14 



MODERN HISTORY. 



[Part YI. 



A.D. 



1536. 



A.D. 



1538. 



A.D. 



1540. 



faithlessness to his country and his rehgion, and in 

 subserviency to the rising power of the Portuguese ; and 

 before two years, Maaya Dunnai, assisted by the Moors, 

 " the greatest enemies of the Portuguese in India," ^ and 

 supported by two tliousand troops sent by tlie Zamorin 

 of CaUcut, invested Cotta, which, after a siege of three 

 months, was reheved by the timely arrival of Portu- 

 guese reinforcements from India.^ In 1538 he renewed 

 the war with the co-operation of Paichi Marcar, a power- 

 ful Moor of Cochin^; but the forces sent by the latter 

 having been intercepted and destroyed by the Portu- 

 guese fleet, Maaya Dunnai again found it prudent to 

 temporise. The death of his brother, the chief oi 

 Eayagam, and the acquisition of his territory, having 

 greatly enhanced his strength, he renewed his sohcita- 

 tions to the Zamorin and Paichi Marcar, and again laid 

 siege to Cotta in 1540.^ Again the viceroy of India 

 was forced to interpose, and a thu\l time Maaya Dunnai 

 was obliged to sue for peace, which he purchased by a 

 treacherous surrender of Paichi Marcar, and the chiefs 

 of his Moorish allies, whose heads raised on spears he 

 presented to the Portuguese general.^ 



The king of Cotta, Bhuwaneka VIL, was now so 

 utterly estranged from the sympathies of his own coun- 

 trymen, and so entirely at the mercy of his foreign allies, 

 that he appealed to the Portuguese to ensure the suc- 

 cession to his grandchild, the only male representative 

 of his family. To give solemnity to their acquiescence, 

 he adopted the strange expedient of despatching to Eu- 

 rope a statue of the boy cast in gold, together with a 



^ Farta y Sou/a, vol. i. pt. iv. ch. 

 8. San IIomano, lib. iv. cli. xx. p. 734. 



2 ])r Couto, dec. V. lib. i. cli. \'i. ; 

 ib. lib. ii. ch. iv. ; Faeia y Souza, 

 vol. i. pt. iv. ch. xvii. 



3 A.D, 1538, Fakia y Sottza, vol. 

 i. pt. iv. ch. viii. ; De Couto, dec. v, 

 lib. ii. ch. iv.-v. 



* De Couto, dec. v. lib. i. ch. x. ; 

 lib. V. ch. vi. 



5 De Couto, dec. v. lib. ii. ch. 

 viii. ; Faeia y SorzA, vol. ii. pt. i. 

 ch. ii. Ttjrnottr says he was christ- 

 ened in effigy at Lisbon {Ejntomc, 

 8fc., p. 49), but De Cono, with more 

 probability, says the ceremony was a 

 coronation. (Dec. v. lib. vii. ch. iv. ; 

 dec. \\. lib. iv. ch. \'ii.) 



