The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s7.35

c7.s7.35

These attacks led to frequent marauding expeditions of the Portuguese along the coast of the North Konkan, in one of which in 1529 they burnt Nágothna Bassein and Agáshi. At this time also Thána Bándra and Karanja paid tribute to the Portuguese, these towns having sent a peaceable embassy instead of resisting as the others did.⁴ The Portuguese possession of Sálsette appears to date from about this time,⁵ though Faria puts it at the same time as Bassein,² but it seems unlikely that they had any more than a very precarious hold on any of these parts for many years after this, and it is expressly stated as regards the country round Bassein that the natives were masters of these villages in time of war.⁶ The war between Gujarát and the Portuguese was continued in 1530, and the Portuguese suffered another repulse at Chaul.⁷ In 1533 an expedition consisting of eighty vessels with 1800 Portuguese and 2000 Kánarese attacked Bassein, and stayed there ten days, destroying the fortifications: after which the fleet proceeded northwards and burnt all the places as far as Tárápur.⁸ In the next year Bassein was ceded by the king of Gujarát; and he then, as Ahmadnagar had done before, but his ships entirely under the protection of the Portuguese, and agreed that none should sail from his ports without taking out Portuguese passes and paying port dues at Bassein. This⁹ last stipulation was relaxed soon afterwards on the king ceding Diu as the price of the Portuguese alliance against the Moghals, but their passes had still to be taken and dues paid to them.¹⁰ They were never however on such good terms with the Gujarát as with the Ahmadnagar kings, and there were frequent expeditions into their dominions, while in 1539 Bassein was besieged for some time by a Gujarát force.¹¹