Chapter I (2)

Perhaps no more refined acts of barbarity are to be found recorded in the page of history than those which Correa relates with so much simplicity of his countryman; they would seem, indeed, to have been almost matters of course in the early days of the maritime supremacy of the Portuguese, and may in some measure account for the unsatisfactory condition into which that once great nation has now fallen. Supposing, however, the exquisite barbarism of sending to the king the hands, ears, and nose of his ambassador, _to whom Dom Gama had granted a safe conduct_, not enough to convey to the ruler of Calicut a sufficiently strong impression of the greatness, and grandeur, and power, and wisdom, and civilisation of the Christian monarch, whose subjects he had offended, the captain-major ordered the feet of these poor innocent wretches, whom he had already so fearfully mutilated, “to be tied together, as they had no hands with which to untie them; and in order that they should not untie them with their teeth, he ordered them” (his crew) “to strike upon their teeth with staves, and they knocked them down their throats, and they were thus put on board, heaped up upon the top of each other, mixed up with the blood which streamed from them; and he ordered mats and dry leaves to be spread over them, and the sails to be set for the shore, and the vessel set on fire.”[37]

[Sidenote: Arrives at Cochym, 7th Nov., where he loads,]

In this floating funeral pile eight hundred Moors, who had been captured in peaceful commerce, were driven on shore as a warning to the people of Calicut, who flocked in great numbers to the beach to extinguish the fire, and draw out from the burning mass those whom they found alive, over whom “they made great lamentations.” When the friar reached the king with his revolting message, and deprived of his hands, ears, and nose, an object of the deepest humiliation, he found himself in the midst of the wives and relations of those who had been so shamefully massacred, bewailing in the most heart-rending manner their loss, and imploring the king to render them aid and protection from further injury. Although the king’s power was feeble compared to that of the Portuguese, with their trained men of war, and vastly superior instruments of destruction, the sight of his faithful Brahmin, _whom he had despatched in good faith_ to offer any conditions of peace which Dom Gama might demand, led him to resolve with “great oaths” that he would expend the whole of his kingdom in avenging the terrible wrongs which had been inflicted upon his people. Summoning to his council his ministers and the principal Moors of the city, he arranged measures for their protection from the even still greater dishonour and ruin which was threatened with awful earnestness by their invaders. The Moors, with one voice, “offered to spend their lives and property for vengeance.” In every river arrangements were made for the construction of armed proas, large rowing barges and sambacks, and as many vessels of war as the means which their country afforded could produce. But long before this fleet was ready, Dom Gama had sailed with his expedition for Cochym, where he arrived on the 7th of November, having on his passage done as much harm as he could to the merchants of Calicut, many of whose vessels he fell across in his cruise along the coast.

Cochym, like Cananore, had resolved from the first to court the friendship of Portugal. Its rulers conceived it more to their interests to submit to the conditions of Dom Gama, however humiliating, than to resist his assumed authority. Consequently when his fleet made its appearance, the king of Cochym was ready to receive him with every honour; and when his boat, with its canopy of crimson velvet, very richly dressed, approached the shore, the king, accompanied by his people, came to the water-side to meet him, prepared to secure his friendship by any submission, however abject. Numerous rich and valuable presents having been interchanged, arrangements were made to provide the cargo the captain-major required, on similar conditions to those which had been entered into at Cananore.

[Sidenote: and at Coulam.]

When the queen of Coulam, a neighbouring and friendly state, where the pepper was chiefly produced, heard of the wealth which the king of Cochym and his merchants were making by their commercial intercourse with the Portuguese, she sent an ambassador to Dom Gama to entreat him to enter into similar arrangements with herself and her people, saying that “she desired for her kingdom the same great profit, because she had pepper enough in her kingdom to load twenty ships each year:” but Dom Gama was a diplomatist, or at least a dissembler, as well as an explorer. To fall out with the king of Cochym did not then suit his purpose, which he would very likely have done had he allowed the queen of Coulam to share in the lucrative trade without his sanction; but he nevertheless appears to have made up his mind to reap the advantage of the queen’s trade under any circumstances. Consequently, he sent word to the queen “that he was the vassal of so truthful a king, that for a single lie or fault which he might commit against good faith, he would order his head to be cut off; therefore he could not answer anything with certainty, nor accept her friendship, nor the trade which she offered, and for which he thanked her much, without the king (of Cochym) first commanded him.”[38]

[Sidenote: Opens a factory at Coulam.]

After this palaver he recommended that she should ask the king of Cochym’s permission to open up commercial intercourse with the Portuguese, an arrangement he was not likely to assent to, as besides curtailing his profits, he would lose the revenue he derived from the queen’s pepper, which now passed through his kingdom for shipment. The king was naturally perplexed and “much grieved, because he did not wish to see the profit and honour of his kingdom go to another.” So after talking the matter over with De Gama’s factor, he resolved to leave it entirely in the hands of the captain-major, and informed the queen’s messenger that the matter was left altogether to his good pleasure, no doubt himself believing that the trade would be therefore declined. But the king of Cochym had made a sad mistake, for the Portuguese navigator was a diplomatist far beyond the king’s powers of comprehension; to his discomfiture and amazement Gama informed the ambassador of Coulam “that he was the king’s vassal, and in that port was bound to obey him as much as the king his sovereign, and, therefore, he would obey him in whatever was his will and pleasure; and since the queen was thus his relation and friend, he was happy to do all that _she_ wished!”[39] Consequently he despatched two of his ships to load pepper, at “a river called Calle Coulam,” sending the queen a handsome mirror and corals, and a large bottle of orange-water, with scarlet barret-caps for her ministers and household, and thirty dozen of knives with sheaths for her people. Soon afterwards he established a factory in her kingdom.

While Dom Gama was employed loading his ships with the produce of India for Portugal, the king of Calicut had prepared a fleet which he hoped would capture and destroy the fleet of the Christian monarch who had done his people such grievous wrongs. It consisted of “several large ships, and sambacks, and rowing barges, with much artillery and fighting men, and two captain-majors.” But the king of Calicut, either anxious to avoid war, or to obtain information of the condition and power of the vessels then under Dom Gama, sent a confidential Brahmin to Cochym, with a letter to the captain-major, in which, after stating the force now at his command, he expressed a wish that there should be “no more wars nor disputes”[40] between them, and that he would make compensation for the injury his people had sustained on the previous voyage; but the Brahmin received no better reception than his predecessor had done. He was tied to the bits, or framework that surrounds the main-mast; an iron shovel, full of embers, was put “close to his shins, until large blisters rose upon them, whilst the interpreter shouted to him to tell the truth,” as to whether the king his master meant what he said in the letter he had addressed by him to Dom Gama; but as he would not speak, “the fire was brought closer by degrees, until he could not bear it,” and when he had told all he knew, the captain-major “ordered the upper and lower lips of the Brahmin to be cut off, so that all his teeth showed; and he ordered the ears of a dog on board the ship to be cut off, and he had them fastened and sewn with many stitches on the Brahmin, instead of his, and he sent him in the Indian boat to return to Calicut!”[41]

[Sidenote: Calicut declares war against Dom Gama.]

The king, as well he might, when his mutilated and insulted ambassador presented himself, at once ordered his fleet to proceed in search of the Portuguese, and to intercept them on their way from Cochym back to Cananore, where they had gone to fill their ships with the ginger which had been collected for them at that place. Dom Gama’s departure was, however, delayed for a few days. He had to permanently establish his factory at Cochym, and make arrangements for its protection during his absence, and for the purchase and storage of produce ready for the ships which would annually be despatched to India from the Tagus. He had also to found a Portuguese colony, the first colony of Europeans in India, for which purpose he “left carpenters, and caulkers, blacksmiths, turners, and cordage-makers, who were to refit the ships which had to remain at Cochym,” as well as other “workmen and men-at-arms,” in all sixty persons, to whom “the factor was to give their pay, and a cruzado per month for their maintenance.”

[Sidenote: Success of the Portuguese.]

[Sidenote: Desecration of the Indian vessels,]

When Dom Gama had completed his arrangements at Cochym, he sailed for Cananore. The king of Calicut with his fleet lay in wait for him. “Coming along the coast with a light land breeze, there were so many sail” that the Portuguese did not see the end of them. In the van there might be as many as “twenty large ships, with many fustas and sambacks.” These Dom Gama ordered his caravels, each of which carried thirty men with four heavy guns below, and six falconets, and ten swivel-guns on deck, to attack, which they did with great vigour, and soon brought down the mast of the flag-ship of the Moors, killing many of the crew, and sinking three of the large vessels. Amid this havoc, Dom Gama himself bore down with the rest of his fleet, and, as the wind freshened, he came with great force through the midst of his opponents, “doing wonders” with his artillery, and firing both broadsides as he passed, shattering them both in hull and rigging, and leaving the Calicut fleet almost a helpless mass.

[Sidenote: and further atrocities.]

But conquest and submission were not enough for this Portuguese marauder. His fiendish spirit of revenge seems to have had no limits. He “sent the boats with falconets and swivel-guns, and in each boat twenty armed men, with crossbow-men, to go to the ships which were becalmed, and shoot at them above, and kill the crews. This they did, so that the Moors threw themselves into the sea, and went swimming round the ships.” Gama then “sent his boat to the ships and caravels, to tell the crews to flock to the Moorish ships and plunder them, and set them on fire.”[42] After which he proceeded on his course for Cananore, “giving the Lord great praise and thanks for the great favour which He had shown him.”[43]

[Sidenote: Completes his factory and fortifications at Cananore, and sails for Lisbon,]

Having finished his work of colonization and horrible cruelty, Dom Gama, concluding that his heavy guns were not likely to be again required on his homeward voyage, left them at Cananore, and completed his cargoes, set sail for Portugal. He did not, however, forget before he took his departure, to induce the king to send his masons to erect a high stone wall round the Portuguese settlement, where the guns were deposited, having a strong gate, of which the king was to keep the key, “so that the Portuguese should remain at night shut in under his key.”[44] The king was “much pleased with this arrangement, and promised the captain-major that it would be done at once; for he thought that the captain-major did it with the desire that the Portuguese should remain subject to him.” Poor innocent-minded, good-natured king!

[Sidenote: where he arrives, Sept. 1, 1503.]

Having called at Melinde for a day, to take in a fresh stock of sheep, fowls, and water, Dom Gama proceeded on his course with a fair wind, and “without even meeting with any storm or hindrance, but only winds with which all his sails served.”[45] On the 1st of September, 1503, he reached Lisbon, anchoring “before the city,” with “ten ships laden with very great wealth, after leaving such great services accomplished in India.”

When the king of Portugal heard the news of Dom Gama’s arrival he was greatly rejoiced, and sent the captain of his guard to bid him welcome, he himself proceeding on horseback with many people to the cathedral, “to give much praise to the Lord before the altar of Saint Vincent,” an example which the captain-major and all his captains soon afterwards followed; when prayers were ended, he kissed the hand of the king, who bestowed many favours upon the officers and crews of the ships, while granting to Dom Gama and his heirs “the anchorage dues of India,” and conferring upon him and his descendants the title of the “admiral of its seas for ever.”

[Sidenote: Dom Gama arrives in India for the third time, 11th Sept., 1524.]

The re-discovery of the route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, proved an immense source of wealth to Portugal. The profits of her merchants on the products of the East were enormous, and for many years, as regarded the rest of Europe, this trade was kept a close monopoly. Lisbon then became the entrepôt which the Italian republics had so long held for the spices and other produce of India; and the palaces of her traders with that country, which still adorn, even amid their decay, and, in too many instances, their ruins, the banks of the Tagus, testify to the wealth of their original owners and occupants. Though Dom Gama now desired to remain at home to reap the fruits of his discovery and enjoy the rewards and honours conferred upon him by his sovereign, the state of affairs in India too soon required his presence in that country. The example he himself had set of tyranny formed the basis for a despotic rule on the part of the Portuguese governors or factors, which at even this early stage required a remedy, and no one was considered so competent to correct this evil as its author. Consequently, according to the testimony of Correa, “on the 11th September, 1524, there arrived at the bar of Goa, Dom Vasco de Gama, as Viceroy of India.”

From the same source we learn that the viceroy was on this occasion accompanied by his two sons, Dom Estevan de Gama, who was captain-major of the expedition, and afterwards governor of India, and Dom Paulo de Gama, who unfortunately lost his life in a war with Malacca. The viceroy had now another object to serve than that of trade. He was to be the future ruler of India, and, as such, a regal display became necessary to give the natives a proper impression of his greatness and power. Correa remarks (p. 381) that he “was served by men bearing maces, by a major-domo, and two pages with gold neck-chains, and many esquires.” All the forms of kingly state appear to have been adopted. He had “rich vessels of silver and rich tapestry of Flanders; and for the table at which he sate, brocade cloths;” he had also a “guard of two hundred men with gilt pikes, clothed with his livery,” and an army of “brilliant soldiery.” Nor was he without kingly power, and even something more. While his rule extended over “all persons who might be found eastward of the Cape of Good Hope,” he himself established laws[46] “that, under _pain_ of _death_ and loss of property, no one should navigate without his license.” Every person likewise who came to India, even with a commission from the king of Portugal, was liable to be dismissed without compensation or appeal, should he not, in the opinion of the viceroy, prove competent for the office to which he had been nominated.

[Sidenote: His death, 24th Dec., 1524.]

Such stringent laws may have been necessary from the state of things which then existed in India. That he was strict in his administration, even to tyranny, over his own people, cannot be doubted; and it is well known that his brief rule was embittered by his hostile relations with his predecessors, whom he accused of various mal-practices, and ordered to be sent back to Lisbon. In the midst of these difficulties he was seized with a fatal illness; and having, as Correa states, “set his affairs in order, like a good Christian, with all the sacraments of the church, and ordered that his bones should be conveyed to the kingdom of Portugal, he died on Christmas Eve, 24th December, 1524.”

[Sidenote: His character, as compared with that of Columbus.]

Although the first voyage of Dom Gama may be read with satisfaction, no language can be found sufficiently strong to denounce his subsequent career, and especially his diabolical conduct towards the Moors and natives on his second expedition to India.[47] And to that conduct, too faithfully adopted by his successors, may in a great measure be attributed the loss, as well as the gain, of the Portuguese empire in the East. But though Dom Gama was a man of no mean abilities, and of indomitable courage, who evidently thoroughly understood his profession as a seaman, he cannot for an instant be compared, either as an individual or as a navigator, with his great contemporary Columbus. Dom Gama, in his voyage to India, had with him pilots who had frequently sailed along the western shores of Africa, and one, at least, who had doubled the Cape of Good Hope under Bartholomew Dias, while the crews of his ships consisted of his own countrymen, and partly, too, of his own dependants. But Columbus was a stranger among strangers; and the seamen who manned his vessels were altogether devoid of confidence in a commander into whose service they had been forced by the imperative order of their sovereigns. His voyages of discovery lay across unknown seas, amid a wilderness of waters, which both ancient and modern mariners had alike portrayed in the most gloomy colours; and so far from having the benefit of the services of any pilot who had ever attempted to navigate that then mysterious ocean, most persons in his service considered the voyages on which he was about to embark as alike visionary and dangerous.

[Sidenote: Discovery of the Pacific, by Vasco Nuñez de Bilboa.]

While the Portuguese were prosecuting their valuable discoveries in the East, the Spaniards were following up their less lucrative but more important researches to the West. In their voyages to the Caribbean Sea, and along the shores of the Mexican Gulf, they had heard rumours of great seas still further to the West; but it was not until 1513, a few years after a small colony had been established at Darien, that one of their countrymen, Vasco Nuñez de Bilboa, discovered the Pacific Ocean. The discovery was hailed with great joy by the Spaniards, who, having been restricted by the Pope to confine their researches to the West, now hoped to find within the prescribed limits another road to that far-famed Cathay, which had proved such a vast source of wealth to their rivals the Portuguese.

[Sidenote: Voyage of Magellan.]

It was not, however, until Magellan [Fernando de Magalhaens], a Portuguese by birth but in the service of the King of Spain, discovered the straits which bear his name that the Spaniards were enabled to derive any advantages from this great addition to their knowledge. Furnished by the King of Spain with five small vessels, the largest of which was only one hundred and thirty tons, their crews in all amounting to only two hundred and thirty-four men, this daring adventurer and most intrepid mariner set sail in September 1519 from S. Lucar for the Brazils, anchored at Rio, and thence pursued his way over these unknown seas to the south, until he reached the straits, where he encountered very severe weather. After many difficulties and great hardships he reached that beautiful and fertile group of islands in the Pacific which he named the Ladrones. Thence proceeding to the Philippines, Magellan, a navigator second only to Columbus, and superior in many respects to Vasco de Gama, unfortunately lost his life in an engagement with the natives. But in November, 1521, the expedition reached the Moluccas, the object of their search. Thence, but greatly reduced in strength and number, they steered for the Cape of Good Hope, which they doubled on the 6th of May, 1522, and anchored at St. Lucar on the 6th of September of that year, having been the first to accomplish a voyage round the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As is well known, there is considerable variation in the dates assigned to different portions of Vasco de Gama’s voyages by different writers. It has been thought, on the whole, best on this occasion to follow those given by Gaspar Correa, whose narrative has been translated from the Portuguese and edited for the Hakluyt Society by the Hon. H. E. J. Stanley (now Lord Stanley of Alderley): Lond. 1869. Correa states that he went to India sixteen years after it was discovered, which would be therefore in 1514, and that he had access to the Journals of Joam Figueira, a priest who accompanied De Gama in his first voyage. Correa, when in India, was secretary to the governor, Alfonzo d’Albuquerque; and died at Goa, some time before 1583.

[2] The two young men were named, respectively, Pero de Covilhan, and Gonsalvo de Pavia. Though accounts differ, they seem to have travelled together by Venice, Alexandria, and Cairo, to Mecca, where they separated. One of them (and here again accounts vary) went on to Aden, Cananore, Calicut, and Goa (Mr. Stanley and Mr. Major think this was Covilhan), the other to Abyssinia. It is certain that Pavia died soon afterwards, probably at Cairo; and that, by the agency of a Spanish Jew, Covilhan was able to send home word that India could be reached by sea by continuing the coasting voyage from Guinea round the Cape to Sofala. Mr. Major, therefore (p. 339), is justified in stating that to him belongs the honour of the _theoretical_ discovery of the Cape. His report to the king, however, did not reach Portugal till shortly after Bartholomew Dias and Joam Infante had started, in August 1486. Covilhan, on his way home, went to Abyssinia, and was detained there for the rest of his life (33 years).

[3] The author is of opinion that the vessels engaged under Vasco de Gama were, as in the case of Columbus, much larger than historians have represented, though very much alike, as Correa describes, especially in the size of their yards and sails. Unable to find any work which furnished an illustration of any kind of these vessels, he applied to his friend Mr. Edward Pinto Basto, of Lisbon, for information on the subject. After considerable research, (for which he is greatly indebted,) Mr. Basto furnished the author with the drawing—see following page—which in his letter he describes as a “sketch representing the _San Gabriel_ passing the Cape of Good Hope on November 25th, 1497. This sketch,” he remarks, “is copied from an original picture in Lisbon that belonged to D. Ioam de Castro, and I have no doubt,” he adds, “that it is a correct representation of Gama’s ship. I have spoken,” he continues, “to the Marquis of Nisa, whom you know, and who is the lineal descendant of the renowned navigator, and he confirms that opinion. The expedition,” he adds, “sailed from Lisbon (Belem) on July 9th 1497. It consisted of the _San Gabriel_, commanded by Vasco de Gama; _San Raphael_, commanded by his brother Paulo de Gama; _Birrio_, under charge of Nicolas Coelho; and a transport which was a storeship to carry provisions, called a naveta.” Mr. Pinto Basto confirms the opinion the author entertained with regard to the dimensions of these ships. “The _San Gabriel_,” he says, “had a high poop and forecastle. The tonnage in those days was calculated by the number of pipes of wine the vessel could carry. The _San Gabriel_ was constructed to carry 400 pipes,” equivalent to about 400 tons measurement, or about from 250 to 300 tons register, which is much more likely to have been the size of the vessels engaged on so distant and hazardous an expedition than those which historians describe. It should be added that Correa calls De Gama’s ship the _Sam Rafael_.

[4] Correa, p. 33.

[5] Correa, pp. 55-57.

[6] Ibid. p. 74. Note.

[7] Correa, p. 128.

[8] Correa, p. 146.

[9] Our calico (in French, _calicot_) derives its name from Calicut, as muslin from Mosul, &c.

[10] It should be remembered that with most of our early writers and navigators “Moor” was a generic name for Muhammedan. The governor of Calicut is called by the Portuguese “Zamorin,” a corruption, probably, of “Samudri-Rajah.”

[11] Correa, p. 156.

[12] Correa, p. 176.

[13] Correa, p. 222.

[14] Correa, p. 225, _et seq._

[15] Ibid., p. 232.

[16] Correa, p. 239. The termination of the name (like Laccadive, Maldive, &c.) shows it to have been an island, but its exact situation has not been determined.

[17] Correa, p. 259.

[18] Sargarço (or as it is more usually written Sargaço) is the Portuguese name for what is known (botanically) as the “Nasturtium aquaticum.”—Linschoten, Hist. Orient., pt. iii. p. 34.

[19] Correa, pp. 264-5.

[20] Correa, p. 269.

[21] A cruzado is worth about 2s.; a quintal equivalent to 128 lbs.

[22] Cabral was originally selected to command this expedition; but the king, having some doubts of his ability, though on his previous voyage to India in 1500-1 he had discovered the Brazils, gladly availed himself of De Gama’s expressed desire to take charge of it; another fleet was to be despatched in the following year (Correa, p. 279). There were two grievances against the king of Calicut, the original one of De Gama, and his subsequently similar treatment of Cabral.

[23] Correa, p. 282.

[24] Ibid. p. 283.

[25] Correa, p. 292.

[26] Correa, p. 294.

[27] Correa, pp. 295-6.

[28] Correa, p. 303.

[29] Ibid., p. 306.

[30] The names “Baticala” and “Cochym” have been retained as those used by Correa; the more modern names are “Batticola” and “Cochin.”

[31] Correa, p. 311.

[32]
“Degenerate trade, whose minions could despise
The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries;
Could lock with impious hands its teaming stores,
Whilst famished nations died along its shores;
Could mock the groans of fellow men, and bear
The curse of kingdoms peopled with despair;
Could stamp disgrace on man’s polluted name,
And barter with their gold eternal shame.”—CAMPBELL.

[33] Correa, p. 315.

[34] Correa, pp. 321-2.

[35] Correa, p. 324.

[36] Correa, p. 331.

[37] Correa, pp. 331-2.

[38] Correa, p. 349.

[39] Ibid., p. 352.

[40] Correa, p. 358.

[41] Correa, pp. 363-4.

[42] Correa, pp. 371-2.

[43] Ibid., p. 373.

[44] Correa, p. 373.

[45] Ibid., p. 377.

[46] Correa, p. 397.

[47] The Popish nations of the south of Europe have, throughout all history, been remarkable for atrocities of cruelty found among no other races. But neither the cruel persecution of the Jews by the _soi-disant_ deliverers of the Holy City, nor the greatly exaggerated crimes of the Hindus and Muhammedans, who may at least have believed they were ridding their native land of robbers and oppressors by the Indian mutiny of 1856-7, can compare with the cruelties of Vasco de Gama, or with the atrocities of the mob at Palermo during the insurrection of 1849.