140 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XVI. 



J0A0 RODRIGUEZ DE SA E MENEZES.* 



By D. W. Ferguson. 



In the introduction that I wrote to the late Lieut.-Colonel 

 H. H. St. George's translation of the Bebelion de Ceylan; 

 printed in the Journal, R.A.S. (Ceylon), Vol. XL, 1890, 

 I said of the author, Jo5o Rodriguez de Sa e Menezes, that 

 his life history was unknown to me. Considering that he 

 lived to the age of over seventy years, it is strange that the 

 Portuguese biographical and bibliographical writers have 

 so little to tell us regarding him. It is also curious, as I 

 pointed out, that he should have waited for nearly fifty 

 years after his father's death before writing the work in 

 which, while describing the Island of Ceylon and recount- 

 ing the stirring events that had taken place there, more 

 particularly under his father's command, he strove to clear 

 the latter's memory from the aspersions which his enemies 

 sought to cast upon it. Another remarkable fact I also 

 adverted to, namely, that his work, though published in 

 Lisbon more than forty years after Portugal had once more 

 shaken off the hated Castilianyoke, was written in Spanish.f 

 I have discovered no solutions for these mysteries : but in 

 going through the volumes of Portuguese Royal Despatches, 

 &c, in the British Museum Library (Addtl. MSS. 20,861- 

 20,900) I have come across the following documents, which 



* Paper not read, but printed in this Journal in accordance with the 

 Council's Resolution No. 13 of January 25, 1900. 



f F. F. da S-ilva, in his Diec. Bill. Port., says : £; In spite of the bad 

 taste that he showed in giving- it in the Castilian language in preference to 

 Portuguese," &c. I find that I was mistaken in supposing that the Biblio- 

 theca Nacional of Lisbon possesses a manuscript of the Rebelion de Ceylan 

 in Portuguese. The manuscript in question appears to be the original 

 draft of the work, but is in Spanish.— D. F. 



