[N.S.\ 



MSS. in the British Museum, 



Annual 



de 



"" Janejro de 1604. Then follows the signature, which is 



u :n. m.1. t _ i _ i . ,-i 



Manoel 



c c 



c c 



t < 



b c 



£ C 



be the signa- 



c c 



C C 



illegible. 



what precedes or follows. I think 



ture is t P. Manoel Boz, S.J., whicl 



ture of the next document in the volume, viz., the Annual 



Letter of the South for 1604 and 1605. It was very likely 



written and signed by the same Father. 2 



There is an endorsement on the back of the last page 

 of this letter : Annua da Prou". do Malauar de 1603, and a 

 further endorsement : Gau. No. 42. A great many of the 

 " documents in this volume (9853) and in volume 9855 are 

 c< endorsed in the same way. Sometimes, we have : Gaveta. H 



" Though all or nearly all the letters in volume 9855 are 

 4 'certainly originals, as shewn by the signatures, addressee 

 " folds and seals, and all or manv of them are addressed to the 

 Provincial S.J. at Goa, between 1648 and 1684, 4 it is not 

 the same in the case of volume 9863. I have ^een enough 

 * 6 of it to notice that it consists of Annual Reports or Letters 

 ; addressed, in many cases, to the General S.J. at Rome, not 

 to the Provincial at Goa. One, for instance, is headed 

 Carta Annua da Prouincia de Malauar de anno de 1613 p 1 



. . 



4 C 



«. < 



i C 



N 



signa 



66 tures in many cases appear to show the documents to be 

 " originals, there are not the other proofs, such as folds, seal 

 " and addresses at the back or outside sheet. There are marks 

 66 of folding, but from the position of the endorsements, which 

 "I referred to, it seems that the documents were folded up 

 4C somewhere, endorsed on the back, and then tied up in bundles. 

 Moreover, it seems unlikely that Annual Letters or Reports 



4 < 



General 



4 ' guese \ 





1 The second figure in the dat> is not clear. 



2 Manoel Koiz [Rodriguez] : born at Alemtejo, Diocese of Ev ora ; 

 came to India in 1597 ; at S. Thome, 1601 ; Socius to the Vice Provincial 

 of Cochin. 1602 : Professed, 1602 \ Rector of S. Thome (Sept. 13, 1606) ; 

 Rector of Cochin, 1607 — 11; Rector of Malacca, 1611-?; Socius to the 

 Provincial, 1619; Provincial, ? — 1828; died at Cochin, on the Sunday i/ 

 the Octave of Corpus Christi, 1623. Aet. 62; Soc. 44. [Fr. L. Besse, 8.J.] 



Gaveta = drawer : a reference to the drawers in which the papers 

 were kept. 



4 The presence of these originals goes far to show that Vol. 9865, at 

 any rate, came from one of the Jesuit houses in Goa. 



6 M Latin was the official language to be used. If the letter was 

 written in Portuguese, on reaching Rome it had to be translated into Latin 

 or Italian, for the purpose of reading it publicly, and giving it a wider 

 circulation. Italian being the language of the ( aria, it was used pre- 

 ferably to Portuguese, wherever it was possible. There was at Tuticorin, 

 for several years, an Italian Father who had taken upon himself the 

 somewhat tedious task of translating into Italian the Portuguese letter 

 of the .Madura Mission All this accounts for the fact that copies of such 



