First Sentence

"After a six-month voyage from Cochin, India, and a three-month layover in the Azores, the Portuguese East Indiaman Nossa Senhora dos Mártires arrived in sight of Lisbon on 14 September 1606. A heavy storm forced her captain Manuel Barreto Rolim to drop anchor off Cascais, a small village a few miles from Lisbon. Here the nau Salvação, another returning Indiaman from the 1605 fleet, was already struggling with a southerly gale. Dangerously dragging her anchors in the direction of the beach, Salvação was too heavy to be towed against the wind by the galley that was sent from Lisbon to help her. The next day, after watching Salvação run aground on the Cascais beach, Rolim decided to head for the mouth of the Tagus River, hoping to escape the tempest in the calmer waters of the estuary."