and cholera, when a Moor of
Repelim invented a scheme which put new heart into the King and seemed
to give certain promise of capturing the Portuguese ships and all the
Portuguese in them. The device resembled that of moving towers built
to the height of the walls of a besieged town. Two boats were lashed
together to support a square wooden tower capable of holding some forty
men.
Pacheco had spies in the enemy’s camp who warned him of the new danger,
but the information was also divulged in Cochin, to the dismay of the
King and his subjects. The King paid Pacheco a visit, and, although
he was received on board with dance and song, besought him with tears
in his eyes to save himself by flight since further resistance was
useless, and when he left bade him farewell as for the last time.
To embolden the natives, Pacheco declared that he intended to defeat
the enemy now as on previous occasions, and asked them if he had ever
failed to keep his word. The further to encourage them, he erected
a great pointed stake on which to “spit the King of Calicut.” He did
not neglect more practical measures, for he raised the prows of his
vessels by means of wooden structures high enough to dominate the
enemy’s castles, and he put together a boom and fixed it by means of
six anchors a stone’s throw in front of his ships.
About two hours after midnight on Ascension Day a few shots announced
that the enemy were in motion. Pacheco landed, and after harrying
the advancing infantry returned to his ships at dawn in readiness to
receive the approaching fleet. At first the Portuguese artillery seemed
to make no impression on the strongly built tower that confronted them,
and for a short time it seemed that the enemy must be victorious.
“Lord, visit not my sins upon me now!” was Pacheco’s despairing cry.
But at last one of the towers came crashing down and Pacheco knelt on
deck and gave thanks to God, for the destruction of the rest was now
only a matter of time. The fighting lasted till dusk fell. So complete
was the discomfiture of the enemy and so miraculous seemed the escape
of the handful of Portuguese that the natives of Cochin lost all
fear of Calicut, and the Portuguese in India acquired far and wide a
reputation for invincible prowess.
The King of Calicut now had serious thoughts of giving over the war,
but two Italians, Milanese, persuaded him to attempt a night attack.
The plan was for the Prince of Repelim to advance with a large force,
and when he had engaged the enemy certain Nairs, posted in palm-trees,
were to raise fire-signals for the King of Calicut to follow with the
second army.
Unfortunately for them, Pacheco had wind of the arrangement and, aware
of his great danger, resolved to save the Nairs their trouble. He
accordingly set friendly Nairs in palm-trees, and as soon as the first
army started they gave the fire signal. The King of Calicut hurried
forward, but in the darkness either army mistook the other for an
ambush of natives from Cochin, and a long, fierce battle followed
between them, while Pacheco listened to the uproar but awaited the
enemy in vain. At dawn the two hostile armies found out their mistake
and retired in horror and dismay, while Pacheco, like some great
gloating demon, appeared in the increasing light to add to their
confusion with his artillery.
This was the last serious attack, and one by one the lords and princes
opposed to him came to terms with Pacheco. By boundless energy,
complete fearlessness, bluff, and the power of inspiring men at will
with fear or with confidence and devotion, Pacheco had achieved this
amazing triumph, which certainly had far-reaching effects on Portuguese
rule in India.
The King of Cochin lacked Pacheco’s imposing personality, but he was
affectionate and reliable throughout, bidding his subjects obey Pacheco
as they would his own person, and this despite the fact that Pacheco’s
behaviour was often very disconcerting. More than once he all but
hanged some treacherous Moors, although the King had warned him that
this would entail the cutting off of provisions from Cochin.
On another occasion a body of hostile Nairs made a surprise attack on
the island of Cochin, but were beaten off by the workers in the rice
swamps with their rustic weapons. Their victory was the easier because
a Nair considered himself polluted if one of these low-caste peasants
approached him.
Pacheco, delighted at the victory of these humble workmen, and mindful
moreover of more than one desertion of Nairs at difficult moments,
suggested that the King should make Nairs of these men, in the belief
apparently that the caste system could be brushed aside or altered at
will.[10] It was only after heated and repeated argument that the King
was able to persuade him that the thing he asked was impossible. The
heroic labourers were, however, permitted to bear arms and to approach
Nairs in future.
For himself Pacheco refused the King’s spices and other gifts,
aware that he could ill afford them, and accepted only the strange
coat-of-arms that the King bestowed on him--five crowns of gold on a
crimson ground--emblem of the much blood he had shed in his victory
over five kings--surrounded by eight green castles on blue and white.
At the beginning of the year 1505 he set out for home, to the sorrow
of the King of Cochin, and in the summer arrived at Lisbon. He was
received with great honour; on the Thursday after his arrival he walked
with the King in solemn procession from the Cathedral to the Convent of
São Domingos. The Bishop of Vizeu preached, exalting Pacheco’s heroic
deeds, and similar services were held throughout Portugal. News of his
exploits were sent to the Pope and to the Kings of Christendom.
Pacheco received a yearly pension of 50,000 réis, a considerable sum in
those days,[11] and other gifts and favours, and he married D. Antonia
de Albuquerque, daughter of one of King Manoel’s secretaries. Better
still, he received further employment from the King, being entrusted
with the survey of the coast of South-East Africa.
Already in 1505 he was at work on his _Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis_,
which had to wait nearly four centuries for a publisher. He was more
accustomed to hold the sword than the pen, but his book contains much
of interest and affords occasional insight into the character of its
author. Thus he says--and the philosophic tone of the words is of
interest in view of the neglect and poverty into which he is said to
have fallen in his last years: “No one is content with his possessions,
and in the end eight feet of earth suffice us and there ends and is
consumed the vanity of our high thoughts,” and “Virtuous men who love
God and are of clean heart and uncovetous are never forsaken of the
grace of the Holy Spirit.”
He dwells more than once on the iniquity of oblivion wrought by time:
“Difference of ages and length of time hide the knowledge of things
and render them forgotten.” His descriptions are clearly those of
an eyewitness, as that of “a little river which flows from the top
of the mountains to the sea through reeds and mint and rushes and
wild-olives.” He praises Prince Henry the Navigator and King João II,
whose deeds are worthy to be told “by the ancient fathers of eloquence
and learning,” and it was in gratitude to them, a gratitude which
posterity shares, that he wrote: “Experience causes us to live free
of the false abuses and fables that some of the ancient cosmographers
recorded.”
Although the great events of India under the rule of Albuquerque may
have obscured the deeds of Pacheco, he was evidently not forgotten,
for in January 1509 he was sent with several ships against the French
pirate Mondragon and defeated and captured him off Cape Finisterre, and
probably about the year 1520 he was appointed Governor of the fort of
São Jorge de Mina, a coveted post on the west coast of Africa.
Tradition has it that he came home in irons, and he may have been the
victim of one of those accusations by subordinates which were becoming
so common in the Portuguese overseas possessions. Pacheco had shown of
old that he was one of those whom he calls _inimigos da cobiça_, with
thoughts set on higher things than gold. But a new king was on the
throne, who was but two years old when Pacheco was winning immortal
renown for the Portuguese in India, and it seems to have been the
general feeling that he was unfairly treated. Camões speaks of his
“harsh and unjust reward.”
It appears that he continued to receive his pension, yet he is said to
have died, about the year 1530, in extreme penury. We may be sure at
least that his heart did not quail before poverty any more than it had
before the countless host of Calicut. The recollection of his wiles and
devices during those hundred days at Cochin must have been a powerful
antidote to neglect and old age. “The thought of what he had done would
prove music to him at midnight.”
A few, no doubt, of the heroic ninety on whose behalf Pacheco wrote to
the King, recalling their services, survived, and they might discuss
the apparent miracle of their famous victory, and, in Pacheco’s words,
“the multitude of things in the very wealthy kingdoms of India,” glad
at heart the while to be at home under the more temperate sun of
Portugal and to rind their “eight feet of earth” in their own soil.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] “The nobles,” says Correa, “are called Nairs, and are men devoted
to war.” The peasants “are so accursed that if they go along a road
they must go shouting, lest Nairs should meet and kill them, for they
may not carry arms, whereas the Nairs are always armed. And if as they
go shouting a Nair answers they scuttle away into the wilds far from
the road.”
[11] The poet Luis de Camões, after his return from the East, supported
life on less than a third of that amount.
[Illustration: AFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE.
From Gaspar Correa, _Lendas da India_, frontispiece to vol. ii. pt. 1.]
VI
AFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE
(1462?-1515)
Aquelle invencivel e espantoso capitão Affonso de Albuquerque.--HEITOR
PINTO, _Imagem da Vida Christam_.
O sem segundo Affonso de Albuquerque, honra de todos os advertidos
e scientes capitães que teve o mundo.--JOÃO RIBEIRO, _Fatalidade
historica da Ilha de Ceilão_.
Albuquerque terribil, Castro forte.--CAMÕES, _Os Lusiadas_.
Had Affonso de Albuquerque died five or six years before he did the
world would never have realised that it had lost one of the greatest
men of all nations and ages. Born of an ancient family[12] about the
year 1460,[13] Albuquerque had in 1514 seen thirty-eight years’
service. He won the regard of Prince João in the campaign against Spain
in which that prince saved his father from irretrievable defeat, and he
became his equerry when he had succeeded to the throne as João II. He
also served with distinction in Africa.