VIAFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE

(1462?-1515)

Aquelle invencivel e espantoso capitão Affonso de Albuquerque.—Heitor Pinto,Imagem da Vida Christam.O sem segundo Affonso de Albuquerque, honra de todos os advertidos e scientes capitães que teve o mundo.—João Ribeiro,Fatalidade historica da Ilha de Ceilão.Albuquerque terribil, Castro forte.—Camões,Os Lusiadas.

Aquelle invencivel e espantoso capitão Affonso de Albuquerque.—Heitor Pinto,Imagem da Vida Christam.

O sem segundo Affonso de Albuquerque, honra de todos os advertidos e scientes capitães que teve o mundo.—João Ribeiro,Fatalidade historica da Ilha de Ceilão.

Albuquerque terribil, Castro forte.—Camões,Os Lusiadas.

Had Affonso de Albuquerque died five or six years before he did the world would never have realised that it had lost one of the greatest men of all nations and ages. Born of an ancient family[12]about the year 1460,[13]Albuquerque had in 1514 seenthirty-eight years’ service. He won the regard of Prince João in the campaign against Spain in which that prince saved his father from irretrievable defeat, and he became his equerry when he had succeeded to the throne as João II. He also served with distinction in Africa.

It was in 1503, when he was over forty, that he first went to India. In April of that year he sailed with his cousin Francisco de Albuquerque in command of six ships, the chief object of the expedition being to establish the friendship existing between the King of Cochin and the Portuguese and to build a fort at Cochin. Albuquerque made no long stay in India, and in July of the following year was backin Lisbon. But he remained long enough to see the vast possibilities there of failure or success for Portugal, and when, two years later, he again went out, although he sailed as the subordinate of Tristão da Cunha, it was on the understanding that he should soon obtain independent command and with the provisional appointment as Governor of India in his pocket.

Smooth co-operation with other officials was not Albuquerque’s strong point, and he felt no doubt that if he was to serve his King and country as he would wish he must be able to act freely. It is significant of his commanding personality that during his two years’ presence at Court he succeeded in imposing his views. In his absence later his enemies were often able to tie him hand and foot even though he was Governor of India.

There were two opposed policies. Hitherto the Portuguese in India had been confined to the sea, and many considered that this situation should continue. In a sense they were right, since it was obviouslyimpossible in so vast an empire to conquer and hold large tracts of land. But Albuquerque considered that this floating empire should be nailed down at cardinal points by capturing important towns and building strong forts, and it was with this purpose that he went out to India.

In the summer of 1507 he separated, according to his instructions, from Tristão da Cunha, and when the latter returned to Portugal with the rest of the fleet Albuquerque with his six ships remained in India. Of these ships he has left a vivid description: there were no provisions, the lances and other arms were few and rotten, with great scarcity of cables, sails, and rigging; the powder was all wet, of bombardiers there were but few, of carpenters one or two, and a hundred and fifty men were dying of disease.

Even so he set to work to strike terror into the Moors and hammer the Portuguese Empire into shape. Coasting down Arabia he sacked various cities, spreading desolation with fire and sword and mercilesslymutilating the Moors who surrendered. The poet Antonio Ferreira called Albuquerque “clement.” It is not a clemency that we would wish to encounter in ordinary life, and even among his contemporaries some condemned his cruelty. Bishop Osorio, for instance, considered it as unworthy of so great a man:illius rebus gestis indignum.

But although Albuquerque could be harsh and grim enough (his suggestion to King Manoel that Spanish and Portuguese Jews in India should be extinguished one by one is most sinister), and was quick to anger and a stern disciplinarian, he had no delight in cruelty for cruelty’s sake. He wished to reduce the Moors throughout India to subjection, and considered that such acts would best spread the terror of his name and conceal the difficulties of his position. He would have been the first to admit that his policy in this respect was a sign of weakness.

Albuquerque’s first great achievement was the bombardment and capture of theimportant city of Ormuz, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and in October he set about building a fortress. Milton in the following century wrote of “the wealth of Ormuz.” To Albuquerque it was but the first stone in the vast edifice of his projects, but to his captains it was already more than enough. They wished to be making prizes on the high seas, not to be bottled up in Ormuz building a fort as if they were masons. Albuquerque, to whom in their complaints they were very much like gnats in a thunderstorm, went on with his work, tore up their first petition and placed a second under a jamb of one of the fort’s doorways as it was being built. This was too much for the vanity of his captains and several of them sailed away to India.

The result of this desertion was that Albuquerque was obliged temporarily to abandon Ormuz. Small wonder that he wrote of their conduct with extreme bitterness. “Without shame or fear of the King or your Lordship,” he says in hisletter to the Viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, “they deserted me in time of war, and during actual hostilities with this city they left me and fled.... Portuguese gentlemen have been guilty of no such vileness these three hundred years, nor have I read of any such in the ancient chronicles.”

Even if they had all the right in the world on their side, these men had deserted in the presence of the enemy; and had they been shot by order of the Viceroy there and then, Portuguese rule would have been greatly helped and strengthened and not only many troubles but many lives spared in the future.

But no such salutary discipline prevailed in India; the instructions given to the captains were partly independent, and the Viceroy received them courteously and bade them draw up a document of their complaints. When Albuquerque arrived in India his enemies took care to foster differences between him and the Viceroy, who was opposed to Albuquerque’s policyand methods, and, after being treated with great discourtesy, Albuquerque was placed under arrest. One of the accusations of his captains was that he wished to make himself King of Ormuz.

They little knew their man. To expect Albuquerque, whose dreams of conquest were as wide and magnificent as those of Alexander, to vegetate as King of Ormuz was a mistake as colossal as to believe that Napoleon could be content to rule Elba. There can be no doubt that Albuquerque was unjustly treated by men incapable of understanding him, all the more so in that Almeida’s term of office was up and by right it was Albuquerque and not he who should have been governing India. Albuquerque for his part disdained to be conciliatory.

Fortunately for Albuquerque and for India his imprisonment only lasted a few weeks. The arrival of the Marshal, Fernando Coutinho, from Portugal put a new face on the situation; he released Albuquerque and installed him as Governor ofIndia. Almeida set out for, but never reached, Portugal.

The year 1509 was almost out, and it is 1510 which marks the beginning of Albuquerque’s victories. With the Marshal he attacked Calicut, but the Marshal’s impetuous rashness (he was so nettled by a first success of the impetuous but wise Albuquerque that he said he would take Calicut with no other arm than a stick in his hand) involved the expedition in disaster, and, although they sacked Calicut, the Marshal and many of the Portuguese lost their lives in a disorderly retreat to the ships, Albuquerque himself receiving a wound which permanently disabled his left arm.

The rest of the year was occupied with Goa.[14]He obtained possession of this cityafter a mere show of resistance, but a large and ever-growing army of Turks forced him to abandon it after being reduced to great straits and danger. Albuquerque had had fresh trouble with his captains, but on the arrival of a few ships from Portugal he returned to Goa in the autumn and stormed it. Most of the Moors were put to the sword in a massacre which lasted four days. Some Moorish women of almost white complexion he married to Portuguese soldiers. This was a deliberate policy, approved by the King of Portugal, in order to provide a peaceful settled population.

The possession of Goa changed the whole position of the Portuguese in India. Remote kings who had hitherto looked on the new-comers as passing freebooters now sent ambassadors offering friendship and treaties.

Barely six months after taking Goa, Albuquerque stormed and sacked Malaca, in Malay, a city which now belongs to the British Empire and has about 100,000 inhabitants,and which then, in Albuquerque’s own words, was “muito grande cousa.”[15]Of all the great spoils the Governor characteristically reserved for himself only two great bronze lions which he intended to have placed on his tomb. But his ship, laden with the costliest plunder, much of which was intended for King Manoel, met with a violent storm and foundered. Albuquerque, dressed in a brown coat and anything that came to hand, escaped on a raft.

In 1513 he carried out his long-cherished project of an attack on Aden, whence, he said, “vermilion, currants, almonds, opium, horses, dates, gold” went to India. The Portuguese assaulted but failed to take the town—in their eagerness the ladders broke again and again under their weight—and it was not safe to blockade it for fear of adverse winds, lack of water, and the large and speedy assistance the enemymight expect. Swift cameleers carried the news of the attack in fifteen days to Cairo, and, generally, the presence of a large Portuguese fleet in the Red Sea made a far-reaching impression.

Albuquerque set out to attack Aden again in 1515, but was occupied for some time at Ormuz, and fell ill there. He started to return to India, and on the way received tidings from a passing boat that his successor to the Governorship of India had been appointed, and many important posts given to his personal enemies.

This was his death-blow. Only a year before he had written to the King of his determination to continue in India for the rest of his life, at whatever sacrifice to himself, for the sake of maintaining and strengthening the empire he had won. Now heartbroken he exclaimed, “Out of favour with men for the sake of the King, and out of favour with the King for the sake of men. It is good to make an end.” He dictated a last brief letter to the King “in the throes of death,” recommendinghis son, and died as the ship came in sight of Goa, straining his eyes to see the tower of the church he had founded (December 1515).

Next day his body, dressed in the habit of Santiago, was carried ashore and buried amid universal grief. The natives perhaps mourned him sincerely, since he had worked for their prosperity and his attitude towards them, as distinguished from the Moors, had always been kindly. The gods, they said, had summoned him to war in heaven. His enemies continued to fear him even dead, so that King João III declared that India would be safe so long as Albuquerque’s body remained there, and it was only in 1566 that his bones were brought to Portugal.

A contemporary Portuguese historian, Barros, thus describes Albuquerque: “He was a man of medium height, of a cheerful, pleasant countenance, but when angry he had a melancholy look; he wore his beard very long during the time of his command in India, and as it was white itmade him very venerable. He was a man of many witty sayings and in some slight annoyances [menencorias leves!Had not Barros read Albuquerque’s letters?] during his command he said many things the wit of which delighted those whom they did not immediately affect. He spoke and wrote very well with the help of a certain knowledge of Latin [the superior Barros!]. He was cunning and sagacious in business, and knew how to mould things to his purpose, and had a great store of anecdotes suited to different times and persons. He was very rough and violent when displeased and he tired men greatly by his orders, being of a very urgent disposition. He was very charitable and devout, ever ready to bury the dead. In action he was somewhat impetuous and harsh. He made himself greatly feared by the Moors and always succeeded in getting the better of them.”

Another historian, Correa, who had served Albuquerque three years as private secretary in India, knew him better andappreciated his greatness. It is Correa who gives us an imposing glimpse of the Governor of India two years before his death,i.e.at the time when Albuquerque described himself as “a weak old man.” He was dressed “in doublet and flowing open robe, as was then the fashion, all of black damask streaked with black velvet, on his head a net of black and gold thread, and above this a large cap of black velvet; in his belt a dagger of gold and precious stones worth fifteen thousand crusados, round his neck a thick chain; and his long white beard, knotted at the end, gave him a very venerable presence.”

Albuquerque was sincerely devout, even to the verge of mysticism or superstition. He believed that St. James went before the Portuguese on a white horse guiding them to victory, and when in the Red Sea that a fiery cross in the sky was specially sent to beckon him on to further conquests.

There is a massive strength in all thathe said and did.[16]After he had subdued Ormuz its king hesitated whether he should pay his customary tribute to Persia and sent to consult Albuquerque. Albuquerque made a little collection of firearms and cannon-balls and answered, “In this coin is the King of Portugal wont to pay tribute.”

But the whole man is in his letters, aptly described as being “written with a sword.” Perhaps it is only in the letters of Napoleon that one finds the same mingling of great plans and conceptions with a mastery of the smallest details and concern for things which a lesser man would scorn to notice.

This Governor, the fear of whose name extended far into China, to whom the Kings of Narsinga and Persia, Siam, Cambaya,Turkey, and Cairo sent gifts, the conqueror of Ormuz and Cananor, Goa and Malaca, who dispatched his agents even to the remote Moluccas, and who was determined to destroy Mecca (five hundred Portuguese were to ride swiftly inland from the coast, take it by surprise and burn it to ashes) and thought of altering the course of the Nile, did not disdain to occupy himself with the alphabets for teaching children to read, the missals and pontificals for churches, pearl-fisheries, the horse trade, the colour of the Red Sea, how to pack quicksilver, and a hundred other matters of great diversity, while on the question of arms and merchandise to be sent from Portugal to India[17]no modern official report could exceed his letters in accuracy and minuteness.

For instance, he declares that lances are sent out unsharpened, as they come from the Biscay factories, to the care of abarbeiroinchadoin India, and in 1513 says that he now has workmen in Goa who can turn out better guns than those of Germany. Unfortunately in Portugal India was regarded merely as a mine to be exploited, not as a field that required farming in order to continue productive. Albuquerque, when, as he says, over his neck in work, had to answer great bundles of letters from the King, often filled with carping criticisms of his actions or containing contradictory projects. He complains that there is a new policy for each year, almost in the words of Dante in thePurgatorio:

fai tanto sottiliProvvedimenti ch’ a mezzo NovembreNon giunge quel que tu d’Ottobre fili.

It must be confessed that Albuquerque in these letters, filled with the eloquence of the Old Testament, gave as good as he got: the pity is that the King probably only saw them in the official summaries. “Sir, the soldiers in India require to be paid their salaries,” he says on one occasion, or “Your Highness is not well informed,”and he warns him that should matters continue as in the past the empire will come crumbling about the King’s ears.

Again he writes that he is not amazed that the accusations should be made, but amazed that the King should believe them. The names of his accusers were withheld, as later in trials before the Inquisition, but he knew whence the trouble came and does not mince his words in telling the King of the corruption, greed, carelessness, and incompetence of the officials in India appointed by the King. “And if I were not afraid of Your Highness I would send you a dozen of these mischief-makers in a cage.”

In five days he writes nineteen letters to the King, some of them of considerable length, this task occupying him till dawn, after a long day’s work. On a single day he wrote the King eight letters, one of which contains a splendid general account of the state of India, another is a little masterpiece describing the misdeeds of one of his captains.

No doubt his critics believed him to beharsh and insensible. That this was far from being the case is shown by the fact that on receiving, amid a shower of blame and criticisms, a sympathetic letter from his old friend, the historian Duarte Galvão, he shed tears, and also by the deep feeling he displayed when a whole batch of letters came from the King full of dispraise. “Your Highness blames me, blames me, blames me,” he wrote, and again, “My spirits fell to the ground and my hair turned twice as white as it was before.”

When, therefore, a few months after he had written of his intention to return from Ormuz to India in order to see the King’s letters and know if he had sent ships and men for the expedition against Aden, he heard that his successor was appointed, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the news killed him.

Albuquerque’s crime was to have thought of India and Portugal first, before personal interests and ambitions. “They call me a harsh man,” he said; and “these officials of yours do not love me.” But if he couldvigorously show his dislike of the false and slovenly, he always liberally rewarded good service, was loyal, generous, and unselfish, and showed a most delightful pleasure in any thorough work or workman. “The best thing I ever saw,” he says of a map; and of a good carpenter, “he is a marvellous man.”[18]

No sooner was Albuquerque dead than his greatness was felt, and posterity has never sought to deny it. If we consider the conditions under which his great work was accomplished in six years—his ships often so rotten that they sank of sheer old age, his men few and ill-armed (before he received reinforcements in October 1512 he says that the whole number of Europeans under his command in India were but 1,200, of whom barely 300 were properly armed),the fact that all his projects were liable to be upset by orders dictated in ignorance at home, and that as soon as his back was turned (for instance, when he went to attack Aden) all the officials in India treated him as dead and his instructions as a dead letter—we will not deny that posterity has done well to honour and admire this man in his lonely magnificence.Fannomi onore e di ciò fanno bene.

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?), andsesentaforsetentain 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 inelogio 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.

[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?), andsesentaforsetentain 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 inelogio 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.

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