ade slaves of all who fell into their hands, he went in search
of those poor savages, amidst the horror of their rocks and forests; and
lived with them as much as was necessary, to make them understand the
duties of Christianity, of which the greatest part of them was ignorant.

After having instructed the faithful, he applied himself to preach the
gospel to the idolaters and Moors; and God so blessed the endeavours of
his servant, that the greatest part of the island became Christians. He
built churches in every village, and made choice of the most reasonable,
the most able, and the most fervent, to be masters over the rest, till
there should arrive a supply of missioners. To which purpose he wrote to
Goa, and commanded Paul de Camerine to send him Francis Mansilla, John
Beyra, and one or two more of the first missioners which should arrive
from Europe: he charged Mansilla, in particular, to come. His design was
to establish in one of those isles a house of the company, which should
send out continual supplies of labourers, for the publication of the
gospel, through all that Archipelago.

While Xavier laboured in this manner at Amboyna, two naval armies arrived
there; one of Portugal with three ships, the other of Spaniards with six
men of war. The Spaniards were come from Nueva Espagna, or Mexico, for
the conquest of the Moluccas, in the name of the emperor Charles the
Fifth, as they pretended; but their enterprise succeeded not. After two
years cruising, and long stay with the king of Tidore, who received them,
to give jealousy to the Portuguese, who were allied to the king of
Ternate, his enemy, they took their way by Amboyna, to pass into the
Indies, and from thence to Europe. They were engaged in an unjust
expedition against the rights of Portugal, and without order from Charles
the Fifth; for that emperor, to whom King John the Third addressed his
complaints thereupon, disavowed the proceedings of his subjects, and gave
permission, that they should be used like pirates.

Yet the Portuguese proceeded not against them with that severity. But it
seems that God revenged their quarrel, in afflicting the Spaniards with a
contagious fever, which destroyed the greatest part of their fleet. It
was a sad spectacle to behold the mariners and soldiers, lying here and
there in their ships, or on the shore, in cabins, covered only with
leaves. The disease which consumed them, kept all men at a distance from
them; and the more