es of the King of Portugal.'

Albuquerque goes on to say--

'And so I intend to drive out of Calicut the Moors, who {67} are
the people that furnish the Zamorin with all the revenue that he
requires for the expenses of war, and after this is over I shall
give my attention forthwith to the affairs of Goa, wherein I can
help in the war against the King of the Deccan.'

Albuquerque then adds that Ormuz now belongs to the King of Portugal,
and that--

'the horses of Ormuz shall not be consigned except to Baticala
[Bhatkal] or to any other port he [the Raja of Vijayanagar] pleases
to point out where he can have them, and shall not go to the King
of the Deccan, who is a Moor and his enemy.'[2]

[Footnote 2: Instructions to Frei Luis; Albuquerque's _Commentaries_,
vol. ii. pp. 74-77.]

These instructions make evident the attitude of Albuquerque, his
desire to earn the friendship of Hindu rulers and his unrelenting
enmity to all Muhammadans. He had not the absurd notion which Almeida
attributed to him of desiring to establish a direct Portuguese rule
all over India. He wished rather to pose as the destroyer of
Muhammadanism and the liberator of the natives. In return for this
service Portugal was to control the commerce of India with Europe.
The attitude is not very different from that adopted by the English
300 years later, and it is a remarkable conception for a statesman at
the very beginning of the sixteenth century.

Before however Albuquerque was able to combine operations with the
Hindu Raja of Narsingha he was forced, against his better judgment,
to make an immediate attack unaided upon Calicut. Dom Fernao de {68}
Coutinho, the Marshal, insisted on this expedition against the
Zamorin, on the ground that the King had ordered him to destroy
Calicut before he returned to Portugal. The prudent Albuquerque
endeavoured to dissuade the Marshal, but the headstrong young
nobleman insisted on having his way. The entire military force of the
Portuguese in India sailed for Calicut, and on Jan. 4, 1510, a
landing was effected in front of the city. Albuquerque desired that a
halt should then be made, as the men were very wearied, and could not
bear the weight of their arms by reason of the great heat,--but in
vain. He found himself forced to comply with the wishes of his
impetuous relative, but he did his best to assure a safe retreat from
the disaster, which he foresaw, by ordering Dom Antonio de Noronha,