[Extract …] The Coromandel port of Masulipatnam, at the northern extremity of the Krishna delta, rose to prominence as a major centre of maritime trade in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Its growing importance after about 1570 is explicable in terms of two sets of events: first, the consolidation of the Sultanate of Golkonda under Ibrahim Qutb Shah (r. 1550-1580), and second, the rise within the Bay of Bengal of a network of ports with a distinctly anti-Portuguese character, including the Sumatran centre of Aceh, the ports of lower Burma, of Arakan, as well as Masulipatnam itself. Round about 1550, Masulipatnam was no more than a supplier of textiles on the coastal network to the great port of Pulicat further south, but by the early 1580s its links with Pegu and Aceh had grown considerably, causing not a little alarm in the upper echelons of the administration of the Portuguese Estado da India at Goa. The 'Moors' who owned and operated ships out of Masulipatnam did so without the benefit of carlaz.es from the Portuguese captains either at Sao Tome or at any other neighbouring port, and while developing an intense trade within the Bay of Bengal, strictly avoided the Portuguese-controlled entrepot at Melaka.1 There seemed little the Portuguese Estado could do about the rise of this network; as in the case of Aceh, it appeared that the occasional Portuguese raiding fleet that anchored off the port was no more than a minor nuisance, and in the engagements that ensued, the Portuguese frequently had the worst of it, subsequently negotiating to recover prisoners lodged at Masulipatnam or2 at the court in Golkonda. However, by about 1590, the tenor of the relationship between the viceregal administration at Goa and the court at Golkonda had begun to show signs of change.

• 1. The rise of Masulipatnam is discussed at length in my paper 'Masulipatao e o desenvolvimento do sistema comercial do Golfo de Bengala, 1570-1600', Portugale 0 Oriente. forthcoming, Lisbon. I would stress that Melaka was not a trading partner of Masulipatnam, contrary to what is asserted in VV. H. Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar (London 1920), pp. 197-8.
• 2. For example, see the letter from the viceroy D. Duarte de Meneses to the King, dated 14 March 1585, in J. H. da Cunha Rivara (ed.), Archivo Portuguez-Oriental, 6 Fascicules in 9 volumes (Goa, 1857-1876), Fascicule V (3), Document 664, pp. 1092-3. The policy of raiding Masulipatnam shipping is perfectly articulated circa 1580 in the 'Livro das Cidades e Fortalezas …', published by F. P. Mendes da Luz, in the Boletim da Biblioteca da Universidade de Coimbra, vol. XXI, 1953, pp. 123-4.