i 3 2 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



It appears clearly from thefe letters, that they were the 

 joint compofitions of Covillan, who knew perfectly the man- 

 ner of correfponding with his court upon dangerous fub- 

 jects, and of the fimple Abyflinian confidents of the emprefs 

 Helena, who, unacquainted with embames or correfpon- 

 dence with princes, or the ill confequence that thefe letters 

 would be of to their ambafTador and his errand, if they hap- 

 pened to be intercepted by an enemy, told plainly all they 

 defired and wifhed to execute by the afliftance of the Portu- 

 guefe. Thus, in the firfl part of the letter, (which we malt 

 fuppofe dictated by Covillan) the emprefs remits the descrip- 

 tion of her wants, and what is the fubject of the embaffy, 

 to Matthew her ambafTador, whom me qualifies as her con- 

 fidential fervant, inflructed in her moll fecret intentions; 

 defiring the king of Portugal to believe what he mall re- 

 port from her to him in private, as if they were her own . 

 words uttered immediately from her to him in perfon. So . 

 far was prudent; fuch a conduct as we fhould expect from 

 a man like Covillan, long accufiomed to be trufted with the 

 fecret negociations of his fovereign. 



But the latter end of his difpatches (the work, we fup- 

 pofe, of Abyflinian flatefmen) divulges the whole fecret. It- 

 explains the motives of this embaffy in the cleareft manner* 

 defiring the king of Portugal to fend a fufficient force to de- 

 ftroy Mecca and Medina; to affifl them with a fufficient 

 number of mips, and to annihilate the Turkifh power by 

 fea ; while they, by land, fhould extirpate all the Mahome- 

 tans on their borders ; and it fiigmatizes thefe Mahometans, 

 both Turks and Moors, with the mofl opprobrious names it 

 Was poflible to devife, 



With. 



