still detained there at the head of their troops. The missionaries,
thus separated from their protectors, were filled with new alarms by
an order of the emperor for disarming all their converts in Shimo. The
king of Bungo, as a punishment for his cowardice, was stripped of his
estates; and in the end he and his family, reduced to absolute poverty,
were obliged to retire to Nagasaki, and to live there on the charity
of the Jesuits. His territories were assigned to pagan lords, and the
converted inhabitants soon felt the consequences of the change. Indeed,
throughout Shimo the converts suffered greatly by the absence of their
princes, of whom several died about this time. But, in general, the
Catholics stood firm; and several of the Jesuit fathers having made
their way to Corea, new converts were made in the ranks of the army.

The missionaries also found a new friend in Terazawa, a young man
appointed governor of Nagasaki, and who, not long after, was secretly
baptized. He represented to the emperor that, if the Portuguese
merchants were still to be admitted to trade at Nagasaki, they ought to
be allowed some priests, since it was the influence and authority of
the priests that kept the merchants in order, settled their quarrels,
and obliged them to strict justice in their commercial transactions;
and, upon the strength of these plausible representations, Terazawa
obtained leave for the Jesuits to rebuild their house and church
at Nagasaki. Father Gnecchi, also, in consideration of his age and
infirmities, was allowed to remain at Miyako, though without any
church, or permission to celebrate divine service openly.

CHAPTER XVI

 _Jealousy on the Part of the Dominicans and Franciscans towards
 Jesuits—This Jealousy coöperates with the Mercantile Jealousy of the
 Spaniards at Manila—Franciscan Friars establish themselves at Miyako,
 Ōsaka, and Nagasaki—Edicts against them—Deposition and Death of the
 Emperor’s Nephew—A. D. 1593-1595._

It was not alone against the emperor’s hostility and the mercantile
envy of the Spanish that the Jesuits had to contend. The rapid rise
and great successes of the Company of Jesus had excited against them
not only the dread and deadly hatred of the Protestants (which might
naturally enough have been expected), but feelings also of envy and
jealousy, scarcely less hostile, and by no means very scrupulous,
on the part of their monastic brethren of the Catholic church,—the
Dominicans, and especially the numerous bodies of Franciscans, who had
attempted, by various reforms and modifications, to revive and purify
that ancient order so as to make it equal to compete with the Jesuits.

A brief of Pope Gregory XIII, dated in 1585, had forbidden, under pain
of the greater excommunication, any but Jesuits to proceed to Japan
with the view of exercising any ecclesiastical function there; and
this bull was not less disagreeable to the Dominicans and Franciscans,
than the Portuguese monopoly of the Japanese trade was to the Spanish
merchants. At Manila these feelings of dissatisfaction, both mercantile
and ecclesiastical, combined in a common focus, giving rise to the
most injurious and unfounded reports, which were even embodied in
print, of extensive apostasies among the Japanese converts, and of
the great jeopardy into which Catholicism had been brought by the
misconduct of the Jesuits, who, at this moment, were out of favor in
Spain.

The same Harada, already mentioned, having gone in person to Manila,
inflamed the zeal of some Franciscans whom he found there, by
representing that it was to the Jesuit missionaries personally, and not
to their religion, that the emperor was opposed. The Spanish governor,
not having received the emperor’s answer to his former letter, was
induced, in the hope of opening the door to commercial intercourse, to
write a new one; and four Franciscans attached themselves to the bearer
of it, eagerly seizing upon this opportunity to gain admission into
Japan.

When the emperor found that these new deputies had not brought the
submission which he had demanded, at first he was very angry, but
was finally persuaded to allow them to travel through the empire in
order to see and to report its greatness. The Franciscans were even
suffered to build or buy a house at Miyako, to which they presently
added a church; and, being joined by others of their order, a convent
was established at Ōsaka. Two of them having gone to Nagasaki, took
possession of a church in the environs of that city, which had remained
closed since the commencement of the persecution; and here, as well as
in the other two cities, they performed their religious functions with
an ostentation and publicity which greatly alarmed the Jesuits, whom
the Franciscans accused of an unworthy timidity.

The Jesuits, under these circumstances, thought proper to call the
attention of these new-comers to the bull of Gregory XIII, above
referred to, prohibiting the entry into Japan of any ecclesiastics
except those of the Company of Jesus; to which the Franciscans replied,
that they had entered Japan not as ecclesiastics, but as envoys from
the governor of Manila; and that being there without any violation of
the bull, nobody had any right to prevent them from exercising their
ecclesiastical functions,—a piece of casuistry which not even a Jesuit
could have outdone. Very soon, however, the governor of Nagasaki
closed the church of the Franciscans, and, before long, an edict
appeared threatening the punishment of death to all who frequented
the convent and church at Miyako,—procedures which the Franciscans
were uncharitable enough to ascribe to the intrigues of the Jesuits.
It seems probable, however, that decisive steps would still earlier
have been taken against these over-zealous Franciscans, had not the
emperor’s attention been engrossed by other more pressing matters. He
had conceived a jealousy against his nephew and colleague, whom, by
slow and cautious steps, he stripped of all his authority, sending him
at length to a monastery of bonzes, where he soon received an order to
cut himself open. The thirty-one wives of the deposed prince, with all
their children, were publicly beheaded, and all his closest adherents
shared his disgrace, and many of them his tragical fate.[59] An
infant son, by name Hideyori, borne to the emperor from his new wife
[Yodo-gimi by name], and to whom he desired to secure the succession,
was the innocent cause of these cruelties. No sooner was the nephew
out of the way than that infant received from the Dairi the title of
Kwambacudono.

CHAPTER XVII

 _Great Earthquake—Mission from China—Arrival of a Spanish
 Galleon—Friars on Board her—New Accusations on her Account against the
 Jesuits—Connection of the Jesuits with the Trade to Japan—Arrest of
 Missionaries and Converts—First Martyrs—A. D. 1595-1597._

The emperor, now at the height of his power and glory, was making
great preparations to receive an embassy from China, when Japan was
visited by a frightful earthquake, which almost ruined his new city of
Fushimi. The sea rose to an extraordinary height, especially in the
strait between Nippon and Shikoku, attended with a terrible destruction
of life and property. Nor did the mission from China at all answer the
expectation of the emperor, since the ambassadors demanded nothing less
than the entire evacuation of Corea,—a demand which speedily led to a
renewal of the war.

In 1596, a richly laden Spanish galleon, from the Philippines, disabled
and driven by adverse winds to the coast of Japan, was induced, partly
by persuasions and partly by a show of force, to enter a harbor on
the south coast of Shikoku, where she was immediately seized by the
local authorities as forfeited. The commander of the vessel sent two
of his officers to Miyako to solicit a remission of this forfeiture,
which mission was charged to have nothing to do with the Jesuits, but
to consult only with the Franciscans established in that city. It had,
however, no success. The prize seemed to the emperor too valuable to
be given up. Driven at length by extremity to seek the aid of the
Jesuits, the ship’s company, after being for some time supported by
their charity, were shipped off by their assistance to Manila, all
except four Augustine friars, a Dominican and two Franciscans, who
remained in Japan as missionaries. But, instead of getting any thanks
from the inhabitants of Manila, the Jesuits were accused of having by
their intrigues caused the forfeiture of the ship and her cargo.[60]

A narrative of the affair, written by a monk, and full of charges
against the Jesuits, was printed there, and sent to Spanish America,
whence it was carried to Europe, and widely diffused by the enemies of
the order, being soon followed by violent memorials to the same effect,
addressed to the Pope and the king of Spain. These charges, however,
did not remain unanswered, a reply to them being published at Acapulco,
signed by a number of Japanese who traded thither,[61] and by several
Spaniards and Portuguese who had been in Japan.

It was the Manila pamphlet above referred to which first brought
against the Jesuits the charges, ultimately so damaging to the order,
of an uncanonical connection with commerce. The account of this trade,
so far as Japan was concerned, as given by the Jesuits themselves, is
as follows. The revenues of the mission had consisted at first only
of the charities of some individuals, aided by a sum of five hundred
ducats, paid yearly at Macao by the king of Portugal—a donation doubled
in 1574, to facilitate the foundation of a college. Some considerable
amounts had been received at different times from the wealthier native
converts; but almost the whole of these sums had been expended in the
founding and support of hospitals and other charities. For several
years the chief resource of the fathers for their own support had been
the proceeds of a fund of four thousand ducats, which Louis Almeida,
on entering the order in 1556, and devoting himself to the Japanese
mission, as mentioned in a former chapter, had set aside for that
purpose out of his own private fortune, all the rest of which he had
bestowed in the founding of hospitals. This fund had been entrusted by
Almeida to certain Portuguese merchants to trade upon for the benefit
of the Jesuits. But, though this trust had been faithfully executed,
the proceeds of it had been quite too small to support the increasing
number of the missionaries. Some small pensions, allowed them by the
Popes Gregory XIII and Sixtus V, failed to make up the deficiency; and,
at length, it was agreed by the commercial company at Macao, by whom
the annual Portuguese carac was fitted out for Japan, and by means of
which the chief trade between Japan and the Portuguese was now carried
on, that out of the sixteen hundred packages of silks, which formed
a part of her cargo, fifty (afterwards increased to eighty) packages
should be shipped on account of the Jesuits,—an arrangement to which
the viceroy of the Indies assented. For this business two commercial
agencies were maintained by the Jesuits,—one at Macao, the other at
Nagasaki. The enemies of the Jesuits insisted that they sent to Japan
yearly goods to the value of a hundred and sixty thousand ducats, on
which their profits were sixty thousand. This was probably exaggerated;
yet, when Charlevoix pretends that the whole annual Portuguese trade
and profits did not amount to those sums, his statement is refuted as
well by other known facts as by the vastly larger value of the cargoes
of such of the annual caracs as some years later fell into the hands of
the Dutch.

While the unlucky affair of the forfeited Spanish galleon caused Europe
to resound with accusations against the Jesuits, in Japan itself it
had results more speedily and more fatal. The Spanish pilot, finding
that entreaties did not succeed, had attempted to make an impression
upon those who had seized the ship by expatiating on the power of the
king of Spain, the extent of whose dominions in Europe, Asia, Africa,
and America, he exhibited on a map of the world. To the inquiry how
such an extent of dominion had been obtained, the pilot replied that
nothing was easier; that the king began by sending missionaries into
the countries he wished to conquer, who, as soon as they had converted
a part of the inhabitants, were followed by troops, which troops, being
joined by the converts, easily succeeded in subduing the country. This
statement, it is said, was immediately reported to the emperor, who
no sooner heard it than he ordered guards to be placed at the doors
of the Franciscan converts at Miyako and Ōsaka, at which latter city,
since the earthquake, the emperor had made his residence. Guards were
also placed at the houses of the Jesuits; but in that at Ōsaka there
was only one young priest with two proselytes, and in that at Miyako
only the aged Father Gnecchi, who soon, through the dexterity of some
of his friends, was conveyed out of it unobserved by the guards. There
were taken in the convents of the Franciscans three priests, a clerk,
and two lay brothers, one of them a Spanish creole of Mexico, the other
a Portuguese creole of the East Indies. A list was also ordered to be
taken of the persons who frequented the Franciscan churches at Miyako
and Ōsaka. A great many names were originally placed on it, but the
governor of Miyako, desirous to limit as much as possible the number of
victims, finally struck off all but fifteen, who also were put under
arrest.

On the 3d of January, 1597, these twenty-four prisoners were taken to
a public square in Miyako, where each of them had the tip of his left
ear cut off, after which they were placed in carriages and paraded
through the streets. A similar ceremony soon after took place in Sakai
and Ōsaka, whence the prisoners were sent to Nagasaki to be executed.
At all the towns and cities on the way they were made a spectacle of,
as if to terrify those of the same faith. But they exhibited, we are
told, great fervor and firmness, making many new converts and inspiring
many old ones with the desire of martyrdom. On the way their number
was increased to twenty-six by the addition of two others who had
greatly busied themselves in ministering to the wants of the prisoners,
and who, upon being asked if they were Catholics, replied that they
detested the gods of Japan.

Fortunately for himself, Terazawa, the secretly converted governor
of Nagasaki, had been ordered to Corea, his place being supplied by
a pagan brother of his, by whom an edict was issued threatening with
death all who should embrace the foreign religion. At the same time
he intimated to the Jesuits that he should allow no Japanese to enter
their church in that city, nor themselves to traverse the country, as
they had done, preaching and baptizing. He exhibited, however, every
disposition to be as indulgent as possible in the execution of his
orders; for though the prisoners were denied the privilege of hearing
mass, they were permitted on their way to the place of execution to
stop at the hermitage of St. Lazarus, where the Jesuits confessed to
Father Rodriguez and another of their order, who met them there, and
the Franciscans to each other.

The place of execution was not that made use of for ordinary
malefactors, but a hill bordering on the sea, one of those by which
the city of Nagasaki is surrounded, and thenceforth known among the
converts as the _Holy Mountain_, or _Mount of Martyrs_, to which
name it gained still further claim by becoming the scene of many
subsequent executions, continuing also, as long as the new religion
lasted in Japan, a place of pilgrimage for its adherents. The prisoners
were followed to this hill by an excited crowd, who, with tears and
benedictions, besought their prayers. They were put to death by
crucifixion, which, however, according to the Japanese method, is
not a lingering punishment. The sufferer is bound, not nailed, to the
cross, and his body is immediately pierced by a lance, or sometimes by
two lances, thrust in at the sides, and coming out at the shoulders.

The earth, wet with the martyr’s precious blood, was sedulously
gathered up by the bystanders, and, in spite of the care with which the
bodies were guarded, those of the three Jesuits were conveyed away to
Macao; or, at least, bodies alleged to be the same were preserved in
the churches there with great veneration as relics. Many miracles were
alleged to have attended and followed the death of these martyrs, as to
which duly authenticated affidavits may be found recorded in the great
collection of Bolandus, affording grounds for the canonization of these
twenty-six Japanese proto-martyrs, decreed, thirty years after, by Pope
Urban VIII.

CHAPTER XVIII

 _New Edict for the Deportation of the Jesuits—Its Partial Evasion—New
 Correspondence between the Philippines and Japan—Taikō-Sama’s
 Justification of his Recent Proceedings—New Destruction of
 Churches in Shimo—Taikō-Sama’s Death—His Preceding Efforts to
 secure his own Deification and the Succession of his Infant Son
 Hideyori—Regency—Iyeyasu, its Head, with the Title of Daifu-Sama—A. D.
 1597-1599._

Even a more serious blow than the execution of the first martyrs,
which seems rather to have warmed than to have cooled the zeal of the
converted Japanese, was an order from the emperor to the governor of
Nagasaki to collect all the missionaries, and to ship them off to
China, except only his interpreter, Rodriguez, and two or three other
Jesuits, who might be permitted to remain at Nagasaki for the benefit
of the Portuguese traders.

There were still in Japan as many as a hundred and twenty-five members
of the Company, of whom forty-six were priests. To blind the emperor
by an apparent submission to his will, it was agreed that the newly
arrived bishop of Japan (the fourth appointed to this diocese, but the
first who had arrived there) should depart in the same vessel in which
he had come, especially as he might improve his absence to represent to
the viceroy of the Indies the pressing necessities of his diocese. The
novitiate, the college in the island of Amakusa,[62] and the seminary
for young nobles hitherto kept on foot in Arima, were all given up,
and most of the fathers connected with them set out for Nagasaki. Of
the whole number, however, there remained behind eight in the island
of Amakusa, twelve in Arima and Ōmura, four in Bungo, and as many more
in Hirado and Gotō, while two others passed into Corea; but it was
understood that these priests thus left behind, while ministering to
the faithful, should avoid doing anything that might draw attention
upon them.

The aged Father Gnecchi, with two priests and five or six other
Jesuits, remained at Miyako, Father Matthew de Couros being appointed
to fill the place of Father Louis Froez, lately deceased, in the
office of sending to Rome memoirs for the history of Japan. With these
exceptions all the rest of the Jesuits assembled at Nagasaki, making
a show of getting ready to depart. Indeed, the poop of a Portuguese
vessel, which sailed shortly after, appeared to be full of them; but
most of these seeming Jesuits were only Portuguese merchants, dressed
for the occasion in the habit of the order; while, to account for the
staying behind of any who might happen to be detected in the provinces,
it was given out that some had been left because the vessel was not
large enough to take all.

Soon after the departure of this vessel, a Spanish gentleman arrived
from Manila with presents and a letter to the emperor from a new
governor of the Philippines, remonstrating, though in measured terms,
against the confiscation of the “San Philip” and the execution of
the Spanish ecclesiastics, several of whom had entered Japan in the
character of envoys from his predecessor. The letter requested the
bodies of those martyrs, and, for the future, safety and kind treatment
to all Spanish vessels driven accidentally to Japan. Taikō-Sama, in
reply, justified his proceedings against the missionaries, not only
because they had disregarded his repeated orders to leave Japan, but
because, insinuating their creed into the minds of his subjects, they
designed finally to get possession of the country as the Spaniards had
done of Manila. His excuse for the confiscation of the “San Philip” was
that she had attempted to enter a port of Japan in violation of law.
He refused to give up any part of her cargo, but offered to restore a
number of slaves which had belonged to her, at the same time expressing
a willingness to consent to a regulated trade with the Spaniards,
provided they would promise to bring no priests.

A report that the emperor was about to visit Nagasaki led to the
destruction in the adjoining provinces of not less than a hundred
and thirty-seven churches and of many houses which had belonged to
the Jesuits; and, to appease the authorities, a new embarkation of
missionaries became necessary, limited, however, by reason of the
smallness of the vessel, to eleven persons.

[Illustration: FEUDAL STRONGHOLDS: HIMEJI CASTLE; NAGOYA CASTLE]

In the midst of these alarms news arrived that the emperor had been
seized with a sudden and violent sickness, apparently a dysentery,
which, after two months’ struggles against it, brought him to his end.
He died in September, 1598, at the age of sixty-four, retaining his
absolute authority to the last. During his latter years two thoughts
seem principally to have engrossed him,—the securing divine honors
to himself, and the transmission of his authority to his infant
son, Hideyori, not yet above three or four years old. With the first
object in view, though really (at least, so the missionaries concluded)
without any religion at all, he had rebuilt, in a magnificent manner,
many temples and Buddhist monasteries destroyed by Nobunaga, by
himself, or by the accidents of war. He also had erected, in a new
quarter which he had added to Miyako, a splendid temple, which he
caused to be consecrated to himself in the character of the new
Hachiman, that being the title of a Kami celebrated for his conquests,
and regarded as the god of war.

To secure the succession of his infant son, the expiring emperor
established, on his death-bed, a council of regency, composed of nine
persons, at the head of which he placed Tokugawa Iyeyasu, king of
the Bandō, which, besides the five provinces of the Kwantō, in which
were the great cities of Suruga and Yedo, embraced, also, three other
kingdoms. Iyeyasu had been king of Mikawa, a more westerly province,
which he had lost by adhering to the fortunes of the third son of
Nobunaga, he being allied to that family by marriage. But afterwards,
by some means, he had recovered the favor of Taikō-Sama, who had even
bestowed upon him the newly conquered Bandō, and who, the better to
secure his fidelity, had caused his infant son and destined successor
to be married to a young granddaughter of Iyeyasu.

The strong castle of Ōsaka had been chosen by Taikō-Sama as the
residence of his son during his minority, and there he dwelt with his
baby wife, in charge of his mother, while the administration of affairs
passed into the hands of Iyeyasu, who, as head of the regency, governed
with the title of Daifu-Sama.

CHAPTER XIX

 _Evacuation of Corea—Return of the Converted Princes—Favorable
 Disposition of Daifu-Sama—Third Visit of Father Valignani—Civil
 War between Daifu-Sama and his Co-regents—His Triumph—Disgrace and
 Execution of Settsu-no-Kami—Daifu-Sama takes the Title of Ōgosho-Sama
 and still favors the Converts—Influx of Dominican and Franciscan
 Friars—Flourishing Condition of the Church—Local Persecutions—A. D.
 1599-1609._

The first act of the regency was to put an end to the war in Corea.
That country was abandoned,[63] and the return of so many converted
princes greatly strengthened the lately suffering church. Father
Rodriguez had always been on good terms with Daifu-Sama, with whom he
had become acquainted at the court of the late emperor. This head of
the regency was even thought to be well disposed to the new religion,
and the converted princes, in conjunction with Father Valignani,
who, just before the death of Taikō-Sama, had reached Japan for the
third time, in company with a new bishop, proceeded gradually and
unostentatiously to re-establish the missionaries, to rebuild the
churches, and to set up again the college and seminaries, till soon
the Catholic faith seemed to be replaced on almost as firm a basis as
ever. For a time, indeed, things were thrown into confusion by a civil
war which soon broke out between Daifu-Sama and his co-regents. Some of
the Catholic princes lost their provinces as adherents of the defeated
party, and among the rest, that distinguished pillar of the church,
Konishi Settsu-no-Kami, the grand admiral, king of Higo and conqueror
of Corea, who, for his share in this business, perished by the hand
of the executioner,—his religious opinions not allowing him to adopt
the Japanese alternative of cutting himself open. But the victorious
regent, who presently took the title of Ōgosho-Sama, and with it the
entire imperial authority (though the boy, Hideyori, still enjoyed the
title of Kubō-Sama), showed himself so far favorable to the Jesuits
(to the headship of whom Father Francis Pazio had lately succeeded
as vice-provincial) as to permit their reëstablishment at Nagasaki,
Miyako, and Ōsaka. Yet an edict of his, restraining the missionaries
to their ancient seats, and forbidding the accession of new converts,
though little regarded, showed the necessity of caution.

Pope Clement VIII, having promulgated a bull in December, 1600, by
which all the mendicant orders were allowed to go as missionaries
to Japan, provided they proceeded by way of Portugal, and not by
the Philippines, Dominican and Franciscan friars took advantage of
this favorable disposition of the emperor to enter that empire, the
Franciscans reoccupying their old station at Miyako, and setting up a
new one at Yedo, where the Jesuits had never been. This was the seat
of the emperor’s son, whom, according to the Japanese custom, he had
associated with him in the empire. He himself had his residence at
Suruga, no great distance to the west. The young Hideyori, the titular
Kubō-Sama, still dwelt in the castle of Ōsaka, Miyako being given up
exclusively to the Dairi, or ecclesiastical emperor. The prohibition to
pass from the Philippines to Japan was little regarded. As there was
no civil arm to enforce it, the friars laughed at the excommunication
denounced by the Pope’s bull. The Jesuits, on the other hand, did not
submit to this invasion without loud complaints.

In the Tenza, or five provinces[64] nearest to Miyako, and including,
also, the cities of Sakai and Ōsaka, the ancient imperial domain, the
adherents of the new religion were seldom molested, and the governor
of Miyako even built a magnificent church for the Jesuits in the upper
city, in addition to one which they already possessed in the lower
city. An observatory at Ōsaka had gained additional credit for their
religion by displaying their scientific knowledge. A seminary for
nobles was reopened at Nagasaki, and, by the special zeal of Father
Gnecchi, hospitals for lepers, which had been from the first a favorite
charity, were set up at Ōsaka and in several other cities. By the favor
of particular princes, Jesuit missionaries even penetrated into the
more remote and hitherto unvisited provinces. Persecution, however,
still went on within the jurisdiction of several of the local rulers,
especially in the island of Shimo; and some of the converted princes,
having apostatized, became themselves persecutors. But the bishop,
having made a journey to Miyako in 1606, was very favorably received
by the Kubō-Sama,—a circumstance not without its influence in all the
local courts.

Such was the state of things in Japan when the hold of the Portuguese
and the Jesuits upon that country, already shaken by the consolidation
of the empire under one head, and by the intrusion of Dominican and
Franciscan friars and Spanish merchants and negotiators, encountered
a still more alarming disturbance from the appearance of the Dutch flag
in the eastern seas.[65]

[Illustration: IMAGE OF IYEYASU
  From _Official History of Japan_]

CHAPTER XX

 _Attempt of the English and Dutch to discover a New Route to the Far
 East—Voyages round the World—Attempted English Voyage to Japan—English
 and Dutch Voyages to India—First Dutch Voyage to Japan—Adams, the
 English Pilot—His Adventures and Detention in Japan[66]—A. D.
 1513-1607._

For a full century subsequent to the discovery of the passage to India
by the Cape of Good Hope, the commerce of the Indian seas, so far as
Europe was concerned, remained almost a complete monopoly in the hands
of the Portuguese. The ancient Venetian commerce with India, by the Red
Sea, had been speedily brought to an end, while the trade carried on
overland, by way of Aleppo and the Persian Gulf, was mainly controlled
by the Portuguese, who held possession of Ormus, through which it
mostly passed. Nor did the Spanish discovery of another passage to
India, by the Straits of Magellan, and the lodgment which the Spaniards
made about the year 1570, in the Philippine Islands, very materially
interfere with the Portuguese monopoly. The passage by the Straits
of Magellan was seldom or never attempted, the Spanish trade being
confined to two annual ships between Acapulco and Manila.

It was the desire to share in this East India commerce (which made
Lisbon the wealthiest and most populous city of Europe) that led to
so many attempts to discover a northeastern, a northwestern, and even
a northern passage to India (directly over the pole), not only as
shorter, but as avoiding any collision with the Portuguese and Spanish,
who did not hesitate to maintain by force their respective exclusive
claims to the passages by the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of
Magellan. These attempts were at first confined to the English,
beginning with that made by Sebastian Cabot, on his third and last
voyage from England. The Dutch and Belgians were long content to buy
Indian merchandise at Lisbon, which they resold in the north of Europe;
but after the union of the Spanish and Portuguese dominions, in 1580,
and the seizure, which soon followed, of the Dutch ships at Lisbon,
and their exclusion from any trade with Portugal, the Dutch began to
entertain, even more ardently than the English, the desire of a direct
commerce with the far East. Drake, in his voyage round the world
(1577-80), outward by the Straits of Magellan and homeward by the Cape
of Good Hope, a track in which he was speedily followed by Cavendish
(1586-88), led the way to the Indian seas; but the failure of Cavendish
in a second attempt to pass the Straits of Magellan, and the capture,
A. D. 1594, by Spanish-American cruisers in the Pacific, of Sir Richard
Hawkins, a son of the famous Sir John Hawkins, who had attempted a
voyage to Japan by the same route, served to keep up the terrors of
that passage.

Meanwhile, Captain Lancaster, as early as 1592, accomplished the first
English voyage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. After a rather
disastrous voyage, he returned in 1594, having been greatly delayed by
his ignorance of the monsoons. A second expedition, destined for China,
sailed in 1596, but perished miserably at sea. It is to the Dutch that
the credit mainly belongs of first breaking in upon the Portuguese and
Spanish monopoly of Indian commerce.[67]

Among other Dutch ship captains and merchants who had been thrown into
prison at Lisbon was Cornelius Houtman, who improved that opportunity
to acquire, by conversation with Portuguese seamen, a knowledge of
the Indian seas; and it was by his persuasion that the merchants of
Amsterdam, associating as an East India Company, fitted out, in 1595,
eight vessels,—four to renew the experiment of a northeastern passage,
and four to proceed to India by the Cape of Good Hope. The voyage of
the first four, under the direction of Hugh Linschooten,[67] who had
lately returned from Goa, where he had resided six years in the service
of the archbishop, resulted in the discovery of Nova Zembla, beyond
which neither this expedition nor two subsequent ones were able to
proceed. The four other ships, under the charge of Houtman, reached
the west coast of Java, and in spite of the arts and opposition of the
Portuguese, whom they found established at Bantam, in that island, they
opened a trade with the natives, not without an occasional intermixture
of hostilities, in which they lost more than half their numbers,
besides being obliged to abandon and burn one of their vessels. The
other three ships returned to Holland in 1598. This voyage had not
been profitable; yet the actual commencement of the long-desired
Indian traffic greatly stimulated the hopes of the merchants, and that
same year not less than four distinct India squadrons were fitted
out,—one of two vessels, under Houtman; another, under Jacques Mahay,
of five vessels, known as Verhagen’s fleet, from the chief promoter
of the enterprise; a third, of three vessels, under Oliver Noort; and
a fourth, of not less than eight vessels, set forth by a new East
India association, including not only the merchants of Amsterdam, but
those of the other cities of the province of Holland, rudiment of the
afterwards so celebrated DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY. The first and last
of these expeditions proceeded by the Cape of Good Hope. The other two
were to attempt the passage by the Straits of Magellan.

The Dutch merchants were at this time much richer than those of
England, and for these enterprises of theirs to India they obtained
the assistance of quite a number of adventurous Englishmen. Houtman
had an English pilot named Davis; Noort carried, in the same capacity,
Thomas Melis, who had made the voyage round the world with Cavendish.
The fleet of Mahay had two English pilots, William Adams and Timothy
Shotten, with the former of whom, as being the first Englishman who
ever reached Japan, and long a resident there, our narrative has
chiefly to do.

Born, according to his own account, on the banks of the Medway, between
Rochester and Chatham, Adams, at the age of twelve, had commenced a
seafaring life, apprentice to Master Nicholas Diggins, of Limehouse,
near London, whom he served for twelve years. He acted afterward as
master and pilot in her Majesty’s (Queen Elizabeth’s) ships. Then for
eleven or twelve years he was employed by the worshipful company of the
Barbary merchants. The Dutch traffic with India beginning, desirous, as
he tells us, “to make a little experience of the small knowledge which
God had given him,” he was induced to enter that service.

Mahay’s squadron, in which Adams sailed as chief pilot, consisted of
the “Hope,” of two hundred and fifty tons and one hundred and thirty
men, the “Faith,” of one hundred and fifty tons and one hundred and
nine men, the “Charity,” of one hundred and sixty tons and one hundred
and ten men, the “Fidelity,” of one hundred tons and eighty-six men,
and the “Good News,” of seventy-five tons and fifty-six men; but these
names of good omen did not save these small and overcrowded vessels
from a succession of disasters, too common in the maritime enterprises
of those days. They left the Texel the 24th of June, and on the 21st of
August reached the Cape Verde Islands, where they remained twenty-one
days to refresh the men, of whom many were sick with scurvy, including
Mahay, their chief commander, who died soon after they had recommenced
their voyage. Encountering contrary winds and heavy rains, they were
forced to the coast of Guinea, and landed on Cape Gonsalves, just south
of the line. The sick were set on shore, and soon after a French sailor
came aboard, who promised to do them all favor with the negro king. The
country could furnish very few supplies; and as the sick recovered from
the scurvy, those hitherto well began to suffer from fever.

In this state of distress they set sail for the coast of Brazil; but
falling in soon after with the island of Annabon, in the Gulf of
Guinea, they landed, took the town, which contained eighty houses, and
obtained a supply of oxen, and of oranges and other fruits; but still
the men continued to die, of whom they buried more than thirty on this
island.

Two months were thus spent on the African coast. The ships, setting
sail again about the middle of November, were greatly delayed by one
of the vessels losing her mainmast, and it was five months before they
reached the Straits of Magellan, the crews during most of that time on
short allowance, and driven to such extremity as to eat the calf-skins
with which the ropes were covered.

Having entered the straits the beginning of April, 1599, they obtained
a good supply of penguins for food; but the commander stopping to wood
and water, they were overtaken by the winter then just setting in,
during which they lost more than a hundred men by cold and hunger, and
were thus detained—though, according to Adams, there were many times
when they might have gone through—till the 24th of September, when at
last they entered the South Sea.

A few days after, they encountered a violent storm, by which the ships
were separated. Captain Wert, with the “Faith” and “Fidelity,” was
driven back into the straits, where he fell in with Oliver Noort, who
had left Holland a few days after the Verhagen fleet, had followed in
the same track, had encountered many of the same difficulties, but who,
more fortunate, not only passed the strait, but succeeded in completing
the fourth circumnavigation of the globe,—a feat accomplished before
his voyage only by the ships of Magellan, Drake, and Cavendish. As
Noort was unable to afford him any aid, Wert abandoned the enterprise,
and returned with his two ships to Holland.

The other three ships steered separately for the coast of Chili, where
a rendezvous, in the latitude of forty-six degrees, had been appointed.
The “Charity,” in which Adams was, on reaching the place of rendezvous
found some Indian inhabitants, who at first furnished sheep in
exchange for bells and knives, with which they seemed well satisfied,
but who shortly after disappeared, probably through Spanish influence.
Having waited twenty-eight days, and hearing nothing of her consorts,
the “Charity” ran by Valdivia to the island of Mocha, and thence toward
the neighboring island of Santa Maria. Seeing on the mainland near by
a number of people, boats were sent for a parley; but the people would
suffer none to land from the boats, at which they shot a multitude of
arrows. “Nevertheless,” says Adams, “having no victuals in our ship,
and hoping to find refreshing, we forcibly landed some seven-and-twenty
or thirty of our men, and drove the wild people from the water-side,
having the most of our men hurt with their arrows. Having landed, we
made signs of friendship, and in the end came to parley, with signs
that our desire was to have victuals for iron, silver, and cloth,
which we showed them. Whereupon they gave our folks wine, with batatas
(sweet potatoes) and other fruits, and bade them, by signs and tokens,
to go aboard, and the next day to come again, and they would bring us
victuals.”

The next day, after a council, in which it was resolved not to land
more than two or three men at once, the captain approached the shore
with all the force he had. Great numbers of people were seen, who made
signs for the boats to land; and in the end, as the people would not
come near the boats, twenty-three men landed with muskets, and marched
up toward four or five houses; but before they had gone the distance
of a musket-shot they found themselves in an ambush, and the whole,
including Thomas Adams, a brother of William, the chief pilot, were
slain or taken. “So our boats waited long,” says Adams, “to see if any
of them would come again; but seeing no hope to recover them, our boats
returned, with this sorrowful news, that all our men that landed were
slain, which was a lamentable thing to hear, for we had scarce so many
men left as could wind up our anchor.”

After waiting a day longer, they went over to the neighboring island
of Santa Maria, where they found the “Hope,” which had just arrived,
but in as great distress as themselves, having, at the island of Mocha,
the day before the “Charity” had passed there, lost their commander
and twenty-seven men in an attempt to land to obtain provisions. Some
provisions were finally got by detaining two Spaniards, who came to
visit the ships, and requiring them to pay a ransom in sheep and oxen.
It was proposed to burn one of the ships, as there were not men enough
for both; but the new captains, of whom the one in command of the
“Charity” was named Quackernack, could not agree which of the ships to
burn.

At length, the men being somewhat refreshed, a council was called
to consider what should be done to make the voyage as profitable as
possible to the merchants. It was stated by one of the sailors, who had
been to Japan in a Portuguese ship, that woollen cloth, of which they
had much on board, was good merchandise there; and considering that
the Moluccas, and most parts of the East Indies, were not countries in
which woollen cloths would be likely to be very acceptable; hearing
also from the people on shore that Spanish cruisers were after
them,—by whom, in fact, their third vessel was captured, news of
their intentions and force having been sent from Spain to Peru about
the time of their departure from Holland,—it was finally resolved
to stand away for Japan. Leaving the coast of Chili on the 27th of
November, and standing northwesterly across the equator for three or
four months, they had the trade-wind and pleasant weather. In their way
they encountered a group of islands somewhere about sixteen degrees of
north latitude (perhaps the Sandwich Islands), to which eight of their
men ran off with the pinnace, and were eaten, as was supposed, by the
islanders, who, by the report of one who was taken, were cannibals.

In the latitude of twenty-seven degrees north, the vessels,
encountering variable winds and stormy weather, were separated. The
“Hope” was never more heard of; the “Charity” still kept on her course,
though with many of her men sick and others dead, when, on the 11th of
April, being then in great misery, with only four or five men out of a
company of four-and-twenty able to walk, and as many more to creep on
their knees, the whole expecting shortly to die, at last they made the
hoped-for land, which proved to be the eastern coast of Shimo. They
were immediately boarded by numerous boats, which they had no force to
resist; but the boatmen offered no injury beyond stealing what they
could conveniently lay their hands on. This, however, was put a stop
to the next day by the governor of the neighboring district, who sent
soldiers on board to protect the cargo, and who treated the crew with
great kindness, furnishing them with all necessary refreshments, and
giving them a house on shore for their sick, of whom nine finally died.

For some days the only conversation was by signs; but before long a
Portuguese Jesuit, with some other Portuguese, arrived from Nagasaki,
on the opposite western coast of the island.

The Dutch now had an interpreter; but, what with religious and what
with national antipathies, little was to be hoped from a Jesuit and
a Portuguese. In fact, the Portuguese accused them of being pirates,
and two of their own company, in hopes to get control of the cargo,
turned traitors, and plotted with the Portuguese. After nine days the
emperor [Iyeyasu] sent five galleys, in which Adams, attended by one
of the sailors, was conveyed to Ōsaka, distant about eighty leagues.
Here he found the emperor, “in a wonderful costly house, gilded with
gold in abundance,” who, in several interviews, treated him with great
kindness, and was very inquisitive as to his country and the cause of
his coming. Adams replied that the English were a people who had long
sought out the East Indies, desiring friendship, in the way of trade,
with all kings and potentates, and having in their country divers
commodities which might be exchanged to mutual advantage. The emperor
then inquired if the people of Adams’ country had no wars. He answered
that they had with the Spanish and Portuguese, but were at peace with
all other nations. He also inquired as to Adams’ religious opinions,
and the way in which he got to Japan; but when Adams, by way of answer,
exhibited a chart of the world, and pointed out the passage through the
Straits of Magellan, he showed plain signs of incredulity.

Notwithstanding this friendly reception, Adams was ordered back to
prison, where he was kept for nine-and-thirty days, expecting, though
well treated, to be crucified, which he learned was the customary mode
of execution in that country.

In fact, as he afterwards discovered, the Portuguese were employing
this interval in poisoning the minds of the natives against these
new-comers, whom they represented as thieves and common sea-robbers,
whom it was necessary to put to death to prevent any more of their
freebooting countrymen from coming, to the ruin of the Japanese trade.
But at length the emperor gave this answer: that, as these strangers
had as yet done no damage to him nor to any of his people, it would be
against reason and justice to put them to death; and, sending again
for Adams, after another long conversation and numerous inquiries,
he set him at liberty, and gave him leave to visit the ship and his
companions, of whom, in the interval, he had heard nothing. He found
them close by, the ship having in the interval been brought to Sakai,
within seven or eight miles of Ōsaka. The men had suffered nothing, but
the ship had been completely stripped, her whole company being thus
left with only the clothes on their backs. The emperor, indeed, ordered
restitution; but the plundered articles were so dispersed and concealed
that nothing could be recovered, except fifty thousand rials in silver
(five thousand dollars), which had formed a part of the cargo, and
which was given up to the officers as a fund for their support and that
of the men. Afterward the ship was taken still eastward to a port near
Yedo. All means were used to get her clear, with leave to depart, in
which suit a considerable part of the money was spent; till, at the
end of two years, the men refusing any longer to obey Adams and the
master, the remaining money was, “for quietness’ sake,” divided, and
each was left to shift for himself. The emperor, however, added an
allowance to each man of two pounds of rice a day, besides an annual
pension in money amounting to about twenty-four dollars. In Adams’ case
this pension was afterward raised to one hundred and forty dollars,
as a reward for having built two ships for the emperor on the European
model. Adams’ knowledge of mathematics also proved serviceable to him,
and he was soon in such favor as to be able, according to his own
account, to return good for evil to several of his former maligners.
The emperor acknowledged his services, and endeavored to content him
by giving him “a living like unto a lordship in England, with eighty
or ninety husbandmen as his servants and slaves”; but he still pined
for home, and importuned for leave to depart, desiring, as he says, “to
see his poor wife and children, according to conscience and nature.”
This suit he again renewed, upon hearing from some Japanese traders
that Dutch merchants had established themselves at Acheen in Sumatra,
and Patania on the east coast of Malacca. He promised to bring both
the Dutch and English to trade in Japan; but all he could obtain was
leave for the Dutch captain and another Dutchman to depart. This they
presently did, for Patania, in a Japanese junk, furnished by the king
or prince of Hirado, whence they proceeded to Jor, at the southern
end of the peninsula of Malacca, where they found a Dutch fleet of
nine sail. In this fleet the Dutch captain obtained an appointment as
master, but was soon after killed in a sea-fight with the Portuguese,
with whom the Dutch were, by this time, vigorously and successfully
contending for the mastership of the eastern seas.[68]

CHAPTER XXI

 _Spanish Friars in Japan—Extension of Japanese Trade—Progress of the
 Dutch in the Eastern Seas—They open a Trade with Japan—Emperor’s
 Letter—Shipwreck of Don Rodrigo de Vivero on the Japanese
 Coast—His Reception, Observations, and Departure—Destruction of a
 Portuguese Carac by the Japanese—Another Dutch Ship arrives—Spex’s
 Charter—Embassies from Macao and New Spain—Father Louis Sotelo and his
 Projects—A. D. 1607-1618._

The Dutch and English, though they had not yet reached Japan, were
already, especially the Dutch, making great progress in the Indian
seas; but it was not by them alone that the Portuguese monopoly of
Japanese commerce and Japanese conversion was threatened.

Taking advantage of the bull of Clement VII, already referred to, a
multitude of Spanish friars from Manila poured into Japan, whose first
and chief business it was, according to the Jesuit letter-writers
and historians, to declaim with vehemence against the conduct of
the fathers of the company, whom they represented as altogether too
circumspect, reserved, and timid in the publication of the gospel. The
fanaticism of these Spanish friars was excessive, in illustration of
which the Jesuit historians relate, with malicious satisfaction, the
following story: One of them, in a dispute with one of the shipwrecked
Hollanders of Adams’ company (perhaps with Adams himself), to sustain
the authority of the Catholic church, appealed to its miraculous
power, and when this obstinate Dutch heretic questioned the reality
of any such power, and challenged an exhibition of it, the fanatical
missionary undertook to convince him by walking himself on the sea. A
day was appointed for the miracle. The Spaniard prepared himself by
confession, prayer, and fasting. A crowd of Japanese assembled to see
it, and the friar, after a confident exhortation to the multitude,
stepped, crucifix in hand, into the water, certain of being buoyed up
by faith and providence. But he was soon floundering over his head,
and was only saved from drowning by some boats sent to his assistance;
nor did this experiment add much either to the faith of the Dutchman
or to the docility of the Japanese. About this same time, also, the
institution of parish priests was introduced; but this, like the
admission of friars, led only to new disputes and collisions.

The merchants of Manila, no less than the monks, still looked with
longing eyes in the direction of Japan, anxious to share in its
commerce; and Don Rodrigo de Vivero, upon his accession to that
government, by way of conciliation discharged from confinement and sent
home some two hundred Japanese, whom he found imprisoned there, either
by way of retaliation for the confiscation of the “San Philip” and the
execution of the Spanish missionaries, or for some other cause.

Besides these European rivals, a dangerous competition in the way
of trade seems to have been threatened on the part of the Japanese
themselves, who appear to have been much more adventurous at this time,
whether in point of navigation or the visiting of foreign countries,
than the present jealous policy of their government permits. Japanese
vessels frequented Manila for the purchase of rich China silks, which
formed the chief article of export from Macao to Japan, the policy of
China and the relations of Japan towards her not allowing a direct
trade. Japanese vessels appeared even in the Pacific Spanish-American
ports. It is to this period that the Japanese ascribe the conquest by
the king of Satsuma of the Lew Chew Islands; and Macao, Siam, and Annam
are enumerated, on Japanese authority, as additional places to which
Japanese vessels traded.[69]

The Portuguese seem, on the other hand, to have had little left of that
courage and spirit by which their forefathers of the preceding century
had been so distinguished. The Dutch cruisers in the East Indies proved
a great annoyance to them. In 1603 they blockaded Goa, and the same
year Hemkirk took the carac of Macao, a prize of fourteen hundred tons,
and valued, with her cargo, at several millions of florins. When the
Dutch, under Matelief, attacked Malacca, in 1606, the Portuguese were
greatly indebted to a small body of Japanese, who formed a part of the
garrison, for their success in repelling the assault. On the other
hand, in 1608 a large number of Japanese, obliged to winter at Macao,
got into collision with the Portuguese authorities of that city, who
suspected them of a design to seize the place, and who, in consequence,
put a number of them to death. During this and the two preceding years
the annual Portuguese carac had been prevented from sailing from Macao
by fear of Dutch cruisers; and, with the effect of this interruption
of intercourse and of the bad feeling produced by the collision at
Macao, still other circumstances coöperated to endanger the Portuguese
ascendency.

The first was the arrival at Hirado, in July, 1609, of the Dutch
vessel, the “Red Lion,” attended by the yacht “Griffon.” They belonged
to the fleet of Verhœven, who had left Holland December 12, 1607, with
thirteen ships (of which several were of a thousand tons burden),
nineteen hundred men, and three hundred and seventy-seven pieces of
artillery. The Portuguese fleet, which sailed about the same time
from Lisbon, to take out a new viceroy to Goa, was composed of eight
great caracs and six galleons. This fleet was scattered by a storm
off the Canaries, and one of the galleons, mounting ten cannon, and
with one hundred and eighty men, fell into Verhœven’s hands. He had
previously made an unsuccessful attack on Mozambique; but had taken,
however, in the harbor a carac, mounting thirty-four guns and loaded
with merchandise. Off Goa another carac was burned by the Portuguese,
to prevent its falling into the hands of the Dutch, who proceeded to
Calicut, where a treaty of alliance against the Portuguese was entered
into with the king. The Dutch then proceeded by Cochin to Johor, on the
peninsula of Malacca (whence the two ships were despatched to Japan)
and finally to Bantam and the Moluccas, where the Dutch expected that a
truce with Spain, announced by a ship late from Holland, would enable
them to devote all their strength to guard against the English, who
were also aiming at an establishment in those islands.

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF HIDEYOSHI, KYŌTŌ]

The ships detached from Johor, equally equipped for trading and for
fighting, as were all the Indiamen of that period, having missed, by
being a few days too late, the carac of Macao, proceeded to carry out
their instructions for opening a commercial intercourse with Japan.
They were very kindly received at Hirado, whence they sent a
deputation to the emperor’s court, with presents, in the name of the
Stadtholder, and were successful in obtaining leave to establish a
factory at Hirado, for the supply of which with goods the Dutch were to
send a ship or two yearly. The “Red Lion,” arriving in the Texel, July,
1610, carried back the following letter:

THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN TO THE KING OF HOLLAND.

 “I, emperor and king of Japan, wish to the king of Holland [prince of
 Orange] who hath sent from so far countries to visit me, greeting.

 “I rejoice greatly in your writing and sending unto me, and wish that
 our countries were nearer the one to the other, whereby we might
 continue and increase the friendship begun betwixt us, through your
 presence, whom I imagine in earnest to see; in respect I am unknown
 unto your majesty, and that your love towards me is manifested through
 your liberality in honoring me with four presents, whereof, though I
 had no need, yet, coming in your name, I received them in great worth,
 and hold them in good esteem.

 “And further, whereas the Hollanders, your majesty’s subjects, desire
 to trade with their shipping in my country (which is of little value
 and small), and to traffic with my subjects, and desire to have
 their abiding near unto my court, whereby in person I might help and
 assist them, which cannot be as now, through the inconvenience of the
 country; yet, notwithstanding, I will not neglect, as already I have
 been, to be careful of them, and to give in charge to all my governors
 and subjects that, in what places and havens, in what port soever they
 shall arrive, they shall show them all favor and friendships to their
 persons, ships, and merchandise; wherein your majesty or your subjects
 need not to doubt or fear aught to the contrary. For they may come as
 freely as if they came into your majesty’s own havens and countries,
 and so may remain in my country to trade. And the friendship begun
 between me and my subjects with you shall never be impaired on my
 behalf, but augmented and increased.

 “I am partly ashamed that your majesty (whose name and renown
 through your valorous deeds is spread through the whole world)
 should cause your subjects to come from so far countries into a
 country so unfitting as this is, to visit me, and to offer unto me
 such friendships as I have not deserved. But considering that your
 affection hath been the cause thereof, I could not but friendly
 entertain your subjects, and yield to their requests, whereof this
 shall serve for a testimony; that they in all places, countries, and
 islands under mine obedience, may trade, and traffic, and build houses
 serviceable and needful for their trade and merchandises, where they
 may trade without any hindrance at their pleasure, as well in time to
 come as for the present, so that no man shall do them any wrong. And I
 will maintain and defend them as mine own subjects.

 “I promise, likewise, that the persons whom I understand shall be left
 here, shall now and at all times be held as recommended unto me, and
 in all things to favor them, whereby your majesty shall find us as
 your friends and neighbors.

 “For other matters passed between me and your majesty’s servants,
 which would be too long here to repeat, I refer myself unto them.”[70]

The Dutch were greatly indebted for their success to Matsuura Hōin,
king of Hirado, who interested himself greatly in the establishment of
a Dutch factory in his island. In fact, it had been at his expense
that the two Dutchmen, shipmates of Adams, had some years before been
sent to Patania upon their promise to induce their countrymen to open
a trade to Japan. In addition to this outlay, which had amounted to
fifteen hundred taels, he had furnished the Dutch belonging to the two
recently arrived vessels with a galley manned with fifty-six rowers,
for their visit to court, of which they had the use for two months; and
he had, besides, accommodated them by purchasing all their pepper and
silk, the latter article at a considerable loss to himself.

Some time previous to the arrival of these Dutch ships, in the autumn
of 1608, Don Rodrigo de Vivero, the late governor of Manila, returning
to New Spain in the galleon the “St. Francis,” was wrecked on the
southeast coast of Nippon.[71] At first it was not known what land it
was, but a Japanese Catholic on board soon recognized it. The crew,
who had escaped to the shore, proceeded to a neighboring village,
the people of which evinced much compassion for them, the women even
shedding tears. They gave them clothing and food (consisting of rice,
pulse, and a little fish), and sent word to the Tono, or lord of the
district, who issued orders that they should be well treated, but not
suffered to remove.

They were soon visited by the Tono, who came in great pomp, preceded
by three hundred men; some bearing banners, others armed with lances,
matchlocks, and halberts. He saluted Don Rodrigo with much politeness,
by a motion of his head and hand, and placed him on his left, that
being considered the place of honor among the Japanese, because the
swords are worn on that side. He made Don Rodrigo several presents,
and took upon himself the subsistence of the party, allowing two
Spanish officers to proceed to the emperor’s court, to communicate to
him and to his son and, according to the Japanese custom, colleague,
the details of the case.

Yedo, where the emperor’s son resided, was about forty leagues distant,
and Suruga, where the emperor held his court, still forty leagues
further. The messengers returned in twenty-four days, with an officer
of the prince, charged with a message of condolence from the emperor,
and leave to visit their courts. All the property that could be saved
from the wreck was given up to the Spaniards.

The first place on their route was a town of ten or twelve thousand
inhabitants. The Tono took Don Rodrigo to his castle, situated on
a height, and surrounded by a ditch fifty feet deep, passed by a
drawbridge. The gates were of iron; the walls of solid masonry,
eighteen feet high, and the same in thickness. Near the first gate
stood a hundred musketeers, and between that and the second gate, which
opened through a second wall, were houses, gardens, orchards, and
rice-fields. The dwelling rooms were of wood, exquisitely finished and
adorned with a profusion of gold, silver, varnish, etc.

All the way to Yedo the density of the population greatly surprised
the Spaniards, who were everywhere well lodged and entertained. They
entered that city amid such a crowd, that the officers of police had to
force a way for them,—and yet the streets were very broad. Such crowds
collected about the house which the prince had ordered to be prepared
for them, that they had no rest; till at last a guard was placed about
it, and a tablet set up, prohibiting the populace from molesting them.
Of the city Rodrigo gives this description: “Yedo contains seven
hundred thousand inhabitants, and is traversed by a considerable river
which is navigable by vessels of moderate size. By this river, which
divides in the interior into several branches, the inhabitants are
supplied with provisions and necessaries, which are so cheap that a man
may live comfortably for a rial (five cents) a day. The Japanese do not
make much wheaten bread, though what they do make is excellent. The
streets and squares of Yedo are very handsome, clean, and well kept.
The houses are of wood, and mostly of two stories. The exterior is less
imposing than with us, but they are far handsomer and more comfortable
within. Towards the street the houses have covered galleries, and each
street is occupied by persons of the same calling; carpenters in one,
jewellers in another, tailors in another, including many trades unknown
in Europe. The merchants and traders dwell together in the same way.
Provisions also are sold in places appointed for each sort. I observed
a market where game was sold; there was a great supply of rabbits,
hares, wild boars, deer, and other animals which I never saw before.
The Japanese rarely eat any flesh but that of game, which they hunt.
The fish market, very extensive and extremely neat and clean, affords
a great variety of fish, sea and river, fresh and salt; and there were
large tubs containing live fish. Adjoining the inns are places where
they let and sell horses, and these places are so numerous, that the
traveller, who, according to custom, changes his horse every league,
is only embarrassed where to choose. The nobles and great men inhabit
a distant part of the city, and their quarter is distinguished by the
armorial ornaments, sculptured, painted, or gilt, placed over the doors
of the houses,—a privilege to which the Japanese nobles attach great
value. The political authority is vested in a governor, who is chief of
the magistracy, civil and military. In each street resides a magistrate
who takes cognizance, in the first instance, of all cases, civil and
criminal, submitting the more difficult to the governor. The streets
are closed at each end by a gate, which is shut at nightfall. At each
gate is placed a guard of soldiers, with sentinels at intervals; so
that, if a crime is committed, notice is conveyed instantly to each
end of the street, and, the gates being closed, it rarely happens that
the offender escapes. This description is applicable to all the other
cities in the kingdom.”

After an interval of two days, the prince sent his secretary, whose
name was Honda Kōzuke-no-Suke, to invite Don Rodrigo to visit him.
The palace he describes as enclosed by a wall of immense blocks of
freestone, put together without cement, with embrasures, at equal
distances, well furnished with artillery. At the foot of this wall
was a deep wet ditch, crossed by a drawbridge of a peculiar and very
ingenious construction. Don Rodrigo passed through two ranks of
musketeers, about one thousand in number, to the second wall, distant
from the first three hundred paces. At the gate four hundred lancers
and pikemen were stationed. A third wall, about twelve feet high, was
guarded by three hundred halberdiers. Within was the palace, with the
royal stables on one side, containing three hundred horses, and on
the other an arsenal with arms for one hundred thousand men. Rodrigo
affirms that from the entrance to the palace were more than twenty
thousand men, not assembled for the occasion, but constantly employed
and paid for the daily service of the court.

The first apartment of the palace was entirely covered with rich
ornaments, carpets, stuffs, velvet, and gold. The walls were hung with
pictures representing hunting subjects. Each apartment exceeded the
preceding in splendor, till the further one was reached, in which the
prince was seated on a superb carpet of crimson velvet, embroidered
with gold, placed upon a kind of platform, raised two steps, in the
centre of the apartment. He wore three dresses, one over the other,
the exterior one green and yellow; in his girdle were his longer and
shorter swords. His hair was tied up with ribbons of different colors,
and his head had no other ornament. He was about thirty-five years of
age; of a brown complexion, a pleasing figure, and good height. Don
Rodrigo was conducted to a seat on the left hand of the prince, who
conversed with him on a variety of indifferent subjects.

Four days after, the travellers set off for Suruga, on a visit to the
emperor. The road is thus described: “On whatsoever side the traveller
turns his eyes, he perceives a concourse of people passing to and fro,
as in the most populous cities of Europe. The roads are lined on both
sides with superb pine-trees, which keep off the sun. The distances
are marked by little eminences planted with two trees.” In the hundred
leagues between Suruga and Miyako, several towns were passed, estimated
to contain one hundred thousand inhabitants, and a village occurred at
every quarter of a league. Rodrigo declares himself so delighted with
Japan, that, “if he could have prevailed upon himself to renounce his
God and his king, he should have preferred that country to his own.”

He estimated Suruga to contain from five to six hundred thousand
inhabitants. The climate was more agreeable than that of Yedo, but the
city not so handsome. As at Yedo, a convenient residence was provided
for him, which the crowd besieged as they had done there. The emperor
sent a secretary to compliment him on his arrival, with a present of
rich dresses, and in about a week he had his presentation. He was
conveyed in an elegant litter to the palace, which was a fortress
like that at Yedo. On the whole, there was less display than at the
prince’s court, but more marks of power and fear. The interview with
the emperor is thus described: “I followed the minister, who conducted
me into the presence of the sovereign, whom I saluted. He was in a kind
of square box, not very large, but astonishingly rich. It was placed
two steps above the floor, and surrounded at four paces’ distance by a
gold lattice-work, six feet high, in which were small doors, by which
the emperor’s attendants went in and out, as they were called from the
crowd, prostrate on their hands and knees around the lattice.[72] The
monarch was encircled by nearly twenty grandees, ministers or principal
courtiers, in long silk mantles, and trousers of the same material,
so long that they entirely concealed the feet. The emperor was seated
on a kind of stool, of blue satin, worked with stars and half-moons
of silver. In his girdle he wore a sword, and had his hair tied up
with ribbons of different colors, but had no other head-dress. His age
appeared to be about sixty.[73] He was of the middle stature, and of
a very full person. His countenance was venerable and gracious; his
complexion not near so brown as that of the prince.”

As if to magnify the emperor, Don Rodrigo was detained during the
introduction of a Tono of high rank, who brought presents in gold,
silver, and silk, worth twenty thousand ducats. At a hundred paces
from the throne he prostrated himself with his face to the floor,
and remained in this posture for several minutes in perfect silence,
neither the emperor nor either of the ministers vouchsafing a word.
He then retired with his suite, consisting of three thousand persons.
After other exhibitions of the same sort, Don Rodrigo, having been
directed to make what requests he would, was conducted by two ministers
to a third apartment, whence other great officers escorted him out of
the palace with all ceremony.

Afterwards he was entertained by Kōzukedono, the prime minister, at
a magnificent collation, the host pledging his health in exquisite
Japanese wine [_sake_?] by placing the glass upon his head.[74] The
Spaniard presented at this time a memorandum of his requests translated
into Japanese. They were three: first, that the royal protection might
be granted to Christian priests of different orders who then resided
in the empire, and that they might not be molested in the free use
and disposal of their houses and churches; secondly, that amity might
continue between the emperor and the king of Spain; and, lastly, that,
as an evidence of that friendship, the emperor would not permit the
Dutch (whose arrival has already been mentioned) to reside in his
territories, but would drive them out—since, besides being enemies of
Spain, they were little better than pirates and sea-rovers.

The minister, the next day, after another collation, reported the
emperor’s answer, who had remarked, with admiration, that Don Rodrigo,
though destitute, had asked nothing for himself, but had regarded only
the interests of his religion and his king. The two first requests were
granted. As to the expulsion of the Hollanders, that, the emperor said,
“will be difficult this year, as they have my royal word for permission
to sojourn in Japan; but I am obliged to Don Rodrigo for letting me
know what characters they are.” The emperor offered the shipwrecked
Spaniard one of the ships of European model, which the pilot Adams had
built for him, in which to proceed to New Spain; and he begged him to
request King Philip to send to Japan fifty miners, as he understood
those of New Spain to be very skilful, whereas those of Japan did not
obtain from the ore half the silver it was capable of yielding.

Don Rodrigo soon after set out for Shimo, where he was to take ship.
From Suruga to Miyako, estimated at one hundred leagues, the country
was mostly level and very fertile. Several considerable rivers were
crossed in large ferry-boats by means of a cable stretched from bank
to bank. Provisions were very cheap. His idea of the population of the
country grew more and more exaggerated. He insists that he did not
pass a town of less population than one hundred and fifty thousand;
and Miyako, which he considers the largest city in the world, he sets
down at one million five hundred thousand.[75] Situated upon a highly
cultivated plain, its walls were ten leagues in circuit, as Don
Rodrigo ascertained by riding round them on horseback. It took him an
entire day. He enters into a number of details about the Dairi and
his court. He was powerless, and lived in splendid poverty. The court
of the governor of Miyako, who had six vice-governors under him, was
scarcely less splendid than that of the emperor. He told Don Rodrigo
that this city contained five thousand temples and more than fifty
thousand public women. He showed him a temple, the largest building he
had seen in Japan, containing statues of all the gods, and another in
which was an immense bronze statue, the size of which filled him with
astonishment. “I ordered,” he says, “one of my people to measure the
thumb of the right hand; but, although he was a person of the ordinary
size, he could not quite encircle it with both arms. But the size
of the statue is not its only merit; the feet, hands, mouth, eyes,
forehead, and other features are as perfect and expressive as the most
accomplished painter could make a portrait. When I first visited this
temple it was unfinished; more than one hundred thousand men were daily
employed upon it. The devil could not suggest to the emperor a surer
expedient to get rid of this immense wealth.”[76]

The temple and tomb of Taikō-Sama, raised since his death to the rank
of the gods, is thus described by Rodrigo, who deplores the dedication
of such an edifice to one whose “soul is in hell for all eternity.”
The entrance was by an avenue paved with jasper four hundred feet by
three hundred. On each side, at equal distances, were posts of jasper,
on which were placed lamps lighted at night. At the end of this passage
was the peristyle of the temple, ascended by several steps, and having
on the right a monastery of priests. The principal gate was encrusted
with jasper and overlaid with gold and silver ornaments skilfully
wrought. The nave of the temple was supported by lofty columns. There
was a choir, as in European cathedrals, with seats and a grating
all round. Male and female choristers chanted the prayers, much as
in Catholic churches, and the surplices put Rodrigo in mind of the
prebends of Toledo. The church was filled with silent devotees. Four of
the priests accosted him, and seem to have put him to great uneasiness
by conducting him to the altar of their “infamous relics,” surrounded
with an infinite number of lamps. After raising five or six curtains,
covering as many gratings, first of iron, then of silver, and the last
one of gold, a kind of chest was exposed, in which were contained the
ashes of Taikō-Sama. Within this enclosure none but the chief priests
could enter. All the Japanese prostrated themselves.

Hastening to quit “this accursed spot,” Rodrigo was accompanied by the
priests to their gardens, exceeding, he says, those of Aranjuez.

Of the religion of Japan he makes the following observation: “The
Japanese, like us, use holy, or rather unholy, water, and chaplets
consecrated to their false gods, Shaka [Buddha] and Nido [Amida],
which are not the only ones that they worship, for there are no less
than thirty-five different sects or religions in Japan. Some deny
the immortality of the soul, others adore divers gods, and others
yet the elements. All are tolerated. The bonzes of all the sects
having concurred in a request to the emperor that he would expel our
monks, the prince, troubled with their importunities, inquired how
many different religions there were in Japan. ‘Thirty-five,’was the
reply. ‘Well,’said he, ‘where thirty-five sects can be tolerated,
we can easily bear with thirty-six;—leave the strangers in peace.’”
He estimates the Christians at three hundred thousand,—a much more
probable number than the eighteen hundred thousand at which they were
reckoned by the missionaries,[77] whose reckoning was the same now that
it had been ten years before.

From Miyako Don Rodrigo proceeded to Fushimi, adjoining, where
he embarked for Ōsaka, ten leagues down a river, as large as the
Guadalquivir at Seville, and full of vessels. Ōsaka, built close to the
sea, he reckons to contain one million inhabitants. Here he embarked
in a junk for Nagasaki. Not finding his vessel in proper repair, he
accepted an invitation from the emperor to return to Suruga, where he
renewed his endeavors to persuade that prince to expel the Dutch, but
without effect. At last, with presents and despatches for the king of
Spain, he set sail August 1, 1610, after a stay in Japan of nearly two
years.[78]

Meanwhile an event occurred of which Rodrigo makes no mention, but
for which the Portuguese were inclined to hold him responsible, no
less than the Dutch. The annual carac from Macao had arrived, as we
have seen, in the autumn of 1609, after an interval of three years,
commanded, as it happened, by the very same person who had been chief
magistrate there on occasion of the late seizure and execution of
certain Japanese. The emperor, strengthened, as it was thought, by
the expectation of Dutch and Spanish trade, encouraged the prince of
Arima to revenge the death of his subjects who had perished at Macao;
and when the carac was ready to sail on her return voyage she was
attacked by a fleet of Japanese boats. They were two or three times
repulsed, but, taking the carac at a disadvantage, becalmed and drifted
into a narrow passage, they succeeded in setting her on fire, and in
destroying her with all her crew.

Both the Dutch factors who had been left in Japan, and the king of
that island, Hōin-Sama, who had exerted himself greatly for the
establishment of Dutch commerce, were not a little annoyed at the
non-appearance of any Dutch vessels at Hirado during the year 1610.
The Dutch in the East Indies had, indeed, at this moment other things
to attend to. Verhœven, after his return to the Moluccas, had been
entrapped and treacherously slain at Banda, by the natives of that
island, along with many of his principal officers. This, however,
did not prevent the Dutch from soon after making a treaty with these
islanders, by which they obtained the sole right of purchasing their
nutmegs and mace, and which they followed up by the establishment
of not less than seven forts in the Molucca Islands, and by vigorous,
though as yet unsuccessful, attempts to drive away the Spaniards who
had come to the aid of the Portuguese.

[Illustration: A SCENE IN THE PALACE GARDENS, KYŌTŌ]

The Moluccas thus occupied, Admiral Wittert, who had succeeded to the
command of the Dutch fleet, sailed with part of the ships for Manila;
for though the truce between Spain and Holland was known, it had not
been proclaimed in the East Indies, and was not regarded by either
party. Here, unfortunately, Wittert suffered himself to be surprised by
a much superior Spanish force, and though he fought with the greatest
courage till he fell, his own ship and two others were taken, and
another blown up, two only making their escape.

Immediately upon the arrival of the “Red Lion” in Holland, a number
of ships had been fitted out for Japan; but the first to arrive was a
small yacht, called the “Brach,” in July, 1611, with only a trifling
cargo of cloths, silks, pepper, ivory, and lead. Presently a government
officer came on board to demand a manifest of the cargo to be sent
to the emperor; but this the Dutch did not like to submit to, as the
Portuguese were free from it, and especially as the present cargo was
so trifling. These demands being renewed, finally, though somewhat
perplexed by the small means they had of making presents, they resolved
upon a new mission to the emperor’s court. The king of Hirado advised
them also to extend their visit to the hereditary prince at Yedo, and
not to omit paying their respects to Hideyori at Ōsaka, son of the
late emperor, and who might yet mount the throne. The king of Hirado
furnished a galley, in addition to one belonging to the factories, and
two commissioners, of whom the principal was Jacob Spex, set out for
Suruga, July 17, with an interpreter and a Japanese gentleman as a
guide or conductor[79].

The 6th of August they reached Ōsaka, defended by a fine castle, in
which dwelt Hideyori, now eighteen years of age. He had always been
kept secluded, but enjoyed a large revenue, and had many adherents, by
whom, as the Dutch learned, the hope of placing him on the throne was
zealously entertained.

Arriving at Miyako, they learned that a Portuguese embassy had passed
through it four days preceding. They were deputies from Macao, who had
landed at Kagoshima, in a small vessel, and had gone with rich presents
to the emperor to solicit a renewal of trade and indemnification for
the vessels destroyed at Nagasaki two years before. Accompanied by a
large number of trumpeters and other musicians, they marched, with
great pomp, to the sound of the instruments, the whole of them, even
their black slaves, clothed in velvet of a uniform color. The governor
of Miyako, to whom they had made rich presents, had furnished them with
eighty-eight horses, which they had equipped at their own expense.

Nor was this governor (the same apparently who had entertained Don
Rodrigo) less bountiful to the Dutch. He furnished them with horses,
a passport, and letters to the chief of the emperor’s council, but
refused their presents, not being accustomed, he said, to take anything
from strangers. When they pressed him, he still refused to accept
anything now, but promised, if they had anything left at their return,
to allow them to remember him,—a piece of disinterestedness by which
the economical Dutch were greatly charmed.

Just before reaching Suruga they encountered Adams, the English pilot,
to whom they had written, and who, upon arriving at Suruga, hastened to
Kōzukeno-Suke, the same secretary of the emperor seen by Don Rodrigo,
but whom the Dutch call president of the council, to solicit for them a
speedy audience. While waiting for it, they learned that the Portuguese
ambassadors had not been very successful; nor had a Spanish embassy,
which had just arrived from New Spain, with thanks to the emperor for
his courtesies to Don Rodrigo. The presents of this ambassador were
very splendid; but his carriage was so haughty as to displease the
Japanese. He demanded leave for the Spaniards to build ships, for which
the forests and workmen of Japan afforded greater facilities than
either Manila or New Spain, and to explore the coasts, the Spaniards’
ignorance of which had cost them the loss of some valuable vessels.
This was agreed to; but the emperor declined the request for the
expulsion of the Dutch, saying that he had nothing to do with these
European quarrels. Adams was present at these interviews; nor did he
fail by his representations to excite the suspicions of the emperor
against the Spaniards.

Gotō Shōzaburō, the emperor’s treasurer, freely told the Dutch that the
Spaniards and Portuguese had represented him as coming to Japan rather
as privateersmen than as traders, and that, as might be seen by the
smallness of their present cargo, their chief resource for trade was
in the prizes they took. But Adams entered with great zeal into their
defence, insisting upon their honesty and fairness as the qualities
which had given them such success in trade, referring to the recent
truce with Spain as showing that plunder was not their object, and
excusing the smallness of the present venture by the lack, as yet, of
any regular treaty.

These representations were not without their effect. Kōzukeno-Suke
received the Dutch very graciously, approved the requests which they
made on the subject of trade, and promised to lay them before the
emperor pending their visit to Yedo, for which he furnished them with
vessels, horses, and guides. With much persuasion he was at last
induced to accept a present, which the Dutch regarded as a special
favor, as he had positively declined any from the Portuguese and
Spaniards. Before their departure, they were admitted to an audience
from the emperor, who inquired of them how many soldiers they had in
the Moluccas[80]; whether they traded to Borneo; whether it were true
that the best camphor came from that island; what odoriferous woods the
Dutch had in their country; and other similar questions, to which they
replied through their interpreter. After they had taken their leave,
Kōzukedono and Gotō Shōzaburō reconducted them out of the hall, at the
same time felicitating them on their favorable audience. It was very
unusual, they said, for the emperor to make himself so familiar; he did
not bestow such a favor even on the greatest lords of the empire, who
brought him presents of the value of ten, twenty, and thirty thousand
taels; nor had he said a single word to the Portuguese and Spanish
ambassadors. To Adams, who was called back to the royal apartments,
the emperor expressed himself greatly delighted with the presents, as
showing that the Dutch were “past masters” in arts as well as in arms.

The Dutchmen, having caused their propositions to be written out in
Japanese, placed them in the hands of Kōzukedono, and on the 18th
they were furnished with an order for ten horses, and a letter to the
hereditary prince at Yedo. Adams, who was in as great favor at this
court as at Suruga, lodged them in a house of his own, and undertook to
give notice of their arrival to Sadono-Kami, president of the prince’s
council and father of Kōzukedono, who sent an officer in return to make
his compliments to the Dutchmen.

They made him a visit the next day, with a present, which, as a great
favor, he condescended to accept. He inquired of them particularly the
cause of the war which had lasted so long between the Spaniards and
the Dutch, and the history of the negotiations which had brought about
the recent truce. The Dutch did not conceal the small extent of their
country, and the Japanese minister expressed great astonishment that
so feeble a state should have resisted with such success so powerful a
king. Finally, he treated them to a collation of fruit. Though very old
and infirm, he conducted them to the passage, and promised to accompany
them the next day to the palace. Admitted to the imperial palace, the
prince thanked them for the journey they had undertaken to see him;
but when (pretending orders from Holland to that effect) they besought
his favor and protection, he dismissed them with a nod. An officer,
however, conducted them over the palace, and the prince sent them some
presents, though not very magnificent ones. They themselves made many
presents, principally cloth and glass bottles, to many lords of the
court, among whom they found, in high favor, a brother of the young
king of Hirado.

From Yedo they proceeded to a port eighteen leagues distant (probably
Uraga), where Adams had another house, and where they found the Spanish
ship which had brought the ambassador from New Spain. The ambassador
himself was also there. He sent them a very civil message, to which
they responded with equal civility. Pressing invitations for a visit
passed between them, but neither party would be the first to call on
the other. By some Flemings, however, attached to the ambassador’s
suite, they were assured that the ambassador had no authority to demand
the exclusion of the Dutch, which he had done on his own authority. The
embassy, they said, had been fitted out at an expense of fifty thousand
dollars.

Upon their return to Suruga, October 1, Adams brought them the patent
which the emperor had granted for their commerce, and which, being
translated, proved to be in the following words:

 “All Dutch ships that come into my empire of Japan, whatever place
 or port they put into, we do hereby expressly command all and every
 one of our subjects not to molest the same in any way, nor to be a
 hindrance to them; but, on the contrary, to show them all manner of
 help, favor, and assistance. Every one shall beware to maintain the
 friendship in assurance of which we have been pleased to give our
 imperial word to these people; and every one shall take care that our
 commands and promises be inviolably kept.

 “Dated (according to the Japanese calendar equivalent to) August 30,
 1611.”[81]

The Dutch were very much troubled to find that the clause guaranteeing
freedom from the visits of inspectors and guards, and interference
with their trade by the government, which had been the great object of
their mission, was omitted. They made representations on the subject to
Kōzukeno-Suke, who advised them not to press it. But as they conceived
it of the greatest importance, they drew up a Japanese memorial, which
Adams presented to the emperor and the request of which Kōzukedono
seconded with such effect that the emperor ordered an edict granting
the wishes of the Dutch to be drawn up, which he immediately proceeded
to sign. Such is the statement of Spex’s narrative; but no such
document appears to be preserved in the archives of the Dutch factory,
the short one already given being everywhere cited and relied upon as
the charter of the Dutch trade to Japan, without any mention anywhere
else of any such supplement to it.

The return of the Dutchmen, by way of Miyako, to Hirado, does not
offer anything remarkable, except their meeting at Sakai (whither they
went to learn the price of goods and the course of trade there), with
Melichor von Santvoort, one of the Dutchmen who had reached Japan at
the same time with Adams. After selecting factors to stay behind,
ordering the erection of warehouses, and making such presents as their
small means admitted to their Japanese friends, their vessel set sail
on her return the 28th of September.

The Dutch, as we have seen, had been greatly assisted by Adams. The
Spanish envoy, in his negotiations, relied chiefly, as Don Rodrigo had
done before him, on the advice and assistance of Father Louis Sotelo,
a Franciscan friar of noble descent[82], established at Miyako, who
entered with great zeal into the project of a regular trade between
Japan and Mexico. But the old jealousy which the Japanese had long
entertained of the Spaniards soon broke out afresh. Some soundings made
along the coast by the vessel which brought out the Spanish ambassador
were looked upon with great suspicion and jealousy, which Adams is said
to have aggravated. Sotelo, despairing of success with the emperor,
though at first he had seemed to favor his projects, subsequently
proposed the same scheme to Date Masamune, who ruled over a part, or
the whole, of the kingdom of Ōshū, or Mutsu, in the north of Japan,
hitherto almost unknown, but to which a few missionaries had lately
made their way. The prince of Ōshū adopted Sotelo’s project with zeal,
affecting also quite a leaning towards the new faith, and, at Sotelo’s
suggestion, he sent an ambassador to the Pope and the king of Spain[83].

After many disappointments, Sotelo with this ambassador set sail at
length for New Spain, about the end of the year 1613, in a vessel
belonging to Masamune; and, by way of the city of Mexico, proceeded
to Seville and Madrid, where they arrived in October, 1614. Thence
they proceeded to Rome, and had an audience of the Pope, November 30,
1615, by whom Sotelo was nominated bishop for the north and east parts
of Japan, and his legate for the whole of it[84]. Having reached New
Spain on his return, he found in the port of Acapulco a Japanese
vessel belonging to Masamune, which, having disposed of a cargo of
Japanese goods, took on freight for Manila a part of the suite of a new
Spanish governor of the Philippines, intending to purchase at Manila
a cargo of Chinese silks. But the Council of the Indies, under the
influence of the Jesuits, and on the plea that the nomination of all
Eastern bishops belonged to the king, opposed Sotelo’s consecration;
and the merchants of Manila, alarmed at the rivalry of New Spain for
the Japanese trade, made such representations that, on his arrival
there, his papers were seized, and he himself was sent back to the
superiors of his order in New Mexico.

But long before the occurrence of these events—in fact, previous to the
departure of Sotelo from Japan—the Catholic faith there had received
a blow from which it never recovered, and which brought it to speedy
ruin.

CHAPTER XXII

 _Origin and Commencement of English Intercourse with Japan—Captain
 Saris’ Voyage thither, and Travels and Observations there—New Spanish
 Embassy from the Philippines—Commercial Rivalry of the Dutch and
 English—Richard Cocks, Head of the English Factory—A. D. 1611-1613._

The pilot, Adams, having heard from Spex that certain English merchants
had established themselves in the island of Java, he wrote to them,
under date of October 22, 1611, giving an account of himself, and
enclosing a letter to his wife, which he besought these unknown
countrymen of his to convey to his friends at Limehouse or in Kent,
so that his wife, “in a manner a widow,” and his fatherless children,
might hear of him, and he of them, before his death. “You shall
understand,” wrote Adams, “that the Hollanders have here an Indies of
money, so that they need not to bring silver out of Holland to the
East Indies, for in Japan there is much gold and silver to serve their
turn in other places where need requireth.” He enumerated as vendible
in Japan for ready money, raw silk, damask, black taffetas, black and
red cloth of the best kinds, lead, etc. To a somewhat exaggerated, and
otherwise not very correct account of the extent and the geography
of the Japanese dominions, he added the following description of
the inhabitants: “The people of this island of Japan are good of
nature, courteous above measure, and valiant in war. Their justice is
severely executed, and without partiality, upon transgressors. They
are governed in great civility. I think no land in the world better
governed by civil policy. The people are very superstitious in their
religion, and are of diverse opinions. There are many Jesuit and
Franciscan friars in this land, and they have converted many to be
Christians, and have many churches in the island.”

This letter, which was given in charge to the master’s mate of the
Dutch vessel, must have reached the English East India Company’s
factory at Bantam, in Java, previous to the first of June, 1612, for on
that day an answer to it was despatched by the “Globe,” which had just
arrived from England, and which, sailing from Bantam to Patania, met
there the same master’s mate who had brought Adams’ letter, and who,
being just about to return to Japan in a Dutch pinnace, promised to
deliver the answer.

Already, however, independently of Adams’ letter, a project had been
started in England for opening a trade with Japan, founded upon a
knowledge of Adams’ being there, derived from the crew of the Dutch
ship, the “Red Lion.” The “Globe,” which left England January 5,
1611, carried letters to Adams to that effect, and she was followed
in April by the “Clove,” the “Thomas,” and the “Hector,” under the
command of Captain John Saris, an old adventurer in the East, and a
former resident of Bantam, with letters from the king of England to the
emperor of Japan[85].

After touching, trading, negotiating and fighting, at Socotra, Mocha,
and other ports of the Red Sea, Saris arrived at Bantam in October,
1612. Soon after his arrival the letter of Adams was re-read in
presence of the assembled merchants; and doubtless it encouraged Saris
in his project of visiting Japan. Having taken in seven hundred sacks
of pepper, in addition to the broadcloths, gunpowder, and other goods
brought from England, Saris sailed on the 14th of January, 1618, in the
“Clove,” his crew consisting of seventy-four English, one Spaniard,
one Japanese, to serve as an interpreter, he speaking also the Malay
language, which Captain Saris understood, and five Swarts, probably
Malays.

Passing in sight of the south coast of Celebes, Saris touched at
several of the ports in the group of the Moluccas, occupied at that
time, some of them by Dutch and others by Spanish factories,—the
Spaniards from Manila having come to the rescue of the Portuguese, whom
the Dutch had driven out. Regarding all new comers (if of any other
nation than their own) with scarcely less suspicion and hostility than
they did each other, and both of them joining to oppress and plunder
the unhappy natives, “who were wrought upon,” so Saris says, “to spoil
one another in civil war,” the Dutch and Spaniards, secure in strong
forts, sat by and looked on, “prepared to take the bone from him that
would wrest it from his fellow.” The Dutch fort at Buchian had a
garrison of thirty Dutch soldiers, and eleven Dutch women, “able to
withstand the fury of the Spaniard, or other nation whatsoever, being
of a very lusty, large breed.”

The Dutch commander would not allow the natives to trade with the
English, even to the extent of a single _katty_ of cloves, threatening
with death those who did so, and claiming all the Spice Islands held by
them as “their country, conquered by the sword they having, with much
loss of blood and money, delivered the inhabitants from the tyranny of
the Portuguese, and having made a perpetual contract with them for the
purchase of all their spices at a fixed rate,” in the case of cloves
at about eight cents the pound. This claim of exclusive right of trade
Captain Saris declined to acknowledge; at the same time he professed
his readiness to give the Dutch, “as neighbors and brethren in Christ,”
a preference in purchasing any part of his cargo of which they might
happen to stand in need.

The English and Dutch had been ready enough to join together in
breaking up the Portuguese and Spanish monopoly, and in forcing a trade
in the Indian seas; but it was already apparent that the Dutch East
India Company, which in the amount of capital at its command very far
surpassed the English Company, was bent on establishing a monopoly
of its own, not less close than that formerly maintained by the
Portuguese. The Spaniards, on the other hand, professed friendship, and
made some offers of trade; but Captain Saris, suspecting treachery, did
not choose to trust them.

On the 14th of April, he left the Moluccas, and stood on his course
for Japan. On the 10th of June, having been in sight of land for a day
or two, his ships were boarded by four great fishing-boats, fitted
with both sails and oars, from whose crews they learned that they were
off the harbor of Nagasaki. In fact, one of these boats belonged to
the Portuguese, and was manned by “new Christians,” who had mistaken
the ships of Captain Saris for the annual Portuguese carac. Finding
their mistake, no entreaty could prevail upon them to stay; but two of
the other boats, for thirty dollars each in money, and rice for food,
agreed to pilot the ship to Hirado, by the pilot’s reckoning some
thirty leagues to the north, and the boatmen coming on board began to
assist in working the vessel, showing themselves not less handy than
the English sailors.

No sooner had the ship anchored off Hirado, than she was visited by the
king or hereditary governor of that island, by name Hōin Sama,—the same
who had shown so much favor to the Dutch,—upward of seventy years old,
attended by his nephew or grandchild, a young man of two-and-twenty,
who governed under him. They came with forty boats or galleys, with
from ten to fifteen oars a side; but on approaching the vessel, all
fell back, except the two which carried the princes, who came on board
unattended, except by a single person each. They were bareheaded and
barelegged, wearing shoes, but no stockings; the fore-part of their
heads shaven to the crown, and their hair behind, which was very long,
gathered up into a knot. They were clad in shirts and breeches, over
which was a silk gown girt to them, with two swords of the country at
their side, one half a yard in length, the other half as long. Their
manner of salutation was to put off their shoes, and then stooping,
with their right hand in their left, and both against their knees, to
approach with small sidling steps, slightly moving their hands at the
same time, and crying _Augh! Augh!_

Captain Saris conducted them to his cabin, where he had a banquet
spread, and a concert of music, with which they seemed much delighted.
The old king received with much joy a letter from the king of England,
but put off reading it till “_Ange_” (or, according to Adams’ way
of writing it, Angin [Anjin[86]]) should come —that word being the
Japanese for pilot, and the name by which Adams was known, to whom,
then at Yedo, letters were sent the same night, as also to the emperor.

As soon as the king had gone on shore, all his principal people,
attended by a multitude of soldiers, entered the ship, each man of
consequence bringing a present of venison, wild boar, large and fat
wild fowl, fruits, fish, etc.; but as the crowd proved troublesome,
King Hōin sent an officer on board to keep order and prevent mischief.
The next day came some threescore great boats or galleys, very well
manned, which towed the vessel into the harbor, of which the entrance
was narrow and dangerous. Here they anchored in five fathoms, so close
to the shore that they could talk with the people in the houses,
saluting the town with nine pieces of ordnance—a compliment which
the inhabitants were unable to return, having no cannon, only pieces
for small shot. The ship was speedily surrounded with boats full of
people, who seemed much to admire her head and stern, and the decks
were so crowded with men, women, and children, that it was impossible
to move about. The captain took several of the better sort of women
into his cabin, where a picture of Venus and Cupid “did hang somewhat
wantonly, set out in a large frame, which, mistaking it for the Virgin
and her Son, some of those women kneeled to and worshipped with great
devotion,” at the same time whispering in a low tone, that they might
not be overheard by their companions, that they were _Christianos_;
by which it was understood that they were converts of the Portuguese
Jesuits.

Soon after, King Hōin came again on board, and brought with him four
women of his family. They were barelegged, except that a pair of
half-buskins were bound by a silk ribbon about their insteps, and were
clad in a number of silk gowns, one skirt over another, bound about
their waists by a girdle, their hair very black and long, and tied in
a comely knot on the crown of the head, no part of which was shaven,
like the men’s. They had good faces, hands, and feet, clear-skinned and
white, but wanting color; which, however, they supplied by art. They
were low in stature and very fat, courteous in behavior, of which they
well understood the ceremonials according to the Japanese fashion. At
first they seemed a little bashful; but the king “willing them to be
frolic,” and all other company being excluded except Captain Saris and
the interpreter, they sang several songs, playing on an instrument much
like a guitar, but with four strings only, which they fingered very
nimbly with the left hand, holding in the other a piece of ivory, with
which they touched the strings, playing and singing by book, the tunes
being noted on lines and spaces, much the same as European music.

Not long after, desirous to be “frolic,” the king brought on board a
company of female actors—such as were common in Japan, little better,
it would seem, than slaves and courtesans, being under the control of a
master, who carried them from place to place, selling their favors, and
“exhibiting comedies of war, love, and such like, with several shifts
of apparel for the better grace of the matter acted.”

[Illustration: PERFORMERS ON THE KOTO AND THE SAMISEN]

It appeared, however, on a subsequent occasion, on which several of
the English were present, that, besides these professional actors, the
king and his principal courtiers were accustomed, on certain great
festivals, at which the whole country was present, to present a
play, of which the matter was the valiant deeds of their ancestors,
from the beginning of their kingdom or commonwealth, intermixed,
however, with much mirth, “to give the common people content.” On that
occasion they had as musical instruments, to assist their voices,
little tabors or stringed instruments, small in the middle and large at
both ends, like an hour-glass; also fifes; but though they kept exact
time, the whole performance was very harsh to English ears.

While waiting for Adams, who presently arrived, after being seventeen
days on his way, a house on shore for a factory was hired, furnished
with mats, according to the custom of the country, for a rent of about
ninety-five dollars for six months. Not long after, leaving Mr. Richard
Cocks in charge of the factory and the trade, Captain Saris set out on
a visit to the emperor, attended by Adams and seventeen persons of his
own company, including several mercantile gentlemen, a tailor, a cook,
the surgeon’s mate, the Japanese interpreter, the coxswain, and one
sailor. He was liberally furnished by old King Hōin with a conductor
for the journey, a large galley, of twenty-five oars a side, manned
with sixty men, and also with a hundred taels in Japanese money (equal
to one hundred and twenty-five dollars), to pay his expenses, which,
however, Captain Saris directed Cocks to place to King Hōin’s credit as
so much money lent.

The galley being handsomely fitted up with waist-cloths and ensigns,
they coasted along the western and northern shores of the great island
of Shimo (or Kiūshiū), off the northwest coast of which the small
island of Hirado lay. As they coasted along, they passed a number of
handsome towns. Hakata, distant two days’ rowing from Hirado, had
a very strong castle of freestone, with a wide and deep ditch and
drawbridge, kept in good repair, but without cannon or garrison.
Here, finding the current too strong, they stopped to dine. The town
seemed as large as London within the walls, very well built, with
straight streets. As they landed, they had experience, repeated almost
wherever they went, of that antipathy to foreigners, so characteristic
a trait of the country; for the boys, children, and worser sort of
idle people, would gather about them, crying out _Coré, Coré, Cocoré,
Waré_[87], taunting them by these words as Coreans with false hearts,
whooping, hallowing, and making such a noise, that the English could
hardly hear each other speak, and even in some places throwing stones
at them—all which went on without any interference on the part of the
public officers. In general, however, the police was very strict, and
punishments very prompt and bloody. Saris saw several executions in
the streets, after which, every passer-by was allowed to try his sword
on the dead bodies, which thus are chopped into small pieces, and left
for the birds of prey to devour. All along the coast they noticed many
families living in boats upon the water, as in Holland, the women being
very expert fishers, not only with lines and nets, but by diving, which
gave them, however, blood-shot eyes.

Coasting through the Strait of Shimonoseki, and the channel which
separates Nippon from the two more southern islands, on the twentieth
day after leaving Hirado they reached the entrance of a river, a
short distance up which lay the town of Ōsaka, which, however, they
could only reach in a small boat. This town, which seemed as large
as Hakata, had many handsome timber bridges across a river as wide as
the Thames at London. It had, also, a great and very strong castle of
freestone, in which, as they were told, the son of the late emperor,
left an infant at his father’s decease, was kept a close prisoner. Some
nine miles from Ōsaka, on the other side of the river, lay the town
of Sakai, not so large, but accessible to ships, and a place of great
trade.

Leaving their galley at Ōsaka, Captain Saris and his company passed in
boats up a river or canal, one day’s journey, to Fushimi, where they
found a garrison of three thousand soldiers, maintained by the emperor
to keep in subjection Ōsaka and the still larger neighboring city of
Miyako [Kyōto]. The garrison being changed at that time, the old troops
marching out, and new ones marching in, a good opportunity was afforded
to see their array. They were armed with a species of fire-arms, pikes,
swords, and targets, bows and arrows, and _wakizashi_, described as
like a Welsh hook. They marched five abreast, with an officer to every
ten files, without colors or musical instruments, in regiments of from
a hundred and fifty to five hundred men, of which one followed the
other at the distance of a league or two, and were met for two or three
days on the road. Captain Saris was very favorably impressed with the
discipline and martial bearing of these troops. The captain-general,
whom they met in the rear, marched in very great state, hunting and
hawking all the way, the hawks being managed exactly after the European
fashion. The horses were of middle size, small-headed, and very full of
mettle.

At Fushimi, Captain Saris and his company quitted their bark, and were
furnished each man with a horse to travel overland to Suruga, where
the emperor held his court. For Captain Saris a palanquin was also
provided, with bearers to carry it, two at a time, six in number where
the way was level, but increased to ten when it became hilly. A spare
horse was led beside the palanquin for him to ride when he pleased,
and, according to the custom of the country with persons of importance,
a slave was appointed to run before him, bearing a pike.

Thus they travelled, at the rate of some forty-five miles a day, over
a highway for the most part very level, but in some places cut through
mountains; the distances being marked, in divisions of about three
miles, by two little hillocks on each side of the way, planted at the
top with a fair pine-tree, “trimmed round in fashion of an arbor.”
This road, which was full of travellers, led by a succession of farms,
country-houses, villages, and great towns. It passed many fresh rivers
by ferries, and near many _hotoke_[88], or temples, situated in groves,
“the most pleasantest places for delight in the whole country.”

Every town and village was well furnished with taverns, where meals
could be had at a moment’s warning. Here, too, lodgings were obtained,
and horses and men for the palanquin were taken up by the director of
the journey, like post-horses in England. The general food was observed
to be rice. The people ate also fish, wild fowl of various kinds,
fresh and salted, and various picked herbs and roots. They ploughed
with horses and oxen, as in Europe, and raised good red wheat. Besides
_sake_, made from rice, they drank with their food warm water[89].

The entrance of the travellers into Suruga, where the emperor held
his court, and which they reached on the seventh day, was not very
savory, as they were obliged to pass several crosses, with the dead
and decaying bodies of the malefactors still nailed to them. This city
they judged to be as large as London with all the suburbs[90]. The
handicraftsmen dwelt in the outskirts of the town, so as not to disturb
with their pounding and hammering the richer and more leisurely sort.

After a day or two spent in preparations, Saris, accompanied by the
merchants and others, went in his palanquin to the palace, bearing
his presents, according to the custom of the country, on little
tables, or rather salvers, of a sweet-smelling wood. Having entered
the castle, he passed three drawbridges, each with its guard, and,
ascending a handsome stone staircase, he was met by two grave, comely
men, Kōzuke-no-Suke, the emperor’s secretary, and Hyōgo-no-Kami, the
admiral, who led him into a matted antechamber. Here they all sat down
on the mats, but the two officers soon rose again, and took him into
the presence-chamber, to bestow due reverence on the emperor’s empty
chair of state. It was about five feet high, the sides and back richly
ornamented with cloth of gold, but without any canopy. The presents
given in the name of the king, and others by Captain Saris in his own
name (as the custom of the country required), were arranged about this
room.

After waiting a little while longer in the antechamber, it was
announced that the emperor had come, when the officers motioned Saris
into the room, but without entering themselves. Approaching the
emperor, he presented, with English compliments (on his knee, it may be
presumed), the king’s letter, which the emperor took and raised toward
his forehead, telling the interpreter to bid them welcome after their
wearisome journey, and that in a day or two his answer would be ready.
He invited them in the mean time to visit his son, who resided at Yedo.

The country between Suruga and Yedo, which were two days’ journey
apart, was found to be well inhabited. They saw many temples on the
way, one of which contained a gigantic image of Buddha[91], made of
copper, hollow within, but of very substantial thickness. It was, as
they guessed, twenty-two feet high, in likeness of a man kneeling on
the ground, and seated on his heels, clothed in a gown, his arms of
wonderful size, and the whole body in proportion. The echo of the
shouts of some of the company, who went into the body of it, was very
loud. Some of the English left their names written upon it, as they saw
was customary.

Yedo was found to be a city much larger than Suruga, and with much
handsomer buildings, making a very glorious appearance as they
approached, the ridge tiles and corner tiles, and the posts of the
doors, being richly gilded and varnished. There were, however, no glass
windows, but window-shutters instead, opening in leaves, and handsomely
painted.

From Yedo, where our travellers were received much as they had been
at Suruga, they proceeded some forty miles, by boats, to Uraga,
an excellent harbor on the sea-side, whence, in eight days, they
coasted round a projecting point of land back to Suruga, where they
received the emperor’s answer to the king’s letter, also an engrossed
and official copy of certain privileges of trade, a draught of which
they had furnished to the emperor’s secretary, and which, having been
condensed as much as possible, to suit the Japanese taste for brevity,
and thus reduced from fourteen articles to eight, were expressed in the
following terms[92]:

 “1. _Imprimis._ We give free license to the subjects of the king of
 Great Britain, namely, Sir Thomas Smith, governor, and the company
 of the East India merchants and adventurers, forever, safely to come
 into any of the ports of our empire of Japan, with their ships and
 merchandises, without any hindrance to them or their goods, and to
 abide, buy, sell and barter, according to their own manner, with all
 nations: to tarry here as long as they think good, and to depart at
 their pleasures.

 “2. _Item._ We grant unto them freedom of custom for all such
 merchandises as either now they have brought or hereafter they shall
 bring into our kingdoms, or shall from hence transport to any foreign
 part; and do authorize those ships that hereafter shall arrive and
 come from England, to proceed to present sale of their commodities,
 without further coming or sending up to our court.

 “3. _Item._ If any of their ships shall happen to be in danger of
 shipwreck, we will our subjects not only to assist them, but that such
 part of ship and goods as shall be saved be returned to their captain
 or cape-merchant[93], or their assigns: and that they shall or may
 build one house or more for themselves, in any part of our empire
 where they shall think fittest, and at their departure to make sale
 thereof at their pleasure.

 “4. _Item._ If any of the English, merchants or other, shall depart
 this life within our dominions, the goods of the deceased shall remain
 at the dispose of the cape-merchant: and all offenses committed by
 them shall be punished by the said cape-merchant, according to his
 discretion; our laws to take no hold of their persons or goods.

 “5. _Item._ We will that ye our subjects, trading with them for any
 of their commodities, pay them for the same according to agreement,
 without delay, or return of their wares again unto them.

 “6. _Item._ For such commodities as they have now brought, or shall
 hereafter bring fitting for our service and proper use, we will
 that no arrest be made thereof, but that the price be made with the
 cape-merchant, according as they may sell to others, and present
 payment upon the delivery of the goods.

 “7. _Item._ If, in discovery of other countries for trade, and return
 of their ships, they should need men or victuals, we will that ye our
 subjects furnish them for their money as their need shall require.

 “8. And that, without further passport, they shall and may set out
 upon the discovery of Yezo[94], or any other part in and about our
 empire[95].”

The letter from the emperor to the king of England did not differ very
materially from that to the prince of Orange, already given. [See
Appendix, Note 1.]

In the original draught of the Privileges, there had been an additional
article, to the effect that, as the Chinese had refused to trade with
the English, in case the English should capture any Chinese ships, they
might be allowed the privilege of selling such prizes in the Japanese
ports; but this article, upon consideration, the emperor refused to
grant.

While these documents were under consideration, a Spanish ambassador
from the Philippines had arrived at Suruga with the request that
such Portuguese and Spaniards as were in the emperor’s territories
without authority from the king of Spain might be delivered up to be
transported to the Philippines—a request occasioned by the great want
of men to defend the Spanish posts in the Moluccas against the Dutch,
who were then preparing to make an absolute conquest of the whole of
those islands. But to this demand the emperor replied that his country
was a free country, and nobody should be forced out of it; but if the
ambassador could persuade any of his countrymen to go, they should
not be prevented; whereupon the ambassador departed, not a little
discontented.

The day after receiving the emperor’s letter and the Privileges, being
the 9th of October, Captain Saris and his company set out by land for
Miyako, where the presents were to be delivered to him, over the same
road by which they had travelled from Ōsaka to Suruga; but, owing to
the heavy rains and the rising of the river, their progress was much
delayed.

Miyako they found to be the greatest and most commercial city of Japan.
Here, too, was the largest hotoke, or temple, in the whole country,
built of freestone, begun by the late emperor, and just finished by
the present one, as long, they estimated, as the part of St. Paul’s,
in London, westerly from the choir, being as high-arched, and borne
upon pillars like that[96]. This temple was attended upon by a great
many bonzes or priests, who thus obtained their living, being supported
by the produce of an altar, on which the worshippers offered rice and
small pieces of money, and near which was a colossal copper image, like
that already described, but much larger, reaching to the very arch of
the temple, which itself stood on the top of a hill, having an avenue
of approach on either side of fifty stone pillars, ten paces apart, on
each of which was suspended a lantern, lighted every night[97].

Here, also, the Jesuits had a very stately college, in which many of
them reside, both Portuguese and natives, and in which many children
were trained up in the Christian religion according to the Romish
church. In this city alone there were not less than five or six
thousand professing Christians[98].

But already that persecution was commenced which ended in the
banishment of the Jesuits from Japan, and, indeed, in the exclusion of
all Europeans, with a slight exception in favor of the Dutch. Following
up an edict of the previous year, against the Franciscans, the emperor
had issued a proclamation, about a month before Captain Saris’ arrival
at Suruga, that no church should stand, nor mass be sung, within ten
leagues of his court, upon pain of death.

Having at length received the emperor’s presents for the king of
England, being ten byōbu [screen] or “large pictures to hang a chamber
with,” they proceeded the same day to Fushimi and the next to Ōsaka,
where they reëmbarked in the galley which had been waiting for them,
and returned to Hirado, having spent just three months on the tour.

Captain Saris found that, during his absence, seven of his crew had
run away to Nagasaki, where they had complained to the Portuguese of
having been used more like dogs than men. Others, seduced by drink
and women, and sailor boarding-house keepers,—just the same in Japan
as elsewhere,—had committed great irregularities, quarrelling with
the natives and among themselves, even to wounding, and maiming, and
death. What with these troubles, added to a “_tuffon_,” [typhoon]—a
violent storm,—which did a good deal of damage (though the ship rode it
out with five anchors down), and alarms of conflagration, founded on
oracles of the bonzes, and numerous festivals and entertainments, at
which Cocks had been called upon to assist,—one of which was a great
feast, lasting three days and three nights, to which the Japanese
invited their dead kindred, banqueting and making merry all night at
their graves[99],—but little progress had been made in trade. The cargo
consisted largely of broadcloths, which the Dutch had been selling,
before the English came, at seventeen dollars the yard. Captain Saris
wished to arrange with them to keep up the price, but the head of
their factory immediately sent off to the principal places of sale
large quantities, which he disposed of at very low prices, in order to
spoil the market. The natives, also, were the more backward to buy,
because they saw that the English, though very forward to recommend
their cloth, did not much wear it themselves, the officers being
clothed in silks, and the men in fustians. So the goods were left in
charge of the factory, which was appointed to consist of eight English,
including Cocks and Adams (who was taken into the service of the East
India Company on a salary of one hundred pounds a year), three Japanese
interpreters, and two servants, with charge, against the coming of the
next ships, to search all the neighboring coasts to see what trade
might be had with any of them.

The matter arranged, and having supplied the place of those of his crew
who had died or deserted, by fifteen Japanese, and paid up a good many
boarding-house and liquor-shop claims against his men, to be deducted
out of their wages, Captain Saris sailed on the 5th of December for
Bantam, where he arrived the 3d of January, 1614. Having taken in a
cargo of pepper, he sailed for home on the 13th of February, anchored
off the Cape of Good Hope on the 16th of May, and, on the 27th of
September, arrived at Plymouth, having in the preceding six weeks
experienced worse weather and encountered more danger than in the whole
voyage beside[100].

CHAPTER XXIII

 _Ecclesiastical Retrospect—New Persecution—Edict of Banishment against
 the Missionaries—Civil War between Hideyori and Ōgosho-Sama—Triumph of
 Ōgosho-Sama—His death—Persecution more Violent than ever—Mutual Rancor
 of the Jesuits and the Friars—Progress of Martyrdom—The English and
 Dutch, A. D. 1613-1620._

Between the edict of Taikō-Sama against the Catholics, and those the
issue of which by Ōgosho-Sama is briefly alluded to in the preceding
chapter, sixteen years had elapsed, during the whole of which time the
missionaries and the Catholic Japanese had been kept in a state of
painful uncertainty.

It is true that the new emperor had greatly relaxed from the hostility
of his predecessor, and seemed at times decidedly favorable. In many
parts of Japan the Catholic worship was carried on as openly as ever.
Many new laborers, both Jesuits and other, had come into the field,
and conversion still continued to be made among persons of the highest
rank. There was scarcely any part of the empire in which converts were
not to be found, and the missionaries occasionally penetrated into the
most remote provinces. The general of the Jesuits had been encouraged
to raise Japan to the dignity of a province, of which China and the
neighboring regions had been made a part, and of which Father Valentine
Carvilho was made provincial. Japan had also a resident bishop, or at
least coadjutor, in the person of Father Louis Serqueyra, himself taken
from the order of the Jesuits; and under the bishop, as we have seen,
were a few secular clergy. By a brief of Pope Paul V., just published
in Japan, that empire had been opened to the members of all the
religious orders of the church, with liberty to proceed thither by way
of Manila as well as of Macao.

Yet, during these sixteen years, the Catholics of the different
subordinate kingdoms had been more or less exposed to persecution,
especially in the island of Shimo, where they were most numerous, and
which, from being mainly ruled by converted princes, was now chiefly
governed by apostates or infidels; nor could the favor of the emperor
be at any time certainly relied upon.

The new Dutch and English visitors were prompted no less by religious
than by mercantile jealousies and hatreds to do all they could to
diminish the credit of the Catholic missionaries; and it is by no
means improbable that, as the Portuguese asserted, their suggestions
had considerable weight in producing the new persecuting edicts of
Ōgosho-Sama. Indeed, they had only to confirm the truth of what the
Portuguese and Spanish said of each other to excite in the minds of the
Japanese rulers the gravest distrust as to the designs of the priests
of both nations.

The edicts already mentioned were followed by another, about the
beginning of the year 1614, of which the substance was that all priests
and missionaries of the Catholic faith should forthwith depart the
empire, that all their houses and churches should be destroyed, and
that all the Japanese converts should renounce the foreign faith.

There were in Japan when this edict was issued about a hundred and
thirty Jesuits, in possession of some fifty schools, colleges, and
convents, or houses of residence, also some thirty friars of the three
orders of St. Augustin, St. Dominic and St. Francis, besides a few
secular ecclesiastics, or parish priests. Most of them were shipped
off at once. Some found means to return in disguise; but the new
persecution speedily assumed a character far more alarming than any
of the former ones. Severe measures were now taken against the native
converts. Those who refused to renounce their faith were stripped of
their property, those of the most illustrious rank, among whom was
Ukondono [Kōyama Ukon], being shipped off to Manila and Macao, and
others sent into a frightful sort of Siberian banishment among the
mountains of Northern Japan, now first described in the letters of
some of the missionaries who found their way thither to console and
strengthen these exiles. Many, also, were put to death, most of whom
exhibited in the midst of torments all the firmness of the national
character.

The violence of this persecution was interrupted for a moment by an
attempt on the part of Hideyori now grown to man’s estate, to recover
his father’s authority—a rebellion in which many of the converts joined
in hopes of gaining something by the change.

On the 10th of December, 1614, Cocks, the English resident at Hirado,
wrote to Saris that, since his departure, the emperor had banished all