12 



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



volumes 1 , intending (so Couto thought) after the death of 

 the author to publish them as his (the thief's) production 2 . In 

 consequence of this catastrophe Couto set to work, and with 

 amazing energy succeeded in the course of the year in com- 

 piling a summary of the whole of the eighth and a good part 

 of the ninth Decade 3 . This he dispatched to the king by the 

 homeward ships of 1616, accompanying the manuscript with 

 the letter referred to above, probably the last he ever wrote 

 to Philip, for on 10 December 1616 Couto died, at the good 

 old age of 73. The news of his death was conveyed to the 

 king by the viceroy D. Jeronimo de Azevedo in the following 

 letter 4 :— 



Sire, — Diogo do Couto, guarda mor of the Torre do Tombo of 

 this State, and who was writing the history of it by order of your 

 majesty, is dead. And as in his lifetime, because of his being so 

 deserving and old, and because of the great persistency with 

 which he addressed me regarding it, I granted him that on his 

 death the said office of guarda mor should go to Domingos de 

 Castilho 6 , married to a niece of his, whom he had in place of 

 daughter 6 , and to this end passed to him an alvard of reminder, 



1 Man. Sev. de Faria says that at the time Couto was seriously ill, 

 but what his authority is for this statement I do not know ; Couto 

 says nothing in his letter of any illness. 



2 Whatever the object of the theft, the manuscripts were evidently 

 destroyed, as no trace of them has ever been found. 



3 The summary of Dec. IX. goes only as far as July 1575, so that 

 five years and a half remain unrecorded. At the end of this fragment 

 is a note, presumably by Couto: — "I reached thus far, and did not 

 get further." 



4 Printed, from the Livro das Mongoes No. 12, last fol., in the Chro- 

 nista de Tissuary iv., No. 41 (May 1869), p. 82. 



5 Couto mentions this man in Dec. XII. n. vii. as taking part in 

 the attack on Cunhale in 1599. He calls him a " native of Ceita." 

 The only other reference to him that I have found is in a royal letter 

 of 22 February 1613 (Doc. Rem. ii. 330), from which it seems that 

 he killed a certain Francisco de Mello whom he found in his house for 

 the purpose, as he suspected, of committing adultery with his wife, whom 

 also he was inclined to kill, until she showed his suspicions to be baseless. 

 Domingos de Castilho was acquitted of the murder, but it was left open 

 to the relatives of the slain man to take action against him within 

 twenty years. 



6 Couto had but one child, a daughter, who died unmarried. 



