ng
afterwards struggled with the waves, were driven by them to the board of
Pereyra's vessel. The rest of the navigation was prosperous; a calmer
season was never known. The ship being landed at the port of Sincapour,
Xavier (who knew certainly that Antonio Pereyra was at Malacca, ready to
hoist sail towards Cochin, as we have said,) wrote to him by a frigate
which went off, to desire that he would wait for him three days longer.
He wrote also, by the same conveyance, to Father Francis Perez, superior
of the Jesuits at Malacca, and commanded all of them to provide
refreshments for the Japonese, who came along with him.

[Footnote 1: The Holy Cross.]

When it was known in the city that Xavier was coming, the joy was so
general, that it almost blotted out the remembrance of all they had
suffered in the war. The inhabitants ran crowding to the shore; and at
the first appearance of the saint, nothing was to be heard, but
acclamations and shouts of rejoicing on every side. They received him at
his landing with all the tenderness of affection, and all the reverence
imaginable. In conducting him to the house of the Society, they shewed
him, as he passed along, the ruins of their houses; and told him,
sighing, "that if he had not left them, they had been preserved from the
fury of the Javans, as they had formerly been protected from the
barbarians of Achen." But the Father answered them, "That their crying
sins had called down the wrath of heaven upon them; that nothing could
divert it but a speedy change of life; and that the only means of
reconciling themselves to God, was to receive those chastisements at his
hands, with the spirit of humiliation and of penitence." He visited the
old governor Don Pedro de Silva, and the new one who succeeded him, Don
Alvarez de Atavda, and communicated to them his design concerning an
embassy to China Both of them concurred in the opinion, that it would be
advantageous to the crown of Portugal, and to the interests of
Christianity. James Pereyra not being capable of accompanying the Father
to Goa, for the reason above mentioned, furnished him at present with
thirty thousand crowns, for the preparatives of that intended voyage; and
sent a servant with the Father, with commission to dispose of all things.
Xavier having often embraced this faithful friend, entered with his
Japonians into the vessel of Antonio Pereyra, who attended but their
company to set sail.

The prediction which the man