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Updated: May 3, 2025
Besides this great exploit, his father and four brothers were all slain in the kings service; and he, being the last of his lineage, carried with him about 10,000 crusadoes into the Moluccas, all of which he expended in propagating our holy faith, and in preserving these valuable islands, using all his power and influence to bring all the cloves into the kings coffers, by which he added 500,000 crusadoes yearly to the royal revenue.
The latter, though he was thirsty, would have passed on; but Hugon twitched him by the sleeve, and producing from the depths of his great flapped pocket a handful of crusadoes, écues, and pieces of eight, indicated with a flourish that he was prepared to share with his less fortunate companion. They drank standing, kissed the girl who served them, and took to the road again.
When first appointed to the command in the Moluccas, Galvano carried with him a private fortune of 10,000 crusadoes, all of which he expended in the public service.
The King also ordered that a hundred crusadoes should be paid to each of the married men for them to leave it to their wives, and forty crusadoes to each of the single men, for them to fit themselves out with certain things; for, as to provisions, they had not got to lay them in, for the ships were full of them.
Secondly, There was the account of four years more, while they kept the effects in their hands, before the government claimed the administration, as being the effects of a person not to be found, which they called civil death; and the balance of this, the value of the plantation increasing, amounted to nineteen thousand four hundred and forty-six crusadoes, being about three thousand two hundred and forty moidores.
To the two brothers was paid a gratification of two thousand crusadoes to each of them, and a thousand to Nicolas Coelho. When he took leave of them, his boat lay on its oars until they disappeared, as is shown in the painting of his city of Lisbon. Vasco da Gama went in the ship São Rafael, and Paulo da Gama in the São Gabriel, and Nicolas Coelho in the other ship, São Miguel.
By letters from thence, it appears that our merchandize is not much valued in these parts, and that crusadoes ought to be sent out, if we wish to have our affairs speedily conducted, as other goods remain long in hand: For the Indians purposely procrastinate, that they may beat down the value of our commodities.
Had he gathered cloves on his own account, as other governors of the Moluccas have done, he might have come home very rich; but returning poor, and, in the simplicity of his nature, expecting to be rewarded for his honest services, he was entirely neglected, and had to take refuge in an hospital, where he remained seventeen years, till his death, when he was 2000 crusadoes in debt; partly for demands upon him from India, and partly borrowed from his friends to maintain him in the hospital.
Secondly, there was the account of four years more, while they kept the effects in their hands, before the government claimed the administration, as being the effects of a person not to be found, which they called civil death; and the balance of this, the value of the plantation increasing, amounted to nineteen thousand four hundred and forty-six crusadoes, being about three thousand two hundred and forty moidores.
Though he added a clear revenue to the crown of 500,000 crusadoes, in consequence of his successful, vigilant, and pure administration, he was so zealous in patronizing the propagation of the Christian religion among the islands belonging to his government, that, on his return to Lisbon in 1540, he was reduced to such extreme poverty, as to be under the necessity of taking refuge in the hospital, where he died in 1557.
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