PORTUGUESE HISTORY OF MALACCA. 14? 



and the command was given on this occasion to Lorenzo de 

 Brito, an ancient and experienced officer. The two Holland 

 ships did some small damage on the coast of Malabar and 

 other places, and when off Malacca fell in with six ships 

 bound from that place for India, commanded b} r Francisco 

 de Silva. They immediately engaged, and fought the whole 

 of the afternoon and part of the night. Next morning the 

 engagement was renewed, and was repeated for eight suc- 

 cessive clays, till, finding themselves too weak, the Hollanders 

 drew off and made for the port of Queda, many of their men 

 being slain and most of the rest wounded. At that place they 

 quitted the smallest of their ships for want of men, and 

 the other was afterwards cast away on the coast of Pegu. 



In the year 1597 the Hollanders fitted out a squadron 

 of eight ships at Amsterdam for India, with 800 men and 

 provisions for three years, under the command of the admiral 

 Jacob Cornelius van Nec The object of this expedition, 

 besides hostility to the king of Spain, who at that time 

 usurped the throne of Portugal, was that they might pur- 

 chase the spices and other commodities of Asia at a 

 cheaper rate than they had hitherto been accustomed to 

 in Portugal. The fleet sailed from Amsterdam on the 13th 

 of May 1598. On the 24th July they. saw the Cape of Good 

 Hope, where three of the ships were separated in a violent 

 storm. The other five ships, under the admiral, discovered 

 the island of Madagascar on the 24th of August, coming to 

 Cape St. Julian on the 30th of that month. On the 20th of 

 September they came to the island of Ceme or Cisne, in lat. 

 21°S., to which they gave the name of Mauritius. Here they 

 found tortoises of such magnitude that one of them carried 

 two men on its back, and birds which were so tame as to allow 

 themselves to be killed with sticks, whence they concluded 

 that the island was not inhabited. At Banda they joined the 

 other three ships, and having laden four with spices, they were 

 sent away to Holland, while the other three went into the 

 Moluccas. On the 21st January 1599, they discovered the 

 Great Java, and touched at the port of Tuban, after which 

 they came to Madura, an island in lat. 2.30°S., on the 27th 

 of that month. At this place they endeavoured to ransom 



