Page 61 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 61

Bro. da Costa’s story warrants a digression. He was born at Colonia-do-
Sacramento on the River Plate, and was initiated at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Going to Portugal, he entered the employment of the Sovereign and was sent to
London on official business. While there he took the opportunity to arrange for
certain Lodges in Portugal to be placed under the protection of the Grand Lodge
of England.
On his return to Lisbon in 1802 he was almost immediately arrested and
imprisoned by the Inquisition; Freemasonry, though not strictly illegal, was
discountenanced by the Roman Catholic Church, all powerful at that time in
Portugal.
He was kept for three years in rigorous confinement, treated with much
cruelty, and frequently interrogated in a vain endeavour to induce him to betray
his Brethren and disclose where their funds were deposited. Bro. da Costa was a
Doctor of Laws of the University of Coimbra, and his legal knowledge served
him in good stead against his wily examiners. Perhaps at last they were glad to be
rid of him, for eventually, through the connivance of an official of the Inquisition,
he was allowed to escape to England, where in 1811 he published a Narrative of
his persecution. A copy of this curious and interesting book may be seen in the
Grand Lodge Library. It contains a portrait of the author.
He wrote also on esoteric Masonic subjects and prepared a syllabus of lectures
for the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2, of which he was Acting Master in 1812 and 1813.
At the Union of 1813 he was Provincial Grand Master of Rutland, a title
of honour only – a sort of “Bishopric in partibus infidelium”, for there was no
Lodge in Rutland before 1869.
At a later period Bro. Clabon, W.M. 1863 and 1869, S.G.D. 1866, was prominent
in many activities of the Grand Lodge, particularly in a movement for securing
after-care for the pupils of the Girls’ and Boys’ Institutions on their leaving school,
and for many years past the Lodge has never been without one or more Grand
Lodge Officers on its roll.
A Bro. Robert Miller was appointed Grand Tyler at the Union, dying in 1839.
It is tempting to identify him with the Bro. Miller who was Tyler of the Nine
Muses from 1813 to 1834.