A valuable monograph on the Portuguese coinage in India
has been published under the title of _Contributions to the Study of
Indo-Portuguese Numismatics_, by J. Gerson da Cunha, Bombay, 1880.]

It is important to grasp the fact that Albuquerque did not commence
the policy of wholesale conversions to Christianity. Franciscan
friars accompanied him to India, as they had accompanied his
predecessors, but their principal duty was to look after the
spiritual welfare of the Portuguese and not to convert the natives.
These friars included men of different types. Some were employed in
political capacities, as for instance, Frei Luis, who was sent as
ambassador to the Raja of Vijayanagar. Some showed themselves men of
the highest character, like Frei Francisco {164} Loureiro, who was
taken prisoner by the King of Gujarat on being wrecked on his coast
with Dom Affonso de Noronha. The worthy priest was allowed to go to
Cochin in order to procure a ransom for himself and his comrades in
captivity. This occurred during Albuquerque's absence in Malacca, and
the Portuguese officials at Cochin refused to furnish the money
required. The friar at once returned to Gujarat to his imprisonment
to the great admiration of the Muhammadan king. Some clerics,
however, did not show themselves worthy of their profession. One in
particular, a Dominican friar, embezzled the property of deceased
Portuguese by declaring that they had signed wills in his favour.[7]
This man was promptly sent back to Portugal in disgrace.

[Footnote 7: _Cartas de Albuquerque_, vol. i. p. 30.]

But though the making of converts did not at once become the
principal occupation of the Catholic clergy in India, some baptisms
on a large scale took place after the capture of Goa. These were
principally of the Muhammadan women, whose husbands had been slain,
and whom Albuquerque gave in marriage to his favourites. His marriage
scheme itself was severely condemned by some of the friars, and but
for his own strong will might have caused a schism. But though he did
not make missionary effort a main aim of his policy, like some of his
successors, Albuquerque was unfeignedly pious. He built churches at
Goa, at Malacca, and in the island of Socotra, and he granted in
these instances {165} the whole of the property which had belonged to
the Muhammadan mosques to the new foundations. The first Portuguese
adventurers in India were too delighted to find Christians at all in
India to