use up to 1486; in which year João II, being then at Beja, caused
the green cross of the Order of Avis, which had been improperly
introduced by his grandfather, who had been master of that order,
to be withdrawn and the position of the quinas, or five
escutcheons, to be changed.
[Sidenote: Criticisms of the Account by Barros.]
“The inscription covers the three other sides of the cube. It is in
Gothic letters and in Portuguese, and reads as follows: ‘In the
year 6681 of the World, and in that of 1482 since the birth of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the most serene, most excellent and potent
prince, King D. João II. of Portugal did order (_mandou_) this land
to be discovered and these padrões to be set up by Dº Cão, an
esquire (_escudeiro_) of his household.’ There is no inscription in
Latin.
“As the year 6681 of Eusebius begins on September 1, 1481, we
gather from this inscription that the order for the expedition was
given between January and August, 1482. Of course the departure may
have been delayed, but the delay cannot have been a long one, as
Cão was home again before April, 1484.
“Cão came back to Lisbon probably in the beginning of 1484, and
certainly before April of that year. The king, first of all, made
him a ‘cavalleiro’ of his household. He then, on April 8, 1484, ‘in
consideration of the services rendered in the course of a voyage of
discovery to Guinea, from which he had now returned,’ granted him
an annuity of ten thousand reals, to be continued to one surviving
son; and a few days afterwards, on April 14, he separated his
‘cavalier’ from the common herd and made him noble, and gave him a
coat-of-arms charged with the two padrões which he had erected on
the coast of Africa.
* * * * *
“Far more useful for our purpose is the pillar which formerly stood
on Cape Cross, and which Captain Becker of the Falke carried off to
Kiel[13] in 1893. Dr. Scheppig has fully described the pillar.
“The Portuguese inscription says--‘In the year 6685 of the creation
of the world, and of Christ 485, the excellent, illustrious King D.
João II. of Portugal did direct this land to be discovered, and
this padrão to be set up by Dº Cão, a cavalleiro (knight) of his
household.’
“As the year 6685 of the Eusebian era begins on September 1, 1485,
Cão must have departed after that day, and before the close of the
year. As he had returned from his first voyage before April, 1484,
his departure must have been delayed for reasons not known to us.
“THE VOYAGE OF BARTHOLOMEU DIAS, 1487-88.
“No sooner had Cão’s vessels returned to the Tagus than King John,
whose curiosity had been excited by the reports about the supposed
Prester John, brought home by d’Aveiro, determined to fit out
another expedition to go in quest of him by doubling Africa, Friar
Antonio of Lisbon and Pero of Montaroyo having already been
despatched on the same errand by way of Jerusalem and Egypt. The
command of this expedition was conferred upon Bartholomeu Dias de
Novaes, a cavalier of the king’s household.... It certainly was our
Bartholomew who commanded one of the vessels despatched in 1481
with Diogo d’Azambuja to the Gold Coast.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
“The appointment seems to have been made in October, 1486, for on
the 10th of that month King John, ‘in consideration of services
which he hoped to receive,’ conferred upon Bartholomeu Dias, the
‘patron’ of the _S. Christovão_, a royal vessel, an annuity of
6,000 reis.
“The account which João de Barros has transmitted to us of the
remarkable expedition which resulted in the discovery of the Cape
of Good Hope is fragmentary, and on some points undoubtedly
erroneous. Unfortunately, up till now no official report of the
expedition has been discovered; but there are a few incidental
references to it, which enable us to amplify, and in some measure
to correct, the version put forward by the great Portuguese
historian.
“Most important among these independent witnesses is a marginal
note on fol. 13 of a copy of Pierre d’Ailly’s _Imago mundi_, which
was the property of Christopher Columbus, and is still in the
Columbine Library at Seville. This ‘note’ reads as follows:--
“‘Note, that in December of this year, 1488, there landed at Lisbon
Bartholomeu Didacus [Dias], the commander of three caravels, whom
the King of Portugal had sent to Guinea to seek out the land, and
who reported that he had sailed 600 leagues beyond the furthest
reached hitherto, that is, 450 leagues to the south and then 150
leagues to the north, as far as a cape named by him the Cape of
Good Hope, which cape we judge to be in Agisimba, its latitude, as
determined by the astrolabe, being 45° S., and its distance from
Lisbon 3100 leagues. This voyage he [Dias] had depicted and
described from league to league upon a chart, so that he might show
it to the king; at all of which I was present (_in quibus omnibus
interfui_).’
“The same voyage is referred to in a second ‘note’ discovered in
the margin of the _Historia rerum ubique gestarum_ of Pope Pius
II., printed at Venice in 1477. From this second note we learn that
‘one of the captains whom the most serene King of Portugal sent
forth to seek out the land in Guinea brought back word in 1488 that
he had sailed 45° beyond the equinoctial line.’
“Las Casas (_Historia de las Indias_, lib. i. c. 7) assumed these
notes to have been written by Bartholomew Columbus, whom, as the
result of a misconception of the meaning of the concluding words of
the note, he supposed to have taken part in this voyage. These
assumptions, however, are absolutely inadmissible, for as early as
February 10, 1488, Bartholomew had completed at London a map of the
world for Henry VII. If we remember that Bartholomew was detained
by pirates for several weeks before he reached England, he must
have left Lisbon towards the end of 1487. He did not return to that
place until many years afterwards.
“On the other hand, the note is unhesitatingly recognized as in the
handwriting of Christopher by such competent authorities as
Varnhagen, d’Avezac, H. Harrisse, Asensio, and Cesare de Lollis.
[Sidenote: Criticism of the Account by Barros.]
“And if Christopher is the author of these notes, they must have
been written in 1488, for it was in March, 1488, that King Manuel,
in response to an application, cordially invited his ‘especial
friend,’ Christopher Columbus, to come to Lisbon, promising him
protection against all criminal and civil proceedings that might be
taken against him. Columbus, when he received this royal
invitation, was at Seville, where his son Ferdinand was born unto
him on September 28, 1488. If he left Seville soon afterwards, he
may certainly have been present on the memorable occasion, in
December, 1488, when Bartholomeu Dias rendered an account to the
king of the results of his hope-inspiring voyage.
“If then, Bartholomeu Dias returned in December, 1488, after an
absence (according to De Barros) of sixteen months and seventeen
days, he must have started towards the end of July or in the
beginning of August, 1487; and if the Bartholomeu Dias referred to
in the royal rescript of October 10, 1486, is the discoverer of the
Cape, which hardly admits of a doubt, he cannot have started in
July, 1486, as usually assumed. He cannot have been in Lisbon in
December, 1487.
“This date (namely 1488) is further confirmed by Duarte Pacheco
Pereira, the ‘Achilles Lusitano’ of Camoens, for in his _Esmeraldo
de Situ Orbis_, written soon after 1505, but only published in
1892, we are told that the Cape was discovered in 1488. And Pacheco
is a very competent witness, for Dias, on his homeward voyage, met
him at the Ilha do Principe.
“A further statement respecting the date of the discovery of the
Cape appears in the _Parecer_, or ‘Opinion,’ of the Spanish
astronomers and pilots already referred to. They say, ‘And beyond
this [the Sierra Parda, where Cão died], Bartolomé Diaz, in the
year 1488, discovered as far as the Cabo d’El-Rei, a distance of
350 leagues; and thence to the Cabo de boa Esperança, 250 leagues;
and thence D. Vasco da Gama discovered 600 leagues.’”
This evidence does not seem to me to be by any means conclusive.
The marginal note supposed to have been made by Christopher
Columbus I reject at once, as I cannot believe that the latitude
named in it was given by Dias or recorded by Columbus.
As for the work of Duarte Pacheco, it cannot for a moment be placed
in the scale against Barros. Its author was born in Lisbon about
1451, and is believed to have died in poverty some time between the
years 1524 and 1553. It was he who was rescued at Prince’s Island
and taken to Lisbon, so that he must have been acquainted with the
correct date, but as his original manuscript has perished and the
copy made from it was done carelessly and certainly contains
transcriber’s errors, I do not think much dependence can be placed
on his statements. There are two manuscript copies of his work in
existence. The oldest, now in the library at Evora, is supposed
from the style of the writing to have been made about the close of
the sixteenth century, and the other, now in the National Library
in Lisbon, is merely a transcript of the first made at a much later
date. The work was published at Lisbon in 1892 in a foolscap folio
volume of xxxv+125 pages, and is divided into four books. It is
entitled _Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, por Duarte Pacheco Pereira.
Edição commemorativa da Descoberta da America por Christovão
Colombo no seu quarto centenario, sob a direcção de Raphael Eduardo
de Azevedo Basta, Conservador do Real Archivo da Torre do Tombo_.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
I give here the two references to the voyage of Dias, from which
the reader can see how little this work of Duarte Pacheco is to be
depended upon. In a reference to the first voyage of Diogo Cam he
states, as in the second of these, that the inscription on the
cross was in three languages: Latin, Portuguese, and Arabic. That
identical cross is still in existence, and there is no Arabic upon
it. See also the confusion between the Penedo das Fontes and the
Ilheo da Santa Cruz.
Terceyro Liuro, pagina 90.
Nom sem muita rasam se poz nome a este promontorio cabo da boa
esperança por que Bartholomeu Dias que o descobrio por mandado
delRey Dom Joham que Deos tem no anno de nosso senhor de mil
quatrocentos & oitenta & oito annos veendo que esta costa & Ribeira
do mar voltaua daly em diante ao norte & ao nordest....
Terceyro Liuro, pagina 94.
Item; sinco leguoas adiante dangra do Rico esta hum Ilheo pouco
mais de mea leguoa de terra que se chama ho penedo das fontes o
qual nome Ihe pos Bertholameu Dias que esta terra descobrio por
mandado delRey Dom Joham que Deos tem por que achou aly duas fontes
de muito boa augua doce & por outro nome se chama este penedo ho
Ilheo da Cruz por que o mesmo Bertholameu Dias pos aly hum padram
de pedra pouco mais alto que hum homem com huma cruz em sima & este
padram tem tres letreyros.s. hum em latim & outro em harabiguo &
outro em nossa lingua portugueza & todos tres dizem huma cousa.s.
como elRey Dom Joham no anno de nosso senhor Jesus cristo de mil
CCCC & oytenta & oyto annos & em tantos annos da creaçam do mundo
mandou descobrir esta costa por Bertholameu Dias capitam de seus
nauios; ...
The remaining references seem to me equally weak, and until
something more conclusive comes to light I think it would be well
to adhere to the dates of Barros. I notice, however, that Mr. K. G.
Jayne, in his _Vasco da Gama and his Successors_, has adopted the
dates of Mr. Ravenstein.
II.
_First Voyages of the French and English to the Eastern Seas. And a
Sketch of the Early History of the Netherlands and of the Establishment
of the Dutch in India._
SKETCH II.
I.
FIRST VOYAGES OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH TO INDIA. EARLY HISTORY OF THE
NETHERLANDS.
The debt which the world owes to the Portuguese for weakening the
Mohamedan power and thus preventing the subjugation of a larger portion
of Eastern Europe than was actually overrun by the Turks should not be
forgotten, but long before the close of the sixteenth century they had
ceased to be participants in the great progressive movement of the
Caucasian race. Upon a conquering nation rests an enormous
responsibility: no less than that of benefiting the world at large. Was
Portugal doing this in her eastern possessions to such an extent as to
make her displacement there a matter deserving universal regret?
Probably her own people would reply that she was, for every nation
regards its own acts as better than those of others; but beyond her
borders the answer unquestionably would be that she was not. Rapacity,
cruelty, corruption, have all been laid to her charge at this period,
and not without sufficient reason. But apart from these vices, her
weakness under the Castilian kings was such that she was incapable of
doing any good. When an individual is too infirm and decrepit to manage
his affairs, a robust man takes his place, and so it is with States. The
weak one may cry out that might is not right, but such a cry finds a
very feeble echo. India was not held by the Portuguese under the only
indefeasible tenure: that of making the best use of it; and thus it
could be seized by a stronger power without Christian nations feeling
that a wrong was being done.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
Before recounting in brief the rise of the Northern Netherlands to a
proud position among European states, and the commencement of the Dutch
conquests in the eastern seas, a glance may be given to the earliest
acts of other nations, and especially to those of our own countrymen, in
those distant regions.
The French were the first to follow the Portuguese round the Cape of
Good Hope to India. As early as 1507 a corsair of that nation, named
Mondragon, made his appearance in the Mozambique channel[14] with two
armed vessels, and plundered a ship commanded by Job Queimado. He also
captured and robbed another Indiaman nearer home. On the 18th of January
1509 a fleet commanded by Duarte Pacheco Pereira fell in with him off
Cape Finisterre, and after a warm engagement sank one of his ships and
captured the other. Mondragon was taken a prisoner to Lisbon, where he
found means of making his peace with the king, and he was then permitted
to return to France.
Twenty years later three ships, fitted out by a merchant named Jean
Ango, sailed from Dieppe for India. The accounts of this expedition are
so conflicting that it is impossible to relate the occurrences attending
it with absolute accuracy. It is certain, however, that one of the ships
never reached her destination. Another was wrecked on the coast of
Sumatra, where her crew were all murdered. The third reached Diu in July
1527. She had a crew of forty Frenchmen, but was commanded by a
Portuguese named Estevão Dias, nicknamed Brigas, who had fled from his
native country on account of misdeeds committed there, and had taken
service with the strangers. The ruler of Diu regarded this ship with
great hostility, and as he was unable to seize her openly, he practised
deceit to get her crew within his power. Professing friendship, he gave
Dias permission to trade in his territory, but took advantage of the
first opportunity to arrest him and his crew. They were handed over as
captives to the paramount Mohamedan ruler, and were obliged to embrace
his creed to preserve their lives. They were then taken into his service
and remained in India.
[Sidenote: Early Voyages of the French.]
Early in 1529 two ships commanded by Jean and Raoul Parmentier, fitted
out partly by Jean Ango, partly by merchants of Rouen, sailed from
Dieppe. In October of the same year they reached Sumatra, but on account
of great loss of life from sickness, on the 22nd of January 1530 they
turned homeward. As they avoided the Portuguese settlements, nothing was
known at Goa of their proceedings except what was told by a sailor who
was left behind at Madagascar and was afterwards found there. This
expedition was almost as unsuccessful as the preceding one. On their
return passage the ships were greatly damaged in violent storms, and
they reached Europe with difficulty.
From that time until 1601 there is no trace of a French vessel having
passed the Cape of Good Hope. In May of this year the _Corbin_ and
_Croissant_, two ships fitted out by some merchants of Laval and Vitré,
sailed from St. Malo. They reached the Maldives safely, but there the
_Corbin_ was lost in July 1602, and her commander was unable to return
to France until ten years had gone by. The _Croissant_ was lost on the
Spanish coast on her homeward passage.
On the 1st of June 1604 a French East India Company was established on
paper, but it did not get further. In 1615 it was reorganised, and in
1617 the first successful expedition to India under the French flag
sailed from a port in Normandy. From that date onward ships of this
nation were frequently seen in the eastern seas. But the French made no
attempt to form a settlement in South Africa, and their only connection
with this country was that towards the middle of the seventeenth century
a vessel was sent occasionally from Rochelle to collect a cargo of
sealskins and oil at the islands in and near the present Saldanha Bay.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
The English were the next to appear in Indian waters. A few individuals
of this nation may have served in Portuguese ships, and among the
missionaries, especially of the Company of Jesus, who went out to
convert the heathen, it is not unlikely that there were several. One at
least, Thomas Stephens by name, was rector of the Jesuit college at
Salsette. A letter written by him from Goa in 1579, and printed in the
second volume of Hakluyt’s work, is the earliest account extant of an
English voyager to that part of the world.[15] It contains no
information of importance.
The famous sea captain Francis Drake, of Tavistock in Devon, sailed from
Plymouth on the 13th of December 1577, with the intention of exploring
the Pacific ocean. His fleet consisted of five vessels, carrying in all
one hundred and sixty-four men. His own ship, named the Pelican, was of
one hundred and twenty tons burden. The others were the _Elizabeth_,
eighty tons, the _Marigold_, thirty tons, a pinnace of twelve tons, and
a storeship of fifty tons burden. The last named was set on fire as soon
as her cargo was transferred to the others, the pinnace was abandoned,
the _Marigold_ was lost in a storm, the _Elizabeth_, after reaching the
Pacific, turned back through the straits of Magellan, and the _Pelican_
alone continued the voyage. She was the first English ship that sailed
round the world. Captain Drake reached England again on the 3rd of
November 1580, and soon afterwards was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth
on board his ship. The _Pelican_ did not touch at any part of the South
African coast, but there is the following paragraph in the account of
the voyage:--
[Sidenote: First Englishmen in the East.]
“We ran hard aboard the Cape, finding the report of the Portuguese to be
most false, who affirm that it is the most dangerous cape of the world,
never without intolerable storms and present danger to travellers who
come near the same. This cape is a most stately thing, and the fairest
cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth, and we passed by it
on the 18th of June.”
In 1583 four English traders in precious stones, acting partly on their
own account and partly as agents for merchants in London, made their way
by the Tigris and the Persian gulf to Ormuz, where at that time people
of various nationalities were engaged in commerce. John Newbery, the
leader of the party, had been there before. The others were named Ralph
Fitch, William Leades, and James Story. Shortly after their arrival at
Ormuz they were arrested by the Portuguese authorities on the double
charge of being heretics and spies of the prior Dom Antonio, who was a
claimant to the throne of Portugal, and under these pretences they were
sent prisoners to Goa. There they managed to clear themselves of the
first of the charges, Story entered a convent, and the others, on
finding bail not to leave the city, were set at liberty in December
1584, mainly through the instrumentality of the Jesuit father Stephens
and Jan Huyghen van Linscheten, of whom more will be related in the
following pages. Four months afterwards, being in fear of ill-treatment,
they managed to make their escape from Goa. After a time they separated,
and Fitch went on a tour through India, visiting many places before his
return to England in 1591. An account of his travels is extant in
Hakluyt’s collection, but there is not much information in it, and it
had no effect upon subsequent events.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
Thomas Candish sailed from Plymouth on the 21st of July 1586, with three
ships--the _Desire_, of one hundred and twenty tons, the _Content_, of
sixty tons, and the _Hugh Gallant_, of forty tons--carrying in all one
hundred and twenty-three souls. After sailing round the globe, he
arrived again in Plymouth on the 9th of September 1588, having passed
the Cape of Good Hope on the 16th of May.
The first English ships that put into a harbour on the South African
coast were the _Penelope_, _Merchant Royal_, and _Edward Bonaventure_,
which sailed from Plymouth for India on the 10th of April 1591, under
command of Admiral George Raymond. This fleet put into the watering
place of Saldanha, now called Table Bay, at the end of July. The crews,
who were suffering from scurvy, were at once sent on shore, where they
obtained fresh food by shooting wild fowl and gathering mussels and
other shell-fish along the rocky beach. Some inhabitants had been seen
when the ships sailed in, but they appeared terrified, and at once moved
inland. Admiral Raymond visited Robben Island, where he found seals and
penguins in great numbers. One day some hunters caught a Hottentot, whom
they treated kindly, making him many presents and endeavouring to show
him by signs that they were in want of cattle. They then let him go, and
eight days afterwards he returned with thirty or forty others, bringing
forty oxen and as many sheep. Trade was at once commenced, the price of
an ox being two knives, that of a sheep one knife. So many men had died
of scurvy that it was considered advisable to send the _Merchant Royal_
back to England weak handed. The _Penelope_, with one hundred and one
men, and the _Edward Bonaventure_, with ninety-seven men, sailed for
India on the 8th of September. On the 12th a gale was encountered, and
that night those in the _Edward Bonaventure_, whereof was master James
Lancaster--who was afterwards famous as an advocate of Arctic
exploration, and whose name was given by Bylot and Baffin to the sound
which terminated their discoveries in 1616--saw a great sea break over
the admiral’s ship, which put out her lights. After that she was never
seen or heard of again.
[Sidenote: The Beginning of Dutch History.]
The appearance of these rivals in the Indian seas caused much concern in
Spain and Portugal. There was as yet no apprehension of the loss of the
sources of the spice trade, but it was regarded as probable that English
ships would lie in wait at St. Helena for richly laden vessels homeward
bound, so in 1591 and again in 1593 the king directed the viceroy to
instruct the captains not to touch at that island.
At this time a new state, the republic of the United Netherlands, had
recently come into existence in Europe. It was a state full of life and
vigour, though its territory was even smaller than that of Portugal.
Constantly battling with the ocean that threatened to submerge the land,
breathing an invigorating air, coming from an energetic and
self-respecting stock, its people were the hardiest and most industrious
of Europeans. They were also attached to freedom, and ready to part with
property and life itself rather than submit to tyranny or misrule. A
brief outline of their history will show how they came to contend with
Portugal at the close of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the
seventeenth for the commerce of the Indian seas.[16]