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SEPTEMBER, 1928)
A NAIR ENVOY TO PORTUGAL
159
Joio da Cruz-envoy, fishermen's friend and protagonist in the fierce strife between Parava and Moor-was cssentially a man of action. His religious acts were, not unoften, determined by policy. Instance his advice to the Paravas. Their peril was his opportunity. It is worthy of note that he was no believer in the miracle-stories attributed to Xavier. We have the high authority of the Monumenta Xaveriana for this statement. This valuable collection of original Xavier letters and documents published in Madrid some few years ago, makes it clear that this Nair convert had a very fair grip of the Law of Christ'. The only miracles he knew, he is reputed to have said, was that the Saint' did indeed much and very miraculously in separating the Christians from their sins and vices '-an assertion which strikes one as echo of Francis' own judgment.
Nor was Juan the solitary instance of a Nair noble who attained eminence in the Por. tuguese epoch. The late Sir William Hunter mentions the well-known case of a Malabar native Christian', Antonio Fernandes Chale, Knight of the Military Order of Christ, who rose to high military rank and, dying in action in 1571, was accorded a State funeral at Goa. But the career of this native commander of foot, interesting to us in these days of the proposed Indianisation of our Army, is cast into the shade by Manoel Nair.
This personage, "a relation of the king of Cochin," appears to have been accidentally carried to Portugal in one of Cabral's ships; and his story, as told in Lendas da India, reads almost like a page of the Arabian Nights. Cabral presented the youth, attired in the characteristic fashion of the Nair warrior of the time to King Manoel the Fortunate, and he conversed with His Majesty in pidgin Portuguese. His knowledge of that language, however, improved in course of time, and he became a favourite at Court. One Sunday, when the king was at Mass, the youth, who stood by, expressed his wish to become a Christian. Then and there he was baptized by an eminent bishop, with Vasco da Gama and Cabral as godfathers, and named after the king himself. Manoel Nair-to call him by his new name-received a villa and an ample pension, and was employed as the king's Indian secretary to indite confidential Malayalam despatches on Indo-Portuguese affairs to the King of Cochin. He was subsequently raised to the status of hidalgo. He appears to have died a bachelor, and by royal command he was honourably buried in the Cathedral of Evora, his wealth having been under his will given to the church and his servants.
Juan da Cruz, on the other hand, appears to have married an Indo-Portuguese wife.
