Amidst All These Perplexities The Viceroy Did Not Fail To Visit Us,
And Make Us Great Offers Of Service In Expectation Of A Large
Present.
We were in a situation in which it was very difficult to
act properly; we knew too well the ill intentions of the viceroy,
but durst not complain, or give him any reason to imagine that we
knew them.
We longed to retreat out of his power, or at least to
send one of our company to the Indies with an account of persecution
we suffered, and could without his leave neither do one nor the
other.
When it was determined that one should be sent to the Indies, I was
at first singled out for the journey, and it was intended that I
should represent at Goa, at Rome, and at Madrid the distresses and
necessities of the mission of Aethiopia; but the fathers reflecting
afterwards that I best understood the Abyssinian language, and was
most acquainted with the customs of the country, altered their
opinions, and, continuing me in Aethiopia either to perish with them
or preserve them, deputed four other Jesuits, who in a short time
set out on their way to the Indies.
About this time I was sent for to the viceroy's camp to confess a
criminal, who, though falsely, was believed a Catholic, to whom,
after a proper exhortation, I was going to pronounce the form of
absolution, when those that waited to execute him told him aloud
that if he expected to save his life by professing himself a
Catholic, he would find himself deceived, and that he had nothing to
do but prepare himself for death.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 127 of 149
Words from 35188 to 35466
of 41322
