Storia do Mogor 305: ANSWER TO THE THIRD ARTICLE.

305

[131] At the time when this Article was read to me, the inquisitor said to me that it raised the presumptions and conclusions that they drew about me. For this reason I replied by an absolute denial and condemnation of the rash conclusion they had made in regard to me. I ask the reader to peruse this article with great attention, and to ponder well the repetitions in these proceedings, and the sort of evidence they produce against me about all the calumnies they have invented. The letter was written to the governor; let it be read — let it be placed alongside the accusations, then you will see at once the sophistry that they resort to against me. A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter (' Proceeding from a conditional statement, they turn it into an absolute one '). For I was never accused of all they have accumulated in this writing. The whole thing proceeds solely from the disapproval of, and the criticism by, Goa learned men upon my letter. Yet they pass over therein one of the chief crimes of which I am accused — that is, that I was [132] the enemy of the Rosary, and that I had repelled the proposition of certain humble Catholics, who said that we could ask nothing direct from God, but that all demands must be made to the Virgin. To this I made in the interrogatory the necessary answer. I do not desire to put my reply into this article, which is about inferences. As for the other accusations that follow, my reply was that they were accusations by drunkards, known as such, and drawn up ipso facto bibendi (' in the very act of drinking '). Consequently they did not merit to be listened to, much less to be refuted.