Storia do Mogor 265.26.1

265.26.1

The greater part of the persecutions suffered by the missionaries who do not come from Portugal is caused by the Portuguese and the local Christians, who admit no other arguments but what the Portuguese tell them. The Portuguese in this India here, under cloak and in the name of their king, do such things against missionaries that it is impossible a king so pious and so Catholic, eager for the extension of the holy faith, could be aware of all the persecutions suffered by the missionaries and done to them under his name. For I have seen such things, and have had very certain knowledge that the king does not consent to them. But nowadays the Portuguese are in such a condition that they use their king's name to vent their own passions, and on seeing anything to be gained, they interfere and say at once it is according to the king's order. If they do not see any convenience to themselves they say, on the contrary, that they make no account of their king. Thus it is a sorrow fit to make one weep tears of blood to behold such improper methods, so widely divergent from those they followed in the days of old. The Portuguese, in any negotiations they have with the Moguls or the rajahs in India, are accustomed to send priests as ambassadors. It appears to them that by so doing they make certain of success; but by the experience I have had, and from what I have heard from the leading men at the court, there could not be a greater error committed.