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 Rájá of Vijayanagar. Some showed themselves men of the highest character, like Frei Francisco {164} Loureiro, who was taken prisoner by the King of Gujarát 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 Gujarát 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 have time to examine into the difference of their ritual from their own. They were overjoyed to find a cross in digging foundations for a church in Goa. They believed that Christianity would quickly spread over the East. And the religious persecutions which mar the later history of the Portuguese in India were not thought of in the days of the great governor. The causes of Albuquerque's triumphant progress in Asia may be found in a consideration of certain special and general reasons as well as in his own character.