at our command without any further
trouble, and when Goa was taken, that one victory alone did more
for the advancement of Your Highness's prestige than all the fleets
which have come to India during the last fifteen years. And if Your
Highness, in deference to the opinions of those who have written
this advice to you, thinks it possible to secure your dominions in
{121} these parts by means of the fortresses of Cochin and
Cannanore, it is impossible; for, if once Portugal should suffer a
reverse at sea, your Indian possessions have not power to hold out
a day longer than the kings of the land choose to suffer it; for,
if one of our men takes anything by force from a native,
immediately they raise the drawbridge and shut the gates of the
fortress, and this causes Your Highness not to be Lord of the land,
as of Goa, for in this territory the injury which is done to Moors
or to Portuguese does not reach beyond the Captain of the fortress.
Justice is yours, and yours the arm, yours the sword, and in the
hand of your Captain-General reposes the punishment, and before him
lies the remedy for the complaint of everyone; and if to-day there
be any improvement in regard to the obedience shown by the natives
of the land, it is plainly to be referred to the fact that the
taking of Goa keeps India in repose and quiet; and the fact that
the island has so frequently been attacked by the Turks, as those
who wrote to Your Highness assert, and so valiantly defended by the
Portuguese, enhances the credit which the progress of affairs in
these parts deserves. And I have so completely disheartened the
members of the league against us, that the King of Gujarat,
powerful prince as he is, lost no time in sending to me his
ambassadors and restoring to me all the cavaliers and fidalgos, who
were shipwrecked with Dom Affonso de Noronha, my nephew, on their
voyage from Socotra, without my sending to ask this of him, and
even offered me permission to build a fortress in Diu, a matter of
such immense importance that even now I can hardly believe it; and
I am now importuned by the Zamorin of Calicut, who desires to grant
me a site to build a fortress in his city, and is willing to pay a
yearly tribute to the Crown. All this is the result of our holding
Goa, without my waging war upon any of these princes.

'And I hold it to be free from doubt, that if fortresses be {122}
buil