Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/163

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THE POLICY OF ALBUQUERQUE 115 or a power of men to keep them at peace." Albu- querque thus sums up his demand either a great fleet and an army, or the seizure and fortification of the principal towns " on the shores of the sea." Again in 1513, as regards attacks from the Rumes, or Turkish Empire, " I hold it to be free from doubt that if fortresses be built in Diu and Calicut (as I trust in our Lord they will be), when once they have been well forti- fied, if a thousand of the Sultan's ships were to make their way to India, not one of those places could be brought again under his dominion." " I would strongly point out," he had written to King Emmanuel in 1510, " the uselessness of sending any more ships to these waters, as the supply of vessels here is ample. What we require is a large supply of arms, ammunition, and materials of war." In carrying out this policy, says Machado, " he erected with an expense equal to their magnificence the fortresses of Malacca, Ormuz, Calicut, Cochin, and Can- nanore, inscribed on whose stones his name is handed down to posterity under the glorious title of Founder of the Portuguese Empire in the East." Albuquerque's plan of seizing strongholds, wherever MOSLEM WOMEN.