of 100
tons, commanded by Francisco de Sylva, manned by thirty-five Portuguese
and twenty-five Moors, sent out by the governor of Diu to protect their
small merchant ships against the Malabar rovers. We dismissed the men
and kept the ship for our use, calling her the Andrew, after our late
excellent general. She had in her neither meat, money, nor commodities,
and scarcely as many poor suits of clothes as there were backs.
The 27th of February we began to take in our loading. The 5th of March,
the, Eagle was sent down to keep guard over the junk belonging to the
prince, and to hinder her from any farther loading, till they granted
free passage for our carts with goods and provisions, which had been
restrained for six or seven days by the vexatious procedure of the
governor of Olpar, a town near Surat. By this means, no cotton wool was
allowed to come down till our ships were fully laden. On the 16th of
March, having notice that the Camla, from Agra, had been robbed by the
Deccan army, we resolved to seek restitution upon the ships of the
Deccan prince and his confederates in this transaction, as we intended
wintering in the Red Sea. The 19th, the governor of Surat having given
us satisfaction in regard to the carts, and a supply of powder and shot
for our money, and promise under his hand for redress of other injuries,
we dismissed the junk belonging to the prince from duress.
From the 25th of March to the 6th of April, 1621, the winds have been
S. and S.S.W. or W. and blowing so hard from noon till midnight, raising
so great a surf on the shore, that no business could be done except on
the last quarter of the ebb and first of the flood tide. We sailed on
the 7th April. The 9th, the Eagle and a Dutch pinnace, called the
Fortune, parted company, being consigned to Acheen and Bantam. The
London, Hart, Roebuck, and Andrew, were intended for the Red Sea, if not
too late.
The 1st May, the Andrew and our boats surprised a Portuguese ship of 200
tons called the St Antonio, which we named the May-flower. Her principal
lading consisted of rice taken in at Barcelor, whence she had gone to
Goa, and sailed from thence for Ormus and Muskat on the 8th of April. We
learnt from this prize, that Ruy Frere de Andrada was busy in repairing
his ships at Ormus, and that Don Emanuel de Azeredo had departed from
Gor fifty days before for Ormus, to reinforce Andrada with two galleons,
one of these being the same in which the viceroy was
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