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.”
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].