Better to succeed in his undertaking, he had obtained for a Portuguese merchant, Pereyra, the title of ambassador to the emperor. Pereyra, according to custom, had purchased many presents, in order to obtain a more cordial reception for himself and his friend Xavier. The vessel in which the two friends were to take a passage was on the point of sailing, when Don Alvarez, Captain-General of Malacca, opposed their departure, and, effectually to prevent it, laid an embargo on the Saint Croix, the only vessel which was bent thither. Xavier remonstrated in vain. The captain persisted in opposing the embassy of Pereyra. Xavier shewed him the commission of John III., which conferred upon him great and almost unlimited power, and also his commission as the Pope’s legate. Alvarez still refused to consent to their departure, and Xavier fulminated against him the anathemas, but without any effect. Pereyra was thus obliged to remain, and Xavier, after having lost much time, took a passage in this same vessel, which was now ordered for the island of Sancian. There they at length landed, to the inexpressible joy of Xavier, who saw himself within a few leagues of this promised land of his own. But, alas! his hopes were frustrated. It was ordained that his praiseworthy ambition should not be gratified, and that he should not see the vast empire he aspired to conquer to Christianity, but at a distance. Others might attempt this difficult mission; Xavier, a victim to fatigue and fever, lay powerless on the inhospitable shore of Sancian. In a very few days his illness made fearful progress, and on the 2d of December 1552, Xavier, in the forty-sixth year of his age, breathed his last. Thus ended the adventurous life of this noble and extraordinary man, which we have merely sketched. We pass over the absurd and miraculous facts which the panegyrists of the saint have coupled with his name. We think they have injudiciously smothered, in ridiculous and supernatural legends, the many noble exploits and the great qualities of Xavier. In respect for his memory, we shall therefore make no mention of his miracles. Besides, Xavier’s miracles are as nearly as possible the same as those performed by other saints. We really believe that the biographers of any saint might do like that gentleman who, after having written a long letter without either comma, colon, period, or point of interrogation, put down a great quantity of these at the close of the epistle, and enjoined his correspondent to insert them in their requisite places. Our biographers should, in like manner, place at the end of their panegyrics some hundreds of miracles performed on the sick, or the blind, or those possessed with devils, and let the judicious reader insert them in those parts of the narrative they may think proper.[88]