acca to claim his rights.

It was further made known to John III that {177} Sulaiman the
Magnificent was setting on foot a great fleet for India. This was
mainly due to the constant requests of the Venetians who were being
ruined by the Portuguese monopoly, and was in general accordance with
the policy of the greatest of the Ottoman rulers of Constantinople.
The war between the Turks and Egyptians, which had allowed the
Portuguese to develop in Asia, ended in 1517 with the overthrow of
the Mameluke dynasty in Egypt. This great conquest of the Sultan
Selim brought with it the submission of Syria and Arabia. Sulaiman
the Magnificent succeeded his father Selim in 1520, and began his
reign by his famous campaigns in Hungary and against Rhodes. He was
quite alive to the importance to Islam of checking the further
advance of the Portuguese in the East, and the news that he was
building a great fleet at Suez was perfectly true. It was placed
under the command of Sulaiman Pasha, and carried many Venetian and
Christian adventurers as well as Turks and Egyptians.

Such being the dangers which threatened the Portuguese empire in
Asia, John III selected to meet them the first really great successor
to the office of Albuquerque, Nuno da Cunha. The new Governor was the
eldest son of Tristao da Cunha, the navigator, and had had a large
experience of Asiatic warfare. He was knighted by his relative, the
great Albuquerque, in 1506, and had ever since been employed in
voyages to the East and in hard-fought campaigns in Morocco. His
chief feat of arms up {178} to this time had been his conquest of
Mombassa on the African coast in 1525, which he had followed up by
exacting the tribute promised by the King of Ormuz to the Portuguese.

He left Lisbon in 1528 with a large fleet, carrying 4000 soldiers. He
reached Goa in October, 1529, after a long voyage, and at once
arrested Lopo Vaz de Sam Paio, and sent him back to Portugal in
chains. His first measures were directed to the reform of internal
abuses. With great activity he visited every Portuguese factory and
fortress, punishing all evil-doers, and setting himself a noble
example of personal probity. But he was not satisfied, like his
predecessors, by merely securing old advantages and maintaining the
former centres of trade. He devoted himself to opening up new
provinces and developing the Portuguese commerce and dominion in
other parts of India. The first Portuguese settlement on the