The will to write

Following the end of the war of Austrian succession, Goudar moved out to Lisbon. In his book, he told his readers that the “providence” had transferred him to the city in 1752. Yet, archival records show that he arrived at the Portuguese imperial port in July 1751. ¹ It is believed that Goudar could have acted as an informant for the French monarchy, which was highly interested in surveying the English stakes in the peninsula. ² A letter, however, supports the fact that he moved to Lisbon with the intent to establish a factory of cotton textiles. He convinced the Portuguese envoy in London about his capacity to master the secrets of the dyeing industry, being an expert on imprinting clothes with the red pigment that European customers demanded. He had acquired that know-how during his travels in Turkey, for the acquisition of which he had spent a lot of money. It is hard to give credit to the supposed exclusive skills that Goudar asserted to have yet it is true that he had spent some years in Istanbul. True or not, the Portuguese envoy bought the idea and offered Goudar the opportunity to establish what should have been the first fabric of cotton textiles in Lisbon. He even received some monetary rewards and wrote a memoir on how to settle a fabric. Whether or not Goudar worked as an informant for the French service is hard to determine. ³