_ 263 _ As soon as [Ali Pasha], the Pasha of Basra, received news of the Portuguese fleet, he guessed that its captain must have an understanding with the Gizares and Arabs of the interior. He was so astute that he seized all the roads by which they could send mail and, as luck would have it, the letters that Dom Antão wrote to them fell into his hands. As the Moor was clever and artful, he had written in his own hand several forged letters in the name of the King of Basra and the Gizares, in which he pointed out to them that, “Since they were Moors and vassals of the Turks, there was no reason why they should support the Christians against others of their religion. They should be willing to perform a service to the Grand Turk, which was to hand over to his keeping the entire Portuguese fleet, as they had promised him in earlier letters and, with this in mind, he was forwarding the letter that the Portuguese captain-major of the fleet had sent to him, so that they would promptly hand over all the ships to him. These counterfeit letters, which the Pasha wrote in secret, he had read out in public in the presence of many people, among whom were two youths, one a Venetian the other a Neapolitan, whom he held captive. By a subtefuge, he gave them Dom Antão de Noronha’s letter to see, even
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