We have seen the account given by Pinto of the origin of the acquaintance between Xavier and Anjirō. The biographers of the saint and the Jesuit historians of the Japanese mission embellish this story by the addition of several romantic particulars. Anjirō, they tell us, had long been troubled with remorse of conscience, for which he could find no remedy, and which he only aggravated in the attempt to cure it by retiring for a time to a Japanese monastery of bonzes. Having made the acquaintance of some of the earliest Portuguese adventurers to Japan, he consulted them as to this malady, one of whom, by name Alvares Vaz, having heard the fame of Xavier, strongly advised the inquiring Japanese to seek his assistance. Anjirō was much inclined to do so; but the danger and distance of the voyage deterred him, till, having killed a man in a rencontre, the fear of arrest drove him to embark on the first vessel he could find, which happened to be a Portuguese ship bound for Malacca, and commanded by George Alvarez, a great admirer of Xavier’s. The good example and edifying discourse of this pious sea-captain brought Anjirō to the determination to become a Catholic; but being disappointed in finding Xavier as he had expected, or, according to other accounts, being refused baptism by the vicar of the bishop of Goa resident at Malacca, he thought no more but of returning home again, and with that object, not meeting with any ship bound direct for Japan, he embarked for Chincheo, in China. Thence he sailed for home; but a terrible storm drove him back to the port he had left, reviving also his almost forgotten resolution to become a Catholic, in which he was the more confirmed by happening to find in the harbor his old Portuguese friend, Alvares Vaz, in command of a ship on her way back to India. Yielding to the persuasions of this old friend, Anjirō sailed in his ship for Malacca; and, on landing there, the very first person whom he met was George Alvarez, who immediately took him to Xavier. These accounts also give him two Japanese servants, both of whom are stated to have accompanied him to Goa, and to have been baptized, one by the name of John, the other by that of Anthony. And this last part of the story is confirmed by a letter of Xavier’s, dated July, 1549, and written from Malacca on his way to Japan, in which letter he gives an interesting, and at the same time characteristic, account of his converts, very much in substance, and even in expression, like what we may read in the very latest missionary reports.