United States or Comoros ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They then fitted them inside with several knees and ribs and inner planking, and all that was requisite, with great perfection, and collected the yards, spars, and all that they had need of belonging to the ship São Miguel; and the captain-major took Nicolas Coelho on board of his ship, entertaining him well.
By this and other judicious measures, Vasco da Gama secured the friendship of the King. Nicolas Coelho was also sent on shore, richly dressed, accompanied by Davane, to pay a visit of ceremony to the King, who was highly pleased at seeing him, and bade him sit on the same carpet on which he himself was seated, a stool inlaid with ivory and worked with gold being placed for him.
On the 25th of April Nicholas Coelho, captain of the Berrio, eager to be the first to carry to Emmanuel the news of the discovery of the Indies, separated himself from his chief, and without touching, as had been arranged, at the Cape de Verd Islands, made sail direct for Portugal, arriving there on the 10th of July.
The Captain-Major next day sent Coelho up the river in a boat; but after proceeding twenty leagues, finding no inhabitants, he returned, when the ships got up their anchors, and, aided by the current, the boats towing, they sailed once more into the open ocean.
Why the vice-provincial allowed merchants of his nation to buy Japanese and make slaves of them in the Indies? To these queries Coelho, the vice-provincial, made answer that the missionaries had never themselves resorted, or incited, to violence in their propagandism, or persecuted bonzes; that if their eating of beef was considered inadvisable, they would give up the practice, and that they were powerless to prevent or restrain the outrages perpetrated by their countrymen.
He consented, however, before he went himself, to send Nicolas Coelho to obtain an audience of the King, and to ascertain his feelings towards the Portuguese. Accordingly he got ready the presents intended for his Majesty, and ordered twelve of the best-looking of his men, handsomely dressed, to accompany the brave captain.
At a council held soon after by the three Captains, Paulo and Nicolas Coelho entreated Vasco da Gama not to go on shore, as he would hazard his life; but he replied that he had resolved to do so in the service of the King; that his life he did not value, and that should he be killed, they must make the best of their way back to Portugal with the account of their important discovery.
This fourth voyage was unquestionably made with Gonzalo Coelho, but we are quite ignorant as to who was in command on the third voyage. These various expeditions had not tended to enrich Vespucius, while his position at the Portuguese court was so far from satisfactory that he determined to re-enter the service of the King of Spain. By him he was made Piloto Mayor on the 22nd of March, 1508.
With the firm determination which Nicolas Coelho at once formed to die sooner than allow himself to be seized upon, he became very vigilant both by day and night, and warned the boy to try to learn with much dissimulation all that they wanted to do and by what means.
After they had thus repaired the ships, the captain-major sent Nicolas Coelho with twenty men in a boat to go and discover the river; and he, after ascending it for two leagues, found woods and verdure, and farther on he found some canoes which were fishing, and the men in them were dark, but not very black; they were naked, having only their middles covered with leaves of trees and grass.
Word Of The Day