Stephenson:Neal:The Confusion:29:Jeronimo (Neal Stephenson)

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

Jeronimo is the only one of the Ten who is even loosely based on a real person: namely, Antony Machado de Brito, whose story is related by Gemelli Careri under the heading of "A barbarous murder." He was the admiral of the Portuguese fleet, and "had behav'd himself with unparallell'd bravery against him enemies," however, "His sharp tongue had gain'd him the ill will of almost all the gentry of Goa, and along the coast...His affronts becoming insupportable, they conspir'd to the number of fifty to murder him...they made several loop-holes in the houses of the quarter and parish of St. Peter [in Goa], that they might shoot him with more safety."

According to the story, it took thirty bullets to bring him down (however, many of these might have been small projectiles fired from blunderbusses).

Gemelli Careri continues: "One of them, who was a priest, came with a blunderbuss in his hand to make and end of him; but seeing him ready to breath out his soul, ask'd whether he would make his confession. The admiral call'd him Jew, and bid him go about his business...." De Brito died a few minutes afterwards, on 30 December 1694.

I speculate that Antony Machado de Brito had Tourette's Syndrome.