MIRZA ZO-L-QARNAIN, A CHRISTIAN GRANDEE. 139 



the most glorious to the Christian Religion, || lie very near to our heart, nor shall we Pol 676V. 

 ever neglect anything that may tend to protect and promote it.' 



" ' Now, both this application and the fact that an earlier application had been 

 presented to him [the General], allusion to which is made in the beginning of this 

 reply, was unknown to me until I received this reply and Your Reverence's letter. And 

 since, as you see in the beginning of the answer, in the word annuimus (we com- 

 plied) Our Reverend Father refers to the first letter written to him, I have looked 

 for that answer to know in what form the concession was made ; but, so far I could 

 not trace it among the letters of that time ; still, I shall examine more carefully 

 the moment I find leisure, and I hope to send you a clear solution before my depar- 

 ture for China. From Goa, the 28th of November [i]625. Andre Palmeiro.' 



f ' It seems, however, that his many occupations made the Father lose sight of 

 this affair of ours ; for, he left Goa and bade us good-bye in a special letter without 

 a word about this matter. 1 Accordingly, I wrote about it to Our Father General; 

 for I considered it a great blemish on our part that we should have received the 

 foundation, and should be enjoying the revenues of it, Fr. Assistant's letters being 

 there to certify that the foundation had been received, and yet, years after it, our 

 Superiors knew nothing of it. I wrote to the same effect || to Fr. Valentin Caravalho, Pol. 677^ 

 as soon as he became our Provincial. In June [i]627 he wrote to me in answer 

 to this point : — 



ff 'With reference to the foundation of the Senhor Mirza, I say that it is accep- 

 ted by our Reverend Father General, and in the letter now sent herewith in answer 

 to the said Senhor' s letter to me, I reply to him in that sense. Your Reverence may 

 tell Mirza the same. Still, we shall write to Our Father asking him to acknowledge 

 in due form the acceptance of the Collegium inchoahtm founded by Mirza. I am 

 of opinion that it was sent five years ago in the ships in which the Count Viceroy 

 came, because no post reached Goa that year and all the letters were lost.' z 



" On receipt of these letters of the Fr. Provincial, I presented to Mirza the one 

 intended for him and told him by word of mouth what the Father directed me in 

 mine to do, and, from that time, by order of Holy obedience, Mirza was here held by 

 Ours as the Founder of the Collegium inchoatum of Agra, as it is called. 



" The accounts given above show that Mirza owed by the terms of his father's 



will Rs. 27,000, 



of which he has paid , Rs. 24,810. 



cf This at the end of the year [1] 618, when || the accounts were made. I shall poi. 6770. 

 now show how he has satisfied the remainder of his obligations. 



" When I proposed to Mirza that he should give us in a lump sum twenty thou- 

 sand Rupees, I meant that he should give the said sum instead of the Rs. 200 which 



I Fr. Andrew Palmeiro is shown as having arrived in China in 1628. He died at Macao on April 4, 1635. Cf. 

 Catalogue Patrum ac Fratrum S.J. qui. . . .in Sinis adlaboraverunt, Chang-hai, 1892, pp. 6-7. 



2 The allusion must be to the armada of four ships which left Lisbon on March 18, 1622. Count de Vidigueyra, Don 

 Francisco de Gama, for the second time appointed Viceroy of India, was Captain-in-chief. The ship of the Admiral, D 

 Francisco Mascarefias, fought the Dutch at the entrance of Mozambique and was lost. The Capitana, the 5. Teresa, 

 was also lost at Mozambique. Cf. Faria y Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, III. 381, 382, 554, 555. 



