_ 363 _ Last year I wrote to Your Highness that the Turks had arrived in El Katiff. They did not capture it but made themselves very strong there. I then wrote to the Governor telling him how troublesome it was for us to have such bad people as neighbours, and how much in Your Highness’s interests it would be not to permit them to bring [Riazes?] so close to this fortress. When this letter was delivered, D Afonso de Noronha had arrived, and it seems as if he were sent by God in that he immediately provided and sent here a fleet with one thousand two hundred men under the command of his nephew D. Antão de Noronha. For this expedition I made ready five hundred men, but my father would not allow me to go on this expedition, saying that God would never wish him during his lifetime, if a matter of Your Highness’s service occurred in which he could show the desire and wish to serve Your Highness, to permit me to do so, and that God would allow him to go and capture Basra, for he is close enough to do so, and with great desires to do so because it is necessary for the security of this fortress, that Your Highness should command that it be taken. My father responded that this expedition was for him to undertake, that much time remained to me to serve Your Highness in many ways, and that he perhaps would
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