Manoel Caetano Pinto

SEMPER FIDELIS

 (To a loyal horse)

 by

 MARCOS GOMES CATAO

 Hail to thee, fiery white steed           

 Unexcelled the gallantry of thine unsung deed

 Who nobler than thee, high-spirited charger,

 More reliable than the stoutest armour.

 The unmatched fleetness of thy limbs

 Helped evade the foe catch a glimpse

 Of thy master they sought to seize    

 Vengefully to torture by slow degrees.

 In the dead of night thy fluttering mane

 Trustworthier than a high placed vane 

 And thine eyes with the force of a torch

 Steered thee safe to the homely porch 

 Day after day thou kindled faith          

 In the betrayed fighter in dire strait    

 Carrying the victuals to hold his strength

 No matter the ordeal endured no length

 Thwarting their vigil with alert ears     

 Thru' months that dragged on as years 

 To the day they scented his lair        

 That had driven them to despair       

 That odious day they put him to death

 And gleefully buried his handsome head

 Not far, under a plain white Cross       

 Where thou couldst grieve thy loss.    

 Grim reminder too to his sore mother 

 Watching disconsolate atop the balcony

 They'd relentlessly smother             

 Any kind of dark conspiracy          

 Sublime tha lesson of thy constancy 

 So contrasting with the vile treachery 

 Of who conspired but held not fast 

 In dignity to the very last.            

 AUTHOR'S NOTE: The horse referred to above was depicted in a huge mural in  one of the rooms at my mother's house in Candolim. When children, we were told  that, when the CONJURACAO dos PINT OS(PINTO CONSPRACY) was discovered and  aborted, Lt. Manoel Caetano Pinto(my maternal great grand uncle, a key  conspirator and the horseman on the white horse) fled to the nearby hills and  the horse would come back every day, in the dead of night, to fetch food for  him. This was, of course, an apocryphal story as Manoel Caetano had no time to  flee and was apprehended almost immediately. However, the part referring to  the mother and the Cross may hold a grain of truth. As per tradition of the  time, in the case of persons condemned for crimes of lese majeste (high  treason against the king), on the appointed day of the execution, Manoel  Caetano's feet were tied to a horse's tail and the horse was taken all over  the city of Old Goa until arriving at the site of execution, where his hands

were cut off and then he was hanged. After death, he was decapitated and the  rest of the body quartered. The hand and parts were then mounted on swords and  taken by horsemen to the district capitals and villages of origin of the  culprits. There they were impaled on wooden poles for the populace to see what  happens to those that try to rise up It is possible, therefore, that his head  or some part was buried under the Cross. The Cross must still be there in the  curve of the road from the house to the church. It was there in l982 when I  last visited Candolim.

 The insignia on the epaulettes indicate the rider of the white horse was, in  fact, Lt. Col. Francisco Caetano Pinto (Manoel Caetano's elder brother and my  maternal great grand father) who, along with his other brother, Lt.Col.  Antonio Caetano Pinto militated in the Peshwa's army in Poona, fighting  against the British until the final defeat of the Peshwas at Sholapur in l8l8,  when both returned to Goa.

 Lt.Col.Francisco Caetano Pinto fought with great valour against the British,  who, nevertheless, awarded him an annual pension of Rs2500/(currency value of  l8l8) in recognition of his having saved the life of two British soldiers,  Hunter and Morrison, who had been made prisoners by the Mahrattas and were  being prepared to be put to death.

 Lt. Col. Antonio Caetano Pinto was left for dead on the battlefield but  recovered. The British, his foes on the battlefield, offered him a post in  their administration because of his great learning(he had studied in Lisbon,  Paris and Rome and was fluent in French and Italian), and his specialized  knowledge of agriculture. But he turned down the post, as well as another  offered by the Goa Governor as Professor at the newly opened Military Academy  in Goa. He dedicated himself to agriculture and was the first to introduce  mills for producing sugar from sugar-cane at Saligao.

 I have not yet read the books but am told that two British authors spoke of  them :GRANT-DUFF in 'History of the Mahrattas' and WALLACE in 'Memories of  India'.

 Sadly, the valuable l8th century mural (valuable historically and  artistically, not monetarically) was totally destroyed when the nuns  demolished the house to build their present hospital there, though they did  preserve the entrance gate with the encrusted coat-of-arms. Fortunately, I  have been able to salvage a moth eaten photo of the mural though, being in  black and white (colour photography had not yet been invented in the 30s) ,  much of the majesty has disappeared, specially the fire in the horse's eyes.

 I was born in the house and spent time there absorbing the lore and, more  importantly, I hope, the invaluable fighting spirit against occupying  outsiders, no matter the colour of their skin.

 P.S.For those not conversant with even the barest details of the CONJURACAO  dos PINTOS (PINTO CONSPIRACY), this was a conspiracy conceived by a group of  Goan miltary officers and men together with several clergymen, to get rid of  the Portuguese from Goa. The plan was for the action to start on l0th August  1777. But, on the morning of the 6th., a certain Antonio Eugenio Toscano,  clerk at the Comunidade of Aldona, appeared before the Governor and spilled  the beans, giving him full details of the plot. The Governor did not pay heed  to the news thinking it a laughable absurdity, probably occasioned by personal  animosity. But, in the evening of the same day, a high ranking officer of the  LEGIAO de Bardez came to the Governor bringing along a junior officer to  confirm the story. While the Governor was still mulling over the matter, the  following morning he received from the Archbishop the summary of a sworn  deposition by three clerics, attesting to the same. There was thus

little doubt that there was something afoot.

 The Governor issued immediate orders for the apprehension of the culprits.  The first to be apprehended was Fr.Caetano Francisco do Couto in Piedade. The  apprehension of the others followed.

 After being tried, all the military personnel underwent the same execution  process decribed above for Manoel Caetano.All the fifteen clergymen were  spared their lives and sent into exile.Some of those were pardoned in later  years and returned home..

 Though the conspiracy has been named after the PINTOs, possibly because it  was hatched in their house, the brains behind it were two clergymen: Fr.Jose  Antonio Goncalves and Caetano Francisco doCouto..

 Fr.Caetano Francisco do Couto was extremely intelligent and soon after  becoming a priest, was appointed Governor(sort of intermediary between a vicar- general and a bishop) in Cochin. Due to factors too long and unnecessary to  detail here, he went back to Goa, and then to Lisbon. After a little while in  Lisbon, he came back to Goa and was involved in the conspiracy. He was  apprehended as one of the main instigators of the conspiracy and sent to  Lisbon in 1789, landing ultimately in the St.Francis Convent there. It is said  that he was seized with episodes of madness attributed by some to an extreme  guilt complex as he had been instrumental in providing the most detailed  information on the participants of the plot, which led to their detention and  subsequent excruciating execution. No one knows for sure what was his ultimate  fate. There is no record of his death anywhere, though there were reported  contemporary sightings of him in Goa.

 Fr.Jose Antonio Goncalves has been described as the most intelligent,  astute, proud and ambitious of the conspirators. .He had a Doctorate in  Theology from Rome. He was dining at a friend's home when he got news that all  the associates were being rounded up. He swiftly left and made his way to  Guirim, and, the following morning to Chorao. From Chorao, through the help of  parishioners and friends, travelling through woods, he managed to reach  Azarem, with Govt. troops in hot pursuit. Azarem happened to lie in Mahratta  territory and thus, out of bounds for the pursuing troops. The local Governor  refused to hand him over unless he got orders from Poona.Despite strenuous  demarches by the Goa Government, the handover was not forthcoming. This was  partly due to the strong PINTO lobby in the Peshwa's court in Poona, who  exerted strong pressure to avoid the extradition. But, after the defeat of the  Peshwas by the British, the situation changed dramatically and Fr.Goncalves  had to disappear from circulation. He eventually turned up in Calcutta where  he eked out an existence with emoluments from Masses and proceeds from an  English school he had opened there. He died in Calcutta on 1st July 1818.

 Thus ended GOA's First War of Independence, nipped in the bud by treachery.

 Who knows the next one is more successful?

 There are two comments to be made on the Conspiracy .I have seen it bandied  about that this conspiracy was somehow linked to the Indian political movement  for independence, which is a patent absurdity. In 1780 the British had still  not completed their ascendancy over India and were still fighting Tippu  Sultan. Even the most exalted Indian historians would admit that the earliest  they can optimistically trace some independence political movement would be  the Sepoy Mutiny of 1854 almost eighty years later(and many other historians  would be loath to admit political overtones to the Mutiny, considering it more  of a local manifestation that spread beyond expectations, propelled by rumours  of the use of pork fat in the new cartridges)If we are to ascribe any  motivations to the conspirators it would more likely be the Principles of the  French Revolution.

 Secondly, though nationalism might have played a part in the conspiracy,  more mundane considerations were also a motivating factor:Fr.Goncalves  harboured strong resentment against the Portuguese because, in spite of  holding a Doctorate from Rome(not a common occurrence in the 1770s) he was  denied a Bishopric either in Goa or Cochin or Mylapore(these two formed part  of the GOA Archdiocese then).and that simmering anger went a long way in  stoking the fire of revolt .The military officers too felt they were being  discriminated .Manoel Caetano Pinto, for example, should by normal Army  standards have been a Captain but was kept as Lieutenant, at 27 years of age..

 Finally, as regards the plot itself, it does appear to have been rather  quixotic and not well thought out. The Portuguese had 2600 men in the Infantry  and Artillery besides a Regiment of Sepoys which followed their orders. As  against this, there were two local regiments(Legiao de Bardez and Legiao de  Ponda) comprising a total of 2200 indigenous soldiers. And barely 25-30  officers and men of these regiments were involved! No wonder the Governor's  initial rection was one of incredulity.

Jean & Marcos Catao Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:38:16 -0700

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