SECT. I. CENT. XVII. boldly deny their being Europeans or Franks,' and only give themselves out for inhabitants of the northern regions, are said to have converted a prodigious number of Indians to Christianity; and if common report may be trusted to, the congregations they have already founded in those countries grow larger and more numerous from year to year. Nor indeed do these accounts appear, in the main, unworthy of credit; though we must not be too 'The Indians distinguish all the Europeans by the general denomination of Franks, or, as they pronounce the word, Pranghis. The jesuits seem to want words to express the glory that has accrued to their order from the remarkable success and the abundant fruits of this famous mission, as also the dreadful sufferings and hardships their missionaries have sustained in the course of their ministry. See the Lettres curieuses et edifiantes ecrites des Missions Etrangeres, tom. i. p. 9, 32, 46, 50, 55, where father Martin observes, p. 9, that this mission surpasses all others; that each missionary baptizes at least a thousand converts every year, p. 11, that nevertheless, baptism is not indiscriminately administered, or granted with facility and precipitation to every one that demands it, p. 12, that those who present themselves to be baptized, are accurately examined until they exhibit sufficient proofs of their sincerity, and are carefully instructed during the space of four months in order to their reception; that after their reception, they live like angels rather than like men; and that the smallest appearance of mortal sins is scarcely, if ever, to be found among them. If any one is curious enough to inquire into the causes that produce such an uncommon degree of sanctity among these new converts, the jesuits allege the two following; the first is modestly drawn from the holy lives and examples of the missionaries, who, p. 15, pass their days in the greatest austerity and in acts of mortification that are terrible to nature, see tom, xii p. 206, tom. xv. p. 211; who are not allowed, for instance, the use of bread, wine, fish, or flesh, but are obliged to be satisfied with water and vegetables, dressed in the most insipid and disgusting manner, and whose clothing, with the other circumstances of life, are answerable to their miserable diet. The second cause of this unusual appearance, alleged by the jesuits, is the situation of these new christians, by which they are cut off from all communication and intercourse with the Europeans, who are said to have corrupted, by their licentious manners, almost all the other Indian proselytes to Christianity. Add to all this, other considerations, which are scattered up and down -SECT. I. ready to receive, as authentic and well attested, CENT. XVII. the relations that have been given of the intolerable hardships and sufferings that have been sustained by these jesuit brachmans in the cause of Christ. Many imagine, and not without good foundation, that their austeritics are, generally speaking, more dreadful in appearance than in reality; and that, while they outwardly affect an ex in the Letters above cited, tom, i. p. 16, 17, tom. ii. p. 1, tom. iii. p. 217, tom. v. p. 2, tom. vi. p. 119, tom. ix. p. 126. Madura is a separate kingdom, situated in the midst of the Indian peninsula beyond the Ganges. There is an accurate map of the territory comprehended in the mission of Madura, published by the jesuits in the xvth. tome of the Lettres curieuses et edifiantes, p. 60. The French jesuits set on foot, in the kingdom of Carnate and in the adjacent provinces, a mission like that of Madura, Lettres Cur. tom. v. p. 3, 240; and, toward the conclusion of this century other missionaries of the same order formed an enterprise of the same nature in the dominions of the king of Marava, tom. ii. p. 1, tom. x. p. 79. The jesuits themselves however acknowledge, tom. vi. p. 3, 15, 66, 107, that this latter establishment succeeded much better than that of Carnate. The reason of this may perhaps be, that the French jesuits, who founded the mission of Carnate, could not endure, with such constancy and patience, the austere and mortified manner of living which an institution of this nature required, nor imitate the rigid self denial of the brachmans, so well as the missionaries of Spain and Portugal. Be that as it may, all these missions, that formerly made such a noise in the world, were suspended and abandoned, in consequence of a papal mandate, issued out in the year 1744, by Benedict XIV. who declared his disapprobation of the mean and perfidious methods of converting the Indians that were practised by the jesuits, and pronounced it unlawful to make use of frauds or insidious artifices in extending the limits of the christian church. See Norbert Memoires Historiques pour les Missions Orientales, tom. i. and iv. Mammachius has given an account of this matter, and also published the mandate of Benedict, in his Orig. et Antiq. Christian. tom. ii, p. 245. See also Lockman's Travels of the Jesuits, &c. translated from the Lettres edifiantes, &o. vol. i. p. 4, 9, 2d. edit. *This is a mistake. Madura is in the Indian peninsula within the Ganges, and not beyond it. Its principal produce is rice, which is one of the principal instruments made use of by the rich jesuits in the conversion of the poor Indians. SECT. I. CENT. XVII. traordinary degree of self denial, they indulge themselves privately in a free and even luxurious use of the creatures, have their tables delicately served, and their cellars exquisitely furnished, in order to refresh themselves after their labours. In the king doms of Siam, VIII. The knowledge of Christianity was first conTonquin, &c.' veyed to the kingdoms of Siam, Tongking, and Kochinchina, by a mission of jesuits, under the direction of Alexander of Rhodes, a native of Avignon," whose instructions were received with uncommon docility by a prodigious number of the inhabitants of these countries. An account of the success of this spiritual expedition being brought to Alexander VII. in the year 1658, determined that pontiff to commit this new church to the inspection and government of a certain number of bishops, and chose for this purpose some French priests out of the congregation of foreign missions, to carry his orders to the rising community, and to rule over it as his representatives and vicegerents. But the jesuits, who can bear no superiors, and scarcely an equal, treated these pious men with the greatest indignity, loaded them with injuries and reproaches, and would not permit them to share their labours, nor to partake of their glory." See the Writings of Alexander de Rhodes, who was undoubtedly a man of sense and spirit, and more especially his Travels, which were published in 4to. at Paris, in the years 1666 and 1682. There were several pamphlets and memorials published at Paris, in the years 1666, 1674, and 1681, in which these French missionaries, whom the jesuits refused to admit as fellowlabourers in the conversion of the Indians, relate, in an eloquent and affecting strain, the injuries they had received from that jealous and ambitious order. The most ample and accurate narration of that kind was published at Paris, in the year 1688, by Francis Pallu, whom the pope had created bishop of Heliopolis. The same matter is largely treated in the Gallia Christiana of the learned benedictines, tom. vii. p. 1027, and a concise account of it is also given by Urban Cerri, in his Etat present de l'Eglise Romaine, p. 199. This latter author, though a secretary of the congregation SECT. I. Hence arose, in the court of Rome, a long and te- CENT. XVIL dious contest, which served to show, in the plainest manner, that the jesuits were ready enough to make use of the authority of the pope, when it was necessary to promote their interests, or to extend their influence and dominion; but that they did not hesitate, on the other hand, to treat the same authority with indifference and contempt in all cases, where it appeared in opposition to their private views and personal interests. After this, Lewis XIV. sent a solemn embassy,P in the year 1684, de propaganda fide, yet inveighs with a just severity and a generous warmth against the perfidy, cruelty, and ambition of the jesuits, and laments it as a most unhappy thing, that the Congregation, now mentioned, has not power enough to set limits to the rapacity and tyranny of that arrogant society. He further observes, toward the end of his narrative, which is addressed to the pope, that he was not at liberty to reveal all the abominations which the jesuits had committed, during the course of this contest, but, by the order of his holiness, was obliged to pass them over in silence. His words are; Votre Saintete a ordonnee, qu'elles demeurassent sous le secret. See also on this subject, Helyot, Histoire des Ordres Monastiques, tom. viii. chap. xii. p. 84. ? The French bishops of Heliopolis, Berytus, and Metellopolis, that had been sent into India about the year 1663, had prepared the way for this embassy, and by an account of the favourable dispositions of the monarch, then reigning at Siam, had encouraged the French king to make a new attempt for the establishment of Christianity in these distant regions. A fixed residence had been formed at Siam for the French missionaries, together with a seminary for instructing the youth in the languages of the circumjacent nations, who had all settlements, or camps, as they are called, at the capital. A church was also erected there, by the king's permission, in the year 1667, and that prince proposed several questions to the missionaries, which seemed to discover a propensity to inform himself concerning their religion. The bishop of Heliopolis, who had gone back to Europe on the affairs of the mission, returned to Siam in the year 1675, with letters from Lewis XIV. and pope Clement IX. accompanied with rich presents, to thank his Siamese maiesty for the favours bestowed on the French bishops. In a private audience to which he was admitted, he explained, in answer to a question proposed to him by the king of Siam, the motive that had engaged the VOL. V. 3 CENT.XVII. to the king of Siam, whose prime minister, at that SECT. I. time, was a Greek christian, named Constantine Faulkon, a man of an artful, ambitious, and enterprising spirit. The design of this embassy was to engage the pagan prince to embrace Christianity, and to permit the propagation of the gospel in his dominions. The ambassadors were attended by a great retinue of priests and jesuits, some of whom were well acquainted with those branches of science that were agreeable to the taste of the king of Siam. It was only however among a small part of the people, that the labours of these missionaries were crowned with any degree of success; for the monarch himself, and the great men of his kingdom, remained unmoved by their exhortations, and deaf to their instructions. The king indeed, French bishops to cross so many seas, and the French king to send his subjects to countries so far from home, observing, that "a strong desire in his prince, to extend the kingdom of the true God, was the sole reason of their voyage." Upon this we are told, that the king of Siam offered a port in any part of his dominions, where a city might be built to the honour of Lewis the Great, and where, if he thought fit, he might send a viceroy to reside; and declared afterward, in a public assembly of the grandees of his court, that he would leave all his subjects at liberty to embrace the Romish faith. All this raised the hopes of the missionaries to a very high pitch; but the expectations they derived from thence of converting the king himself were entirely groundless, as may be seen from a very remarkable declaration of that monarch in the following note. See the Relation des Missions et des Voyages des Eveques Francois, passim. 9 When Monsieur De Chaumont, who was charged with this famous embassy, arrived at Siam, he presented a long memorial to the monarch of that country, intimating how solicitous the king of France was to have his Siamese majesty of the same religion with himself. Chaw Naraya, for so was the latter named, who seems to have always deceived the French by encouraging words, which administered hopes that he never intended to accomplish, answered this memorial in a very acute and artful manner. After asking who had made the king of France believe that he entertained any such sentiments, he desired his minis ter Faulkon to tell the French ambassador, "That he left it to his most christian majesty to judge, whether the change of a religion that had been |