Having concluded a treaty, whereby it was stipulated that the Portuguese should have security to go on shore and sell and buy as they pleased, and that they should be placed in all respects on the same footing as other foreign merchants, the king added his desire that the stranger should be treated “with such good friendship as if he was own brother to the king of Portugal.”[12]
His treachery.
De Gama was fully satisfied with the arrangement, and had he been dealing with the king only, it seems probable that everything would have gone on well; the more so as the Malabar monarch was already realising large profits from the new trade. But the merchant Moors were less easily satisfied. They knew from the covetous character of the king that so long as the Portuguese were willing to buy, he would continue to supply whatever they required, and that thus the market would be stripped of the articles best adapted for their annual shipments to the Red Sea. They felt that “whenever the Christians should come thither, he would prefer selling his goods to them to supplying cargoes for the Moors;” and that, in the end, they would be “entirely ruined;” a plea, indeed, repeatedly used in many other countries whenever competition first made its appearance. The Moors further argued that the Portuguese could not be merchants, but “evil men of war,” for they paid whatever price was demanded for the produce they required, and made no difference between articles of inferior and superior qualities. But the king refused to listen to their complaints until he had obtained all he desired from the strangers; then, giving heed to the reports of the Moors, and to the entreaties of his factor and minister, who had been doubly bribed, he turned round upon Gama, and by stratagem endeavoured to capture him and his ships. Finding it unsafe to remain any longer in port, the expedition, although only half laden, prepared to take its departure from Calicut, after a sojourn of about seventy days, the captain-major remarking that he was “not going to return to the port, but that he would go back to his country to relate to his king all that had happened to him; that he should also tell him the truth about the treachery of his own people with the Moors; and that, if at any time he should return to Calicut, he would revenge himself upon the Moors.”[13]
Leaves Calicut for Cananore.
Terrified by this threat of revenge, the king repented, and believing that the expedition would proceed to Cananore, wrote a letter to the king of that place giving him an account of all that had taken place and of his ill-treatment of the Portuguese, and, at the same time, entreating him to induce De Gama to return to his country, that he might “see the punishment he would inflict on those who were in fault, and complete the cargo of his ships.” The Portuguese, however, had seen enough of the fickle ruler of Calicut, and declined to accede to his urgent entreaties to return. In the king of Cananore they found a monarch equally disposed to trade, and one who, at the same time, having consulted his soothsayers, had decided that it would be alike profitable and politic to enter into commercial relations with strangers who could, if they pleased, destroy their enemies at sea or ruin their trade on land. How they were received and how they conducted their trade with this monarch is told at much length by Correa, in his quaint and graphic relation of the incidents of this remarkable voyage.[14]
Enters into friendly relations,
Suffice it to state that, after many fine speeches on both sides, the king swore eternal friendship with the Christian king of Portugal, and as a trustworthy proof of their oaths, presented to De Gama a sword, with a hilt enamelled with gold, and a velvet scabbard, the point of which was sheathed with that precious metal.
Abundant presents followed these solemn pledges—pledges made only to be broken; while gifts of golden collars, mounted with jewels and pearls, and chains of gold, and rings set with valuable gems, were offered to and accepted by the Portuguese as tokens of a friendship which was to last “for ever,” but which in a few years afterwards they rudely destroyed. “A factory,” said the king, “you may establish in this country; goods your ships shall always have of the best quality, and at the prices they are worth.” But as the sequel shows, in the case alike of the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English, around the factory there arose fortifications, and from these there went forth, not merely traders to collect the produce of the country, but conquerors to overthrow ancient dynasties, and claim as their own the land to which a few years before they had been utter strangers.[15]
and leaves Cananore, 20th Nov.
Reaches Melinde, 8th Jan., 1499.