Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait391903roya).pdf/211

 coins, in fact some of them may be the identical specimens which Albuquerque threw out over the heads of the admiring crowd during his procession and the proclamation of the new coinage niin [sic] Malacca in 1511.

The oldest specimens are three coins in excellent condition belonging to the reign of King Emmanuel who was reigning when Malacca was captured. Their diameter is 30 mm.=$1 3⁄16$ in., their weight 10.3 to 10.8 grammes, and they are probably bastardos. They bear on the obverse the Portuguese coat-of- arms, and around it the inscription:

The second and fourth letters of the first word are inverted, and the last word, consisting of five or six letters, is less distinct than the rest. It might stand for DOMINE. The meaning of the other letters is of course 'Emanuel Rex Portugaliæ et Algar- biorum. The Algarves were first conquered by the Portuguese about 1188, and their name is still mentioned on the coins of the present day. The reverse of the coin bears the sphere, the "device of the King D. Manuel," like the coins struck at Goa. The device of the sphere, by the way, is used as a symbol of the glorious world-wide conquests of Portugal (see pl. I, figs. 2 and 2a).

Albuquerque died off Goa on Dec. 16th 1515, and King Em- manuel in 1521. From the reign of the next king, John III, 1521-1557, between fifty and sixty coins are in the collection. The first kind, probably the Soldo (size 24mm. = $15⁄16$ in; weight 3.2 to 3.9 grammes), is of a very clear stamp, bearing on the ob- verse a cross, and around it the inscription.

i. e. Ioannes III Portugaliæ et Algarbiorum Rex, on the reverse the usual sphere. This tin coin therefore tallies exactly with the description of the gold, silver and copper coins struck at Goa, which bore on the one side "a cross of the Order of Christ, on the other a sphere—the device of the King D. Manuel." Of this coin there are only three specimens (pl. II, figs. 9 and 9a)

Another kind, of which there are fifteen specimens, resembles this last in all details except that it is of a much ruder make and that the cross is slightly different: thus