Gossembrods and Hirschvogels, entered with 16,000. An Italian consortium, primarily Genoese, headed by the expatriate Florentine financier Bartolomeo Marchionni, invested 29,400. At least one ship, probably the Judia (alternatively, possibly the Botafago), was outfitted by native consortium headed by the Lisbon merchant Fernão de Loronha (by natural transcription error, the Judia is sometimes recorded as India). The terms of private participation would become an item of contention. The private participants secured the crown's permission to send their own private factors to buy spices in India (rather than rely on the royal factor). But then, on January 1, 1505, after the contracts were signed and most of the money sunk, King Manuel I issued a decree requiring that henceforth all private participants, upon return, would sell their spice cargoes at fixed prices through the king's agents, rather than allow the merchants to sell it on the open market at their own discretion (that is, after paying the king's share, the Belem vintena and other applicable customs duties, some 30% of the cargo's value). The private outfitters of the Seventh Armada would launch a legal suit, claiming the decree should not apply retroactively to them. The foundering of Pêro de Anaia's Sant'Iago (sometimes referred to as the Nunciá) in the Tagus harbour upon departure, prompted the immediate assembly of another six-ship fleet that set out a month later. Although it never caught up with Almeida's fleet, it is sometimes considered part of it. Pêro de Anaia was responsible for erecting a fortress in Sofala, and then, retaining two ships for a local patrol, to send the remaining four on to India to place themselves under D. Francisco de Almeida. Finally, a third small two-ship expedition was sent out from Lisbon in September (or November) 1505, under the command of Cide Barbudo. This was on a search-and-rescue mission to seek out the fates of three ships of earlier armadas thought to have been lost in South Africa. It was then to check up on the existing fortresses of the Indian Ocean and deliver letters from King Manuel I to the viceroy Almeida with further instructions. So, overall, 29 ships left Portugal in 1505 for the Indian Ocean: 21 under Almeida, 6 under Anaia, and 2 under Barbudo. The Mission The mission of the 7th fleet was nothing short of permanently securing the Portuguese position in the Indian Ocean, before the imminent Egyptian-led coalition