occupied, indeed, small rural districts around their most important stations, such as Goa and Diu, which they ruled, according to the fashion adopted by Alboquerque in Goa, by regarding the village communities as units, and regulating taxation accordingly. If these facts are grasped, the tales of Portuguese tyranny and oppression fall to the ground, for the only natives they could oppress were the merchants, who brought goods down to the ports, and the inhabitants who chose to dwell within the Portuguese borders. The merchants and traders did indeed suffer, because they had to sell their merchandise by a scale which cut their profits down much more than they relished, and the inhabitants of the cities were ruled as inferiors, who were bound to be subject to the Europeans in every respect. The Portuguese judges naturally favoured their own people, and thus in many instances treated the natives unjustly, but it may be pointed out that no merchant could be forced to come down to the ports, and that no native could be compelled to dwell in the Portuguese cities against his will. These considerations, joined to a recollection of the inevitable accusations always brought by a subject population against a race of foreign rulers, tend to prove that the accusations of tyranny and oppression brought against the Portuguese have been greatly exaggerated, and it is quite certain that the Hindus were quite as badly, if not worse, treated by their Mohammedan conquerors. In one respect alone they had a right to complain, and that was, that the Portuguese, not satisfied with extending their commercial transactions, attempted also to overthrow the native religions, just as the Mohammedans did. For the Portuguese conquerors were not only traders, but ardent Christians, firmly convinced of the truth of their religion, and determined to spread it. The squadron commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral, which had been despatched to India directly after the return of Vasco da Gama, had carried some Franciscan friars, who were left at Cochin, in 1500, to preach their religion. They were speedily followed by other missionaries, chiefly Dominican and Franciscan friars, who increased in number, after the capital of the Portuguese sovereignty was removed to Goa. Great convents arose there, and the missionaries began their labours by preaching in the neighbouring districts, which were divided into parishes after the European fashion, and regarded as ecclesiastical units. The fame of the Goa missionaries was greatly increased by the discovery or pretended discovery of the bones of St. Thomas the Apostle at the spot, which had long attracted the common worship of Mohammedans, Hindus, and native Christians, near Madras, where he was reported to have been martyred. These bones were brought to Goa in 1522, during the government of Duarte de Menezes, and buried with great pomp in the sacred shrine in the Church of St. Thomas at Goa, where they remain to this day.