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 enforced withdrawal of the Portuguese commander and several of his principal officers. Possibly they had definite information as to the inability of the defenders to make anything like a vigorous stand against a combined attack. However they may have been influenced, they formed, as events proved, a very accurate estimate of the situation.

In conjunction with the Persian commander a plan of campaign was drawn up by which the city was to be attacked from the land side by Persian troops, while the English assailed it from the sea. The operations opened on February 10, with the transport to a point on the island of Ormuz in the rear of the city of a large body of Persian troops under the command of Imam Zuli Beg. Almost simultaneously the English ships commenced to bombard the fort and the Portuguese shipping at anchor near it. The attack continued intermittently until the 24th of the month when the San Pedro, the largest of the Portuguese galleons, was set on fire, and in a short time destroyed. A Persian attack on the town made a few days previously had been repulsed, and the land operations had somewhat flagged in consequence. But under the stimulus of the episode of the 24th both allies threw themselves with great ardour into the combat. One after another the Portuguese ships were battered to pieces by the English guns and closer and closer the Persians drew their lines.

The position soon became for the Portuguese a desperate one in view of the failure of provisions and the impossibility of receiving any succour from Goa. Fearing an assault on the city which would lead to a general massacre of the inhabitants by the Persians, the Portuguese on April 23 surrendered to the English commanders. To avoid ill consequences the garrison, which numbered, with women and