At Travancore he is said to have founded no fewer than 45 Christian settlements. It is to be noted that his own letters con tain, both at this time and later on, express disproof of that mirac ulous gift of tongues with which he was credited even in his life time, and which is attributed to him in the Breviary office for his festival. Not only was he obliged to employ interpreters, but he relates that in their absence he was compelled to use signs only.
He sent a missionary to the Isle of Manaar, and himself visited Ceylon and Mailapur (Meliapur), the traditional tomb of St. Thomas the apostle, which he reached in April 1544, remaining there four months. At Malacca, where he arrived on Sept. 25, 1545, he remained another four months, but had comparatively little success. While in Malacca he urged King John III. of Portugal to set up the Inquisition in Goa to repress Judaism, but the tribunal was not set up until 156o. After visiting Amboyna, the Moluccas and other isles of the Malay archipelago, he returned to Malacca in July 1547, and found three Jesuit recruits from Europe awaiting him. About this time an attack upon the city was made by the Achinese fleet, under the rajah of Pedir in Sumatra; and Xavier's early biographers relate a dramatic story of how he roused the governor to action. This story is open to grave sus picion, as, apart from the miracles recorded, there are wide dis crepancies between the secular Portuguese histories and the narratives written or inspired by Jesuit chroniclers of the 17th century.
Voyage to China.—The story of his detention by the governor (officially styled captain) of Malacca—a son of Vasco da Gama named Alvaro de Ataide or Athayde—is told with many pictur esque details by F. M. Pinto and some of the Jesuit biographers, who have pilloried Ataide as actuated solely by malice and self interest. Ataide appears to have objected not so much to the mission as to the rank assigned to Pereira, whom he regarded as unfit for the office of envoy. The right to send a ship to trade with China was one for which large sums were paid, and Pereira, as commander of the expedition, would enjoy commercial privileges which Ataide had, ex officio, the power to grant or withhold. It seems doubtful if the governor exceeded his legal right in refusing to allow Pereira to proceed; in this attitude he remained firm even when Xavier, if the Jesuit biographers may be trusted, exhibited the brief by which he held the rank of papal nuncio, and threat ened Ataide with excommunication. (See R. S. Whiteway, Rise of the Portuguese Power in India [London, 1898], appendix A. The question is complicated by the fact that the Sixth Decade of Diogo do Couto, the best contemporary historian of these events, was suppressed by the censor in its original form, and the extant ver sion was revised by an ecclesiastical editor.) On Xavier's personal liberty no restraint was placed. He embarked without Pereira on July 16, 1552. After a short stay at Singapore, whence he des patched several letters to India and Europe, the ship at the end of Aug. 1552 reached Chang-chuen-shan (St. John Island) off the coast of Kwang-tung, which served as port and rendezvous for Europeans, not then admitted to visit the Chinese mainland.
Xavier was seized with fever soon after his arrival, and was delayed by the failure of the interpreter he had engaged, as well as by the reluctance of the Portuguese to attempt the voyage to Canton for the purpose of landing him. He had arranged for his passage in a Chinese junk, when he was again attacked by fever, and died on Dec. 2nd, or, according to some authorities, Nov. 27, 1552. He was buried close to the cabin in which he had died, but his body was later transferred to Malacca, and thence to Goa, where it still lies in a magnificent shrine. (See J. N. da Fonseca, An Historical and Archaeological Sketch of Goa, Bombay, 1878.) He was beatified by Paul V. in 1619 and canonized by Gregory XV. in 1621.