Mascarenas; and this victory obtained by Galvano. Besides this great
exploit, his father and four brothers were all slain in the kings service;
and he, being the last of his lineage, carried with him about 10,000
crusadoes into the Moluccas, all of which he expended in propagating our
holy faith, and in preserving these valuable islands, using all his power
and influence to bring all the cloves into the kings coffers, by which he
added 500,000 crusadoes yearly to the royal revenue. Had he gathered
cloves on his own account, as other governors of the Moluccas have done,
he might have come home very rich; but returning poor, and, in the
simplicity of his nature, expecting to be rewarded for his honest
services, he was entirely neglected, and had to take refuge in an
hospital, where he remained seventeen years, till his death, when he was
2000 crusadoes in debt; partly for demands upon him from India, and
partly borrowed from his friends to maintain him in the hospital. After
his death, the cardinal desired me to give his other writings to Damien
de Goes, promising to content me for them, which otherwise I should not
have done; yet hitherto I have not received any thing with which to
execute his will. Yet, for all this, as in the prosperity of his
victories he made no boast, so, in his adversity, he always preserved an
unabated spirit. Your grace, therefore, may perceive, that this treatise,
and his other works, were written under great afflictions; yet was he not
willing to use the remedy of Zelim, the son of the great Turk Mahomet,
who took Constantinople, and died in Rome, who used to make himself drunk,
that he might forget the high estate from which he had fallen. Neither
would he follow the councils of many of his friends, in withdrawing from
the kingdom; saying, he had rather resemble Timocles the Athenian, than
the Roman Coriolanus. For all which, this treatise ought to receive
favour from your grace, allowing for any oversights of the author, if
there be any such, as I am unfit to detect or correct then. God prosper
your grace with long life, and increase of honour."