Description
Manoel de FIGUEIREDO (1688 – 1774).
Sermam de Acçam de Graças pela victoria, que alcançou O Illustrissimo e Excellentissimo Senhor Marquez de Castello Novo, Conde de Assumar, Vice-Rey, e Capitam General da India, do Bonsulo, inimigo do Estado, em 5 de Mayo de 1746, e celebrou o nobre Senado da Camara da Cidade de Goa na Sé Primacial: prégado pelo P. Manoel de Figueiredo da Companhia de Jesus
Lisbon: na Officina de Francisco da Silva, 1747.
8° (20 x 14 cm): 35 pp., text adorned by fine woodcut designs, attractively bound in modern quarter tan calf over marbled boards with gilt red calf title pieces to spine and upper cover (Very Good, remarkably clean and bright, just the odd tiny spot, trimmed close in upper margin but not affecting printed area, binding in stellar condition).
Goa, in Western India, was conquered by Portugal in 1510 and quicky rose to become one of the most important trading centres in Asia and the anchor of Christianity on the continent, as well as the nucleus of a vast maritime empire with outposts extending from Mozambique to Japan, while dominating a good part of coastal India. Its global importance prevailed until the early 17th century, when it declined due to Dutch and English efforts to progressively dismember Portugal’s overseas empire during the period when Portugal suffered under Spanish rule (1580-1640).
By the latter part of the 17th century, Goa remained an important economic and cultural centre, but its influence had much receded, for its remaining Indian dependencies were minor (a few tiny coastal enclaves and islands along the coasts of today’s Maharashtra and Gujarat), and while it had auspices over Mozambique, Macau and East Timor, these lands amounted to a far cry from its former empire. Moreover, Goa’s size was then much smaller than its modern form, as the enclave consisted of only the Ilha de Goa and the adjacent provinces of Salcete (to the south) and Bardez (to the north). The surrounding areas were controlled by local states who were then in the process of joining the Maratha Confederacy (or Empire), a potent and well led Hindu state based in Pune (Maharashtra), founded in 1674, that rose to dominate Western India, taking advantage of the decline of Mughal power.
During the Maratha-Portuguese War of 1683-4, Portugal managed to fend off Maratha invasions of the peripheral areas of Goa and its dependencies along the Konkan Coast. However, in the power vacuum that followed the death of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, in 1707, the Marathas’ ambitions were renewed, and they eventually re-set their sights upon conquering Portuguese India.
By the 1730s, the Portuguese colonial system was beset by corruption, nepotism and inefficiency, such that financial and military resources were often not adequately directed to Goa and its dependencies. This made Portuguese India even more vulnerable to Maratha attack. In 1739, the Marathas besieged and conquered the long-held Portuguese outposts of Vasai (Bassein) and Chaul, on the Konkan Coast, north of Bombay. Goa and her other remaining dependencies were only saved due to the timely arrival of a Portuguese fleet.
The Marathas seemed undeterred and the prognosis for Goa did not look good, as it seemed that the colony could be easily overrun. In 1741, the Marathas invaded Goa, rampaging through the Bardez and Salcete provinces. However, the Viceroy of Goa, the Marquês de Louriçal, put up an unexpectedly spirited resistance. He successfully protected the Ilha de Goa, before taking the offensive to drive the Marathas out of the colony altogether. The Marathas then sued for peace, only to shortly thereafter organize piratical raids against Portuguese shipping, as well as mounting minor land attacks along Goa’s frontiers. The situation remained tense and febrile, although the Portuguese initially tried to avoid retaliating, so as not to spark an all-out war for which they felt ill-prepared.
In 1744, Pedro Miguel de Almeida Portugal e Vasconcelos (1688 –1756), the Marquês de Castelo Novo (later the Marquês de Alorna), arrived in Goa to serve as the Viceroy of Portuguese India. Castelo Novo was a bold and driven leader who had proven himself as a wily frontier warrior. In his former role as the Governor of the Captaincy of São Paulo and Minas de Ouro, Brazil, he brutally but effectively suppressed local unrest, most notably the Revolt of Felipe dos Santos (1720).
In Goa, instead of assuming a defensive posture towards the Marathas, waiting for them to make their next assault, Castelo Novo seized control of the narrative. He brilliantly marshalled the colony’s resources and prepared to attack the Marathas, seeing vulnerabilities in their defensive systems. The viceroy memorably described Goa to King Joao V as “a military republic whose preservation depends entirely on our weapons on land and sea”.
Beginning a programme known as the Nova Conquistas (New Conquests), whereby over much of the rest of the 18th century, Goa progressively expanded its territory, Castelo Novo turned his sights on the Bhonsles of Sawantwadi, the Maratha state located immediately to the south of Goa, that had long proved to be the colony’s foremost antagonist. The Bhonsles had frequently mounted raids that ravaged Bardez Province and ran gangs of pirates from their fortified coastal base of Tiracol that crippled Portuguese shipping.
In April 1746, Castelo Novo’s forces captured the Bhonsle forts of Bicholim and Sanquelim, while his fleets endeavoured to blockade the Bhonsle coast.
In what became known as the Siege of Alorna (May 4, 1746), Castelo Novo cobbled together a motley but motivated force of 1,500 men to successfully storm the major bastion of Alorna, on the Arondem River, at the foot of the Western Ghats, that had long been the main Bhonsle base for raids into northern Goa. This was hailed as Portuguese India’s greatest triumph of the era, leading the king to make Castelo Novo the Marquês de Alorna.
In October 1746, Castelo Novo defeated the Dessayes, a Maratha state located to Goa’s east, causing it to change sides, swearing allegiance to Portugal.
On November 23, 1746, Castelo Novo’s men boldly mounted a combined land and sea assault that that led to the capture the main Bhonsle pirate base at the Siege of Tiracol (November 23, 1746), so eliminating the threat to Portuguese shipping. In 1748, Alorma e Castelo Novo’s forces advanced to seize the entire Bhonsle coast, taking the forts of Neuty, Carly, and Vangrollen.
By the end of Alorna e Castelo Novo’s viceroyalty, in 1750, Goa had utterly vanquished its neighbours, not only securing the safely of the colony, but keeping Portugal on the offensive against the Marathas, who seemed a bit shocked by the reversal of fortune. Goa’s momentum against the Marathas was ably continued by his successor as Viceroy, Francisco de Assis de Távora, the Marquês de Távora (in office 1750-4).
The Present Work in Focus
Upon Goa’s reversal of fortune under the Marquês de Louriçal, elaborate ceremonies were undertaken to celebrate the colony’s victories over the Marathas and their proxies. These ‘triumphs’ echoed those put on for the victory’s during the 16th century heyday of Portuguese India.
Following the stunning victory of the Portuguese under the Marquis de Castelo Novo at the Siege of Alorna, a grand triumph was staged in Velha Goa on June 26, 1746. The festivities were described as follows:
After decades of decline and humiliation inflicted by the Dutch and the Marathas, Castelo-Novo’s victories… seemed to pave the way to a new period of success. Moreover, Goa needed to erase the widespread image of the decline of the Estado da Índia, which was current in Europe and India. A triumphal parade before the Goan population and the local foreign communities was regarded as an opportunity to restore the prestige of the Portuguese. Castelo-Novo’s first triumph took place on 26 June 1746, one day after St. John’s the Baptist day. The Ceremony was organised by the municipality, “which as the head of the State, wanted to pay its homage to the lord of the Armies for his great victory”. Triumphal arches were erected in the streets crossed by the future Marquis of Alorna, which were also “pompously adorned with rich tapestries”. Followed by the fidalguia, nobility and clergy, the Viceroy was received at the city’s gates by two vereadores (aldermen) and two capitaens de mar e guerra, who together with other municipal officials carried a canopy which covered the Viceroy. This retinue stopped at the Bom Jesus, where a mass and a Te Deum were celebrated…” (João Vicente Melo, p. 250:)
It was at this juncture, at the mass in the grand Cathedral of Bom Jesus in Velha Goa, that one of the highlights of the triumph occurred, being the sermon celebrating the victory at Alorna delivered by Manoel de Figueiredo, a senior Jesuit diplomat and administrator. Present here is the first printing of this sermon, published in Lisbon in 1747 by the popular pamphleteer Francisco da Silva.
The work commences with an address from Figueiredo to the Marquez de Castello Novo, dated some months after the sermon, lauding the viceroy, comparing him favourably to his “memorable ancestors, to whom writers have erected well-deserved statues”.
Figueiredo’s sermon weaves well-chosen Biblical parables and citations of scripture with references to the victory at Alorna, while conjuring up Goa’s 16th century glory days. Castelo Novo is called the “Moses of Portugal”, who just as prophet led his small nation of the Hebrews to liberty from mighty Egypt, so did the viceroy lead Goa to freedom from the Marathas.
The victory at Alorna is framed a being truly historic, as Figueiredo describes how Castelo Novo had conquered a bastion that was “so formidable to its neighbours, as important to our interests: that same Alorna, which had been invested by our troops for 42 years”. Indeed, for four decades the Portuguese had tried and failed to take Alorna, a task “considered arduous and retreat prudent”. Here the Portuguese had seized what the Bonsle had considered “unconquerable”.
Figueiredo tries to revive the memory of Goa’s legendary 16th century viceroys, to which he favourable compares Castelo Novo. He asks his audience to “resurrect the dead, on no other occasion more than now, and in no other place more than here”, referring the past great viceroys Almedia, Albuquerque and Castro. He asks for the assembled to “let them speak” of the conquests achieved “with much unequal power [compared to] the enemies conquered”.
Towards the end of his sermon, Figueiredo urges the people to maintain their virtue as well as their winning ways, imploring “O Goa, if you want to firmly establish the hope of the continuation of your victories, let your sins not detract from them”.
A Note on Rarity
The present work is very rare. We can trace 5 institutional examples, held by the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (2 examples), Boston College, Biblioteca Nacional de España and the National Library of Australia. Moreover, we are not aware of any sales records for any other examples since one was offered at Sotheby’s London in 2000.
Manoel de Figueiredo: Jesuit Diplomat and Senior Administrator in India
Manoel de Figueiredo (1688 – 1774) was one of the leading Jesuit figures in India through the 1730s to ’50s. A native of Coimbra, he joined the Order of Jesus and taught grammar and logic at the University of Coimbra. In 1729, he went to India, and the following year was appointed by Viceroy João de Saldanha da Gama to be his special envoy and the vice-chancellor of the Portuguese embassy at the court of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah, where he served for some years.
Figueiredo subsequently moved to Goa where he served as the curate of Salsette, and administrator of the Royal Hospital in Velha Goa. In 1756, Figueiredo was appointed as the Procurator of Goa (the Financial Administrator of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman), a very powerful office. However, he seems to have left Goa before the Jesuit Order was suppressed there in 1759, as he does not appear on the list of Jesuit deportees from India.
Figueiredo had two other of his Goa sermons published, Oraçao funebre nas exequias do … senhor D. Luiz de Menezes (Lisbon: na Officina de Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca, 1743) and
Sermam de acçam de graças pelas victorias, que alcançou o… Senhor Marquez de Castello Novo, Vice-Rey, e Cappitam General da India, no ataquede Teracol a 23 de Novembro… pregado em Goa na Casa professa da Companhia de Jesu em 6 de Janeiro de 1746 (Lisbon: na Officina de Pedro Ferreira, 1748).
References: Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (2 examples): R. 8535//10 P. and RES. 2381//8 V.; Boston College: BX1756 .F54 1747 JESUITICA; Biblioteca Nacional de España: VE/639/22; OCLC: 1374932487; National Library of Australia: RB/MISC/807(BRA 6136); DE BACKER-SOMMERVOGEL, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, suppl. IX, 337, no. 4; Filipe Lopes Ribeiro do Carmo Francisco, ‘Memórias setecentistas de D. Francisco de Almeida Os condes de Assunção Marquesa de Alorna’ in A Dr. Filipe Lopes Ribeiro do Carmo Francisco, IX Simpósio de História Marítima, D. Francisco de Almeida 1° Vice-Rei Português / 22 e 24 de Outubro de 2005 (Lisbon, 2007), pp. 253-269, esp. p. 263. Cf. João Vicente MELO, ‘‘The Most Revered and Feared King’: The Construction of the Public Image of the Viceroys of the Portuguese State of India, c. 1700-1750’ in Stefan C. A. Halikowski Smith (ed.), Reinterpreting Indian Ocean Worlds: Essays in Honour of Kirti N. Chaudhuri (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), pp. 232-254, esp. 251.
