Again King Emmanuel, drawing upon resources which seemed almost inexhaustible, sent out thirteen vessels, with thirteen hundred men, under Tristan d'Acunha. This fleet was driven to the coast of Brazil, and upon the way thence to the Cape of Good Hope the commander discovered the islands which now bear his name. He burned and pillaged the town of Oja, near Melinda; he reduced a neighboring shah to the payment of an annual tribute of six hundred golden ducats. His soldiers would not give the captured women of Brava time to remove their bracelets and ear-rings, but in their ruthless haste cut off their arms and ears. It was now evident to the King of Portugal that his rule in the East could not be consolidated and extended by the same means which had obtained him his first foothold upon the coast,--chance, intrepidity, and unscrupulous violence. What was required was a carefully conceived system of government, and a man capable of administering it. Emmanuel's choice fell upon Alphonzo d'Albuquerque, whose services in the East had already been meritorious, and to whom, in 1509, he gave the title and power of viceroy. Albuquerque, whose courage obtained for him the name of the Portuguese Mars, ranks, by his talents, his severe virtues, and his disinterested zeal, among the greatest men whom the world has produced. He at once formed the plan of founding an empire which should extend from the Persian Gulf to the peninsula of Malacca; and, determining to abandon Calicut, which had thus far been looked upon as the best point for an arsenal, he selected the island of Goa, a little to the north, captured it, and made its admirable harbor a Portuguese roadstead and its town a Portuguese capital. He built bazaars and citadels along the coast from north to south, and then turned his eyes towards Malacca,--a magnificent country, ruled by a despot and inhabited by slaves. As we have said, its principal seaport was the central resort of the ships of China, Japan, Bengal, the Philippines and the Moluccas, Coromandel, Persia, Arabia, and Malabar.