ow we had been driven out of Abyssinia, how many
times they had attempted to take away our lives, in what manner we had
been betrayed and given up to the Turks, the menaces we had been
terrified with, the insults we had endured; I laid before him the danger
the patriarch was in of being either impaled or flayed alive; the
cruelty, insolence and avarice of the Bassa of Suaquem, and the
persecution that the Catholics suffered in AEthiopia. I exhorted, I
implored him by everything I thought might move him, to make some attempt
for the preservation of those who had voluntarily sacrificed their lives
for the sake of God. I made it appear with how much ease the Turks might
be driven out of the Red Sea, and the Portuguese enjoy all the trade of
those countries. I informed him of the navigation of that sea, and the
situation of its ports; told him which it would be necessary to make
ourselves masters of first, that we might upon any unfortunate encounter
retreat to them. I cannot deny that some degree of resentment might
appear in my discourse; for, though revenge be prohibited to Christians,
I should not have been displeased to have had the Bassa of Suaquem and
his brother in my hands, that I might have reproached them with the ill-
treatment we had met with from them. This was the reason of my advising
to make the first attack upon Mazna, to drive the Turks from thence, to
build a citadel, and garrison it with Portuguese.

The viceroy listened with great attention to all I had to say, gave me a
long audience, and asked me many questions. He was well pleased with the
design of sending a fleet into that sea, and, to give a greater
reputation to the enterprise, proposed making his son commander-in-chief,
but could by no means be brought to think of fixing garrisons and
building fortresses there; all he intended was to plunder all they could,
and lay the towns in ashes.

I left no art of persuasion untried to convince him that such a
resolution would injure the interests of Christianity, that to enter the
Red Sea only to ravage the coasts would so enrage the Turks that they
would certainly massacre all the Christian captives, and for ever shut
the passage into Abyssinia, and hinder all communication with that
empire. It was my opinion that the Portuguese should first establish
themselves at Mazna, and that a hundred of them would be sufficient to
keep the fort that should be built. He made an offer of only fifty, and
pro