s of India. The position of a
military and ruling power was forced on the Portuguese as it was
afterwards on the Dutch and the English.

In February, 1502, Dom Vasco da Gama, Admiral {29} of the Indian
Seas, set sail from Lisbon with twenty ships, of which five were
lateen-rigged caravels or lightly built warships which he was
directed to leave behind him in the East. The Admiral followed his
previous course, and after renewing his friendship with the Chief of
Melinda he reached the Indian coast in safety. He found that the
Portuguese factor at Cochin and his clerks had laid in a good store
of Indian commodities, and that they had been kindly treated by the
Raja of that city in spite of the threats of the Moplas of Calicut.
He then proceeded to repeat the lesson which Cabral had given to the
Zamorin, and after destroying, under circumstances of atrocious
cruelty, the crew of a large ship belonging to a wealthy and
important Muhammadan owner, he bombarded the city of Calicut.

The Rani of Quilon, an important pepper port, sent a message
requesting that the Portuguese would come to her port also to obtain
goods. But Dom Vasco da Gama feared to offend the Raja of Cochin by
trading elsewhere, and it was only after receiving the express
consent of the latter monarch that he took two shiploads of pepper
from Quilon. Having taken on board a lucrative cargo Dom Vasco da
Gama returned once more to Portugal, leaving behind him the squadron
designed for that purpose under the command of one of his relations,
Vicente Sodre.

The Admiral also made a treaty with the Raja of Cannanore, a ruler
nearly as powerful as the Raja of Cochin, which provided that the
former should {30} never make war on the Raja of Cochin, and should
refuse to assist the Zamorin in case that powerful ruler undertook
such an attack, and he also established a factory at Cannanore.
Vicente Sodre cruised for some time on the Malabar coast, as he had
been directed to do, and then sailed for the coast of Arabia in order
to intercept the ships of Muhammadan merchants trading between India
and Egypt. He had, however, but small success; for in the summer of
1503 his squadron was wrecked on the Abd-el-Khuri rocks off Socotra,
three of his ships were lost, and Sodre himself was drowned.

In 1503 three separate squadrons were despatched to the East from
Portugal under the command respectively of Affonso de Albuquerque,
the future Governor, Francisco de Albuquerque, h