An account of De Siqueira’s voyage to Malacca
This short note by W. George Maxwell presents a translation of a British Museum manuscript (Additional M.S. 20,902) containing two brief accounts of Diogo Lopez de Siqueira’s 1508 voyage of discovery to Malacca.
Summary
Maxwell identifies the manuscript through a footnote in the Hakluyt Society’s translation of Afonso Dalboquerque’s Commentaries and reproduces its contents in translation (pp. 193–195). The two accounts are extremely fragmentary but list the captains and vessels of Jorge de Aguiar’s fleet (eight merchant ships and four or five war vessels) and of Siqueira’s four-ship squadron, which was tasked with discovering the Island of São Lourenco and, failing that, proceeding to Malacca. The manuscript also records several losses en route: the Santa Clara struck a reef and foundered, Gonçalo de Souza’s ship was set on fire, and Jorge de Aguiar was lost at sea off the Tristão da Cunha Islands. Maxwell closes by noting that it was to secure the release of Ruy de Arango and to punish the Malays for their treachery that Albuquerque subsequently attacked and captured Malacca on 15 August 1511 (p. 195).