1834.] Account of the Christians on the Malabar Coast, 266 



Arcbbisbop of Goa for reducing this foreign diocese to the domi* 

 nion of the See of Rome. Other expedients had now failed, and 

 Menezes, impatient of delay, resolved on the decisive step of as- 

 sembling a general synod in Malabar, overawing their deliberations 

 by personally presiding in their counsels, and thus adding a shew of 

 legal sanction to the constitution he was determined to force upon 

 their acceptance. 



The remarkable person who undertook the enterprize was in 

 every way fitted for its execution. Bold, uncompromising, and 

 fierce in his natural disposition, shrinking from no personal la- 

 bour in the great cause of Papal supremacy to which he had de- 

 voted himself, and prepared to crush every opposing difficulty by 

 the combined forces of temporal power and spiritual intimidation ; 

 such a man was an admirable instrument of Papal ambition in the 

 subjugation of a distant province, and his conduct fully justified the 

 wisdom of Clement in his selection. The simphcity of the people 

 with whom he had t® contend was no match for the Archbishop and 

 his Jesuits ; and it might have been expected that their character- 

 istic timidity would quickly have been overborne by the power that 

 was arrayed against them. But there was a principle, the strength of 

 which he did not calculate, of deep and unalterable attachment to 

 the antient Church frjm which they deriv^ed their faith ; and, though 

 they were too feeb.e for direct resistance, his purposes were baffled 

 by perpetual delays. They yicidea to the storm, but remained still 

 unconquered, and the history of the synod while it brands with in- 

 famy the •agents of such unprincipled aggression, has opened to us 

 one of the most iiuerestii'g pictures of suffering Christianity. In 

 the rough but nervous language ofGeddes, — " in the doing of this, 

 " though the Archbishop was instrumental in letting the world know 



more of the orthodoxy of that apostolical church, that it's like 

 " they would ever have known of it otherwise, we have reason to 

 *♦ bless Providence, but none at all to thank him for it, who intend- 

 ** ed nothing less than the making such a happy discovery. 



* The Archbishop, sailed from Goa on the 17th of September 

 1S98, and after spending some time at Cannanore in some political 

 arrangements entrusted to him by the Vice Roy, arrived at Cochin 

 on the 1st of February 1599. He was received with great ceremony 

 by the Bishop and the Governor ; and communicating his design to 

 the principal ecclesiastical and civil authorities, he summon, d the 



* 1 he present narrative is slightly abridged from La Croze and Ceddes, 

 ihfi authftiitieji which I have followed in the tormer part of thii Sketch. 



