Gonzales received the ex-king with ostentatious CHAPTER IX. hospitality, and demanded his sister in marriage, under pretence of doing him honour; and the exking was actually compelled to see his sister baptized into Christianity, and become the wife of the lowborn adventurer. The unfortunate monarch died soon afterwards on the island, and not without suspicion of poison, especially as Gonzales seized all his effects immediately afterwards, and converted them to his own use. This spoliation of the exiled sovereign excited so much murmuring, that Gonzales tried to quiet the general indignation, by giving the widowed queen in marriage to his own brother, a low adventurer like himself, who commanded the fleet of Sundíva. The Buddhist princess, however, obstinately refused to be converted to Christianity, and was ultimately sent back to Arakan. Gonzales. The piracies and treacheries of Sebastian Tragical end of Gonzales raised up enemies against him on all sides. He formed an alliance with the new king of Arakan against the Mogul, and then not only abandoned his ally, but destroyed the Arakan fleet. Then he treated with the Viceroy of Goa on the footing of an independent prince, and induced the Viceroy to undertake an expedition against Arakan. But the attempt terminated in failure. The Portuguese admiral was instructed to attack Arakan without waiting for the arrival of Sebastian Gonzales; and on that occasion was attacked and defeated by the Dutch fleet. Subsequently the admiral was killed, and Sebastian Gonzales perished very miserably. After this, the island of Sundíva fell into the Fra Joan. possession of an Augustine monk, known as Fra Joan, who ruled over it for many years as a petty CHAPTER IX. Sovereign. obscurity. Portuguese settlement at Hughly: slave market at Palmiras. Portuguese of Húghly reduced to slaves by Shah Jehan. But the further history is lost in Meantime the Mogul emperors Akber and Jehángír had been too much occupied with the affairs of western India to bestow much attention upon this remote quarter of Eastern Bengal. Jehángír, who reigned from 1605 to 1627, had allowed the Portuguese of Goa to form a settlement at the village of Húghly, on the river of the same name, on the condition that they suppressed the Chittagong piracies in the Bay. But instead of attempting to fulfil this obligation, the Portuguese of Húghly came to terms with the pirates, and shared largely in the profits of the slave trade. A regular depôt was established at a small island off Cape Palmiras, near the mouth of the Húghly, where they purchased ship-loads of these slaves at a low rate from the kidnappers; and the unfortunate captives were then either taken to Húghly and converted to Christianity, or carried for sale to other ports in India. At last the emperor Shah Jehan, who reigned 1627-58, resolved to put a stop to this flagrant scandal. Indeed no Mussulman prince could be expected to permit foreigners to settle in his dominions, who persisted, not only in enslaving his own subjects, but in forcibly converting them to a religion which was regarded with hatred and contempt. Accordingly Shah Jehan ordered the Portuguese of Húghly to surrender all of his subjects whom they had kept as slaves. The Portuguese refused, and soon had bitter cause to repent having done so; for the emperor exacted a vengeance, which at this distance of time cannot be contemplated without horror. The whole of the Portuguese population of Húghly were stripped of CHAPTER IX. all they possessed, and carried away to Agra as slaves. The younger and more beautiful women were transferred to the imperial seraglio. The remainder were distributed amongst the nobles of the court. The children were forcibly converted to Islam. The men were daily threatened with being trampled to death by elephants unless they became Mussulmans; and at the same time were so tempted by promises of promotion or reward, that they nearly all became renegades. But it is unnecessary to dwell upon their misery. It was compared at the time to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. Arukan. The destruction of the Portuguese of Húghly Shah Shayah in was not, however, followed by the suppression of piracy. Indeed in that revolutionary age the Portuguese of Chittagong had every inducement to continue their depredations, excepting that there was little left to plunder, and but few remaining to carry away as slaves. During the latter years of the reign of Shah Jehan, the whole of Hindustan was convulsed by the rebellion of his sons. At length prince Shujah was utterly defeated by the forces of his elder brother Aurangzíb, and compelled to fly to Dacca; whence he escaped to Arakan with his family and treasures on board the galleys of the outlaw Portuguese. The subsequent misfortunes of this prince form one of the most melancholy episodes in Indian history. The king of Arakan demanded one of his daughters in marriage; and the Mussulman prince naturally refused to give a princess of the house of Timour to a Buddhist sovereign, whom he regarded as an idolater and barbarian. The king of Arakan was in CHAPTER IX. furiated by the refusal, but would not be gainsaid. The Mogul princess was forced to become his wife. A conspiracy was formed by prince Shujah amongst the Mussulman residents in Arakan for effecting his escape from that inhospitable shore; but the plot was discovered by the king of Arakan. The prince and all his family were put to a miserable death, and the unfortunate princess who had married the king, was brutally murdered when she was about to become a mother. Revenge of Destruction of the Portuguese pirates by Although the emperor Aurangzíb was thus delivered from a dangerous rival, he was determined to be revenged upon the king of Arakan, and prove to all the neighbouring princes that under no circumstances should any member of the imperial family be treated otherwise than with respect and reverence. Accordingly as soon as he was established on the imperial throne of Hindustan, he appointed his uncle Shaista Khan to be Viceroy of Bengal, with instructions to inflict a fitting punishment upon the king of Arakan, and to suppress at once and for ever the piracies and kidnapping practices of the Portuguese outlaws. Shaista Khan carried out this work somewhat Shaista Khan. insidiously after Asiatic fashion, but otherwise thoroughly and well. He sent messengers to the Portuguese at Chittagong informing them that the emperor had resolved on the destruction of the king of Arakan; that a Dutch fleet was already on the way to fulfil his vengeance with an overwhelming force which it would be useless to resist; that if they would save themselves from impending ruin, they must at once desert the cause of the king of Arakan; and that if they came to Dacca, and entered the service of the emperor, they would be well enter- CHAPTER IX. tained, and receive double the pay they had ever obtained from their Arakan master. The messengers arrived at Chittagong at a favourable moment. The outlaws had just murdered some officers of the king, and were fearful of condign punishment. Whilst stricken with a panic they received the invitation of Shaista Khan, and at once hastened to Dacca in their galleys with their respective families, and such goods as they could carry away. With the assistance of their fleet Shaista Khan carried a large force to Arakan, and inflicted a crushing defeat upon the king, and took possession of Chittagong; and then, having no longer occasion for the services of the Portuguese outlaws, and having also got them completely into his power, he treated them as traitors, and declined to fulfil any one of his promises. From that time the Portuguese lingered out a wretched existence, and ultimately died out of the land; but the desolation of the Sunderbunds remains to this day as a terrible memorial of the old piratical times, which, it is hoped, have now passed away for ever from the Eastern seas.3 38 39 The foregoing account of the destruction of the Portuguese pirates is based on the authority of Berniers and Faria y Sousa. |