The sailors, who were well acquainted with the character of the Moors, feared that if their commander put himself in their power ho would fall a victim to their treachery and jealousy. The officers also and his brother Paul strongly dissuaded him from landing. But Gains was resolved. Arming twelve of his bravest men, ha went lute his boat, strictly charging his officers, in case he should be murdered, to return immediately to Portugal and there announce to the king the discoveries made and his fate. On landing he was received with great pomp and ceremony by the natives, who conducted him through the town to a house in the country, where on the following day the zamarin granted him an audience. At first his reception was very favourable, but the tone of the prince soon changed—a circumstance which the Portuguese attribute to the intrigues of the Moors and Arabs, who were jealous of the new corners. The ill-humour of the zamarin was not soothed by an unluckly omission. Game had not brought any suitable presents, and the few paltry things he offered were rejected with contempt by the officer appointed to inspect them. Whatever may have been the designs of the zamarin against the Portu guese, Gama, it is said, at last succeeded in convincing him of the great advantages he might derive from a commercial and friendly inter course with the Portuguese ; and he certainly was allowed to get back to his ships in safety. As soon as he was on board he made sail, and after repairing his ships at the Angedive Isles, on the coast a little to the north of Calicut, he again stood across the Indian Ocean. He touched at Magadoxa, or Mukdeesha, on the eastern coast of Africa and nearer to the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb than he had gone on his outer voyage. He next anchored at Melinda, and took on board an ambassador from the Mohammedan prince of that place. He arrived at Lisbon in September 1499, having been absent about two yeare and two mouths. His sovereign received him with high honours, and con ferred on him the sounding title of Admiral of the Indian, Persian, and Arabian seas.
This voyage of Gama is a great epoch in commercial history : it showed the nations of the Neat the sea-road to the remote East ; it diverted the trade of the East from the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Italy, the routes in which it had run for 1400 years; and it led ultimately to the establishment in India of a vast empire of European merchants. The effect it had upon Italy was most disadvantageous, and though there were other causes at work, the decline of the great trading republics of Venice and Genoa may be traced to the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. Soon after Gama's return Emanuel sent out a second fleet to India, under the command of Pedro Alvares de Cabral. The most remarkable incident of this voyage was the accidental discovery of Brazil. From Brazil however the little fleet got to India, and Cabral established a factory at Calicut—tho first humble settlement made by the Europeans in that part of the world. But Cabral had scarcely departed when all the Portuguese he left behind were massacred by the natives or Moors, or by both. The Portuguese government now resolved to employ force. Twenty ships were prepared and distributed into three squadrons; Gann set sail with the largest division, of ten ships—the others were to join him in the Indian seas. After doubling
the Cape, he ran down the eastern coast of Africa, taking vengeance upon those towns which had been unfriendly to him during his former voyage. He settled a factory at Sofala, and another at Mozambique. On approaching the coast of India he captured a rich ship belonging to the Sold= of Egypt, and sifter removing what suited him he set fire to the vessel; all the crew were burned or drowned, or stabbed by the Portuguese. Ho then went to Canaeore, and forced the prince of that country to enter into an alliance with him ; on arriving at Calicut, the main object of his voyage, he seized all the ships in that port. Alarmed at his display of force—for Game had been joined by some of the other ten ships—tho zamarin condescended to treat ; but the Portu guese admiral would listen to no propositions unless a full and san guinary satisfaction were given for the murder of his countrymen in the factory. Game waited three days, and then barbarously hanged at his yard-arms fifty Malabar sailors whom he had taken in the port. On the next day he cannonaded the town, and having destroyed the greater part of it, he left some of the ships to blockade the port, and sailed away with the rest to Cochin, the neighbouring state to Calicut. These neighbours being old enemies, it was easy for Gama to make a treaty with the sovereign of Cocbio, whom be promised to assist in his ware with Calicut. It is not quite clear whether a war existed at the time, or whether Cochin was driven into one by the manoeuvres of the Portuguese; and according to some accounts, Game only renewed a treaty which had been made by Cabral two years earlier. It was Game however who first established a factory in Cochin, at the end of 1502. In tho following year, the Albuquerques obtained permission to build a fort on the came spot ; the Portuguese then became masters of the port and the sea-coast, and Cochin was thus the cradle of their future power in India. Gams left the samara). of Calicut with a war with Cochin on his bands; and five ships remained on the coast of Malabar to protect the settlement. The admiral arrived at Lisbon with thirteen of the ships in the month of December 1503. The court created him Count of Videqueyra. Gama however was not reappointed to the command in India, where the career of conquest was prosecuted by Albuquerque, Vasconcellos, and others. In 1521, eight years after the death of the great Albuquerque, Game, who had been living quietly at home for nearly twenty years, was appointed viceroy of Portuguese India, being the first man that held that high title. He died in December 1525, shortly after his arrival at Cochin. His body was buried at that place, and lay there till 1538, when, by erder of John III., his remains were carried to Portugal.
Vasco de Game was a brave• and skilful man, but owing to several circumstances his fame has been raised somewhat above his real merits. The main cause of this is probably to be found in the great national poem of the immortal Camoens, of a portion of which Game is the hero, the adventures of his first voyage to India being described with even more than the usual brilliancy and amplification of poetry.
(Barron, Decades ; Castanheda and Lafitau, Mist. Conqu. Portug. ; Cooley, (list. Mar. Discov.; Camoens.)