_ 50 _ overhauled because he travelled with greater speed, thanks to the enormous number of his European-born Portuguese. However, he lost one of the three galleys with which he had come because it had run aground on a rocky shelf, propelled by the full force of oar and sail. It would not perhaps be impossible, by comparing firstly Barros with Castanheda, then Gaspar Correia and finally Couto, to give a more or less complete account, and one better or worse written, of the great number of single ships and small squadrons sent on detachment almost every year from Cochin at the beginning of the conquest and later from Goa, to the mouth of the Strait, the Red Sea, Ormuz and the point of Diu. For a good three-quarters of a century (Couto alone reports 52 sailings), as well as of the prizes that they took and of the minor actions in which many of them were involved. But to do this, it would be necessary to double the size of this book, a solution contrary to the program indicated and also outside the plan adopted for this modest work, which in no way attempts to exhaust the subject, apart from the fact that all these details are recorded in the chronicles, where anyone who so wishes can track them down.
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