ngone_ and were
bound for the island of _Sunda_. In a grand council held upon this
important event, it was ordered to fit out a squadron of two galleons,
three gallies, and nine other vessels to attack the intruders, and the
command was given on this occasion to Lorenzo de Brito, an ancient and
experienced officer. The two Holland ships did some small damage on the
coast of Malabar and other places, and when off Malacca fell in with six
ships bound from that place for India, commanded by Francisco de Silva.
They immediately engaged and fought the whole of that afternoon and part
of the night. Next morning the engagement was renewed, and was repeated
for eight successive days; till finding themselves too weak, the
Hollanders drew off and made for the port of Queda, many of their men
being slain and most of the rest wounded. At that place they quitted the
smallest of their ships for want of men, and the other was afterwards
cast away on the coast of Pegu.

In this same year 1597 the Hollanders fitted out a squadron of eight
ships at Amsterdam for India, with 800 men and provisions for three
years, under the command of the admiral Jacob Cornelius van Nec. The
object of this expedition, besides hostility to the king of Spain, was
that they might purchase the spices and other commodities of Asia at a
cheaper rate than they had hitherto been accustomed to in Portugal. The
fleet sailed from Amsterdam on the 13th of May 1598; arrived at Madeira
on the 15th, and at the Canaries on the 17th, where they both took in
wine. On the 29th they were in the latitude of 6 deg. S. and passed the line
on the 8th of June; _a wonderful swiftness, to me incredible_! On the
24th July they saw the Cape of Good Hope, where three of the ships were
separated in a violent storm and arrived at the island of _Banda_ in
_April_[419]. The other four ships under the admiral discovered the
island of Madagascar on the 24th of August, coming to Cape St Julian on
the 30th of that month. On the 20th of September they came to the island
of _Cerne_ or _Cisne_, in lat. 21 deg. S. to which they gave the name of
_Mauritius_. Here they found tortoises of such magnitude that one of
them carried two men on its back, and birds which were so tame as to
allow themselves to be killed with sticks, whence they concluded that
the island was not inhabited. At Banda they joined the other three
ships, and having laded four with spices they were sent away to Holland,
while the