book iii [Goa to Hormuz 21 March–12 October 1617]

[fol. 159r] Three or four days after the carracks arrived in India, it was learned from letters sent from Hormuz1 that the king of Persia was waging war on that kingdom. The governor2 of Fārs3 had sacked Qeshm4 and then laid siege to the fortress of Gamrū.5 This fortress, despite being most ineffectual, consisting [superscript: of] just a few [text blacked out] [superscript: feeble] [text blacked out] [superscript: mud walls] and lacking a moat or terreplein,6 nevertheless proved tremendously important for providing shelter for caravans traveling between Persia and Hormuz, and [text blacked out] for facilitating passage and safe [margin: transport] of all kinds of supplies at any time from the main- land, [margin: which is just over three leagues away]—especially water, which is completely wanting on the island of Hormuz. The island of Qeshm was also not far off and just as capable of providing these necessities. [margin: In the absence of these two essentials], the city of Hormuz itself would suffer the vexations of a siege, as it were. The news of this war, plus the fact that His Majesty’s ministers in India viewed the Ambassador’s embassy to Persia with distaste, gave rise to their placing so many obstacles in the way of its timely completion. For even though the , who at that time was D. Jerónimo de Azevedo,7 gave his word to

1 An island and city located at 27°05′43″N, 56°27′09″E that was seized and fortified by the Portuguese in 1515; see Disney, History, 133. 2 The actual title governador that appears throughout the Commentaries probably represents khān; see p. 339 n. 112. 3 Fārs was the original center of the Achaemenid kingdom. The word Persia is derived from Parsis, the Greek rendering of Pārsā; the name of the Persian language, Farsi, is also derived from the name of this province. Silva y Figueroa uses Lara in reference to both the province (or kingdom) of Fārs and to the city of Lār, which is found in that province. 4 The island of Qeshm lies off the Iranian mainland south-west of Bandar ʿAbbās at 26°41′43″N, 55°37′06″E. In 1614 Shah ʿAbbās I instructed Emāmqolī Khān, his -general of Fārs, to recover the island of Qeshm from the Portuguese and attack them at Gamrū [Bandar ʿAbbās]; see p. 246 n. 11. See Jackson and Lockhart, Timurid and Safavid, 391–92. 5 Present-day Bandar ʿAbbās; Gamrū was the Persian port that was known to the Portuguese as Comorão or Cambarão, to the English as Gamrun or Gumrun, and to the Dutch as Gombroon. It was subsequently re-named after ʿAbbās I. 6 A “level space where a battery of guns is mounted”; see OED, s.v. “terreplein.” 7 See p. 143 n. 260.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004346321_005 [Goa To Hormuz] 245 provide the Ambassador [fol. 159v] with everything he needed to set sail for Hormuz during the February monsoon, he subsequently failed to make good on his promise; neither did he leave orders for the archbishop of Goa,8 who [text blacked out] [superscript: filled] his place after embarking for ,9 to do so either. Upon his arrival in Goa, the Ambassador spent many days in a precarious state of health in the Colégio de São Tomás, where he disembarked and convalesced. After beginning to display signs of improvement, on several occasions he implored the viceroy, who was [text blacked out] [superscript: making preparations] for his journey, to send the entire fleet to Hormuz, for at that time there was no other fleet in India. The Ambassador pointed out that the force of the powerful fleet that the viceroy had at his disposal at that time could be employed to the greater service of His Majesty. Thus, the viceroy spent the entire month of November and most of December, until setting sail on the twenty-seventh, making preparations, al- though it was obvious that the only reason for his delay was to stall [super- script: until the English left]. Whose [superscript: This strategy] did not prove to be in his best interest. [text blacked out] It also brought more shame and dis- grace on him than would have been received possible [margin: on anyone in a similar situation] at any time in history. During these months, the Ambassador, whose health was by then completely restored, implored the viceroy, both per- sonally and through some veteran captains who were slated to sail [margin: in the same fleet] [text blacked out], to ignore the English ships that were in Surat, for they did not come as enemies, [fol. 160r] but rather to engage in trade in that port. He beseeched the viceroy to instead sail to Hormuz to personally defend that kingdom, which was the most valuable, important, and beneficial undertaking he could perform in all of India, giving him many reasons that are not suitable for inclusion in this report. In the Ambassador’s view, the viceroy vacillated and was incapable of making a decision whenever addressed on this subject. On some occasions, the viceroy told the Ambassador that he would do as he was asked, and at other times he said it was inopportune for him to travel so far from India. But [margin: it was clear] from [text blacked out] [super- script: his halfhearted preparations] that he intended to while away his time, [margin: until], after several conversations, it [superscript: finally] [margin:

8 See p. 177 n. 41. 9 See p. 198 n. 116 for the emergence of this important port city in . As a result of the English defeat of the Portuguese at the naval battle of Swally in 1612, the English was able to negotiate permission from the Moghul to establish its factory at this strategic point. For a thorough discussion of those negotiations by the company’s ambassa- dor, see Roe, The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe.