priesthood;”[27] and it must be remembered that the credit of their activity must not be attributed to Portuguese priests alone, for Jesuits of all nations cooperated in the work of evangelization, and among them should be noted Thomas Stephens, an Englishman and rector of the Jesuit college at Salsette. In preaching, teaching, and writing these early Jesuit missionaries were equally able, and it is recorded that the first book printed in India was printed by the Jesuits at Cochin in 1570. In opposition to this activity must be noted the terrible severity of the Inquisition at Goa, which stained the labours of these early missionaries with blood. [Illustration: FIGURES OF MEN AT AN AUTO DA FÉ. (_From “Les Royaumes d’Espagne,” &c. La Haye,_ 1720.)] The last twenty years of the sixteenth century, comprised in the reign of Philip II., from 1580 to 1598, mark the height of the wealth and power of the Portuguese in the East, but their fall into nothingness there during the reigns of Philip III. and Philip IV. was as rapid as their success had been astounding. The first great blows were struck by the Dutch merchants, whose ships were sent out at their own expense, and in no way protected by the State. In 1597 two years after Houtman had led a Dutch fleet round the Cape, the Dutch established a factory in Java. In 1601 they defeated the Portuguese governor of Malacca, and took that city; in 1607 they conquered the Portuguese settlements in the Moluccas and Sumatra; and in 1618 they founded Batavia, which became the capital of the trade of the Spice Islands, and soon not only took the place of Malacca, but rivalled Goa. Not satisfied with the trade of the further East, they attacked that of China also, and in 1635 occupied the island of Formosa. At a later date they even ousted the Portuguese from their chief settlements in India and Ceylon, always excepting Goa, which, according to Catholic belief, has ever been preserved to the Portuguese by the holy bones of St. Francis Xavier. Meanwhile, just as the Dutch broke the power of the Portuguese in the Spice Islands and China, a new power had arisen to attack their Indian monopoly. The ancient allies of the Portuguese, the English, now made no distinction between them and their bitter enemies, the Spaniards, and during the last forty years of the “Sixty Years’ Captivity,” they laid the foundation of their empire in India. During the reign of Elizabeth, the English had sacked Pernambuco in 1594, destroyed Fort Arguin on the African coast in 1595, and ravaged the Azores in 1597; during that of James I. they attacked the Indian trade of Portugal. As was the case with the Dutch, the assault upon the Portuguese monopoly was the work of private traders, not of the State. This is not the place to trace the slow growth of the English power in India, but it is enough to say that the English ships went to Asia with no idea of conquest, and solely with the desire to trade.