_ 140 _ Nine years ago, the Lord of [Lacca] which is in the territory of Basra, captured the city and fortress of Katiff, which was one of the chief possessions of this kingdom except for Bahrain. Nothing has been done about it since then because circumstances did not make it possible. Last May, with the news that was going around that the Turks were coming to this city, Governor Martim Afonso sent Bernardim de Sousa here with reinforcements of men, and because what was sent to prevent the Turks from coming was not insignificant, I begged Luis Falcão to be good enough to give Bernaldim de Sousa permission and the opportunity to go there with the hundred or so Portuguese. He consented, and they have gone here, and with them all my kinsmen and two thousand Persians and four thousand Arabs. God grant that they will achieve what was achieved Sohar, and that they will seize the city and fortress and return them to this kingdom, as they were before. In these two undertaking, sir, I have spent almost five hundred leques of my own money and that of my friends, for nothing came from the factory. It was granted by Luis Falcão on this condition, and that the revenue or Portugal should contribute nothing.
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