Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/65

 Dom Estevan de Gama, who was captain-major of the expedition, and afterwards governor of India, and Dom Paulo de Gama, who unfortunately lost his life in a war with Malacca. The viceroy had now another object to serve than that of trade. He was to be the future ruler of India, and, as such, a regal display became necessary to give the natives a proper impression of his greatness and power. Correa remarks (p. 381) that he "was served by men bearing maces, by a major-domo, and two pages with gold neck-chains, and many esquires." All the forms of kingly state appear to have been adopted. He had "rich vessels of silver and rich tapestry of Flanders; and for the table at which he sate, brocade cloths;" he had also a "guard of two hundred men with gilt pikes, clothed with his livery," and an army of "brilliant soldiery." Nor was he without kingly power, and even something more. While his rule extended over "all persons who might be found eastward of the Cape of Good Hope," he himself established laws "that, under pain of death and loss of property, no one should navigate without his license." Every person likewise who came to India, even with a commission from the king of Portugal, was liable to be dismissed without compensation or appeal, should he not, in the opinion of the viceroy, prove competent for the office to which he had been nominated.

Such stringent laws may have been necessary from the state of things which then existed in India. That he was strict in his administration, even to tyranny, over his own people, cannot be doubted; and it is