Part 22

LOURENÇO DE CACERES, in his _Doutrina_ addressed to the Infante Luis in twenty short chapters on the parts of a good prince, showed that he could write excellent prose. His death in 1531 prevented him from undertaking a more ambitious work, which was accordingly entrusted to his nephew JOÃO DE BARROS (1496?-1570).[439] But much earlier and a generation before Lopez de Castanheda’s work began to appear, the most famous of the Portuguese historians had resolved to chronicle the discovery of India. Born probably at Viseu, the son of Lopo de Barros, he came of ancient Minhoto stock and was brought up in the palace of King Manuel. When the Infante João received a separate establishment Barros became his page (_moço da guardaroupa_). It was in this capacity, _por cima das arcas da vossa guardaroupa_, that with the active encouragement of the prince he wrote his first work, _Cronica do Emperador Clarimundo_ (1520). It is a long romance of chivalry crowded with actors and events, and contains affecting, even passionate episodes. But the most remarkable feature of this work, written in eight months when the author was little over twenty, is its inexhaustible flow of clear, smooth, vigorous prose, entirely free from awkwardness or hesitation. One may also note that he regarded it merely as a parergon, a preparation for his history, _afim de apurar o estilo_, that despite its length he assures his readers that he omits all details in order to avoid prolixity, that much of its geography is real--all his works prove the truth of Couto’s assertion that he was _doutissimo na geografia_--and that each chapter ends with a brief moral. King Manuel, to whom he read some chapters, encouraged him to persevere in his intention to write the history of India, but the king’s death in 1521 delayed the project. In the following year Barros, who meanwhile had married Maria, daughter of Diogo de Almeida of Leiria, is said to have gone out as Captain of the Fortress of S. Jorge da Mina (although probably he never left Portugal) and later became Treasurer of the _Casa da India_ (1525-8), and its Factor in 1532, a post which he retained for thirty-five years. Although he lost a large sum of money in an unfortunate venture in Brazil, this was partly made good by the king’s munificence, and when in 1568, the year after his resignation, he retired to his _quinta_ near Pombal _sibi ut viveret_ he went as a _fidalgo_ of the king’s household and with a pension over twenty-five times as large as that of Camões.[440] In old age he is described as of a fine presence, although thin and not tall, with pale complexion, keen eyes, aquiline nose, long white beard, grave, pleasant, and fluent in conversation. Before beginning his history he wrote several brief treatises of great interest and importance, _Ropica Pnefma_ (1532), a dialogue written at his country house in 1531 in which Time, Understanding, Will, and Reason discuss their spiritual wares (_mercadoria espiritual_), and incidentally the new heresies; three short works on the Portuguese language, a _Dialogo da Viçiosa Vergonha_ (1540), and a _Dialogo sobre preceptos moraes_ (1540) in which he reduced Aristotle’s _Ethics_ to a game for the benefit of two of his ten children and of the Infanta Maria. He also wrote two excellent _Panegyricos_ (of the Infanta Maria and King João III) which were first published by Severim de Faria in his _Noticias de Portugal_ in 1655. As a historian he chose Livy for his pattern both in style and system. The first _Decada_ of his _Asia_ appeared in 1552, the second in 1553, and the third ten years later (1563). Their success was immediate, especially abroad--in Portugal, like other historians of recent events, he was accused of partiality and unfairness[441]--copies soon became extremely rare, the first two Decads were translated into Italian before the third appeared, and Pope Pius IV is said to have placed Barros’ portrait (or bust) next to the statue of Ptolemy.[442] Barros had prepared himself very thoroughly for his task. His work as Factor seems to have been exacting--he says that it was only by giving up holidays and half the night and all the time spent by other men in sleeping the _sesta_, or walking about the city, or going into the country, playing, shooting, fishing, dining, that he was able to attend to his literary labours. Yet he read everything, pored over maps and chronicles and documents from the East, and even bought a Chinese slave to translate for him. With this enthusiasm, his unfailing sense of order and proportion, and his clear and copious style he necessarily produced a work of permanent value. His manner is lofty, even pompous, worthy of the great events described. If his history is less vivid and interesting than Castanheda’s, that is because he wrote not as an eyewitness[443] or actor in them but as Court historian. He was a true Augustan, and the great edifice that this Portuguese Livy planned and partly built was of eighteenth-century architecture. He was fond of comparing his work to a building in which each stone has its appointed place. The material to his hand must be moulded to suit the symmetry of the whole--Albuquerque had never in his life used so many relative sentences as are attributed to him by Barros (II. v. 9)--and with a pedantic love of definitions and systematic subdivisions we find him measuring out the proportions of his stately structure, while picturesque details are deliberately omitted.[444] The merits of his style have been exaggerated. It is never confused or slovenly, but is for use rather than beauty; its ingredients are pure and energetic but the construction is inartistic and monotonous.[445] It is rather in the forcible, crisp sentences of his shorter treatises than in the _Asia_ that Barros displays his mastery of style. His great narrative of epic deeds is interrupted by interesting special chapters or digressions on trade, geography, Eastern cities and customs, locusts, chess, the Mohammedan religion, sword-fish, palm-trees, and monsoons. It was planned in four _Decadas_ and forty books, to embrace 120 years to 1539, but the fourth was not written and the third ends with the death of D. Henrique de Meneses (1526). Probably he did not find the dispute as to the Governorship of India a very congenial subject, especially as the feud was resumed in Portugal. Material and notes were however ready, and these were worked up into a lengthy fourth _Decada_ by João Baptista Lavanha (†1625) in 1615, which covers the same ground as, but is quite distinct from, the fourth Decad of Couto. The _Asia_ was only a block of a vaster whole. _Europa_, _Africa_, and _Santa Cruz_ were to treat respectively of Portugal from the Roman Conquest and Portuguese history in North Africa and Brazil, while Geography and Commerce were to be the subjects of separate works, the first of which (in Latin) was partly written.

Inseparably connected with the name of Barros is that of DIOGO DO COUTO (1542-1616), who continued his _Asia_, writing _Decadas_ 4-12. He was born at Lisbon, and at the age of ten entered the service (_guardaroupa_) of the Infante Luis, who sent him to study at the College of the Jesuits and then with his son, D. Antonio, under Frei Bartholomeu dos Martyres, afterwards Archbishop of Braga, at S. Domingos, Bemfica. When thirteen he was present at the death of his talented patron Prince Luis, and remained in the palace as page to the king till the king’s death two years later.[446] Couto then went to seek his fortune in India, and there as soldier, trader, official (in 1571 he was in charge of the stores at Goa),[447] and historian he spent the best part of the following half-century, his last visit to Portugal being in 1569-71. At the bidding of Philip II (I of Portugal), who appointed him _Cronista Môr_ of India, he undertook the completion of Barros’ _Asia_. Probably he needed little inducement--his was the pen of a ready writer, and the composition of his history was, he tells us, a pleasure to him in spite of frequent discouragement. He had received a classical education; as a boy in the palace he had listened to stories of India[448] and had been no doubt deeply impressed by the vivid account of the Sepulveda shipwreck.[449] In India he won general respect. At Goa he married the sister of Frei Adeodato da Trindade (1565-1605), who in Lisbon saw some of his _Decadas_ through the press; he became Keeper of the Indian Archives (Torre do Tombo) and more than once made a speech on behalf of the City Councillors, as at the inauguration of the portrait of Vasco da Gama in the Town Hall in the centenary year of the discovery of India, before Gama’s grandson, then Viceroy, and a gathering of noblemen and captains. Couto knew every one--we find him conversing with Viceroy, Archbishop, natives, Moorish prisoners, rich merchants from Cambay or the Ambassador of the Grand Mogul. This personal acquaintance with the scenes, events, and persons gives a lively dramatic air to his work. The sententious generalities of the majestic Barros are replaced by bitter protests and practical suggestions. He is a critic of abuses rather than of persons.[450] He writes from the point of view of the common soldier, as one who had seen both sides of the tapestry of which Barros smoothly ignored the snarls and thread-ends. He displays a hatred of _semjustiças_, treachery, and ‘the insatiable greed of men’, with a fine zest in descriptions of battles, but he has not Barros’ skill in proportion and the grand style.[451] He can, however, write excellent prose, and he gives more of graphic detail[452] and individual sayings and anecdotes than his predecessor. Nor is he by any means an ignorant chronicler. A poet[453] and the friend of poets, he read Dante and Petrarca and Ariosto, was old-fashioned enough to admire Juan de Mena, consulted the works of ancient and modern historians, travellers, and geographers, and was deeply interested in the customs and religions of the East. The inequality of his _Decadas_ is in part explained by their history, which constitutes a curious chapter in the _fata_ of manuscripts. He first wrote _Decada_ X, which is the longest and most resembles those of Barros: this was only sent to Portugal in 1600 and was not immediately published, apparently because the period, 1580-8, was too recent. It remained in manuscript till 1788. Meanwhile Couto, working with extraordinary speed, sent home the fourth and fifth _Decadas_ in 1597, the sixth in 1599, and the seventh in 1601. Noting the fact that the last two books (9 and 10) of Castanheda’s history had been suppressed by royal order as being excessively fond of truth (_porque fallava nelles verdades_), he remarks that, should this happen to a volume of his, another would be forthcoming to take its place. Friends and enemies, indeed the very elements, took up the challenge, but fortunately Couto’s spirit and independence continued to the year of his death. The fourth _Decada_ was at once printed, but the text of the fifth was tampered with and its publication delayed, the sixth was destroyed by fire when ready for publication and recast by Frei Adeodato, the seventh was captured at sea by the English and re-written in 1603 by Couto and sent home in the same year, the eighth and ninth, finished in 1614, were stolen from him in manuscript during a severe illness. This was a crushing blow, but he partially reconstructed them _a modo de epilogo_ and, writing in old age from memory, dwelt, to our gain, on personal recollections: his literary bent appears--his friend Camões, Cristovam Falcão, and Garcia de Resende are mentioned. Finally _Decada_ xi (1588-97), which, writing to King Philip III in January 1616, he says ‘survived this shipwreck’, has disappeared and _Decada_ xii is incomplete, although the first five books bring the history to the end of the century (1599). His successor in the Goa Archives, Antonio Bocarro, took up the history at the year 1612, in a work which was published in 1876: _Decada 13ᵃ da Historia da India_. The manuscript of his _Dialogo do Soldado Pratico na India_ (written before the fourth _Decada_) was also stolen. The indomitable Couto re-wrote it and both versions have survived. They were not published till 1790, the title given to the earlier version being _Dialogo do soldado pratico portugues_. With its _verdades chans_, this dialogue between an old soldier of India, an ex-Governor, and a judge forms a most valuable and interesting indictment of the decadence of Portuguese rule in India, where the thief and rogue escaped scot-free, while the occasional honest man was liable to suffer for their sins, and the sleek soldier in velvet with gold ribbons on his hat had taken the place of the bearded _conquistadores_ (_Dialogo_, pp. 91-2).

GASPAR CORRÊA (_c._ 1495-_c._ 1565) claims, like Fernam Lopez de Castanheda and Barros, to have been the first historian of the Portuguese in the East.[454] He went to India sixteen years before Lopez de Castanheda and no doubt soon began[455] to take notes and collect material, but he was still working at his history in 1561 and 1563, and his _Lendas da India_ were not published till the nineteenth century. In the year 1506 Corrêa entered the king’s service as _moço da camara_,[456] and six years later went to India, where he became one of the six or seven secretaries of Afonso de Albuquerque.[457] They were young men carefully chosen by the Governor from among those who had been brought up in the palace and to whom he felt he could entrust his secrets.[458] Theirs was no humdrum or sedentary post, for they had to accompany the Governor on foot or on horseback, in peace and war, ever ready with ink and paper. Thus Corrêa had occasion vividly to describe Aden in 1513, and helped with his own hands to build the fortress of Ormuz in 1515. After Albuquerque’s death Corrêa seems to have continued to fight and write. In 1526 he was appointed to the factory of Sofala,[459] and in the following year the _moço da camara_ has become a _cavaleiro_ and is employed at the customs house at Cochin.[460] He cannot have remained much longer at Cochin than at Sofala, since he signed his name in the book of _moradias_ at Lisbon in 1529, and in 1530-1, in a ship provided by himself (_em um meu catur_), went with the Governor of India’s fleet to the attack of Diu. Later he was commissioned by the Viceroy, D. João de Castro, to furnish lifesize drawings[461] of all the Governors of India, so that he must then have been living at Goa. The ever-growing abuses in India and the scanty reward given to his fifty years of service and honourable wounds[462] embittered his last years, and if his spoken comments were as incisive as the indictment of the Governors and Captains contained in the _Lendas_[463] he must have made enemies in high positions: it seems, at least, that his murder one night at Malacca went unpunished, as if to prove the truth of his frequent complaint that no one ever was punished in India. At the time of his death he may still have been at work, as in 1561 and 1563, on the revision of his _Lendas_ or _Cronica dos Feytos da India_,[464] originally completed in 1551.[465] The first three books relate the events from 1497 to 1538; the last carries the history down to 1550. The account of the discovery is based on the narrative of one, and the recollections of others, of Vasco da Gama’s companions, and the subsequent events are drawn largely from Corrêa’s own experience. He spared no trouble to obtain first-hand information, from aged officials, Moors, natives, captives, a Christian galley-slave, or a woman from Malabar, distrusting mere hearsay. He lays frequent stress on his personal evidence.[466] Without necessarily establishing the trustworthiness of his work on every point, this method had the advantage of rendering it singularly vivid, and it contains many a brilliantly coloured picture of the East. In many respects he is the most remarkable of the historians of India. It was not for nothing that he had written down some of Albuquerque’s letters to King Manuel.[467] If Albuquerque’s words are still striking when read after four centuries, we may imagine their effect on the boy still in his teens to whom he dictated them. _Tinha grande oratoria_, says Corrêa, and many years afterwards some of the phrases remained in his memory.[468] He no doubt learnt from Albuquerque his direct, vigorous style, his love of concrete details, his regard for truth. His account of the sack of Malacca--the rifled chests of gold coins and brocades of Mecca and cloth of gold, the narrow dusty streets in shadow in the midday _calma_--must, one thinks, be that of an eyewitness; yet Corrêa was not in India at the time. The explanation is that it was largely the account of Albuquerque.[469]

Corrêa writes in even greater detail than Lopez de Castanheda. There is no trace of literary leanings in his work; he is sparing of descriptions as interrupting the story.[470] Whole pages have scarcely an adjective, and this gives his narrative clearness and rapidity, yet he is careless of style. It has been called redundant and verbose, but that is true mainly of the prefaces, which show that Corrêa in a library might have developed into a rhetorical Zurara of _boas oratorias_. It is, however, no longer the fashion to sneer at this ‘simple and half barbarous chronicler’, this ‘soldier adventurer in whose artless words appears his lack of culture’.[471] His _Lendas_ are infinitely preferable to the sleek periods of Barros and often as reliable, being legendary in little beyond their title, as understood by the ignorant (for the word _lenda_ meant not legend but record or log). They have a harsh flavour of religious fervour and of lust for gold[472] and an intense atmosphere of the East--_sangre e incenso, cravo e escravaria_, St. James fighting for the Christians, St. Thomas transformed into a peacock, all in a region of horror and enchantment. Corrêa was aware that it was dangerous to write history in India (iii. 9)--_periculosae plenum opus aleae_--but although he had no intention of immediately publishing it[473] he evidently expected some recognition of his work. The appearance of Lopez de Castanheda’s _Historia_ and Barros’ _Decadas_ must have been a blow almost as cruel as the daggers of his assassins a few years later.

The events of India from 1506-15, chronicled by Castanheda and Barros, necessarily centred round the great figure of Afonso de Albuquerque, and they were recorded afresh by his illegitimate son BRAS DE ALBUQUERQUE (1500-80), whom the dying Governor recommended to the king in his last letter. King Manuel in belated gratitude bestowed his favour on this son and bade him assume the name of Afonso in memory of his father. His _Commentarios de Afonso de Alboquerque_ (1557) were revised by the author in a second edition (1576) four years before his death. They are written in unassuming but straightforward style and furnish a very clear and moderate account based on letters written by Albuquerque to King Manuel.[474] The author seems to have realized that Albuquerque’s words and deeds speak sufficiently for themselves, but the reflection produced is somewhat pale.

The gallant and chivalrous apostle of the Moluccas, ANTONIO GALVAM (_c._ 1490?-1557), ‘as rich in valour and knowledge as poor in fortune’,[475] printed nothing in his lifetime but his manuscripts were handed over after his death to Damião de Goes as _Cronista Môr_.[476] We have only a brief treatise by him published posthumously. Copious in matter rather than in length, for it has but eighty small folios in spite of its lengthy title, this _Tratado_ (1563), or, if we adopt the briefer title from the colophon, this _Lyvro dos Descobrimentos das Antilhas & India_, is remarkable for the curious observation shown and its vivid, concise style of a man of action. Written in the form of annals, it begins with the Flood, and on f. 12 we are still in the age of Merlin; but the most valuable part consists in the writer’s direct experience--he tells of buffaloes, cows and hens ‘of flesh black as this ink’, of mocking parrots, fires made of earth ‘as in Flanders’. Goes, who had certainly handled the manuscript, may have added this comparison; he evidently interpolated the account of his own travels (ff. 58 v.-59 v.). The life of Galvam gives a further interest to this rare book, for, a man of noble and disinterested character, himself a prince by election, he has always been regarded as a stock instance of the ingratitude of princes. Born in the East, the son of Albuquerque’s old friend, the historian Duarte Galvam, he won fame by his courage and martial qualities, both as soldier and skilful mariner. After subduing the Molucca Islands he, as their Governor (Captain), spent his energies and income in missionary zeal and in developing agriculture. On the expiry of his term as Governor (1536-40) he refused the position of Raja of Ternate, which the grateful natives besought him to accept. He arrived penniless in Portugal and penniless died seventeen years later in the Lisbon hospital.

Besides the general histories many briefer records of separate regions or events were written, and these are often of great value as the accounts of men who had seen and taken part in what they describe.

LOPO DE SOUSA COUTINHO (?1515-77), father of Frei Luis de Sousa and one of the captains in the heroic siege of Diu (1538)--he is said to have died by accidentally running himself through with his sword when dismounting from his horse--wrote a striking account of the siege, especially of its last incidents, in his _Livro Primeiro do Cerco de Diu_ (1556). The siege of Mazagam (1562) was similarly described in clear, vigorous prose by AGOSTINHO GAVY DE MENDONÇA: _Historia do famoso cerco qve o Xarife pos á fortaleza de Mazagam_ (1607). JORGE DE LEMOS, of Goa, wrote a careful _Historia dos Cercos ... de Malaca_ (1585), and ANTONIO CASTILHO, the distinguished son of the celebrated architect João, published a _Commentario do Cerco de Goa e Chaul no anno MDLXX_ (1572). Events in the Moluccas were briefly recorded in an _Informaçam das cousas de Maluco_ (1569) by GABRIEL DE RABELLO, who went out as factor of Tidore in 1566.

The anonymous gentleman of Elvas who wrote the _Relaçam verdadeira_ (1557) of Soto’s discovery of Florida was a keen observer and related what he saw in direct language. His publisher, André de Burgos, in a short preface washes his hands of the style as insufficiently polished (_limado_).

The deeds of D. Cristovam da Gama, his conquest of a hundred leagues of territory in Ethiopia, his defeat, torture, and beheadal, are recounted with the vivid details of an eyewitness by MIGUEL DE CASTANHOSO, of Santarem, who accompanied him on his fatal expedition. This _Historia_ (1564) was published by João da Barreira, who dedicated it to D. Cristovam’s nephew, D. Francisco de Portugal.