No doubt he had great faults, since everything in him was great. He adopted oriental methods in dealing with the kings of the East. He murdered in cold blood the powerful minister of the young King of Cochin, and in one of his letters to King Manoel he remarks calmly, “In all my letters I bade him kill the Samuri of Calicut with poison.” But he understood the East and was the only man who could have established the Portuguese Empire firmly. That he was not given a free hand and every assistance from the first was the doom of that empire, and Portugal never saw his like again.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Albuquerque’s father, Gonçalo de Albuquerque, was in favour at Court. His grandfather João Gonçalvez had been secretary to King João I and King Duarte, but was hanged for murdering his wife in 1437.
[13] In 1461 or 1462. In one of his letters (April 1, 1512) he says that he is fifty. Correa, who calls him old in 1509, says that he was over seventy at the time of his death. Despite the very definite assertion in his letter, perhaps the last word has not been said as to his age. Misprints in these matters are common. Couto, for instance, says that Albuquerque’s nephew Naronha is nearly seventy in 1538 and eighty in 1540. All the historians call Albuquerque old, yet the captain of a fortress was considered too young for the post because he was under forty (Correa III, 687). On the other hand not Borrow merely but Couto (VI. 2. ix) calls Castro old, although he did not live to be fifty. Perhaps in Albuquerque’s letter we should read LX instead of L (for indeed why should he speak so fatherly to King Manoel (1469-1521) if he was not considerably older than the King?), and sesenta for setenta in Correa.
[14] Goa is thus described by an early traveller: “La città di Goa è la più fresca delle Indie e la più abbondante di tutte le cose da.... È detta città molto grande, con buone case e grandi e belle strade e piazze, murata d’intorno con le sue torri e fatta in una buona fortezza. Fuori di detta città vi erano molti horti e giardini copiosi e pieni d’infiniti arbori fruttiferi, con molti stagni di acque; eranvi molte moschee e case d’ orationi di gentili. Il paese d’intorno è molto fertile e ben lavorato.”
[15] The same traveller says: “Questa città di Malaca è la più ricca scala di più ricchi mercatanti e di maggior navigatione e traffico che si possa trovare nel mondo.”
[16] The story, maliciously recorded by Barros, that Albuquerque sent ruby and diamond rings to the historian Ruy de Pina to jog his memory in relating the events of India, may or may not be true. In a way it is characteristic, for Albuquerque, if he wished for Pina’s praise, which one may be inclined to doubt, was not a man to beat about the bush. Perhaps after all it was more honest to plump down the rubies than to indulge in elogio mutuo.
[17] In one letter he bids the King plant all the marsh-lands of Portugal with poppies, since opium is the most welcome merchandise in India.
[18] Estimava muito os homens cavalleiros, says Correa, who knew him personally and insists more than once that he was very accessible. To cope with what Albuquerque himself calls the “mountains of petitions” that beset him he employed six or seven secretaries, but he dealt with them unconventionally, signing them or tearing them up in the street as they were given him, thereby expediting his business but offending the vanity of the petitioners.
