_ 220 _ other captains were Francisco Pereira Coutinho, Luis Dantas and Joao de Melo, Cristovao de Brito was accompanied by Nicolau Ferreira; who had been sent to Portugal by the former King of Ormuz as his ambassador, in order to confirm his friendship for the King of Portugal, and to ask him to reduce the tribute which he had to pay to the sum of 10,000 xerafins; for up to then he had paid 18,000, which he could not afford, and which had impoverished him. It so happened that when the ambassador had been in Portugal, Our Lord had given him his grace, and he had become a Christian, and stopped being a renegade. He thus felt the false sect of Muhammad and was reconciled to the Catholic faith, for which occasion the king ordered great festivities. Once this had happened, he told the truth about Ormuz to the king; how wealthy it was, what its revenues were, and how Cojeatar ruled it as a tyrant. He therefore advised him not to reduce the tribute and to try and capture him. In order to play for time with the King of Ormuz, the King of Portugal wrote to him concerning the tribute, saying that he had a governor in India who was in charge of all its affairs. He should therefore write to the governor himself, for he would do what seemed best to him. The king of Portugal wrote also to the governor, repeating what he had told,
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