44 THE GREAT DIAMONDS OF THE WORLD.
unhappy
persons. The governor sent the diamond to Lisbon, and the Prince
Regent, afterwards Don Joao VI., pardoned the condemned criminals." The
circumstances here briefly recapitulated show conÂclusively that the
writer is speaking of the same diamond that Mawe describes as weighing
1,680 carats. Consequently to this and to no other belongs the story of
the three convicts. It also appears from this statement that the
"Braganza" and "Regent of Portugal," usually regarded as two distinct
gems, are really one and the same stone. Else we shall have to believe
that two exceptionally large stones were found in Brazil under exactly
similar circumstances, that is by three criminals, banished to
perpetual exile, and who thereupon received their pardon.
Murray
tells us on the authority of a Mr. Magellan, that " a fragment was
broken off from it by the ignorance of the person who found it, having
struck it a blow with a hammer." This was the old rough-and-ready
method of testing stones, the nature of which was not obvious at first
sight. It was supposed that true diamonds resisted the heaviest blows
of the hammer, whereas it is now well-ascertained that they are easily
split by cleavage. Hence the circumstance here mentioned would- not of
itself imply that this stone was not a real diamond. At the same time
it is not at all certain that Magellan referred to the Abalte stone,
which was found not by a person, as here stated, but by three criminals, as in Mawe's account.
With
regard to its value, Murray, rejecting Rome" Delisle's preposterous
estimate of 300 millions sterling, considers that "according to the
method of calculation
