“It is certain that, after the Dutch, the Jesuits are the largest and the richest traders in India, richer even than the English, than the Portuguese themselves, who have brought them there.... Those disguised Jesuits intrigue everywhere. The secret correspondence they keep up amongst themselves, apprises them of the merchandises that ought to be bought or sold, and to what nation, in order to make a more considerable profit; so that those disguised Jesuits are of immense advantage to the Society, and are only responsible to the Order represented by other Jesuits, who overrun the world under the true habit of St Ignatius, and who possess the confidence, the secrets, and the orders of their chiefs in Europe. Those Jesuits, disguised and dispersed all over the earth, know each other by signals, like the freemasons, and act all upon the same plan. They send merchandise to other disguised Jesuits, who, having the goods from first hand, realise considerable profits for the order. However, this traffic is highly prejudicial to the interest of France. I have often written about it to the Company (of India), but under Louis XIV. I have received orders very precise, and often repeated, to grant and advance to those fathers all that they may ask. And Father Tashard alone owes at this moment more than 450,000 francs to the Company (of India).”[329] We have reported this document, because it was considered at the time, even in Rome, and by the Papal Court, as of great importance, and as representing the real state of things. In the West Indies, Jesuits were to be found in all the markets with different kinds of produce; and this they do not even attempt to deny, but excuse themselves by saying that “the ecclesiastical law has never forbidden the sale of the produce of one’s own domains. The Jesuits were the guardians of the Christians, whom they had re-united in society in Paraguay; and in consideration of the inability of these savages to manage their own affairs, many Spanish kings granted to the missionaries the right of selling the produce of the ground cultivated by the neophytes, as well as that of their own industry.”[330] The Jesuits had so well used this liberty of trading, that the largest banking houses in South America belonged to the Company, and one of them[331] alone became bankrupt for more than two millions and a half of francs, an enormous sum at the epoch.