_ 157 _ forget my nature. There are only three things for which men forget their nature: honour, profit and salvation. So, if Your Highness should so wish, command me and I shall be pleased to serve you, because I have no better place to go. Item 21: Your Highness may learn in Benasterim the manner in which I served in Goa. The Sabaio’s captain always went to a camp, set up by the Commander, with a lot of stewed beef, rice, bread and wine and he brought a hundred natives of the country, who were being transported from Goa to Benasterim. Item 22: When information was needed about what was happening ashore, such as, if there were renegades in the camp, the Commander sent me as ambassador and I attended to Your Highness’s affairs as if I had been brought up under your protection. Item 23: When the Commander-in-Chief decided to sail to Aden, he asked my opinion. I told him that Aden was well fortified with walls and turrets. However, it did not have garrison soldiers. His reply was that he would get in by demolishing a stretch of wall. When we arrived in Aden, I accompanied Joao Gomes, the Captain of a caravel, in a small boat and told the Moors that the Commander wanted one of them to come to the nau to parley. This they did.
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