No. 59.— 1907.] 



PROCEEDINGS. 



397 



from Ceylon by D. Lourenco.) Gaspar Pereira refers several times 

 to D. Lourenco, and tells us that the viceroy promised the king of 

 Cochin that his son should go with an armada to protect all native 

 vessels except those of Calicut. We also read that the king of 

 Cochin warned the viceroy and D. Lourenco that the Samuri was 

 preparing a big fleet to attack the Portuguese. Taking Gaspar 

 Pereira' s letter with the statements of Castanheda and Barros, 

 I think it is reasonable to suppose that it was immediately after 

 his return from Coulam and Caycoulam that D. Lourenco was sent 

 by his father to Cananor, the more so, as Gaspar Pereira says that 

 on 31 December 1505 the king of Cochin saw D. Lourenco for the 

 first time, which shows that he could not have made any long stay 

 in Cochin previously. His prolonged stay at Cananor was due, 

 doubtless, to the fact that a fortress was being erected at that 

 place, not without opposition from the inhabitants, as we learn 

 from Gaspar Pereira. 



To return to Mr. Pieris's criticisms. He argues that if I accept 

 any of Castanheda' s statements as correct, I must accept the whole : 

 this is strange, coming from one who avowedly rejects Casta- 

 nheda' s distinct assertion that Galle was the port where D. Lourenco 

 erected the padrao. 



Mr. Pieris says that to King Manuel the pope was " merely in 

 the position of a friendly potentate " — an assertion contrary to the 

 fact ; and that " it is manifest from the [king's] letter itself that it 

 was not considered necessary to keep the Holy See in immediate 

 touch with what was being done by the Portuguese adventurers " — 

 which is really too feeble to deserve a reply. By altering the 

 punctuation and mistranslating the words of King Manuel's letter 

 to the pope, Mr. Pieris tries to bolster up his theory that " the 

 bombardment of Coulao and the visit to Ceylon formed one ex- 

 pedition." Of the first event the king learnt in May 1506, on the 

 arrival at Lisbon of the fleet of Fernao Soares, and he gave an 

 account of it in his letter to Cardinal Alpedrinha (see my Paper, 

 App., A 22) : if the expedition to Ceylon had taken place, why is 

 there no mention of this important fact in that letter ? In his 

 letter of 25 September 1507 to the pope King Manuel naturally 

 does not repeat information which had been printed in Rome 

 nearly a year before, but dismisses the Coulam affair and others 

 with the words " factis plurimis in hostes excursionibus." The 

 following words, " proxime dominum Laurentium de Almeida 

 filium armata classe misit ad infestanda hostium litora ac terras," 

 certainly refer to D. Lourenco' s mission on coastguard duty and 

 to nothing else. Then follows the statement regarding the expe- 

 dition to Ceylon. I think it is not I but Mr. Pieris who has 

 " destroyed his case." 



Being unable to answer my arguments as to Payo de Sousa 

 and Fernao Cotrim, Mr. Pieris tries to turn the tables on me by 

 referring to what I have said as to confusion of names. Mr. Pieris 

 had better settle the matter with Castanheda, and let me know 

 the result. 



