The first important mission of the Jesuits was to the East Indies, in charge of Francis Xavier, one of the most impressible of Loyola's converts. This mission is of chief importance, inasmuch as it was initiatory, and conspicuously displays the operations of the society whilst under the immediate personal charge of its founder. It indicates the methods of the Jesuit missionary system, and how they were made to conform to the main purpose of acquiring dominion, with but little regard to the means employed. There are very few of the present age who do not regard many of the recorded events as apocryphal--notwithstanding, the overcredulous have accepted them as true for many centuries. They are only important now because we learn from them the prominent characteristics of the Jesuits, and the real foundation of the reputation to which they so boastingly lay claim. The Portuguese had, some years before, acquired the occupancy of territory in India, with a commercial capital and an episcopal see at Goa. By means of these influences a number of the natives had professed Christianity, and, along with all the Portuguese Christians, paid spiritual allegiance to the pope. But the condition of society was by no means favorable to the practice of the Christian virtues. On the contrary, it had become greatly demoralized, rivaling Rome and the principal cities of Europe in that respect. In "The Lives of the Saints"--a work of standard ecclesiastical authority in the Roman Church--the author represents "revenge, ambition, avarice, usury, and debauchery," as extensively prevailing at Goa. According to him, the Indians who had professed conversion were so influenced by the example of the Portuguese that they had "relapsed into their ancient manners and superstitions." Even those who professed to be Christians "lived in direct opposition to the gospel which they professed, and by their manners alienated the infidels from the faith."[83]