JOAO DE

CASTRO (1500-1548)  , called by Camoens Castro Forte, fourth viceroy of the Portuguese Indies, was the son of Alvaro de Castro, civil governor of Lisbon . A younger son, and destined therefore for the church, he became at an early age a brilliant humanist, and studied mathematics under Pedro Nunez, in company with the infante Dom Luis, son of Emanuel the First, with whom he contracted a life-long friendship . At eighteen he went to Tangier, where he was dubbed knight by Duarte de Menezes the governor, and there he remained several years . In 1535 he accompanied Dom Luis to the siege of Tunis, where he had the honour of refusing knighthood and reward at the hands of the great emperor Charles V . Returning to Lisbon, he received from the king the small commandership of Sao Pablo de Salvaterra in 1538 . He was exceedingly poor, but his wife Lenor de Coutinho, a noble Portuguese lady, admired and appreciated her husband sufficiently to make light of their poverty . Soon after this he left for the Indies in company with his uncle Garcia de Noronha, and on his arrival at Goa enlisted among the aventureiros, " the bravest of the brave," told off for the relief of Diu . In 1540 he served on an expedition under Estevao da Gama, by whom his son, Alvaro de Castro, a child of thirteen, was knighted, out of compliment to him . Returning to Portugal, Joao de Castro was named commander of a fleet, in 1543, to clear the European seas of pirates; and in 1545 he was sent, with six sail, to the Indies, in the room of Martin de Sousa, who had been dismissed the viceroyalty . The next three years were the hardest and most brilliant, as they were the last, of his life—years of battle and struggle, of glory and sorrow, of suffering and triumph . Valiantly seconded by his sons (one of whom, Fernao, was killed before Diu) and by Joao Mascarenhas, Joao de Castro achieved such popularity by the over-throw of Mahmud, king of Gujarat, by the relief of Diu, and by the defeat of the great army of the Adil Khan, that he could contract a very large loan with the Goa merchants onthe simple security of his moustache . These great deeds were followed by the capture of Broach, by the complete subjugation of Malacca, and by the passage of Antonio Moniz into Ceylon; and in 1547 the great captain was appointed viceroy by Joan III., who had at last accepted him without mistrust .

He did not live long to fill this

charge, expiring in the arms of his friend, St Francis Xavier, on the 6th of June 1548 . He was buried at Goa, but his remains were afterwards exhumed and conveyed to Portugal, to be reinterred under a splendid monument in the convent of Bemfica . See Jacinto Freire de Andrade, Vida de D . Jodo de Castro (Lisbon, 1651), English translation by Sir Peter Wyche (1664); Diogo de Couto, Decadas da Asia, vi . The Roteiros or logbooks of Castro's voyages in the East (Lisbon, 1833, 1843 and 1872) are of great interest .