His many occupations, however, prevented him from undertaking this book, which was finally composed by Damião de Góis.
The fourth volume of the Décadas was published posthumously in 1615 at Madrid by the Cosmographer and Chronicler-Royal João Baptista Lavanha, who edited and compiled Barros' scattered manuscript.
The edition was accompanied by a volume containing a life of Barros by the historian Manoel Severim de Faria and a copious index of all the Decades.
[1] Décadas da Ásia contains the early history of the Portuguese in India and Asia and reveals careful study of Eastern historians and geographers, as well as of the records of his own country.
It is distinguished by clearness of exposition and orderly arrangement, and by the liveliness of the accounts, for example when describing the king of Viantana's killing of the Portuguese ambassadors to Malacca with boiling water and their bodies being fed to the dogs.