He produces, in the said treatise, a Latin paper, written in all appearance in the year 1585, and found in the records of the house of Don Juan Antonio, Count of Xavier. That paper,--wherein is treated of the ancestors and birth of the saint, and which very probably, as Poussines judges, is the minute of a letter sent to Rome, where Dr Navara then resided, to whom it refers you,--that paper, I say, has these words in it: _Non scitur certo annus quo natus est P. Franciscus Xaverius. Vulgo tamen invaluit, a quibusdam natum cum dici anno millesimo quadragintesimo nonagesimo-sexto_: which is to say, the year is not certainly known, in which Father Francis Xavier was born; but it is generally held, that some have reported he was born in the year 1496. But it is to be observed, that these words, _Non scitur certo annus quo natus est P. Franciscus Xaverius_, are dashed out with the stroke of a pen. There is also a line drawn over these other words, _Natum eum dici millesimo, quadragintesimo, nonagesimo-sexto_: and this is written over head, _Natus est P. Franciscus Xaverius anno millesimo quingentesimo sexto_. Father Francis Xavier was born in the year 1506. There is also written in the margin, _Natus est die 7 Aprilis, anni 1506_. He was born on the 7th of April, 1506. That which renders this testimony more authentic, is, that at the bottom of the letter, these words, in Spanish, are written by the same hand which corrected those two passages of which I spoke: _Hallo se la razon del tiempo que el S. P. Francisco Xavier nacio, en un libro manual de su hermano el Capitan Juan de Azpilcueta: la qual saco de un libro, de su padre Don Juan Jasso; viz_. "The time when the blessed Father Francis Xavier was born, is found in the journal of his brother Don Juan de Azpilcueta, who extracted it from the journal or manual of his father Don Juan Jasso." 'Tis on this foundation, that, before I had read the Life written by Father Massei, I had already closed with the opinion of Father Poussines.