Indian Antiquary Vol 31

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 34

30
[JANUARY, 1902.
I say two or three thousand, not because with less the object would not be attained, only that it is a big affair, and there are the charges of places, for which Portuguese are needful. Six thousand would not suffice to conquer with less than I have said and attain the end; because the Chinese would at once rise against the city with the help of the Portuguese.
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Moreover with the craft that the Portuguese bring and those that shall be made here out of their paraos in our fashion there will be enough to clear all the rivers. The rivers cleared, the mandarins will have to surrender perforce, or will have to flee and leave the city; then Cantão and its environs will at once be in our hands. This can be done by captains who shall bring a force of seven hundred to a thousand men; and there must remain with him the craft and large rowing boats and all the Portuguese people and Malabars; and if he find any ships. he shall send them to Coachim divested of the Chinese officers that he shall find in them, because ten million will come. And if the governor will put matters in train for next year Cantão will soon be in his hands with the whole province; and he can leave therein a fortress, and in suitable places leave Portuguese people and Malabars, and can return with all his fleet laden with Chinese, carpenters, masons, smiths, tilers, sawyers, and of every other trade, with their wives, to be left at those fortresses; for he can carry away in his fleet in junks from the country ten thousand men without causing a scarcity, and every year four thousand could leave without making a difference. This is the marvellous reason why for each Portuguese a hundred Chinese can be taken for the fortresses.
Cantão has within it a flat mount close to the wall on the north side on which stands a house that has five stories.70 Within the slopes of this mount are six or seven churches which have enough cut stone to build in ten days a town with walls and houses; and the churches are without number; stays, beams, doors. From here one could dominate the city. Another might be built on the edge of the water in the middle of the town where the mandarins disembark, which could be erected in five days, because there is cut stone [f. 122v] in the streets and courts of justice sufficient to build a large walled city with towers. Another in the church. that stands on the river. Just as there are stone and timber and lime in abundance, so there are workmen for this and servants. Nowhere in the whole world are there so many, and they are good servants: for a small wage for food a hundred thousand will come. And out of theire paraos can be made galleys, foists, brigantines; of some can be made galliasses with few ribs, because the rivers do not require the strength that the sea does. So that all these things require more time; and if written orders should be sent to engage in the work the country is prepared for everything. God grant that these Chinese may be fools enough to lose the country; because up to the present they have had no dominion, but little by little they have gone on taking the land from their neighbours; and for this reason the kingdom is great, because the Chinese are full of much cowardice, and hence they come to be presumptuous, arrogant, cruel; and because up to the present, being a cowardly people, they have managed without arms and without any practice of war, and have always gone on getting the land from their neighbours, and not by force but by stratagems and deceptions; and they imagine that no one can do them harm. They call every foreigner a savage; and their country they call the kingdom of God. Whoever shall come now, let it be a captain with a fleet of ten to fifteen sail. The first thing will be to destroy the fleet if they should have one, which I believe they have not; let it be by fire and blood and cruel fear for this day, without sparing the life of a single person, every junk being burnt, and no one being taken prisoner, in order not to waste the provisions, because at all times a hundred Chinese will be found for one Portuguese. And this done, Nanto must be cleared, and at once they will have a fortress and provisions if they wish, because it will at
76 This is the still extant five-storied tower on Kwanyinshan: the northern gate of Canton. It is referred
to by Gaspar da Cruz. (See Purchas, Pilg. III. p. 172.)
17 See Vasco Calvo's letter infra, f. 127.