Besides These, He
Sent 200 Sail Of Vessels To Sea, Carrying 4000 Men, Ordering This Fleet
To Join That Of Gonzalez, And To Be Under His Command.
According to the
treaty, Gonzalez, with the combined fleet, was to prevent the Moguls
from passing to the kingdom
Of Balua, till the king of Aracan could
march there with his army for its protection; besides which it was
agreed, when the Moguls were expelled from Balua, that half the kingdom
was to be given up to Gonzalez; who, on this occasion, gave as hostages,
for the safety of the Aracan fleet, and the faithful performance of his
part of the treaty, a nephew of his own, and the sons of some of the
Portuguese inhabitants of Sundiva.
[Footnote 428: There still is a town named Bulloah, to the east of the
Barrampooter and directly north of Sundeep, which may then have given
name to a province or small principality, of which Comillah is now the
chief town. - E.]
According to treaty, the king of Aracan entered the kingdom of Balua
with his army, and expelled the Moguls; but Gonzalez did not perform his
part of the agreement in preventing the Moguls from penetrating into
that kingdom, some alleging that he had been bribed by the Moguls to
allow them a free passage, while, according to others, he did so from
revenge against the king of Aracan, for the Portuguese who had been
slain by that king in Bangael of Dianga[429]. However this may have
been, Gonzalez was guilty of a most execrable treachery, as, by leaving
open the mouth of the river Dangatiar, he left a free passage to the
Moguls. After this he went with his fleet into a creek of the island
Desierta[430], and assembling all the captains of the Aracan vessels on
board his ship, he murdered them all, seized all their vessels, and
killed or made slaves of all their men, after which he returned to
Sundiva. Soon afterwards the Moguls returned in great force to the
kingdom of Balua, where they reduced the king of Aracan to such straits
that he made his escape with great difficulty on an elephant, and came
almost alone to Chittigong. Immediately upon this discomfiture of the
Aracan army, which was utterly destroyed by the Moguls in Balua,
Gonzalez plundered and destroyed all the forts on the coast of Aracan,
which were then unprovided for defence, as depending on the peace and
alliance between their king and Gonzalez; he even went against the city
of Aracan, where he burnt many merchant vessels, and acquired great
plunder, and destroyed a vessel of great size, richly adorned, and
containing several splendid apartments like a palace, all covered with
gold and ivory, which the king kept as a pleasure-yacht for his own use.
Exasperated against Gonzalez for his treachery, the king ordered the
nephew of that lawless ruffian, who was in his power as a hostage, to be
be impaled. But Gonzalez, being a person utterly devoid of honour, cared
not at whose cost he advanced his own interests; yet the guilt of so
many villanies began to prey upon his conscience, and he became
apprehensive of some heavy punishment falling upon him, which he had
little means to avert, as all men considered him a traitor unworthy of
favour; those of Aracan, because he had betrayed them to the Moguls; and
the Moguls, because he had been false to those that trusted him.
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