Travels in India (Tavernier) 35.1.3

35.1.3

The bulk of the army re-embarked, and landed near Cochin in the vicinity of a church dedicated to St. André, where the Portuguese with some Malabaris awaited the Dutch with resolution. When they saw that the enemy landed without any fear they fired a discharge and then fled, but as they only aimed at the boats the Dutch did not lose many men. The Dutch seeing some companies of Portuguese marching on the sea-coast, and others farther inland in the direction of a church which was called St. Jean, ordered some horsemen to go to reconnoitre them, but the Portuguese had fled and had set fire to the church, abandoning all to the Dutch. The latter then approached the town, and a French soldier named Christofle, who was in their pay, seeing a basket attached to a rope which was hung from a bastion, went boldly to see what it had inside, without fearing musket shots. But he was much surprised when he found that it was a poor famished infant which the mother had placed there in order to escape the sorrow of seeing it die of hunger, — for already some time had elapsed since the Dutch had commenced the siege of Cochin, and since any food had entered the town. The soldier, smitten with compassion, took the infant and gave it of whatever he had to eat, at which the General of the army was so indignant, saying that the soldier should have left the infant to die, that he assembled the council of war, and proposed that he should be shot.