_ 150 _ could not tell the difference between their selling price and the price that I could command. Item 5: One day, when Tristam de Ga was selling some expensive bolts of silk and cotton from Nagur at a low price, I realized that this would cause a considerable drop in the price of cloth in the factory. So, I asked the Commander to hand over the cloth to me, to allocate a clerk and a cashier, and I would get double the price. I sold the whole lot and increased Your Highness’s treasury by 30 or 40,000 cruzados. You can confirm this through Pero de Alpoim, the captain of the merchantman “Trindade” and through Gaspar de Paiva. This demonstrates what sort of person I am and proves that the Portuguese in India know very little about merchandise. Item 6: The Portuguese had few resources of men or materials in the city of Malacca to build a fortress. Since it was also impossible to sail to India that year, the Commander asked my advice. I told him to give me permission to go into the interior to recruit workers. For my part, I promised to pay him one cruzado for every Negro who complained about me. So, he gave me a horse and I sought out a Persian Moor who had lived there thirty-two years, and asked him to give me a list of the names of all
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