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 of God had made in favour of the ship called Santa Cruz, gave it the new name of the “Saint’s Vessel;” and from Malacca, from whence she departed at the same time when Xavier went on board of Antonio, her reputation was extended over all the East.  Wheresoever she arrived, she was received with ceremony, and saluted by all other ships with the honour of their cannon.  All merchants were desirous of stowing their goods in her, and willingly paid the carriage of their wares, and the dues of custom, beyond the common price of other vessels.  The weight of lading was never considered, but her freight was always as much as they could crowd into her.  As she lasted very long, and that thirty years after the decease of the Father she was in being, and was used for the traffic of the Indies, they never failed of lading her with an extraordinary cargo, all worn and worm-eaten as she was.  The owners into whose hands she came, during the space of those thirty years, took only this one precaution, which was to keep her off from shore; so that when she was to be refitted, that work was constantly done upon the sea.  As to what remains, it is true she met with many ill accidents