amidst the cries and tumults in the ship.  After he had heard their confessions, implored the help of heaven, and exhorted all of them to receive, with an equal mind, either life or death from the hand of God, he retired into his cabin.  Francis Pereyra, looking for the man of God in the midst of the tempest, to have comfort from him, found him on his knees before his crucifix, wholly taken up and lost to all things but to God.  The ship, driven along by an impetuous current, already struck against the sands of Ceylon, and the mariners gave themselves for lost, without hope of recovery; when the Father coming out of his cabin, asked the pilot for the line and plummet, with which he was accustomed to fathom the sea; having taken them, and let them down to the bottom of the ocean, he pronounced these words:  “Great God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, have mercy on us!” At the same moment the vessel stopped, and the wind ceased; after which they pursued their voyage, and happily arrived at the port of Cochin on the 21st of January, 1548.

There the Father gave himself the leisure of writing divers letters into Europe, by a vessel of Lisbon, which was just in readiness to set sail.  The first was to the King of Portugal, John III.:  the letter was full of prudent counsels concerning the duties of a king:  he advertised him anew, that his majesty should be guilty before God of the evil government of his ministers, and that one day an account must be given of the salvation of those souls which he had suffered to perish, through neglect of application, or want of constancy in his endeavours; but he did it with all manner of precaution, and softened his expressions with Christian charity.

“I have long deliberated,” said he, “whether I should certify your majesty of the transactions of your officers in the Indies, and what ought further to be done for the establishment of our faith.  On the one side, the zeal of God’s service, and his glory, encouraged me to write to you:  on the other, I was diverted from that resolution by the fear I had of writing to no purpose; but, at the same time, I concluded, that I could not be silent without betraying my ministerial function:  and it also seemed to me, that God gave me not those thoughts without some particular design; which probably was, that I might communicate them to your majesty; and this opinion, as the more likely, has at length prevailed with me.  Nevertheless, I always feared, that if I should freely give you all my thoughts, my letter would only serve for evidence against you at the hour of your death, and would augment against your majesty the rigour of the last judgement, by taking from you the excuse of ignorance.  These considerations gave me great anxieties, and your majesty will easily believe me:  For, in fine, my heart will answer for me, that I desire not to employ all my strength, or even my life itself, for the conversion of the Indians, out of any other prospect than to free your majesty’s conscience, as much as in me lies, and to render the last judgment less terrible to you.  I do in this but that which is my duty; and the particular affection which you bear our Society well deserves that I should sacrifice myself for you.”