It has been confidently stated that Tokugawa Ieyasu regarded Christian nations and Christian propagandists with distrust not less profound than that harboured by Hideyoshi. But facts are opposed to that view. Within less than three months of the Taiko's death, the Tokugawa chief had his first interview with a Christian priest. The man was a Franciscan, by name Jerome de Jesus. He had been a member of the fictitious embassy from Manila, and his story illustrates the zeal and courage that inspired the Christian fathers in those days. "Barely escaping the doom of crucifixion which overtook his companions, he had been deported from Japan to Manila at a time when death seem to be the certain penalty of remaining. But no sooner had he been landed in Manila than he took passage in a Chinese junk, and, returning to Nagasaki, made his way secretly from the far south of Japan to the province of Kii. There arrested, he was brought into the presence of Ieyasu, and his own record of what ensued is given in a letter subsequently sent to Manila:
"'When the Prince saw me he asked how I managed to escape the previous persecution. I answered him that at that date God had delivered me in order that I might go to Manila and bring back new colleagues from there—preachers of the divine law—and that I had returned from Manila to encourage the Christians, cherishing the desire to die on the cross in order to go to enjoy eternal glory like my former colleagues. On hearing these words the Emperor began to smile, whether in his quality of a pagan of the sect of Shaka which teaches that there is no future life, or whether from the thought that I was frightened at having to be put to death. Then, looking at me kindly, he said, "Be no longer afraid and no longer conceal yourself and no longer change your habit, for I wish you well; and as for the Christians who every year pass within sight of Kwanto where my domains are, when they go to Mexico with their ships, I have a keen desire for them to visit the harbours of this island, to refresh themselves there, and to take what they wish, to trade with my vassals, and to teach them how to develop silver mines; and that my intentions may be accomplished before my death, I wish you to indicate to me the means to take to realize them."
"'I answered that it was necessary that Spanish pilots should take the soundings of his harbours, so that ships might not be lost in future as the San Felipe had been, and that he should solicit this service from the governor of the Philippines. The Prince approved of my advice, and accordingly he has sent a Japanese gentleman, a native of Sakai, the bearer of this message…. It is essential to oppose no obstacle to the complete liberty offered by the Emperor to the Spaniards and to our holy order, for the preaching of the holy gospel. … The same Prince (who is about to visit the Kwanto) invites me to accompany him to make choice of a house, and to visit the harbour which he promises to open to us; his desires in this respect are keener than I can express.'"*
*Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by
Brinkley.
Subsequent events confirm the accuracy of the above story. Father Jerome was allowed to build the first Christian church in Yedo and to officiate there. Moreover, Ieyasu sent "three embassies in succession to the Philippines, proposing reciprocal freedom of commerce, offering to open ports in the Kwanto, and asking for competent naval architects." These architects never came, and the trade that resulted from the Tokugawa chief's overtures was paltry in comparison with the number of friars that accompanied it to Japan. It has been suggested that Ieyasu designed these Spanish monks to serve as a counterpoise to the influence of the Jesuits. For he must have known that the Franciscans opened their mission in Yedo by "declaiming with violence against the fathers of the Company of Jesus," and he must have understood that the Spanish monks assumed towards the Jesuits in Japan the same intolerent and abusive tone that the Jesuits themselves had previously assumed towards Buddhism.
ENGRAVING: ANJIN-ZUKA, NEAR YOKOSUKA, THE TOMB OF WILL ADAMS
WILL ADAMS
At about this time a Dutch merchant ship named the Liefde arrived in Japan. In 1598, a squadron of five ships sailed from Holland to exploit the sources of Portuguese commerce in the Orient, and of the five vessels only one, the Liefde, was ever heard of again. She reached Japan in the spring of 1600, with only four and twenty survivors of her original crew, numbering 110. Towed into the harbour of Funai, she was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate. On board the Liefde, serving in the capacity of pilot major was an Englishman, Will Adams, of Gillingham in Kent. Ieyasu summoned him to Osaka, and between the rough English sailor and the Tokugawa chief there commenced a curiously friendly intercourse which was not interrupted until the death of Adams, twenty years later.
"The Englishman became master-shipbuilder to the Yedo Government; was employed as diplomatic agent when other traders from his own country and from Holland arrived in Japan, received in perpetual gift a substantial estate, and from first to last possessed the implicit confidence of the shogun. Ieyasu quickly discerned the man's honesty; perceived that whatever benefits foreign commerce might confer would be increased by encouraging competition among the foreigners, and realized that English and Dutch trade presented the wholesome feature of complete dissociation from religious propagandism. On the other hand, he showed no intolerance to either Spaniards or Portuguese. He issued (1601) two official patents sanctioning the residence of the fathers in Kyoto, Osaka, and Nagasaki; he employed Father Rodriguez as interpreter at the Court in Yedo, and, in 1603 he gave munificent succour to the Jesuits who were reduced to dire straits owing to the capture of the great ship from Macao by the Dutch and the consequent loss of several years' supplies for the mission in Japan."*
*Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by
Brinkley.