Storia do Mogor 362.4.5

362.4.5

You may wish to know, gentlemen, why the reverend Jesuit fathers and the Lord Bishop have decided to make this difference, and have singled out Father Esprit from the rest; why they have made him feel the effect of the threats with which they intimidate everybody opposed to their violences, saying that they will bring ruin on them. It is because the said Father Esprit has always boldly faced them in things which he considered necessary to the welfare of Christianity and the honour of our religion; because he succeeded in having a church built at Pondicherry, much to their umbrage; because they thought they could drive him away to Rome or to his province, after a public declaration of excommunication. In that case the building would be left incomplete. It is also because he knows the Portuguese, Malabarí, and Arabic languages to perfection; and they imagined that when he had quitted Pondicherry we should no longer be capable of carrying on the mission. By this means they would be able to insinuate themselves into the cure of the French gentlemen and the Portuguese, as they have already done into that of the Malabãrís. There you have, gentlemen, their reasons for selecting the Reverend Father Esprit rather than the other Capuchins at Pondicherry and Madras.