Note 169 — A JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF VASCO DA GAMA IN 1497-99.

These are, of course, the letters referred to by Barros and other historians, which were given to Gama when he left Portugal. Correa’s story, that Vasco and his brother Paulo concocted the letters whilst off Calecut, and forged the king’s signature, is therefore quite incredible. Nor is Gama made to say in the “Roteiro” that he had been sent with a fleet of fifty ships, and that the voyage took two years (Stanley’s Vasco da Gama, pp. 168, 173). The “grand” Vasco has many sins to answer for, and we ought not, without good proof, to fasten upon him the charge of forgery. As to truthfulness, that seems not to have been a strong point with the diplomatists of that age.