FATHER A. MONSERRATE’S MONGOLICAE LEGATIONS COMMENTARIES. 
545 
(desor denis). Fr. Ruy Vicente, the Provincial, on the contrary, asked with much 
insistence leave for sending the Fathers. From the information he had received 
such apprehensions were baseless, whilst there appeared solid hope of greater con- 
quests to the Faith and of advantages to the State. The Viceroy entrusted the 
matter to the Archbishop, D. Henrique de Tavora, and asked him conjointly with 
D. Frey Matheos, Bishop of Cochim, D. Frey Leonardo de Sa, Bishop of China, and 
D. Joao Ribeyro Gayo, Bishop of Malaca, then at Goa, to decide what would be 
of greater service to God our Lord. After discussing the matter, and weighing the 
reasons for and against, the Illustrissime Prelates answered His Excellency as 
follows : — 
Resolution of the Prelates of India concerning the M ission to the Mogol. 
Answering to what I, Archbishop of Goa, and the Reverendissime Lord Bishops of 
Cochim, Malaca and China, and the Licentiate Andre Fernandes, our Provisor, have 
been asked by the Senhor Count Viceroy, whether we should let go, without asking 
securities from the Court of the Mogol, the Religious of the Company of Jesus, 
whom King Equebar invites through the formans ( formoes ) of his Ambassador : and 
considering the weightiness of the matter, which, if it succeeds, imports for the 
conversion of so many souls : considering also the earnestness with which the King 
asks for the said Fathers, and for the Gospel of Christ our Redeemer, whose name 
he pronounces, touched it would seem by divine grace, since, [ 150 ] as St. Paul says, no 
man can say or name the Lord Jesus but by the grace of the Holy Ghost : considering 
with what freedom, danger and courage the servants of God preached the Gospel, 
even to enduring a glorious martyrdom, and that it would be a scandal to the infidels, 
if the said Fathers did not go in answer to such an invitation, it seems good to me 
and to the said Lord Bishops, and to the said Provisor that His Excellency should 
send the said Fathers and let them go with the same Ambassador, who came to 
fetch them, without other securities than those of Divine Providence, though not 
without the greatest favours and credit possible, trusting in Our Lord and His divine 
power and goodness, for whose honour and glory the said Fathers are going, that 
He will guard them from dangers, help them in so holy an enterprise, and bring about 
the conversion of so powerful a King, who, should he become a Christian and 
embrace our Law with his peoples, will be to the Church of God in Asia another 
Constantine, for the total ruin of the sect of Muhammad, just as Europe had for the 
extirpation of idolatry and the spread of the Christian Religion. And should he 
have acted from mere curiosity (which we do not deny is possible), as in the time of 
Archbishop Dom Gaspar, our predecessor of happy memory, was the case with the 
Idalxa, who sent to fetch Fathers and books of the law, without any further good 
result, we must believe, on the strength of his forman and safe-conduct, that he will 
let them return freely to us in peace and with honours, as he promises. Were it 
artifice and malice, and should he treat the Fathers badly, they will earn everlasting 
glory and the State will have the right to conquer his ports and seize his ships, in 
punishment of his having persecuted the Ministers of the Gospel, and broken both 
