One morning of late November, 1552, amidst a breaking surf, a boat was lowered from the ship's side, and made towards the island where they had abandoned Xavier. The lay brother, the Chinese, the Indian, and one Portuguese merchant named Alvarez, ascended a sandy hillock and hurried to the prostrate body of a man. There, on a bed of sand, lay the great apostle of the Indies, his head, grey with toil and suffering, exposed to wind and sun. His face was flushed with fever, his thin hands clasped his crucifix, and beside him was a little knapsack containing the necessaries for Mass. They bore him to a shed of mats and leaves; they bled him, but, being ignorant, pricked a vein which only produced convulsions, and the operation was twice repeated. He was delirious, and muttered only, "My Lord and my God! Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! O most Holy Trinity! Queen of Heaven, show thyself a Mother!" He came to his senses, smiling sweetly, and thanking those around him, and told them his end was near. At two o'clock on Friday, December 2nd, 1552, he kissed his crucifix, and saying, with a gleam of joy upon his face, "In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me not be confounded for ever," life departed. He was forty-six years of age, and these events happened 343 years ago.
What makes the freshness of the body at the present time extraordinary, is that the merchant Alvarez put the body in a large Chinese chest, filled up with unslaked lime to consume the flesh, and they buried it, set up a cross, and two heaps of stones at the head and feet. The following 17th of February, two months and a half later, by the Captain's orders, the coffin was uncovered; but when the lime was taken off, the body was found ruddy and flesh-coloured as though asleep, and on making a puncture the blood flowed, and the priestly vestments were unhurt. In June it was taken to Malacca, where the whole place (except the Governor who had persecuted him, whose name was D'Atayde, and who mocked at it) came to meet it in procession; then it was conveyed to Goa, and all Goa went twenty miles out to sea to receive the body, with great pomp and ceremony. This happened on the 15th of March, 1554. He was already canonized by the people, but Pope Paul V. beatified him, and he was canonized by Gregory XV. in 1622, and promulgated by Urban VIII.
This place had a great attraction for Richard, and this was the third pilgrimage he had made here since 1844.
Baldæus, a Protestant, in his "History of the Indies," says, "Had Xavier been of the same religion as ourselves, we should have esteemed and honoured him as another St. Paul;" and he concludes his elegy thus: "Oh that it had pleased God that, being what you were, you had been, or might have been, one of us!" Hakluyt, a Protestant, and Tavernier, a Huguenot, and many other Protestants, speak equally in his praise.
In 1221 the Inquisition was introduced by Pope Innocent IV., and in 1255 by Pope Alexander III. It found little favour in France, Italy, and Germany; but in the thirteenth century it crept into Spain; but it was in Portugal where it grew and flourished, and in 1478 became cruel. In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Torquemada, the great Chief Inquisitor, worked it up to its maximum of full energy and bloodthirsty ferocity; but it did not reach Goa till 1560, eight years after the death of Xavier. This vile institution is said to have existed two hundred and fifty years, and the last person burnt was a Jesuit named Malagrida, about 1732. Every writer says that Goa was the very worst City of the Inquisition. It was used for all manner of private spites, and political intrigues under the name of religion. It was this that caused the Portuguese to lose India, as no one who could fly from it would run the risk of staying, and ships did not even like to call in port. We were very much impressed by the booming of the Cathedral bell, which had tolled so many to their auto da fé.
The Rev. Dr. Claude Buchanan, Vice-Provost of the College of Fort William of Calcutta, went there in 1808, and worried the Inquisitors considerably, which he could afford to do, as Buchanan's regiment, the 78th Highlanders, was at Panjim, only eight miles off, and would have blown the Inquisitors and their Holy Office into the air if he had been touched. Even Buchanan said that "Xavier was counted a first-rate man even amongst the English." He was there after it had been abolished in 1770, but it was re-allowed under great restrictions in the reign of Donna Maria (1779), until its final and total abolition. Colonel Adams of the 78th, when Buchanan went up to Old Goa, said, half in joke, half in earnest, "If we don't hear from you in three days, I shall march the 78th up and take the Inquisition by assault."
Buchanan did forget to write, and, at the end of three days, the Colonel sent him a note begging of him to come down to Panjim every night to sleep in the fortress (a ride of eight miles), on account of the unhealthiness of Goa. In 1812 the letters of the King from Lisbon ordered liberty of conscience and total annihilation of the Inquisition, being, as the King said, "so terrifying to all nations, so contrary to the true spirit of the Institution, so opposed to the original pious intention of his august and royal ancestors." The Conde de Sarzedas wrote thanking the King, and begging that he might also burn the enormous quantity of processes and documents, as too great scandals would result therefrom; so we have lost about forty thousand procés, inexhaustible matter for historians, novelists, and dramatic writers, showing the manners and customs of those centuries in Portuguese India.
It only shows what the Catholic religion is, and that "Hell's gates cannot prevail against Christ's Church," when the Faith could stand unmoved and flourish under three centuries of this tribunal of fire and woe, composed of serpents in its own bosom, traitors in the camp; worse than internal civil war, covering even its own members with infamy. From this monster's brutal claw all fled,—Godliness, Manliness, and Nature.
Moreover, Arabs, Persians, Armenians, Jews, and Indians found the Christian God even more cruel than Brahma or Allah; they deserted the country and commerce, and fled from low envy, vile cowardice, and calumny, which dealt brutally and safely—like vivisection—not with crime alone, but with the most trivial actions of their home-life. Sufficed a little success in an enterprise, a few more thousands, a gallant action winning praise, a rise in the social scale, public esteem for a good work done,—anything that raised a man above his fellows was quite enough.