Besides These, There Were Upwards Of An Hundred Persons,
So Maimed Or Sick As To Be Incapable Of Being Sent Off At This Time, For
Want Of Room In These Two Ships.
The king of Ormus was very poor, and lived chiefly on a pension or
allowance of 140,000 rees, allowed him by the king of Spain, with some
small reserved petty customs.
In rummaging among his papers, we found
the copy of a letter from him to the king of Spain, complaining loudly
of the injustice of the Portuguese, and charging them with the entire
overthrow of the kingdom of Ormus.[312]
[Footnote 312: Besides this letter, too long and uninteresting for
insertion, there are several other letters and documents in the Pilgrims
at this place, so much in the same predicament as to be here
omitted. - E.]
When we expected to have received 1200 tomans[313] from Pulot Beg, who
was chief commissioner under the Khan of Shiras, as our pay for the time
occupied in this enterprize, he contrived to make us a larger sum in
their debt, under pretence of embezzling the plunder in the castle;
while we, on the other hand, made counter demands of a much larger sum
due to us from the Persians, in the same manner. At length, three months
pay were allowed, and our other demands were shifted off, as he
pretended to have no power to liquidate them without an order from the
Khan. After business was ended, our misery began, occasioned by the
insufferable heat of Ormus, and the disorders of our own people in
drinking arrack, and other excesses no less injurious; through which
such diseases arose among our people, that three-fourths of them were
dangerously sick, and many died so suddenly, that the plague was feared
to have got among them, although no symptoms of that dreadful malady as
yet appeared. This extremity lasted for fourteen days, during which
time, six or seven of our men died every day; but after this, it pleased
God to stay the mortality, and the rest recovered. Ten pieces of
ordnance belonging to the Portuguese, were taken into our ships, to
replace that number of our own which had been broken or otherwise
spoiled during the siege. Our fleet was detained till the 1st September,
owing to the shifting of the monsoon, and waiting its return. Leaving
Ormus on that day, we arrived in Swally roads on the 24th of that month,
where the London, Jonas, and Lion, loaded for England, and sailed
homewards bound on the 30th December. Before setting sail, news was
brought of sinking three Portuguese carracks off the port of
Masulipatam, by the English and Dutch in conjunction.
[Footnote 313: This must be a gross error, as by the value of the toman
formerly given, the sum in the text very little exceeds L400. Purchas
mentions, in a side-note, that he had heard the English received L20,000
for this service from the Persians.
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