ned your fortunes, and have caused you to lose
all your expences for the embassy of China. Yet God is my witness, that I
love him, and that I love you also; and I confess to you, that if my
intentions had not been right, I should be yet more afflicted than I am.
The favour which I desire of you, is, that you would not come to see me;
for fear, lest the condition to which you are reduced, should give me too
much trouble; and that your sorrow might be the occasion of increasing
mine. In the mean time, I hope this disgrace of yours may be of advantage
to you; for I doubt not but the king will reward your zeal, as I have
requested of him by my letters. As for the governor, who has broken our
voyage, I have no farther communication with him: God forgive him, I pity
him, and lament his condition; for he will soon be punished, and more
severely than he thinks."

But though Father Xavier wrote very pressing letters to the king of
Portugal in favour of Pereyra, he wrote nothing against Don Alvarez; and
Alvarez himself was witness of it, having intercepted the letters of the
Father. In effect, he found not the least expression of complaint against
him, at which he was wonderfully surprised. The man of God daily offered
the sacrifice of the mass for him, and shed many tears at the foot of the
altar, to the end he might obtain for him the favour of a sincere
repentance. He said one day, he should lose at once, his estate, his
honour, and his life; and added, I beseech God that he lose not his soul
also.

For what remains, though the door of China seemed to be shut upon him,
since all hopes of the embassy were vanished, which had facilitated his
entrance into that kingdom, yet the saint despaired not of preaching the
gospel to the Chinese; and a thought came into his head, that if he could
get to an isle, which was neighbouring to Canton, he might from thence go
privately over into the continent; that if he were stopped and put in
prison, he should at least preach to the prisoners; that from the
prisons, the Christian doctrine might spread into the towns, and possibly
might reach the court; that perhaps also the great men of the empire, and
even the emperor himself, might have the curiosity to see a man who
published so new a faith; and then he might gain an opportunity of
declaring the whole law of Jesus Christ.

With these considerations, he took up the design of embarking on the
Santa Cruz, which the governor of Malacca was sen