MANRIQUE, Sebastian (Sebastien). c. 1590? β€” London 1669. Portuguese Augustinian monk and Missionary in India. Arriving in ship from Goa in 1612 he started with three other missionaries the catholic mission in Bengal. During 13 years in India he saw and described many little known places. From Bengal he visited Chittagong and Arakan (1635), then from Goa Malacca, Macao, Philippines and Cochin China. Returned to Bengal he travelled by land to Agra and Lahore and down the Indus (1641). After a visit to Macao in an unsuccesful attempt to enter Japan he returned to Goa and then by land to Europe via Multan, Kabul, Kandahar, Iran and Aleppo (1643). Served 26 years in Rome as the agent of the Augustinian Province of Portugal. Murdered by his valet on a visit to England in order to steal his travel money. His travel book he published in Spanish.

Publications: Itinerario de las missiones del India Oriental. 747 p. Roma 1653; The Travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique. Ed. by C. E. Luard. 1-2. L. Hakluyt Society 1926-27.

– E. Maclagan, transl.: β€œThe Travels of Fray Sebastian Manrique in the Panjab, 1641”, JPHS 1, 1911-12, 83-106 & 151-166; many extracts also translated by H. Hosten for Indian periodicals.

Sources: Oaten 1909, 97-103; http://www.augnet.org/en/history/people/4346-sebastian-manrique/ referring to *M. B. Hackett, A Presence in an Age of Turmoil about the effects of the Reformation on the English Province of the Order of Saint Augustine. Villanova PA 2001; Wikipedia (more in *Portuguese version).