One of the most illuminating of Xavier's letters is that written to King John of Portugal on January 20, 1548, in which he not only makes the reasonable request that native Christians be protected from persecution by their countrymen, but adds that every governor should take such measures to convert them as would insure success to his preaching, for without such support, he says, the cause of the gospel in the Indies would be desperate, few would come to baptism and those who did come would not profit much in religion.
Therefore he urges that every governor, under whose rule many natives were not converted, should be mulcted of all his goods and imprisoned on his return to Portugal.

What the measures applied by the Portugese officers must have been, under such pressure, can easily be inferred from a slight knowledge of their savage rule.
It has been said that every organism carries in {410} itself the seeds of its own decay.

The premature corruption [Sidenote: Decay of Jesuits] of the order was noticed by its more earnest members quite early in its career.

The future general Francis Borgia wrote: [Sidenote: 1560] "The time will come when the Company will be completely absorbed in human sciences without any application to virtue; ambition, pride and arrogance will rule." The General Aquaviva said explicitly, [Sidenote: 1587] "Love of the things of this world and the spirit of the courtier are dangerous diseases in our Company.

Almost in spite of us the evil creeps in little by little under the fair pretext of gaining princes, prelates, and the great ones of the world." A principal cause of the ultimate odium in which the Jesuits were held as well as of their temporary successes, was their desire for speedy results.