_ 58 _ Captain-in-Chief. Khwaja Attar sent for one of the chief merchants who had been in the city for a long time, named Khwaja Bairam, an Armenian who had lived for a long time in Venice as a trader and could speak our language well, a man of much trust and authority. He asked him whether, for the King’s sake, he would undertake to act as intermediary in the many transactions needed to reach agreement with the Portuguese, because the King trusted him to deal truthfully in this; and the Armenian willing accepted. Then Khwaja Attar gave him a message to take to the Captain-in-Chief: that the King was pleased to know the reason for his coming, and since that was the case there was no reason for him to destroy his towns and kill so many people, even unborn children. That was ill done, because he should first have come to Ormuz to discuss matters, and then if they were not satisfactory he would have had reason to do as he pleased; but it seemed that he had done these things only to make them afraid, Because he had done such wrong to wretched people they were not afraid, and he would find nothing in him that was not due to reason. As for destroying the port and burning ships if he did not make a pact with him because they were lords of the
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