e king
appointed Barros factor of the India and Mina House--positions of great
responsibility and importance at a time when Lisbon was the European
emporium for the trade of the East. Barros proved a good administrator,
displaying great industry and a disinterestedness rare in that age, with
the result that he made but little money where his predecessors had amassed
fortunes. At this time, John III., wishful to attract settlers to Brazil,
divided it up into captaincies and gave that of Maranhao to Barros, who,
associating two partners in the enterprise with himself, prepared an armada
of ten vessels, carrying nine hundred men, which set sail in 1539. Owing to
the ignorance of the pilots, the whole fleet suffered shipwreck, which
entailed serious financial loss on Barros, yet not content with meeting his
own obligations, he paid the debts of those who had perished in the
expedition. During all these busy years he had continued his studies in his
leisure hours, and shortly after the Brazilian disaster he offered to write
a history of the Portuguese in India, which the king accepted. He began
work forthwith, but, before printing the first part, he again proved his
pen by publishing a Portuguese grammar (1540) and some more moral
Dialogues. The first of the Decades of his _Asia_ appeared in 1552, and its
reception was such that the king straightway charged Barros to write a
chronicle of King Manoel. His many occupations, however, prevented him from
undertaking this book, which was finally composed by Damiao de Goes
(_q.v._). The Second Decade came out in 1553 and the Third in 1563, but the
Fourth and final one was not published until 1615, long after the author's
death. In January 1568 Barros retired from his remunerative appointment at
the India House, receiving the rank of _fidalgo_ together with a pension
and other pecuniary emoluments from King Sebastian, and died on the 20th of
October 1570. A man of lofty character, he preferred leaving his children
an example of good morals and learning to bequeathing them a large
pecuniary inheritance, and, though he received many royal benefactions,
they were volunteered, never asked for. As an historian and a stylist
Barros deserves the high fame he has always enjoyed. His Decades contain
the early history of the Portuguese in Asia and reveal careful study of
Eastern historians and geographers, as well as of the records of his own
country. They are distinguished by clearness of expos