JOSE FRANCISCO

CORREA DA SERRA (1750-1823)  , Portuguese politician and man of science, was born at Serpa, in Alemtejo, in 1750 . Educated at Rome, he took orders under the protection of the duke of Alafoes, uncle of Mary I. of Portugal . In 1777 he returned to Lisbon, where he resided with his patron, with whose assistance he founded the Portuguese Academy of Sciences . Of this institution he was named perpetual secretary, and he received the privilege of publishing its trans-actions without reference to any censor whatever . His use of this right brought him into conflict with the Holy Office; and 2 Nothing caused more offence to Liberal sentiment in France after the Restoration than the spectacle of King Louis XVIII. walking and carrying a candle in the procession through the streets of Paris . I2 '94 consequently in 1786 he fled to France, and remained there till the death of Pedro III., when he again took up his residence with Alafoes . But having given a lodging in the palace to a French Girondist, he was forced to flee to England, where he found a protector in Sir Joseph Banks, and became a member of the Royal Society . In 1797 he was appointed secretary to the Portuguese embassy, but a quarrel with the ambassador drove him once more to Paris (18o2), and in that city he resided till 1813, when he crossed over to New York . In 1816 he was made Portuguese minister-plenipotentiary at Washington, and in 182o he was recalled home, appointed a member of the financial council, and elected to a seat in the Cortes . Three years after, and in the same year with the fall of the constitutional government, he died . Correa da Serra ranks high as a botanist, though he published no great special work . His principal claim to renown is the Colec4ao de livros ineditos da historia Per/ugueza, (4 vols., 179o-1816), an invaluable selection of documents, exceedingly well edited .