The Governor then resolved to set out at once for the Red Sea. King Emmanuel, whose main idea it was to close this route to commerce, had directed him to dismantle the fortress on the island of Socotra, owing to the difficulty of getting provisions, and to occupy Aden instead. When this decision became known, Diogo Mendes, who had been specially ordered to Malacca, murmured loudly, and declared his intention of leaving the Governor and at once departing with his squadron westwards. Albuquerque expostulated with him; he pointed out that four ships could not conquer the Malays, and argued that their treatment of the first Portuguese squadron showed that they would not permit the Portuguese to open up trade without first being defeated. He even showed Diogo Mendes a letter which had arrived from the Portuguese Factor left at Malacca, stating that he and his comrades were kept as prisoners. He promised that, as soon as the King's commands with regard to the Red Sea had been carried out, he would himself proceed with a powerful fleet to the Malay Peninsula, and firmly establish Portuguese influence in that quarter. Diogo Mendes felt the force of these arguments, but the master of his flagship, Dinis Cerniche, would not {95} agree, and setting sail crossed the bar of Goa harbour on his way out. The Governor at once sent a ship, under Jaymé Teixeira, with orders to make Mendes return by any means in his power. Since the master would not shorten sail, the ship was fired on and forced to return by the destruction of its main yard. Albuquerque forgave Mendes, but ordered Cerniche to be executed, which sentence was not carried out, but the master was instead sent back to Portugal in custody. Nevertheless the persistency of Mendes and his men seems to have greatly influenced Albuquerque, for finding in Feb. 1511, when he sailed out of Goa harbour, that it was impossible to sail westward owing to the monsoon, he resolved to make his way to Malacca. He first sailed to Cochin, where he appointed Manoel de Lacerda to be Captain of the Indian Sea with supreme authority, and he directed that Lacerda's orders should be obeyed as if they were his own. Albuquerque's conquest of Malacca ranks second in importance among his great feats of arms to the capture of Goa. It gave the Portuguese the complete command of the spice trade, and eventually of the Chinese and Japanese trade. It struck the final blow at the Muhammadan commercial routes to Europe. Hitherto the Portuguese had only secured the monopoly of the Indian trade, and Muhammadan vessels, largely manned by Arabs, still collected the produce of Bengal and Burma, of Sumatra and the Spice Islands, of Siam and China, at the great commercial {96} port of the Malay Peninsula. Albuquerque resolved to check this trade by holding the mouth of the Red Sea, but it seemed to him of even more efficacy to seize upon the headquarters of the trade itself.