The setting up of the Goa Inquisition was requested by Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier from his headquarters Malacca in a letter dated 16 May 1546 to King John III of Portugal.[1][10][11] Between the Inquisition's beginning in 1561 and its temporary abolition in 1774, at least 16,202 persons were brought to trial by the Inquisition. Almost all of the Goa Inquisition's records were burnt by the Portuguese when the inquisition was abolished in 1820.[4] It is impossible to know the exact number of those put on trial and the punishments they were prescribed.[5] The few records that have survived suggest that at least 57 were executed for their religious crime, and another 64 were burned in effigy because they had already died in jail before sentencing.[12][13] Other records such as those left by the French physician Charles Dellon, who was also a victim of the Goan Inquisition, and others, suggest that nearly 70% of those found guilty of Crypto-Hinduism were executed, many prisoners starved to death and racial discrimination against Indians was rampant during the Goa Inquisition proceedings.[8][5][14]