288 journal, k.a.s. (ceylon). [Vol. XIX 



the Portuguese assigned to cinnamon a secondary position.* 

 Then, again, while bales of cinnamon had to be handled and 

 stowed carefully, pepper was one of the easiestf cargoes to 

 load, being simply poured into every available space of the 

 ship, the spaces being then closed up. J 



But all this must not lead us to suppose that the Portuguese 

 were not anxious to open up a direct trade with Ceylon as 

 soon as possible. We may be quite sure that King Manuel 

 had had it in his mind for some years ,§ when in March 1505, 

 in his instructions to Dom Francisco de Almeida, |j who was 

 going out to become the first viceroy of Portuguese India, he 

 gave the latter a distinct command that, as soon as possible 

 after the dispatch of the homeward-bound ships, he was to 

 send out vessels under a suitable commander " to discover 

 Ceylam, and Pegu and Mallaca, and any other places and 

 things of those parts," with the object, stated in so many 

 words, of exercising the right of overlordship, and making all 



* Pepper, I may remind the reader, was from the first reserved by 

 the king of Portugal as a royal monopoly : this restriction was abolished 

 in 1570. A royal monopoly in cinnamon was not proclaimed until the 

 year 1614: this privilege was lost to the crown of Portugal when 

 Columbo fell to the Dutch in 1656, the Netherlands East India 

 Company retaining it strictly until they were ousted from the island 

 by the British in 1796. 



f And one of the most dangerous ; for if a gale was encountered* 

 and the ship sprang a leak, the pepper often choked the pumps , rendering 

 them unworkable. 



$ See Linschoten (Hak. Soc. ed.) ii. 225. 



§ The statement in the letter from " the merchants of Spain,' 3 

 written probably at the end of 1503, and quoted below (A 15), doubtless 

 reflects the royal desire. 



|| A portrait of Dom Francisco, reproduced from Pedro Barreto de 

 Resende's Livro do Estado da India Oriental (Brit. Mus. Lib., Sloane 197)^ 

 is given in volume ii. of the Hakluyt Soc. translation of the Commentaries 

 of Afonso Dalboquerque. A copy of this is given on the opposite page. 

 A biographical notice of the viceroy by M. Ferd. Denis will be found in 

 torn. 2 of the Nouvelle Biographie Generate, but it is not free from errors. 

 Castanheda, Barros, and Correa all unite in ascribing to Dom Francisco 

 a high moral character and a freedom from the common greed of gain. 

 It cannot be wondered at that he had many enemies. His treatment 

 of his appointed successor Albuquerque is described in the Com. i. 

 and ii. , and in Morse Stephens's Albuquerque. An account of his sad 

 end at Saldanha Bay will be found in Theal's Beginning of South 

 African History 177-79. 



