RELATIONS OF PORTUGAL WITH INDIA 226 Vasco da Gama said to the king: " Sire, you are powerful and very great above all the kings and rulers of India, and all of them are under your feet. My sovereign, the great King of Portugal, having heard of your grandeur, and it is spoken of throughout the world, had a great longing to become acquainted with you and to contract friendship with you as with a brother of his own, and with full and sincere peace and amity to send his ships with much merchandise, to trade and buy your merchandise, and above all pepper and drugs, of which there are none in Portugal; and with this desire he sent fifty ships with his captain- major; and he sent me to go on shore with his present and message of love and friendship, which I have pre- sented to you, because I have been separated from the rest of my company by storms. God has been pleased to bring me here where I now am, and, therefore, I truly believe that you are the king and ruler whom we came in search of, since here we find the pepper and drugs which our king commanded us to seek, and which you, Sire, have been pleased to give us; and I have great hopes in God that before we depart hence another fleet will arrive here, or some others, for without doubt, Sire, we came to seek for you; and I tell you, Sire, that so powerful is my sovereign, the King of Portugal, that after I shall have returned to him with your reply, and with this cargo which you are giving me, he will send hither so many fleets and merchandise, that they will carry away as many goods as are to be had in this city. To certify the truth of what I say, here is the letter of
