The viceroy treated him with much honour and magnificence, in hopes that when he succeeded to his father, he might encourage the propagation of the gospel in Madagascar; and when he was supposed to be sufficiently instructed, he was sent away, accompanied by four Jesuits. On this occasion a pink and caravel were sent to Madagascar, commanded by Pedro de Almeyda Cabral, and Juan Cardoso de Pina, who sailed from Goa on the 17th of September 1616. On the 20th of March 1617, they discovered a most delightful island, watered with pure springs, and producing many unknown plants besides others already known, both aromatic and medicinal. To this island, in which were two mountains which overtopped the clouds, they gave the name of Isola del Cisne or swan island, and on it the jesuits planted some crosses and left inscriptions commemorative of the discovery15. The wreck of two ships of the Hollanders were found on this island. On the arrival of the two Portuguese ships in the port of St Lucia in Madagascar, the king and queen of Matacassi received their son with the strongest demonstrations of joy, and gave back the hostages left on taking him away. The four jesuits with six soldiers accompanied the young prince to his father's court at Fansaria, where, and at every place through which he passed, he was received with demonstrations of joy, which to the Portuguese seemed ridiculous, as no doubt those used by the Portuguese on similar occasions would have appeared to them. The king made a similar agreement with the two commanders on this voyage with that formerly made with De Costa, which was that the fathers should inhabit the inland of Santa Cruz and have liberty to preach the gospel in Madagascar. Upon this the fathers went to the fort at Santa Cruz, where Don Andrew, the king's son, sent them workmen and provisions.

The captain, Pedro de Almeyda, had orders to bring another of the king's sons to Goa, and if refused to carry one away by force; but the king declared that he had only one other son, who was too young for the voyage, on which Almeyda satisfied himself with Anria Sambo, the king's nephew, who was carried to Goa, and baptized by the name of Jerome. When sufficiently instructed in the Christian religion, he was sent back to his country in a pink, commanded by Emanuel de Andrada, together with two Jesuits, 100 soldiers, and presents for the king and prince, worth 4000 ducats. They set out in the beginning of February 1618; and being under the necessity of watering at the Isola de Cisne, they found three ships sunk at the mouth of the river. On landing, twenty Hollanders were found about two leagues from the shore, guarding the goods they had saved from the wreck. They made some opposition, but were forced to submit to superior numbers, and were found to have a large quantity of cloves, pepper, arms, ammunition, and provisions. Andrada carried the prisoners, and as many of the valuable commodities on board his pink as it could contain, and set fire to the rest, though the Hollanders alleged that they had come from the Moluccas, with a regular pass.

When Andrada arrived in the port of St Lucia, the two Jesuits came to him both sick, declaring that it was impossible to live in that country, where all the men who had been left along with them had died. Andrada sent the letters with which he was intrusted to the king and prince, by the servants of Don Jerome; and in return, the king sent 100 fat oxen, with a great quantity of fowls and honey, and six slaves, but would not come himself, and it was found that his son had reverted to Mahometanism. The tribes in Madagascar called Sadias and Fansayros are Mahometan Kafrs16, and are attached to the liberty allowed by the law of Mahomet, of having a plurality of wives. The king was of the Fansayro tribe, and was now desirous to destroy Andrada and the Portuguese by treachery; incited to this change of disposition by a Chingalese slave belonging to the Jesuits, who had run away, and persuaded the king, that the Portuguese would deprive him of his kingdom, as they had already done many of the princes in Ceylon and India. The Kafrs came accordingly to the shore in great numbers, and began to attack the Portuguese with stones and darts, but were soon put to flight by the fire-arms, and some of them slain, whose bodies were hung upon trees as a warning to the rest, and one of their towns was burnt.

Andrada carried away with him Don Jerome, the king's nephew, and a brother of his who was made prisoner in a skirmish with the natives, who was converted, and died at Goa. All the Jesuits agreed to desist from the mission of Madagascar, and departed along with Andrada much against his inclination; and thus ended the attempt to convert the natives of Madagascar to the Christian religion.

Towards the end of 1617, Don Juan Coutinno, count of Redondo, came to Goa, as viceroy, to succeed Azevedo. During this year, three ships and two fly-boats, going from Portugal for India, were intercepted near the Cape of Good Hope by six English ships, when the English admiral declared that he had orders from his sovereign to seize effects of the Portuguese to the value of 70,000 crowns, in compensation for the injury done by the late viceroy Azevedo to the four English ships at Surat. Christopher de Noronha, who commanded the Portuguese ships, immediately paid the sum demanded by the English admiral, together with 20,000 crowns more to divide among his men. But Noronha, on his arrival at Goa, was immediately put under an arrest by the viceroy, for this pusillanimous behaviour, and was sent home prisoner to Lisbon, to answer for his conduct.

In the year 1618, the Moor who had been seen long before, at the time when Nunno de Cunna took Diu, and was then upwards of 300 years old, died at Bengal now 60 years older, yet did not appear more than 60 years old at his death. In 1619, a large wooden cross, which stood on one of the hills which overlook Goa, was seen by many of the inhabitants of that city, on the 23d of February, to have the perfect figure of a crucified man upon it. The truth of this having been ascertained by the archbishop, he had it taken down, and got made from it a smaller cross, only two spans long, on which was fixed a crucified Jesus of ivory, and the whole surrounded by a golden glory; the rest of the cross being distributed to the churches and persons of quality. Ten days after this cross was removed, water gushed from the hole in which it was formerly fixed, in which cloths being dipped wrought many miraculous cures. A church was built on the spot to commemorate the miracle. At this time it was considered, in an assembly of the principal clergy, whether the threads, worn by the bramins across their shoulders, were a heathenish superstition or only a mark of their nobility, and, after a long debate, it was determined to be merely an honourable distinction. The reason of examining this matter was, that many of the bramins refused to embrace the Christian faith, because obliged to renounce these threads.

In November 1619, the count of Redondo died; and, by virtue of a patent of succession, Ferdinand de Albuquerque became governor-general, being now 70 years of age, 40 of which he had been an inhabitant of Goa, and consequently was well versed in the affairs of India, but too slow in his motions for the pressing occasions of the time. During his administration, the Portuguese were expelled from Ormuz by the sultan of Shiras, assisted by six English ships.

In July 1620, the Hollanders were desirous of gaining possession of the city of Macao in China, and appeared before it in seventeen ships, or, as some say, twenty-three, having 2000 soldiers on board, and were likewise in hopes of taking the fleet at that place, which was bound for Japan, having already taken several Portuguese and Chinese ships near the Philippine islands. After battering the fort of St Francis for five days, the Dutch admiral, Cornelius Regers, landed 800 men, with which he got possession of a redoubt or entrenchment, with very little opposition. He then marched to take possession of the city, not then fortified, where he did not expect any resistance; but Juan Suarez Vivas, taking post on some strong ground with only 160 men, defeated the Hollanders and compelled them to return precipitately to their ships, leaving 300 of their men slain, seven only with the colours and one piece of cannon being taken, and they threw away all their arms to enable them to swim off to their ships. In the mean while, the ships continued to batter the fort, but were so effectually answered that some of them were sunk and sixty men slain. After this the enemy abandoned the enterprise, and the citizens of Macao built a wall round the city with six bastions; and, as the mountain of our Lady of the Guide commanded the bastion of St Paul, a fort was constructed on its summit armed with ten large guns.