No. 59. — 1907.] PROCEEDINGS. 



389 



had been found possible to detach a flotilla for operations at 

 Coulao ; and that flotilla was victorious and unoccupied. What 

 reason was there against its continuing its journey to Ceylon and 

 the Maldives ? It must be remembered that the king's instruc- 

 tions had also said : ' ' We think well that not having need 



of all the vessels that are to remain with you, you send a pair of 

 caravels to discover Ceylam." Granted such a favour- 

 able opportunity as would have been available at the beginning 

 of November, it would rather appear strange if Francisco did not 

 seize the chance to send out the ships he was in a position to spare 

 on a voyage of discovery. It is difficult to see in such an act 

 on his part any infringement of the spirit of his instructions. 



In the footnote on page 297 it is urged as a further argument 

 against the accepted date that had Lourenco started in Novem- 

 ber, 1505, it would have been mentioned in the viceroy's letter 

 to the king written from Cochin on December 16, 1505. .Un- 

 fortunately the text of this letter is not accessible, nor is 

 there any information in the Paper as to the frequency with 

 which the viceroy wrote to the king in November-December, 

 1505. It is the fact, as shown in the Documentos Remettidos , 

 that several letters bearing the same date were frequently des- 

 patched by the king to the viceroy. Need it excite surprise if 

 the viceroy waited for the result of an expedition, which would 

 only occupy a few weeks, before communicating the matter to the 

 king ? Here the words of Correa (B 10) are significant : " The 

 which he also gave to Diogo d' Almeida because he had to relate 

 the deed of his son, which had happened in Ceylao ; which he did 

 not wish to write of to the king, it being a personal matter, and he 

 considering it a breach of his honour if he should seem to glorify 

 himself, and saying that a man of good breeding should not relate 

 his own actions." 



The writer himself does not appear to have a high opinion of 

 the probative value of even a categorical assertion contained in 

 the viceroy's letters, for in a note on page 312 he remarks: " I 

 confess that this passage in the summary of the viceroy's letter 

 puzzles me. The statements in it are not borne out by any of 



the historians it is strange that nowhere else is this fact 



mentioned Perhaps the summarist has misinterpreted the 



viceroy's words." (The italics are mine.) If such is the value of 

 a definite statement by the viceroy, the weight to be attached 

 to a not unreasonable omission is nil. 



Castanheda, who gives the date of Lourenco's expedition to 

 Ceylon as November, 1505, continues that shortly after his 

 return he was made captain-major of the sea and placed in 

 charge of the Malabar Coast. The writer accepts the latter 

 statement as correct, and he is prepared to receive the details 

 given by this historian as more to be relied on than those of 

 other writers referred to by him in his notes ; and he thus 

 succeeds in showing us how Lourenco was engaged throughout 

 February and March. Castanheda further relates that Vasco Gomes 

 de Abreu and another were despatched in February to Portugal, 

 taking with them the cinnamon which had been brought from 



