NUNO DA CUNHA GOVERNOR.

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tomb, and there utter their complaints, as if in the presence ofhis shade, and call upon God to deliver them from the tyrannyof his successors.

Yet these successors were not all tyrants. Some of them The suc-were great statesmen ; many were gallant soldiers. The namesof four of them stand out brightly in the history of the Portu- querque ;guese in India . Nuno da Cunha, Governor from 1528 to Nuno da1538, first opened up direct and regular trade with Bengal,

After 1518 one ship annually visited Chittagong to purchasemerchandise for Portugal ; but Da Cunha, hearing of the wealthof the province, and the peaceful, industrious character of itsinhabitants, resolved to make a Settlement there. He sent400 Portuguese soldiers to assist the Muhammadan king ofBengal against Sher Shah in 1534, and was intending to followin person, when important events on the other side of India detained him. His intervention had the effect of causing The Portu-many Portuguese to settle in Bengal. They were never formedinto a regular governorship, but remained in loose dependenceon the Captain of Ceylon. Yet they became very prosperous,and their headquarters, Hugli, grew into a wealthy city. Afterthe capture of Hugh by Shah Jahan in 1629, the bravest ofthe Portuguese in Bengal became outlaws and pirates, and inconjunction with the Arakanese and the Maghs preyed uponthe sea-borne commerce of the Bengal coast. The eventwhich prevented Nuno da Cunha from establishing the Portu­ guese power in Bengal was the approach of a great Turkish and Egyptian fleet. Sulaiman (Solyman) the Magnificent hadconsolidated the Turkish power by the conquest of Egypt , andprepared to accomplish the task which the Sultan of Egypthad attempted thirty years before. But the Portuguese werenow in a better position to resist than they had been in thedays of the Viceroy Almeida. Nuno da Cunha had obtainedpossession of the island of Diu, a place much coveted byAlbuquerque , from the King of Gujarat in 1535, and it wasthere that the storm broke. Besieged by the King of Gujarat Defenceby land and by the vast Turkish and Egyptian fleet, Diustood a terrible siege in 1538; and the defenders at last beatoff the assailants. Nuno da Cunha did not live to see thisglorious result, for he was maligned by enemies and senthome in custody, and it was reserved for his successor torelieve Diu.

Joao de Castro , who ruled from 1545 to 1548, was no J0S0 deunworthy countryman of Albuquerque and Da Cunha. Herelieved Diu, which again had to stand a siege by the King of