37 favours the resolute, guarded them with His protection from a danger which only Heaven could avert. As soon as the first encounters were over the two Commanders discussed sending news to the viceroy about what happened and what losses had been incurred, and this they did, reporting clearly and truthfully all that had happened. After the third battle General Nuno Alvares sailed to Khor Fakkan with his victorious fleet, from which the two enemy had fled. After ten days he made landfall in the bay of Khor Fakkan, which is on the coast of Arabia, and from there he sent word to viceroy, on his own account, of what else had happened, and the great hunger and thirst that had been suffered, and the losses sustained in the fighting. He could not communicate this message to the Commander Rui Freire because the distance between them was too great to bridge, and so it was only from Nuno Alvares. He asked for permission to continue the war as it seemed to him necessary for the good of the state and waited for it to come. It must be observed (to conclude the account of these three battles) that this was the first time that Dutch and English enemies had joined forces against us (1), which amounted to twelve very large carracks, with two flagships and two admiral-ships, each of which caried fifty-six cannon, and the 1- This is incorrect. The Dutch and English had combined in 1622 in a ‘Defensive fleet’ (‘offensive’ would be more exact). The viceroy Francisco da Gama, conde de Vidigueira, had been defeated bear Mozambique in June 1622 by an Anglo-Dutch squadron. 16 English accounts say that the allied squadron had 281 cannon and the Portuguese fleet 232.
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