The Portuguese in the Sea of Oman

_ 248 _ the "Marie de Bon Secours" arrived at Diu, and the French were then held as prisoners in India. This is not the place for an account of further events affecting them. It seems that their petition addressed to the King of Portugal was not sufficient completely to exonerate their actions. It would be interesting to know to what extent subsequent events accorded with the requests made by the petitioners. The Gujarat Chronicle (c.1535) confirms the story of the "Marie de Bon Secours" and the dates in question, but it gives a view of the Portuguese captain entirely different from that given by the Normans (it must be noted that the author of the chronicle was Portuguese). In 1535, the unfortunate Dieppois were in the service of the local Indian ruler. Did they all remain good Catholics, as they had promised? A later (but good) source, the Tabaqât-i-akbari (1594), casts doubt on this: "The winds had blown a European vessel to Diu. The governor seized the cargo and made the crew slaves. When Sultan Bahadur learned this, he had the Europeans sent to him and asked them to embrace Islam; many of them became Muslims"(A). (A) Extract from the Gujarat chronicle kindly communicated to me by Jean Aubin (Torre do Tombo, Col. S. Vicente II, ff.91r-111r, and Lisbon,Bibl. Nat., Fundo Geral 299, ff.1r-41v). Aubin is preparing

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy