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The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2.c43: Chapter XIX. The Portuguese in Bengal

The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2.c43

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Chapter XIX. The Portuguese in Bengal

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Vasco da Gama did not sail for an unknown land when he left Belem with his valiant band in the summer of 1497. India was not a *terra incognita* to the people of the west. For countless ages the route overland had been used by scores of travellers and traders. Only ten years earlier Cavilhão,¹ a compatriot of Vasco, had sailed from Aden to Cannanore, to find a passage across the sea, from Calicut to Africa where he gathered valuable information about Madagascar and a wide stretch of the coast opposite. He was not destined to see his country again, but the results of his labours were not lost to his countrymen. A faithful friend carried Cavilhão’s report to Lisbon. The once dreaded waters beyond Cape Non had no longer any terror for the Portuguese seamen. Sailor after sailor had dauntlessly defied the perils of the unknown for six decades and more, and crept along the west coast of Africa from cape to cape, creek to creek, carefully noting the prominent landmarks, rivers, islets and harbours as they pushed on further and further, until the southernmost limit was reached, and the eastern shores espied. The success of Gama’s voyage had been amply assured by the exploits of his precursors. The task set by Prince Henry the Navigator was accomplished when Vasco cast his anchor off Calicut.

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¹ Danvers, *The Portuguese in India*, Vol. I, pp 29-32.

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Knowledge for its own sake, adventures for their perils alone, had no appeal to Vasco and his friends. They were after the good things of this world, and would secure, if they could, the blessings of the next. They came to this country in quest of commerce and Christians. Of Christians there were but few in this pagan land and that mysterious prince, Prester John of the popular legends, was not to be found in India. But the Portuguese were not disappointed. If their evangelical zeal met with a set-back, their acquisitive instincts were more than gratified in the rich marts of Malabar. Vasco da Gama had his own standard of business morality. If peaceful traffic proved less profitable, he readily indulged in the use of sword and fire. Human beings and their manufactures were to him equally lucrative and legitimate articles of commerce. What he and his countrymen wanted was a monopoly of the eastern trade and for twenty years Gama and Cabral, Almeida and Albuquerque, ruthlessly exploited the region of their first visit.

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It was not long before other areas claimed their greedy attention. The goods of Bengal were not unknown in the markets recently captured by them, but they found their way to Malabar in crafts other than Portuguese, and the profit went to swell unchristian pockets. Albuquerque had already dwelt upon the bright prospects that trade with Bengal offered in a letter to his king and master, but it was left to his successor, Lopo Soares de Albergaria, to send an expedition to the Bay, and in 1518, Dom João de Silveira appeared with four ships before the bar of Chittagong. He had been shortly preceded there by João Coelho, another Portuguese agent. In 1517 Fernao Peres d'Andrade had been commissioned to explore the Bay of Bengal and the neighbouring country, but lured by the reported wealth of the Far East, he sailed first to Sumatra and thence steered his course for the ports of the Celestial Empire, postponing his visit to Bengal for a future date. On the return journey, he sent João Coelho to his original destination, and Coelho arrived at Chittagong, a passenger in a Moorish boat, a few days earlier than Silveira. The first Portuguese mission to Bengal, however, proved a failure. Barros and other Portuguese historians found a satisfactory explanation of Silveira's ill-success in the habitual treachery and innate wickedness of the Bengalee character, but the Portuguese had to thank themselves alone for the cold reception they met with in Bengal.

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Silveira had encountered two merchant-men on his way to the Maldives, and promptly made prizes of them. One of the captured boats belonged to a Muslim merchant, Golam Ali (Gromalle), known to be a relative of the Governor of Chittagong, who himself was interested in the other. As he was apparently unfamiliar with the waters he was to navigate, the Portuguese captain pressed into his service a pilot from the boats he had seized and took into his confidence a youngman, who introduced himself as the pilot's brother-in-law. No wonder that his strange misdeeds on the high seas, which ill-accorded with the peaceful character of his professed mission, were no secret to the Governor of Chittagong when Silveira arrived there, and the appearance of two Portuguese agents in quick succession, from opposite quarters, gave ample room for suspicion. The Muslim captain with whom Coelho found a passage, gave him a good character, but Silveira's action, as reported to the Governor, had all the appearance of piracy. He was accordingly considered to be an undesirable visitor, though Coelho experienced nothing but kindness and courtesy during his brief residence in Bengal. It will be unfair to assume that the high-handed dealings of Gama and Cabral had not been reported by the merchants of Western India to their friends and partners in Bengal. The consequence was inevitable. Silveira was suspected to be a pirate and treated as such, and he had to fight “desperately”, as we learn from a Portuguese official report,¹ against the “perverse” people of Bengal, who obstinately refused to do any business with him. Silveira found himself in an unenviable plight. He dared not leave the inhospitable shores until the monsoon was over, and he could not find the provision he needed by fair purchase.

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¹ Sen, *Early Career of Kanhoji Angria and other Papers*, pp. 88-95.

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It may well be asked why the Portuguese captain began his voyage with a highly indiscreet, if not positively unfriendly proceeding, which was liable to be unfavourably construed by the very people whose good opinion it was apparently his interest to cultivate. The answer is not far to seek. The sovereignty of the eastern seas pertained by virtue of a papal grant to the Portuguese crown, and the king of Portugal had solemnly assumed the title of “Lord of the Navigation, Conquests and Trade of Aethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India”². According to Portuguese way if thinking, every Portuguese captain was not only competent, but obliged to exercise the authority that the title connoted: It never occurred to them that the papal Bull might not possibly have any legal or moral sanction in countries outside His Holiness’s spiritual jurisdiction. But in the Portuguese eyes, there was an additional justification for the policy pursued by their officers in the east. Nothing was unfair to a fanatical Christian, and fanaticism was the order of the day, particularly in the comparatively less civilised lands of the west, when a Moor or Muslim happened to be the victim. They had waged a long and bitter war against the Moor in their native country, and Portuguese patriotism and Portuguese piety equally demanded the extermination of the hated Moor in the neighbouring tracts of Africa. Commercial rivalry added further zest to racial hatred and religious aversion, and a Moor was considered to be a fair prey wherever encountered. The Indian export trade was, in those days, mostly in Muslim hands and the Portuguese captains made it their business to sweep the Muslim merchantmen out of Indian waters. Moreover, the tradition left by the early Portuguese explorers had a sinister influence on the naval practice of their successors, who willingly emulated their pernicious example. While navigating the eastern waters of the Atlantic, the Portuguese captains often found it necessary to requisition the unwilling services of the natives of the neighbouring coast. Raiding parties were usually sent to bring captives of all ages and sexes, and the more intelligent of the unfortunate prisoners were employed as pilots, guides and interpreters, while the rest were sold into slavery.¹ In justice to the Portuguese, it must be admitted that some of the Negroes were converted into Christianity, given a good education, married in Portuguese families and more or less imperceptibly absorbed in Portuguese society. But it cannot be doubted that the great majority suffered all the afflictions of exile and slavery for no fault of their own. Silveira was, therefore, behaving according to the normal code of Cadamosto and Cao, Gomes and Dias, when he made prizes of the Gujrat-bound boats from Bengal and pressed into his service the pilot and his youthful relative, not suspecting for a moment that they might not prove so submissive and obliging as the less sophisticated and more helpless people of Nigeria and Gambia. With a strange and perverse consistency, the Portuguese continued to offend the susceptibilities of a civilised society and a cultured court by their failure to conform to the higher standard of international conduct prevailing in India, and most of their misfortunes in Bengal were due to lawless habits contracted with impunity in the congenial climes of the “dark” continent.

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² Danvers, *The Portuguese in India*, Vol. I, p. 77.

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¹ Prestage. The Portuguese Pioneers, p. 101.

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To return to our story, Silveira sailed back after a season of futile fighting and useless hostility, and nothing notable happened until 1526, when Ruy Vaz Pereira visited Chittagong and captured a galliot owned by a rich Persian merchant, Khajah Shihab-ud-din, (Coge Sabadim) with all its cargo. It was alleged that piracy was committed by vessels built and fitted up after the Portuguese pattern and the blame was fastened on the unoffending Portuguese, while the real culprit went scot-free. Khajah Shihab-ud-din’s boat had all the appearance of such a corsair and Pereira professed to have acted in the interest of his own countrymen and all honest traders when he seized the wolf masquerading in a lamb’s garp.²

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² Campos, History of the Portuguese in Bengal, pp. 30-31.

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Ill winds brought the next Portuguese visitor of note in 1528. Martim Affonso de Mello Jusarte was cruising off Ceylon with a squadron of eight vessels when a violent storm scattered his fleet, and drove his boat to the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal. De Mello found himself ship-wrecked on the coast of Pegu, and made his way in a frail barque to a sandy bank where he and his men suffered the extremes of hunger and thirst. At last some fishermen offered to guide them to Chittagong, but either by design or by mistake took them to Chakaria (on the Matamuhari river. 50 miles from Chittagong under the Head-Quarters sub-division, Chakaria still claims some importance, having a police station, sub-registery and telegraph office) where Khuda Bakhsh Khan (Codovascam), the local chieftain unceremoniously threw them into prison. According to the Portuguese accounts, Khuda Bakhsh offered them liberty in lieu of their military services in a feud he had with an unfriendly neighbour. The battle was fought and won but there was no improvement in the lot of the unhappy prisoners. Khuda Bakhsh transferred them to his headquarters further inland in breach of his plighted word. Meanwhile, two of De Mello's lieutenants arrived at Chakaria but their efforts to ransom him proved of no avail, while an attempted flight resulted in greater rigours and De Mello's nephew, an immature youth of charming looks was permitted to be brutally sacrificed by the local Brahmans. When things looked their ugliest, relief came from an unexpected quarter. Khajah Shihab-ud-din, that Persian merchant of whose ship Pereira had made a prize at Chittagong, now interceded with the chieftain of Chakaria rightly expecting that success would be rewarded with the release of his boat and chattels. It was through his good offices that De Mello was at last ransomed at the not inconsiderable price of £ 1,500, and sent to Goa where he arrived in 1530, after two years of misery and misfortune.

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One good turn deserved another and Nuno da Cunha, the Portuguese governor, readily agreed to send another trading and diplomatic mission to Bengal when Shihab-ud-din approached him with a request to that effect. The Persian had some difficulties with the court of Gaur and would fain shake off the dust of Bengal. He proposed to take a berth in a Portuguese boat bound for Ormuz, and offered in return, to use his influence with the grandees of Gaur to secure for his Portuguese friends the much coveted license for building factories and forts at Chittagong and other sites. Da Cunha appointed Martim Affonso de Mello Jusarte to head the expedition, and he sailed with five ships and two hundred men to reach Bengal for a second time in 1533. He was received well by the governor of Chittagong and started unloading his cargo. But it appears that all his past experiences had been completely lost on him and, instead of trying to win the confidence of the local authorities by fair dealing, de Mello did his best to alienate them by fraudulently smuggling his goods to avoid paying the excessive custom duties levied at the port. He was equally imprudent in the choice of his presents for the Sultan. Duarte de Azevedo, his envoy, did indeed take with him fine horses, rich brocades and other gifts to the value of £1200 to Mahmud Shah’s capital. If it was his intention to create a sensation by the variety and wealth of his presents, he achieved an astounding success. Rarely is a king expected to accept stolen goods and among the presents offered to the Sultan were found several bottles of scented water known to have come from a Muslim merchantman recently plundered by a notorious Portuguese pirate, Damião Bernaldes, and neither De Mello nor Azevedo had deemed it necessary to take the elementary precaution of removing from the offensive packets the labels of the original owner.¹ The Sultan drew the obvious conclusion, and ordered the buccaneers, for as such Azevedo and his colleagues had appeared to him, to be beheaded. The pleading of a Muslim saint is said to have saved the Portuguese from that dire end and they were consigned to a dungeon which Barros likens to the inferno (hell). At the same time the governor of Chittagong had been instructed to seize the Portuguese and their goods. He would have been perfectly within his rights if he had called De Mello and his associates to account for the frauds they had practised, but instead, of placing them under arrest in a straightforward manner, the governor preferred to resort to the safer, but more dubious methods of those days. The unsuspecting offenders were invited to a banquet, and all, but a few, who preferred the diversions of a hunt to the pleasures of a feast, readily stepped into the trap. Despite the desperate defence they offered, thirty of the Portuguese, including De Mello, were neatly secured after ten had lost their lives and the prisoners were sent to Gaur to share the fate of the envoy and his staff. The Portuguese historians are loud in their denunciation of what they, in their wrath, describe, as a treacherous massacre of innocent guests, but it cannot be gainsaid that De Mello and his colleagues had richly deserved incarceration though the questionable method of apprehending the culprits, and the consequent casualty gave an altogether different colouring to the incident.

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¹ Whiteway—The Rise of the Portuguese Power in India, pp. 232-234.

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The masterful spirit of Nuno da Cunha would not brook such an insult to the Portuguese power, and Antonio da Silva Menezes was promptly sent to Bengal, at the head of a powerful fleet, to demand an explanation of the extraordinary treatment that friendly envoys had received at the court of Gaur, and to obtain the release of Martim Affonso de Mello and his men by peaceful persuasion, if possible, and by force, if necessary (1534). On his arrival at Chittagong da Silva Menezes sent an envoy to Gaur with his master’s message, but when a month elapsed before a reply arrived, he set fire to Chittagong and put a large number of the Sultan’s people to the sword. Violence was not calculated to improve the embittered relations and Diogo Rebello who arrived at Satgaon shortly afterwards (1535) tried a peaceful blockade. His representatives received a better hearing at Gaur, not because the Sultan had repented of his past policy, or the naval demonstrations of the Portuguese had made any impression, but because Mahmud Shah had for sometime past been anxiously looking for new allies against the powerful aggression of Sher Khan Suri. Drowning men clutch at straws. The Sultan promptly released his prisoners, and Martim Affonso suddenly found himself in the honoured position of a trusted military adviser of the king of Bengal. In the war that followed, the Portuguese are said to have performed wonders of valour, but neither their bravery, nor their skill, vitally influenced the course of events and Mahmud Shah had to purchase peace on the terms dictated by his inexorable enemy. Everybody knew that Sher was not likely to rest on his oars longer than was necessary, and Bengal would once again have to experience the terrors of a cruel invasion in the near future. Affonso Vas de Britto, who visited Bengal in 1538, brought the disappointing news that the Portuguese were too much embroiled in Gujarat to be of any service to the king of Bengal. The inevitable followed. Mahmud Shah was chased out of Gaur and died of his wounds. Humayun was outmanœuvred and worsted. Sher became the King of Delhi and sovereign of Bengal. But the Portuguese had gained their end before the final discomfiture of their ally. Mahmud Shah in his anxiety to enlist their support had permitted the Portuguese to build factories at Satgaon and Chittagong, the “porto pequeno” (little port) and the “porto grande” (great port) of the Portuguese historians. The conclusion of the war which proved so disastrous for their allies found the Portuguese securely established at both the places with custom houses of their own. In fact when the local nobles contended with Sher Shah’s nominee for the possession of Chittagong, Nuno Fernandes Freire, the officer in charge of the Portuguese custom house, conceived the bold project of seizing the town and the harbour in the name of his king, and Castanheda holds that had Freire received the support he deserved from Vasco Peres de Sampayo (who had arrived with nine vessels in 1538 too late to defend Mahmud Shah’s cause) his scheme might have been successfully carried out. After an armed skirmish with some Moors, Sampayo left for Pegu and died there. With his passing away ends the first chapter in the history of the Portuguese infiltration in Bengal.

II

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The next twenty years form a blank in our history. Not that the restless spirit of the Portuguese knew any respite. Their trading vessels continued to visit the ports of the east, and their Captains, doubtless, made up for any deficiency in their legitimate profit by their usual filibustering operations. The Portuguese historians found nothing worth recording during these two decades and the chroniclers of the country did not as yet take any notice of the new-comers. But something must have happened in the meantime to demand a revision and reorientation of the commercial policy of the Portuguese in Bengal, for in 1559 we find a deliberate attempt on their part to divert the trade of Chittagong to another port. Quite likely the Portuguese were not pulling on well with the new masters of Chittagong. Some light is thrown on this obscure point by a treaty rescued from oblivion by the industry of that great archivist, Julio Firminio Judice Biker. The document was signed on behalf of a Bengali prince, the Raja of Bakla (Parmānanda Rāy) by Ni'amat Khan (Nematchão) and Gannu Bysuar (Kanu or Ganu Biswas ?), who seem to have made a journey to Goa to negotiate a subordinate alliance on the part of their master with the Portuguese Viceroy of India (Dom Constantino de Braganza).¹ This treaty of the 30th April 1559 provided for a mutual military and commercial alliance. The Raja was to throw open his port of Bakla or any other suitable port of his principality to the Portuguese trading fleet, treat the Portuguese tradesmen who might visit his country with kindness and consideration, provide the visiting fleet with a full cargo of the produces of the coast land stretching from Bakla to Paigao, and refrain from raising the custom duties of his ports. The Portuguese, in their turn, offered to discontinue their trading voyages to Chittagong, to pay the lawful duties levied at the Raja's port and to grant license to four of his trading boats for visiting Goa, Ormuz and Malacca every year. The alliance obviously placed the Raja in a subordinate position. While he was precluded from dealing with their enemies in any way, the Portuguese retained the right of concluding similar treaties with other ruling princes of this region. In lieu of the military co-operation, which the Portuguese promised him in his wars against his neighbours, Paramananda agreed to pay an annual tribute in a specified quantity of rice, butter, oil, tar, sugar and the finger produces of the loom. Obviously the Portuguese wanted to secure the monopoly of the trade of the country though the agency of the local Rajas, whose weakness and ambition readily lent them to the new plan.

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¹ Sen, Studies in Indian History, pp. 3-10.

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The port of Bakla exists no more, and we do not know where Paigao was. It was not within the limits of Paramananda’s domain, for the treaty refers to other princes of this coast, nor is it certain whether Paigão was situated on the Bay of Bengal. Bakla was a riverside port far from the sea. It may not be unreasonable to identify Paigão with Paigram in the modern district of Khulna. The place is near the Bhairab river which might have been flowing by it four centuries ago. If the Portuguese expected that Bakla, with their backing, would one day rob Chittagong of its importance as a centre of inland and overseas trade, they were sorely disappointed. But they had no reason to repent of the alliance of 1559, for in Paramananda and his successors they found unfailing friends in the darkest days of their adversity.

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From Parmānanda let us turn to one of his successors. Forty years after the conclusion of the treaty a Christian missionary of the Society of Jesus, Melchoir da Fonseca, visited the court of Bakla on his way to Chandikan (Ciandecan). His account of his interview with the king is worth quoting: “I had scarcely arrived there, when the King (who is not more than eight years old, but whose discretion surpasses his age) sent for me and wished the Portuguese to come with me. On entering the hall where he was waiting for me, all the nobles and captains rose up, and I, a poor priest, was made by the King to sit down in a rich seat opposite to him. After compliments, he asked me where I was going, and I replied that I was going to the King of Ciandeca, who is ‘the future father-in-law of your Highness,’ but that as it had pleased the Lord that I should pass through his kingdom, it had appeared right to me to come and visit him and offer him the services of the fathers of the Company, trusting that his Highness would give permission to the erection of Churches and the making of Christians. The King said, ‘I desire this myself, because I have heard so much of your good qualities’ and so he gave me a letter of authority, and also assigned a maintenance sufficient for two of us.”¹ The boy king of Bakla or Chandradwip has been rightly identified by Henry Beveridge with Raja Rāmchandra, son-in-law of the great Prātāpāditya of Jessore.² It is interesting to note here that his friendship for the Portuguese drew upon him the wrath of the King of Arakan who “suddenly threw himself upon that of Bacola, of which he possessed himself without difficulty, as the king of it was absent and still young.”

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¹ Beveridge, *District of Bakarganj*, p. 31.

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² Beveridge, *District of Bakarganj*, pp. 175-177.

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¹ Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. X, p. 137.

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Fonseca’s mission supplies an apt illustration of the faith following the flag. But the missionaries were not alone in the field. Fonseca’s prayer “for the erection of churches and the making of Christians” was so readily granted because the boy king of Bakla had in his service a captain, and other people of Portuguese extraction and Christian faith. Nor was he the only prince to enlist these foreign adventurers in his army. His father-in-law, for instance, and the powerful chief of Sripur welcomed these daring sailors and employed them to command their fighting fleet. Whether the Portuguese adventurers in the service of the Bhuiyans of Bengal tried, like their French and English successors of the eighteenth century, to further the political interests of their country while improving their own fortunes, we do not precisely know. But some of them certainly made the most of their opportunities and earned by their exploits a permanent place in the history of their times. Of these Domingo Carvalho was by far the ablest and did not miss any opportunity of serving his country’s cause when one was available.

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Carvalho was a native of Montargil in Portugal. We do not know when he came to India and in what capacity. He must have entered the service of Kedār Rāi, the famous chief of Sripur, sometime prior to 1602. He distinguished himself by the conquest of Sandwip which, if Du Jarric is to be credited, belonged of right to the Sripur Prince. The island was in those days an important centre of salt industry, and formed a battle-ground for the Mughals, the Maghs and the Portuguese. Situated off the coast of Chittagong its strategic advantages could not be overlooked either by the Mughal rulers of Bengal or the Magh Raja of Arakan. When Cæsar Frederick visited Sandwip in 1569 the island was inhabited by the Muslims and he found “the king a very good man of a Moore King.”[1] How it was annexed by Kedār Rāi, and when it passed into Mughal hands remain yet to be ascertained. In 1602, Domingo Carvalho conquered Sandwip in his master’s name, but unable to hold it against the natives of the place, he invited the co-operation of Manoel de Mattos, the Portuguese Captain of Dianga. The island was then completely reduced and divided between Carvalho and Mattos. The annexation of Sandwip was hailed as a great feat of Portuguese arms and the two heroes were rewarded by the King of Portugal with the knighthood of the Order of Christ and the rank of the gentlemen of the royal household (*Fidalgos da Casa real*). Their triumph, however, proved short-lived. The King of Arakan, who had extended his dominion to Chittagong, led an expedition against Dianga and inflicted a defeat on Mattos. Carvalho hurried to the rescue of his colleague and captured the Arakanese fleet with all its arms and ammunition (Nov. 1602). The Magh King wreaked his vengeance on the Portuguese citizens living under his jurisdiction, and fitted up a second fleet to retrieve his honour. Carvalho did indeed achieve a second victory, but this pyrrhic success rendered his position in Sandwip utterly untenable. He abandoned the island and retired to Sripur with some of his followers, while the rest of the Portuguese and native Christians betook themselves to the friendly courts of Bakla and Chandikan. While at Sripur, Carvalho had to fight a Mughal fleet of hundred masts. With thirty armed *Jalia* boats Carvalho put the invading armada to flight and saved Sripur from Mughal subjugation. We next find him at Hughli where the Portuguese had a flourishing settlement. Obviously he wanted to enlist the support of his countrymen of that colony in another enterprise against Sandwip. While sailing up the Hughli river his fleet was, without any provocation, assailed from the batteries of a neighbouring Mughal fortress. Carvalho retaliated by storming the place and putting the garrison to the sword. This was the last battle that the famous veteran was destined to fight. Shortly afterwards he visited Chandikan (Dhumghat ?) where he was treacherously put to death by Pratapaditya, in order, it is said, to propitiate the King of Arakan, whose conquest of Sandwip and Bakla had brought him perilously near the territories of the Jessore prince.

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Sandwip naturally recalls the exploits of a romantic ruffian whose name has been written large in letters of blood in the unhappy annals of that island. His courage, cruelty and cunning placed Sebastião Gonsalves Tibau (better known as Gonzales in Bengal) in a class by himself. Born in an obscure village near Lisbon of peasant stock, Gonzales came to India in 1605 and enlisted as a soldier. Before long he gave up the less remunerative profession of arms for the more lucrative trade in salt. He seems to have prospered in his new venture, and his profits soon enabled him to purchase a *Jalia* of his own. We find him and his boat at Dianga in 1607. He somehow survived the massacre of that year, and set up as a free-booter with a dozen of his more daring countrymen. The small islands of the deltaic region provided suitable bases of operation from where he carried on plundering raids against the Arakan coast, not missing such defenceless merchantmen as came his way. The Government of Sandwip had in the meantime passed to Fath Khan, a Muslim captain formerly in Portuguese employ. Unwilling to brook any rival, he murdered the Portuguese and the Christian inhabitants of his island, and set out with a fleet of forty sails in search of Gonzales and his pirates. While busy dividing their spoils in the island of Dakhin Shahbazpur (in the District of Bakarganj) they were surprised by Fath Khan. Better seamanship however prevailed over greater number, and Fath Khan was defeated and slain. The victory gained for Gonzales the unquestioning obedience of his companions, and he was formally elected their leader. Success added to his ambition, and he next made himself the master of Sandwip (1609). In this enterprise, as in his earlier buccaneering exploits, he relied not a little on the support of the friendly Raja of Bakla. The spoils of his piracy used to be disposed of in the Raja's country, though the treaty of 1559 had positively provided against such a misuse of his ports. The Raja sent two hundred horsemen and some armed boats to help Gonzales in the conquest of Sandwip on condition that the revenue of the island would be equally shared by the two allies. Gonzales was not the man to honour his promise once his object was gained. He ruled Sandwip as an indepedent ruler and his fame soon attracted fresh adherents until his forces swelled to one thousand Portuguese, two thousand Indian soldiers, two hundred horsemen and eighty armed boats. The unfortunate Raja of Bakla was now to feel the might of his faithless friend, and was forcibly dispossessed of the islands of Dakhin Shahbazpur and Patelbhanga. Fortune continued to favour the bold bad man and the arrival in Sandwip of a princely fugitive of the Arakanese royal house, Anaporam, after an unsuccessful bid for power considerably added to the prestige of Gonzales. His intervention in favour of his new friend proved futile, and his troops had to beat a retreat before the superior forces of Arakan. The death of Anaporam paved the way for peace, and the progress of Mughal arms in the south-eastern districts of Bengal provided the motive for a close alliance between the rulers of Arakan and Sandwip. Fidelity however was not one of the failings of Gonzales, and the narrow straight course of rectitude was not to his taste. He not only betrayed the king of Arakan while engaged in fighting the Mughals, but seized his fleet and ruthlessly massacred his men. This treachery cost him only his nephew's life. The unfortunate youth had been sent to the Arakanese camp as a hostage for his uncle's good faith and the king avenged his wrongs by driving a stake through him.

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But the good stars of Gonzales were already on the decline. His tyranny and oppression had alienated most of his adherents, but his ambition knew no satiety as yet. In 1615 Gonzales felt that he could add Arakan to his conquests, if his plan was supported by the Portuguese Viceroy of Goa. He immediately offered to return to the allegiance of the King of Portugal, and to pay him an annual tribute if his proposals were favourably accepted. The Viceroy Dom Jeronymo de Azevedo readily agreed and a fleet of sixteen sails under the command of Dom Francisco Menezes Roxo appeared in the Bay of Bengal (October 1615). Unfortunately for the Portuguese the King of Arakan was not so helpless as they had imagined, and Menezes Roxo unexpectedly found himself confronted with a Dutch squadron of superior number. The fight continued for two successive days in which the Portuguese Commodore lost his life. His successor in command Dom Luiz de Azevedo sailed to Sandwip while the battle was still undecided and inspite of all the importunities of Gonzales left him to his fate and returned to Goa. He was accompanied by many of Gonzales' followers who were glad to be rid of their hard-hearted master. Next year the King of Arakan conquered Sandwip and Gonzales faded out of history. His infamous career covered a brief period of ten years. Gonzales had the making of a great leader, but his training and environments made of him a pirate of the lower type. For unrelieved cruelty and treachery his record had hardly any parallel, but with better education under more favourable circumstances, he might have been a Raleigh or a Drake.

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Here we may bid good-bye to the buccaneers of the Bay though Gonzales was by no means the last or the worst of them. The story of the Feringi pirates of Chittagong has been told in another chapter by another writer.

III

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The loss of Sandwip did not mean the loss of Bengal. The Portuguese had many settlements of greater or lesser importance scattered all over the province. The prowess and professional skill of their seamen had won for them positions of trust and responsibility at the courts of the more prominent Chieftains (Bhuiyas), and small Portuguese colonies flourished under their patronage at Bakla (Bakarganj), Chandikan (Jessore), Sripur (Dacca), Bhulua (Noakhali) and Katrabo (Dacca and Mymensingh). Some of these settlements had been visited by Fonseca Fernandes and Sosa in the closing year of the sixteenth century. The King of Chandikan provided funds and a site, and the first Christian church in Bengal was constructed in his principality.¹ The Jesuit fathers had full freedom to preach the Gospel wherever they went, and if their flock did not live a truly Christian life, it was no fault of the local rulers. The Portuguese, however, had not limited their commercial and martial enterprise to the semi-independent region under the government of the Bengali princes. They could not possibly ignore the principal trading centres of the country and had their factories at Dacca, Tamluk, Hijli and other convenient places. Two ports, however, demanded their attention most and absorbed the major part of their investments. Despite the abortive attempt of 1559 to rob it of its commercial eminence, Chittagong remained the leading place of Portuguese trade in Bengal. From the beginning to the end it was their Porto grande, the great port. Next in importance was Porto pequeno the little port in west Bengal. When Caeser Frederick visited Bengal in 1567 Satgaon was the little port of the Portuguese. As early as 1537-38 the Portuguese built their factory and custom house at Satgaon with the permission of the King of Bengal, and within thirty years, it attracted sufficient business to keep thirty to thirty-five merchant-men fully employed.² The Venetian merchant informs us-: "In the port of Satgan every yeere they lade thirtie or five and thirtie ships great and small, with Rice, Cloth of Bombast and of diverse sorts Lacca, great abundance of Sugar, Mirabolans dried and preserved, long Pepper, Oyle of Zerzeline, and many other sorts of merchandise." The prosperity of Satgaon, however, proved short-lived and when Ralph Fitch came to this country bareley three decades later (1583-91) "Hugeli" had become the "Porto Piqueno"³ of the Portuguese, though he found Satgaon "a faire Citie for a Citie of the Moors, and very plentiful of things".

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¹ Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. X, p. 206.

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² Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. X, pp. 113-14.

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³ Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. X, p. 182.

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It is not difficult to guess why Hughli was preferred to Satgaon as an emporium of west Bengal trade. Satgaon owed its rise and fall not to the whims of man, but to the freaks of nature. The big river, that made it a convenient meeting place for the merchant fleets from far and near,⁴ had gradually silted up, and trade dwindled as the stream diminished. Even in 1563 the Portuguese found it necessary to build temporary quarters at a village down stream during the trading season as their bigger boats were unable to reach Satgaon. Says Caesar Frederick: “A good Tides rowing before you come Satgan, you shall have a place which is called Buttor,¹ and from thence upwards the Ships doe not goe, because that upwards the River is very shallow, and little water. Every yeere at Buttor they make and unmake a village, with Houses and shops made of straw, and with all things necessarie to their uses, and this Village standeth as long as the Ships ride there, and till they depart for the Indies, and when they depart, everie man goeth to his plot of houses and there setteth fire on them, which thing made me to marvaile. For as I passed up to Satagan, I saw the Village standing with a great number of people, with an infinite numbers of Ships and Bazars, and at my return downe with my Captaine of the last Ship, for whom I tarried, I was all amazed to see such a place so soone razed and burnt, and nothing left but the signe of the burnt Houses.” Making and unmaking of temporary villages do not lead to comfort or economy, and the Portuguese were naturally anxious to shift their “little port” to a convenient place on a navigable river with sufficient anchorage and Hughli replaced Satgaon as the principal Portuguese settlement in west Bengal.

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⁴ According to Kavi Kankan Mukundaram it used to attract so much foreign trade that the merchants of Satgaon never left their home-town.

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¹ Betor, near Calcutta, has been twice mentioned as a place of importance by Kavi Kankan Mukundarām in his *Chandi*.

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The Portuguese settlement of Hughli is associated with the name of the greatest Mughal ruler of India. A serious student of comparative theology, Akbar wanted a competent interpreter of the Christian faith at his court and naturally turned to the Portuguese of Bengal about whose commercial enterprise he had heard so much. At his request a Portuguese missionary, Father Juliano Pereira, and a Portuguese man of affairs, Pedro Tavares (Partab Bar Feringi of the *Akbar-nama*) made their journey to the imperial court. Although we do not know whether Tavares preceded Pereira to Agra, it will not be unreasonable to assume that the worldly interests of the merchant were suitably reinforced by the spiritual influence of the Missionary, and a *farmān* was in due course obtained and the Portuguese removed their factory and custom house from Satgaon to Hughli about 1580. Tavares was in all probability the first governor of the new settlement. The new “Porto Pequeno” quickly rose in importance and became a flourishing business centre before long. The settlement expanded and the Portuguese merchants acquired landed property on both banks of the Ganges, if Father Sebastien Manrique is to be credited. The main articles of trade that Hughly provided were rice, sugar, silk and cotton goods. Rice in particular was exceptionally cheap in Bengal during the sixteenth century.

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Akbar doubtless expected that the Portuguese would devote their energy and resources entirely to the improvement of their commerce, and their armed fleet would prove a better instrument for policing the Bay than any his government had so far been able to provide. Jahangir shared his father's hopes and left the Portuguese in undisturbed enjoyment of their rights and privileges at Hughli. Shah Jahan however found it necessary to revise the policy of his father and grandfather. Within five years of his accession to the throne, Hughli was seized (1632) and a large number of prisoners were sent to Agra where they suffered great misery.

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The Portuguese had their own explanation of the implacable hostility of the new emperor. This point has been fully discussed in Chapter XVII sec. IV in the account of Qāsim Khan’s governorship.

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A modern apologist argues that the Portuguese of Hughli were neither in league with the pirates of Chittagong nor guilty of piracy themselves.¹ But it cannot be gainsaid that the Portuguese of western Bengal shared the evil reputation of their confreres of the east for their lawless habits and predilection for piracy. A Bengali poet of note² pointedly referred to the dread with which a journey along the Feringi coast was commonly viewed when he said that the boat-men rowed ceaselessly night and day in fear of the *Harmād*³ or the pirate-fleet. The Portuguese empire had expanded with phenomenal rapidity, and the mother-country had not the necessary surplus population for the development of the far-flung colonies. Convicts were, therefore, given the option of serving their terms at home or seeking their fortune in the east, and it is no wonder that some of the worst criminals found their way to Bengal. It is to be noted that contemporary European travellers had not a good word for the Portuguese, and Van Linschoten likened them to “wild men” and “untamed horses.” If some of the bad characters of Portugal were annually drafted to India, the worst of them, according to Linschoten, left the more orderly and better governed settlements on the west coast for the ports of the Bay of Bengal which knew neither order nor discipline. Fernandes says that many of them “lived in Piracie and loose lusts.”⁴ It is, therefore, futile to argue that the Portuguese settlers of Hughli were orderly people with a healthy respect for law, who would scrupulously avoid any dubious method of making money. It is admitted by all that if Hughli was not a nest of pirates, it was a slave-market to which both Magh and Portuguese pirates had free access. It is there that they disposed of their unlucky prisoners. Slavery, it is true, was an institution recognised by Muslim and Hindu law, but it is the elementary duty of every State to provide for the security of life and property of each and every one of its members. Shah Jahan could not permit his subjects to be bought and sold like cattles in the slave-market of Hughli, simply because his officers had proved unequal to the task of defending their persons against the rovers of Chittagong and Arakan. The Portuguese of Hughli undoubtedly shared their guilt morally and legally when they trafficked with them in their offensive spoils. If Shah Jahan found it impossible to clear the Bay and the rivers of Bengal of these human sharks, the least he could do was to close the market where they brought their victims, and to eliminate their partners in this dismal business.

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¹ Campos, *History of the Portuguese in Bengal*, pp. 130-131.

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² Kavi Kankan Mukundrām Chakravarti.

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³ Portuguese *armada*.

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⁴ *Purchas His Pilgrimes*, Vol. X, 205.

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Into the military details of the capture of Hughli we need not enter. Suffice it to say that the Portuguese had no chance against the superior forces of Qāsim Khan, but they stood their ground with courage and resolution worthy of a better cause. The prisoners should have been more humanely treated, but the standards of the seventeenth century required that an example should be made of these unfortunate people because some of their compatriots had made slaves of Muslim women and children of noble birth. But it was not long before the Emperor relented. The Portuguese were permitted to return to their old settlement in 1633. They had felt the full weight of the Emperor's displeasure and might be reasonably expected to have a wholesome respect for his authority in future. No miracle was needed to convert Shah Jahan to a more merciful policy.

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The fall of Hughli marked the beginning of the end. The pirates of Chittagong were exterminated in the next reign, but the Portuguese community still survives in Bengal. Even in the eighties of the eighteenth century (1786), they claimed special rights and privileges on the strength of the established custom and their contention was accepted by the Government of the day. The later rulers sometimes found their services useful, and Raja Rajballabh settled a small Portuguese colony at Padri Sibpur in the district of Bakarganj.¹ At Calcutta and Hughli, Dacca and Chittagong, the Luso-Indian citizens still form a link with the past, though they enjoy neither the prestige nor the prosperity of their adventurous forefathers.

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¹ Calendar of Persian Correspondence, Vol, VII, pp. 199-201. Beveridge, District of Bakarganj, p. 106.

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Our review of the Portuguese relations with Bengal has been so far greatly to the discredit of that nation. Their courage was vitiated by cruelty, their inquisitiveness was marred by greed, and their progress in the province was ordinarily marked by disorder and lawlessness. But in fairness to the Portuguese we cannot leave the credit side out of account.

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In spite of all their shortcomings the Portuguese did not suffer from the colour prejudice so common in the west, and freely intermarried with the natives of the country. Some of them permanently settled in this land and, if they failed to make any marked contribution to our civilisation and culture, they tried their best to improve the agricultural resources of the country of their adoption. Good peasants at home, they had a keen eye for the useful plants of other lands and a wonderful knack for acclimatizing exotic flowers and fruits in countries far from their original home. It is seldom realised that many of our common flowers and fruits were totally unknown before the Portuguese came. "The noxious weed that brings solace" to many and now forms a staple product of Rangpur was brought by the Portuguese as was that common article of food, potato—which is relished by princes and peasants alike. Tobacco and potato came from North America. From Brazil they brought cashewnut (Anacardium Occidentale), which goes by the name of Hijli badam because it thrives so well in the sandy soil of the Hijli littoral. The cultivation of this valuable nut is limited to a narrow strip of the sea coast, but the papaya (Carica Papaya) and the pineapple have taken more kindly to the soil of Bengal and few are aware that they are aliens of comparatively recent domicile. We are indebted to the Portuguese for Kamranga (Averrhoe Carambola) which finds so much favour with our children. To this list may also be added Peyara (Psydium Guyava), which found an appreciative poet in Monomohan Basu. The little Krishnakali (Mirabilis Jalapa) that cheers our countryside in its yellow, red, and white is another gift of the once dreaded Feringi. This does not exhaust the list of plants that the Portuguese introduced in Bengal, but, incomplete as this inventory is, it fairly illustrates their zeal for the art and science of Agri-horticulture.

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No less important is the Portuguese contribution to our vocabulary. About fifty Portuguese words have found a permanent place in the spoken language of Bengal. Articles of common use often go by their Portuguese names (c. g. Chabi, Balti, Perek, Saban. Toalia, Alpin etc.), and such Portuguese words as veranda and Janela have completely replaced their indigenous synonyms. It is no wonder that chairs and tables should have once been known as *kadera* (Port. *Cadeira*) and *mej* (Port. *Mesa*) for these furniture were originally introduced into Bengali homes by the Portuguese. They have not only enriched our orchards but added to the wealth and vigour of our mother-tongue.

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When two races or nations intimately associate with each other, as the Portuguese and the Bengalees did, they naturally borrow from each other's vocabulary, and it is no wonder that so many Portuguese words found currency in our language. But the Portuguese did something more substantial for the development of our prose literature. For the first printed book in Bengali we are indebted to a Portuguese. It was a Portuguese who wrote the first Bengali prose work, and it was left to another Portuguese to compile the first Bengali grammar and dictionary, an achievement of no mean merit, an achievement of which any people might rightly feel proud. About 1599 Father Sosa translated into Bengali "a tractate of Christian Religion, in which were confuted the Gentile and Mahumetan errours: to which was added a short Catechisme by way of Dialogue, which the Children frequenting the Schools learned by heart."¹ Sosa's tractate has been unfortunately lost, but another dialogue written by a Bengali convert has been preserved for us. Dom Antonio do Rozario belonged to the landed aristocracy of east Bengal. In his early youth he was carried by the Magh pirates to Arakan where he was sold as a slave (1663). A Portuguese missionary, Manoel do Rozario ransomed him and later converted him to his own faith. It was under Portuguese inspiration that the new convert wrote a dialogue, the first Bengali work of its kind that has come down to us.² Dom Antonio's work might have shared the same fate as that of Sosa but for the devoted care of Manoel da Assumpcão and George da Apresentacã. Manoel had Antonio's manuscript transcribed in Roman script, and sent the transcript to Evora probably with a view to publication. He himself wrote a dialogue in Bengali and compiled a grammar and dictionary of the Bengali language for the benefit of his fellow workers in the province. Manoel da Assumpcão was for many years the head of the St. Tolentino mission of which Dom Antonio was the founder. *Crepar Xastrer Orth Bhed*, for such was the title of Manoel's dialogue, was printed by Francisco da Sylva at Lisbon in 1743. The same year witnessed the publication of his grammar and vocabulary.¹ The Portuguese had therefore to their credit two dialogues, a grammar and dictionary long before any of our countrymen had attempted anything of this kind. Even in recent times the Luso-Indian community has produced teachers and scholars of Derozio and Percival's eminence.

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