Storia do Mogor 122.8

122.8

As I had need of money for expenses, I went several times to the general, Ignacio Sermento, to ask for the three hundred rupees which he continued to owe me for certain articles that he had asked me to send him when I was in the Mogul country. Never could I succeed in getting what was due. At length, when he was about to start for his government of Mozambique, I begged him to make me a gift of the three hundred rupees, at any rate, under the name of alms. As a foreigner I had no remedy against him; and when he heard me ask for charity, he ordered the sum to be paid me. Thus is it the custom of certain of these gentlemen to pay their debts after wearying out their creditors. I was very fortunate. Others, in place of collecting the money they had lent, have lost a limb or even their life. I do not want to talk of that, for those who are curious may ask the Portuguese themselves ; there are among them men of sincerity, as there are in other nations. Such men can tell them more than I dare to write about the Portuguese of India.