Drawing on previous blog posts (Surprises Awaiting the Visitors to Simancas Archive and A 16th-century Run for Gold and for… an Accurate Nautical Rutter?), we could not fail to report more novelties on Manuel Mesquita Perestrelo. It is another instance of how the Secretaria de Estado Portugal (in Simancas Archive) holds really a surprise at every corner.
In December 1569, King Philip II appointed a new ambassador to Portugal: D. Juan de Borja (1533-1606). The ambassador came from a prestigious noble house (he was the son of the famous Francisco de Borja, the duke of Gandia who renounced his title and later was appointed as the Jesuit general in Rome) and became known as the espía-embajador (the spy-ambassador). Shortly after arriving in Lisbon in 1570, Borja wrote a small warning to the Spanish court. He claimed that Manuel Mesquita Perestrelo had been convinced by a Portuguese pilot to return to Portugal, as he was given a formal pardon letter by the Portuguese King. According to the best rumours in Lisbon, Borja asserted that Perestrelo was to be named captain of the Portuguese Moluccas.
Indeed, Perestrelo had fled to Spain during the 1560s. This was owed to his previous imprisonment in Lisbon. Perestrelo had been accused of siphoning money off for personal profit and mainly for not opposing John Hawkins’s fleet in 1562 at Mina, where he had succeeded as captain due to the previous captain’s decease. As Perestrelo considered this to be an injustice against him, he fled to Spain. However, some years later, the Portuguese ambassador in Spain seems to have mediated his return. But why would Borja, in 1570, be so worried about such an apparently insignificant story?
The answer resides in a second letter by Borja to King Philip II. In this letter, Borja had discovered that Perestrelo had orders to attack the Spanish in the Philippines and had confirmed with several informants that he was, in his own words, a “great mariner and cosmographer” (let us not forget Perestrelo’s 1575’s famous nautical rutter on the East African coast). For this reason, Borja regretted deeply that he could not prevent Perestrelo’s departure. The letter seems to imply that Borja tried to disrupt Perestrelo’s expedition (which departed in 1570). Still, it remains unknown whether Borja approached Perestrelo to convince him to return to Spain. What remains certain is that this sort of episode remained very common all along the 16th century, when the acquisition of nautical knowledge could justify espionage. Borja knew well that in order to sustain a successful maritime empire, espionage under the utmost secrecy was a necessity. So too did King Philip II when he ordered Borja, in his December 1569 instruction, to use mucho segredo (much secrecy) in his important acquisitions in Portugal. Indeed, Borja’s story with Perestrelo is merely one of the espionage episodes of Borja’s embassy in Portugal. [Nuno Vila-Santa]
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