Besides these reasons, relating to the king of Jafanatapan, the saint had
other motives which obliged him to take this journey. The greatest part
of the Europeans, who were in the Indies, and chiefly the officers of the
crown of Portugal, lived after so infamous a manner, that they made the
Christian faith appear odious, and scandalised alike both the idolaters
and the faithful.

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."