The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c27.83

v1.c27.83

Fr. Alberto Laerzio, an Italian and hence an impartial witness, in a letter to Fr. J. Alvarez dated Cochin, November 20th, 1608, says that the causes of these troubles were two: the maladministration of Archbishop Menezes, who was then acting as Governor General since the death of Dom Martim Affonso de Castro¹, and the increasing power of the Dutch and the English traders; "the Dutch ships", he says, "are cruising in these eastern seas, checked by nobody"². At the same time the English had taken possession of Masulipatam; and Philip III, in a letter dated December 10th, 1607, recommends his Viceroy to do his best with Venkata in order to obtain their expulsion from the place³. At the end of the same year, the new Viceroy Conde da Feira was eagerly expected at Goa; but the Dutch were interested in impeding his arrival. He had left Lisbon with a fleet of fourteen ships, one of which, says Fr. Laerzio in the above mentioned letter, "parted from the Viceroy and reached Mozambique in the month of August; and finding there thirteen Dutch ships that had besieged our fortress, was conquered by them after one day's hard fight". The Dutch were then informed that the Viceroy was coming behind; hence they raised the siege and went to Goa, where they anchored off the mouth of the river. "During our stay there", continues Laerzio, "news reached us that a ship, *Oliveira* by name, belonging to the Viceroy's party, had also arrived and was six miles away on the North and even within sight: our ships went there from Goa, threw all money and goods overboard and, before the arrival of the Dutch, had set the ship on fire and reduced the whole of it to ashes, that the enemy might have nothing of it. "Of the other twelve ships with the Viceroy no news whatsoever is heard", so Laerzio says at the end ¹. As a matter of fact Conde da Feira never saw the shores of India: he died on the way.