Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 5.9.3

5.9.3

The Jesuits have a church in Agra, and a building which they call a college, where they privately instruct in the doctrines of our religion the children of five-and-twenty or thirty Christian families, collected, I know not how, in Agra, and induced to settle there by the kind and charitable aid which they receive from the Jesuits. This religious order was invited hither by Ekbar at the period when the power of the Portuguese in the Indies was at the highest; and that Prince not only gave them an annual income for their maintenance, but permitted them to build churches in the capital cities of Agra and Lahor. The Jesuits found a still warmer patron in Jehan-Guyre, the son and successor of Ekbar; but they were sorely oppressed by Chah-Jehan the son of Jehan-Guyre, and father of the present King Aureng-Zebe. That Monarch deprived them of their pension, and destroyed the church at Lahor and the greater part of that of Agra, totally demolishing the steeple, which contained a clock heard in every part of the city.