The public worship of the pagods was tolerated at Goa, and the sect of the Brachmans daily increased in power; because those Pagan priests had bribed the Portuguese officers.  The people professed heathenism freely, provided they made exact payments of their tribute, as if they had been conquered only for the sake of gain.  Public offices were sold to Saracens, and the Christian natives stood excluded, for want of money, which does all things with corrupt ministers.  The receivers of the king’s revenues, who were to pay the Paravas of the coast of Fishery, constrained those poor fishers to deliver their pearls almost for nothing; and thus the exaction of a lawful tribute, in the constitution, became tyranny and oppression in the management.  Men were sold like beasts, and Christians enslaved to Pagans at cheap pennyworths.  To conclude, the king of Cochin, an idolater, but tributary to the crown of Portugal, was suffered to confiscate the goods of his subjects, who had received baptism.

Father Francis was wonderfully grieved to perceive, that the greatest hindrance to the growth of Christianity, in those vast dominions of Asia, proceeded only from the Christians.  He bewailed it sometimes to God, in the bitterness of his heart; and one day said, “That he would willingly return to Portugal to complain of it to the king, not doubting, but so religious and just a prince would order some remedy for this encroaching evil, if he had notice how it spread.”

Xavier had taken the way of Cochin, along by the sea coast.  He arrived there the 16th of December, 1544, where he happened to meet with Michael Vaz, vicar-general of the Indies.  In acquainting him with the reasons of his journey, he made him sensible, that the weakness of the government was the principal cause of the avarice and violence of the officers; that Don Alphonso de Sosa was indeed a religious gentleman, but wanted vigour; that it was not sufficient to will good actions, if, at the same time, he did not strongly oppose ill ones; in a word, that it was absolutely necessary for the king of Portugal to be informed of all the disorders in the Indies, by a person who was an eye-witness of them, and whose integrity was not liable to suspicion.  Vaz immediately entered into the opinions of the father, and his zeal carried him to pass himself into Portugal, in a vessel which was just ready to set sail.  Xavier praised God for those good intentions; and wrote a letter by him to King John the Third, the beginning of which I have here transcribed:—­

“Your Majesty ought to be assured, and often to call into your mind, that God has made choice of you, amongst all the princes of the world, for the conquest of India, to the end he may make trial of your faith, and see what requital you will make to him for all his benefits.  You ought also to consider, that, in conferring on you the empire of a new world, his intention was, not so much that you should fill your coffers with the riches of the East, as that you should have an opportunity of signalizing your zeal, by making known to idolaters, through the means of those who serve you, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind.”