The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s7.10

c7.s7.10

Moors in the port of Chaul because they entered without returning his salute. He then went to Dábhol, and found the Calicut fleet there, and having called a council of war and resolved not to attack it he went on to a river four leagues from Dábhol, and took all the vessels in the harbour, and burnt them, except two richly laden ships from Ormuz, which he took with him to Cochin. His father however expressed great anger against him for not having attacked the Calicut fleet, and it is said that the remembrance of this in the following year cost him his life in the famous sea fight at Chaul, for he refused to fly or surrender though there was no possibility of otherwise saving his life.¹ At that time he had conveyed some merchantmen to Chaul, where the governor under the king of Ahmadnagar received them kindly, and permitted them to trade. But while lying in the harbour² they were suddenly attacked by the combined fleets of Egypt and Gujarát.³ The Portuguese were outnumbered, and lost the flagship with their commander, and one hundred and forty others killed and one hundred and twenty-four wounded. They put the Musalmán loss at six hundred and Ferishta at four hundred, and this was naturally claimed by the Musalmáns as a victory,⁴ but the Portuguese were soon afterwards amply avenged by the fleet of the elder Almeida, who destroyed the Egyptian fleet and the Gujarát sea power at Diu. The account of the sea fight at Chaul is thus given by the Gujarát historians : "The infidel Europeans, who had of late years usurped the dominion of the ocean, endeavoured at this time to occupy for themselves some part of the coast of Gujarát, on which they wished to settle." Amir Husan, the admiral of the Turkish Emperor Bajazet II., arrived off the coast of Gujarát with a fleet of twelve sail carrying fifteen hundred men, and Mahmúd Sháh (Begada) anxious to aid in the expulsion of the foreigners sailed in person with his fleet to Daman and Máhjm (Bombay). The Amir al' Umra Malik Aiaz Sultáni sailed also from the port of Diu, and having united his squadron with that of the Turkish admiral attacked the Portuguese fleet then lying off the harbour of Chaul. The Portuguese fled with the loss of "three thousand or four thousand infidels."⁵