СНАР. II. command. After compelling several princes on his passage to pay tribute to him, in the name of his sovereign, he arrived in safety at Cochin. The Christians, knowing that he was the subject of a Christian monarch, and concluding that he was sent to take possession of India, very reasonably expected to enjoy greater immunities under his government than they had received from their heathen and Mahomedan rulers. They, therefore, sent a deputation on board his vessel, beseeching him to take them under his own protection and that of his sovereign, and to defend them from the injustice and cruelty of the petty rajahs of the country. The deputation presented to de Gama a staff of vermilion wood, mounted at each end with silver, and ornamented with three bells: This, they said, was the sceptre of their own Christian kings, who had formerly reigned over them, the last of whom had died a short time before; and they declared that they presented it to the Portuguese admiral in token of their submission to his master as their king.' Gouvea affirms, that from this time they acknowledged themselves subjects of Portugal: long, however, before that historian wrote, which was about a century after the arrival of the Portuguese in India, they had bitter cause to lament the confidence which they so prematurely reposed in the Christianity of these visitors. Little did they suspect, that before many years had elapsed, the successors of these men would treat them with greater intolerance and cruelty than they had ever experienced from pagans or 'Histoire Orientale, &c. This is a French translation of Gouvea's Journada, &c. or, proceedings of the Archbishop of Goa in the reduction of the Church of Malabar to the subjection of Rome. Mahomedans. They had learned the history of their religion only from the Gospels, and a few traditions preserved among them, and were, therefore, totally ignorant of the arrogance and intolerance of the Church of Rome. The first object, however, of the Portuguese, was to establish themselves in the country ; and the admiral did not neglect the advantage to be gained from the proffered subjection of these Christian inhabitants. He received their deputation with great courtesy, and dismissed them with fair promises, assuring them of his protection when he should be better able to afford them the succour they required. A. D. 1502. princes of 22. When the Portuguese first arrived in Native India, the Malabar country was divided between Malabar. numerous petty princes, descendants of Ceram Peroumal's children and friends, among whom, we have seen, he divided his dominions.' Their power varied considerably, some commanding from one to two and three hundred, and up to a thousand men; others, from five to ten, and so on to thirty thousand and even, it is said, to one hundred thousand; but this is, probably, an exaggeration. Between these chieftains, wars were sometimes generated, which never, however, terminated in an entire separation between the parties. The three greatest powers were, the Colastrian Rajah to the north, the Zamorin of Calicut in the centre, and the Rajah of Cochin to the south, whose kingdom extended to Cape Comorin. At that time the Mahomedans were the chief traders on the coast, who, though not amounting to one tithe of the general population, were much courted by the several 2 1 B. i., c. iv., s. 7. A lack. Zeireddien. Asiatic Res. vol. v. pp. 10, 11. See also Relation de L'Inquisition de Goa. ch. vii. par M. Dellon. II. gress of the Portuguese, notwith Mahomedan A. D. 1510. CHAP. rajahs, and more especially by the Zamorin, who wished them to frequent his port of Calicut, on account of the duty of ten per cent. that was levied on their trade.' Between them and the Portuguese a commercial jealously soon arose, which proved the cause of all the bitter hostilities that were afterward carried on, both by sea and land, between the Zamorins and Mahomedans on the one part, and the Rajah of Rapid pro- Cochin and the Portuguese, on the other. 23. Notwithstanding all opposition, the Portustanding the guese made rapid advances to a power which, opposition of for a time, defied all native resistance, and entraders. couraged them to assume the tone of independent sovereigns. After establishing several factories on the coast, in the year 1510, Alphonso de Albuquerque besieged and took the city of Goa, which he made the capital of the Portuguese dominions in the East. This conquest was followed by the possession of Diu, Choul, Salsette, Bombay, Bassein, and Damaun. Some of these places were obtained by conquest; others, by treaty and the rapidity of the Portuguese advance will be seen by the date at which the last named place came into their possession-the year 1531. Their factories on the coast were at Dabul, Onore, Barcelore, Mangalore, Cannanore, Calicut, Cranganore, Cochin and Coulan (Quilon). At some of these places they were permitted to construct forts; and they obliged the Zamorin to admit of their erecting one at Calicut: but he soon expelled them from it, assisted by the Jews of Cranganore, whom he had protected against the Mahomedans. With this exception, and one or two other reverses too unimportant to notice, A. D. 1531. 1 Eus. Renaudot. Mahomedans' first voyage to China, p. 165. the Portuguese effectually succeeded in putting down their rivals in the Indian trade, the Mahomedan merchants sinking under their superior influence, and becoming obedient to their government and servants. All native vessels were even compelled to take Christian passes for their safety on the seas; nor were any indeed suffered to trade, unless in such articles as the Portuguese deemed not worth their own attention. Thus successful in Malabar, they proceeded to the opposite coast of Coromandel, where, though they did not attain to equal power, they for many years carried on a thriving commerce. A. D. 1531. CHAPTER III. MISSION OF FRANCIS XAVIER. cess of the in India. Partial suc 1. WHILE the Portuguese were thus active in Portuguese making new conquests, we do not hear that they missionaries took any notice of the Christians to whom Vasco de Gama had promised protection. Neither do they appear, until about forty years after their settlement in the country, to have given any attention to the conversion of the heathen. The government of Portugal sent out numerous Friars for the purpose; but they are charged with having taken more care to provide commodious situations and erect convents for their different orders, than to convert their neighbours to the Christian faith. And when, at a subsequent period, the Portuguese boasted of the success of their missions, the secular motives that actuated them were thus exposed by a member of their own church. "It is a vain conceit, if it please your Majesty," said a minister of state to Philip IV. of Spain, "that the world has entertained of the zeal of the Portuguese upon account of the conversions that have been made by them in the Indies; for it was covetousness, and not zeal, that engaged them to make all those conquests. The conversions that have been made |