Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/440

 596 POllTUGUESE HISTORY tage under which the reputation dof their prede- cessors does not labour. Such was the character of the people, who, in the progress of knowledge and discovery, invaded the happiness, and tranquillity, and independence, of the Indian islanders. The Portuguese reached the Indian islands ten years after Vasco di Gania had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and reached the continent of India. In the year 1508, Emanuel, king of Portugal, fit- ted out a squadron of four ships, under the com- mand of Diego Lopez di Sequeira, which reached the Indian Archipelago in the following year, touching first at Fedir and Pase, in Sumatra, and, finally, reaching Malacca, Mahomed, the king of which place, having heard of the outrages commit- ted by the Portuguese, from the merchants of West- em India, determined to lay a snare for Sequeira^ which the Portuguese commander escaped, but not without the death of some of his crew, and the captivity of others. If we except the accidental visits of Marco Polo, Mandeville, and others, Se- queira may be looked upon as the proper discoverer of the Indian Archipelago. In the year 1511, the renowned Alphonzo Al- buquerque, the viceroy of the Indies, with a fleet of nineteen ships, and fourteen hundred men, six hundred of whom were natives of Malabar, sailed for Malacca, which he reached on the 1st day of July of that year. Albuquerque's