2 BARRETTO DE RESENDE’S ACCOUNT OF MALACCA. 
a plan of the Maldive Islands; a plan and description of the fortress 
of Malacca: plans of the isle and fort of Achem, © the Dutch fortress 
of Jacatra’’ (the site of the present city of Batavia ), the Malucco 
Islands and the Banda Islands; plans and descriptions of the Solor 
Islands and the town of Machao; and plans of the Island of 
Formosa and the Island and Province of Manilla. It concludes 
with notes on the size and extent of various islands. 
The manuscript, which consists of 412 folios, sets forth on its 
first page that it was written by “Captain Pedro Barretto de 
Resende, Professed Knight of the Order of St. Benedict of Avis”, 
native of Pavia, in the year 1646.” 
Writing in Kedah, J regret to be unable to obtain any account 
of de Resende’s life. 
With two or three exceptions the plans are all coloured, and 
in addition to them the manuscript contains eight pen and ink 
charts signed :— 
“Petrus Berthelot primum cosmographicum indicorum imper- 
ium faciebat anno domini 1635.” 
Berthelot was born in Honfleur in A.D. 1600. He was for 
some time a pirate, and then became a barefocted Carmelite monk. 
He went to Goa, and in 1629 was appointed first pilot to a Portu- 
guese fleet sent to defend Malacca against the attack of the King 
of Acheen. 
He greatly distinguished himself and was given the appoint- 
ment of Cosmographer Royal of the Indies. After this he made 
a number of voyages and prepared charts of the coasts he yisited.s 
He fell in a massacre, in which the Portuguese anbassador was 
also killed, at Acheen on the 27th November 1638.* 
It would appear that the date, A.D. 1646, given by de Resende 
to his work is that of a year some years after the date of its having 
been written. The list of viceroys only goes down to 1638. 
Malacca is written of as a Portuguese possession, whereas it had 
been surrendered to the Dutch on the 14th January, 1641. There 
are notes on some of the plans ( referred to above ) to say that the 
fortresses of which plans are given had been demolished and 
abandoned “after the book was written.” Lastly Berthelot the 
cosmographer was murdered in A.D. 1635, or 1638. The pro- 
babilities would therefore appear to be that the account of Malacea 
was written at least before 1638. 
* A military order of Cistercians in Portugal instituted by King Alphonso I, 
in the middle of the twelfth century, to commemorate the capture of Evora 
from the Moors. 
§ An account of Berthelot will be found in the Manuel de Bibliographie 
Normande—Vol I p. 336. (Frére, Paris 1850—1860); cited in the commen- 
taries of Afonso Dalboquerque ( Hakluyt Society ) Vol 2—Introduction page 
CXXI. 
* The date of this Massacre is given in Marsden’s History of Sumatra 
(page 362) as 1635. 1638 is perhaps a misprint in the Hakluyt Society’s 
yolume, 
Jour. Straits Branch 
