FARIA, FRANCISCO DE

FARIA, FRANCISCO DE (b. c. 1650), Marrano adventurer. Faria, who was born in Brazil, lived subsequently in Antwerp as an artist, in Holland as an officer in the army, and in England as an interpreter to the Portuguese embassy. In 1680, at the time of the so-called "Popish Plot," he made some startling but unfounded disclosures accusing the Portuguese ambassador of having attempted to bribe him to murder the Earl of Shaftesbury and others. He was rewarded for his revelations, but subsequently disappeared from view. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Friedman, in: AJHSP, 20 (1911), 115–32 (= his Early American Jews (1934), 127–45, 205–9); Roth, Mag Bibl, 125, 248. (Cecil Roth)