Tuesday, June 29, 2010

1526 -Bombay--naval fight between Gujerat sultan's fleet and Portuguese navy from Colaba via Sion to Bandra

On leaving Chaul for Diu, 'on the day after Shrove Tuesday,' Sampayo came unexpectedly on the Cambay fleet in Bombay harbour. After a furious cannonade the Portuguese boarded the enemy and Alishah fled hoping to escape by the Mahim creek.
But the Portuguese had stationed boats at Bandra, and all Alishah's vessels but seven were taken. Of the seventy-three prizes thirty-three were fit for work and were kept; the rest were burned. Besides the vessels many prisoners were made, and much artillery and abundance of ammunition were taken. [Feria in Kerr's Voyages, VI. 209, 210. This summary of Faria's account of the battle of Bombay seems to differ in some particulars from the account in De Barros.' Asia (Decada, IV. Part I. 208-210,Lisbon Ed. of 1777). According to De Barros the Portuguese caught sight of the Gujarat fleet off a promontory. As Sylyeira drew near, the Gujrat fleet retired behind the promontory, and he sent some ships to guard the mouth of the river. 


When Sylveira drew near, the Gujarat ships set sail and ran into the river, and when they found that the mouth of the river was occupied, they tried to reach Mahim fort, but, before they reached Mahim, they were surrounded and captured by the Portuguese boats which had been sent to, guard the mouth of the creek. This account is not altogether clear. Apparently what happened was that when the Gujrat boats saw the Portuguese, they drew back from the Prongs Point into the Bombay harbour, and when the Portuguese fleet attacked them, they fled up the harbour to the mouth of the river (that is the Bombay harbour or east mouth of the Mahim creek) not daring to try their fortune is the open sea.' 


The Portuguese captain learned from his local pilots that the Gujarat fleet probably meant to retreat through the Bandra creek, and accordingly sent boats to guard its mouth. The Gujarat fleet entered the creek by Sion, and, on nearing Mahim, saw the Portuguese boats blocking the entrance of the creek.


To avoid them they made for the Musalman fort of Mahim, at the south end of the present Bandra causeway, but the Portuguese saw their object and coming up the creek cut them off,


De Barros' account has been supposed ('Lateen' in Times of India, 21st April 1882) to favour the view that the fight was not in the harbour, but in the open sea off Malabar point. To this view the objection are, that when the Gujarat fleet retired behind Colaba point on catching sight of the Portuguese, they must have gone into Back Bay a dangerous and unlikely movement. That if they came out again to fight, they must have seen the Portuguese boats being sent on to Bandra, and that when, in their flight, the Gujarat fleet found the mouth of the Bandra creek blocked, they could not have attempted to take shelter in Mahim. 


the attempt to take shelter in Mahim, when the mouth of the creek was found to be blocked, shows that the Gujarat fleet was leaving not entering the Bandra or Mahim river.]

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