Peace feelers are now sent through the…

Peace feelers are now sent through the back channels between the Zamorin and the Portuguese captain Francisco de Albuquerque.

Some Portuguese chroniclers assert it was initiated by the Zamorin, alarmed at the erection of the fort and frustrated by his apparent inability to shut down the pepper supply to Cochin.

On the other hand, the chroniclers also report difficulties in finding enough spice supplies to load up the ships, so Albuquerque may have opened negotiations in an effort to have the pepper blockade relaxed so they could load up their ships and possibly secure a truce for the Portuguese factories after the armada leaves.

Whomever initiated it, the peace terms are soon agreed upon in mid-December 1503: the Zamorin is to deliver fifteen hundred bahars of pepper as compensation for the Portuguese factory in Calicut, to expel the Arab merchants from Calicut (some say only shutting out the Arab merchants for the duration of the armada's stay), to make peace with the Trimumpara Raja of Cochin and, most difficult for the Zamorin, to hand over the two Italian engineers who had been helping the Calicut army with cannon.