Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/47

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amazed and greatly alarmed. Having held a council, he despatched a reply to the captain-major, that he would send him a signed paper to the effect that he and his crew might land freely, if no injury were done to him or the city. De Gama, however, resolved to put pressure upon the king; who, over persuaded by a crafty and rich Moor, ventured on board the ship of the Portuguese admiral, with large, and, so far as we can judge, true professions of friendship and amity.

But the captain-major required something more than this. "If," said he, "the king of Quiloa became a friend of the king, his sovereign, he must also do as did the other kings and sovereigns who newly became his friends, which was that each year he should pay a certain sum of money or a rich jewel, which they did as a sign that by this yearly payment it was known that they were in good friendship." In a word, that he should subject himself and his dominion to the government of Portugal. The African king seems to have clearly understood and felt the force of this plausible mode of abdicating his sovereign rights, for he replied, "That to have to pay each year money or a jewel was not a mode of good friendship, because it was tributary subjection, and was like being a captive; and, therefore, if the captain-major was satisfied with good peace and friendship without exactions, he was well pleased, but that to pay tribute would be his dishonour." The captain-major, however, cared little for anything except submission. "I am the slave of the king, my sovereign," he haughtily replied, "and all the men