James Govea, a Portuguese, who had been acquainted with
Ignatius, Xavier, and Le Fevre, at Paris, and who was principal of the
college of Saint Barbe, when they lived together there, being come to
Rome on some in portant business, for which he was sent thither by John
III. King of Portugal, and seeing the wonderful effects of their
ministry, wrote to the king, as he had formerly done from Paris, on the
reports which were spread of them, that such men as these, knowing,
humble, charitable, inflamed with zeal, indefatigable in labour, lovers
of the cross, and who aimed at nothing but the honour of Almighty God,
were fit to be employed in the East-Indies, to plant and propagate the
faith. He adjoined, that if his majesty were desirous of these excellent
men, he had only to ask them from the Pope, who had the absolute
disposition of them.

John III., the most religious prince then living, wrote thereupon to his
ambassador, Don Pedro Mascaregnas, and ordered him to obtain from his
Holiness, six at least of those apostolic men, which had been commended
to him by Govea. The Pope having heard the proposition of Mascaregnas,
remitted the whole business to Father Ignatius, for whom he had already a
great consideration, and who had lately presented to his Holiness the
model of the new order, which he and his companions were desirous to
establish.

Ignatius, who had proposed to himself no less a design than the
reformation of the whole world, and who saw the urgent necessities of
Europe, infected with heresy on every side, returned this answer to
Mascaregnas, that often, which was their whole number, he could spare him
at the most but two persons. The Pope approved this answer, and ordered
Ignatius to make the choice himself. Thereupon Ignatius named Simon
Rodriguez, a Portuguese, and Nicholas Bobadilla, a Spaniard. The first of
these was, at that time, employed at Sienna, and the other in the kingdom
of Naples, as they had been commissioned by the Holy Father. Though
Rodriguez was languishing under a quartan ague, when he was recalled from
Sienna, yet he failed not to obey the summons; and shortly after
embarking on a ship of Lisbon which went off from Civita Vecchia, carried
with him Paul de Camerin, who, some months before, had joined himself to
their society.

As for Bobadilla, he was no sooner come to Rome, than he fell sick of a
continued fever; and it may be said, that his distemper was the hand of
heaven, which had orda