A large part of his triumph belonged to Prince Henry, to King João II, and to Bartholomeu Diaz, who was drowned in the following year off the Cape which he had been the first to round.
King Manoel, overjoyed at having attained the goal of nearly a century’s constant striving, now styled himself not only King of Portugal and the Algarves and Lord of Guinea but Lord of the Navigation, Conquest, and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India; he sent word of the discovery to the Pope and all the princes of Christendom; and at Belem, on the right bank of the Tagus, whence the discoverers had set sail over two years before, he built the fine monastery of São Jeronimo, where now are the tombs of the King himself, of Dom Vasco, who brought him all this glory, and of Camões, who celebrated it in deathless verse.
The building stands in strange contrast to that of Batalha, where Prince Henry the Navigator lies buried. The pure Gothic of Batalha, with its magnificent plain pillars and soaring arches, spells heroic aspiration; the Manueline of Belem in its exuberance and rich profusion of detail bears traces of satisfied accomplishment, as though Portugal might now throw simplicity and austere endeavour to the winds.
Dom Vasco da Gama in February 1502 set sail a second time for India, and returned in September 1303 with the first tribute of gold from India. “As the King was then at Lisbon, Dom Vasco, when he went to see him, took the tribute which he had received from the King of Quiloa[9]. A nobleman in plain doublet with uncovered head went before the Admiral on horseback in great solemnity, carrying the gold in a large basin of silver, to the sound of drums and trumpets, and in company of all the gentlemen of the Court. And the King ordered a monstrance to be wrought of it, as rich in workmanship as in weight, and offered it to Our Lady of Bethlehem as first fruits of those victories of the East.”
The death of Paulo da Gama seems to have killed the gentler strain 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.