[26] In the volume already referred to, entitled Supplement to China Materials, etc., in the India Office, the following extract from a letter of Cocks is given as coming from “Damaged Papers”, ii. no. 5, which can no longer be identified:—“I forgot to note downe how the Emperours Councell, when they saw me earnestly pursue the enlarging of our previleges, tould me that they made accompt it was not unknowne unto us the order the Emperor of China did take for keeping strangers from entering his dominions, alowing the Spaniards and Portingales no port to enter into, but only Amacau; yt being but a littell point or rock of noe emportance. Unto which I replied that their previleges were far better then ours, in respect they pay no duties but only a certain sum of money for ancorage of their shipps, neither were bound to goe to the Emperours court with any present yearely, as we doe, spending more money in going up and downe then the ancorage of their shipping cometh unto. As also the Portingales of Amacau have lycense to goe yearely to the greate cittie of Canton both to buy and sell such commodities as they have, and had boates provided by the King of China to carry them up and downe with their goods. So that I wished the Emperour of Japan would make our previleges equall with the Portingales at Amacau. Unto which they answered littell, but in smiling sort passed it over.”
[27] Rundall, Memorials, p. 184.
[28] “Au Japon se trouvaient encore trente-quatre membres de la Compagnie, tant à Nangasaki qu’en différentes provinces; cinq Franciscains, cinq ou six Dominicains, un Augustin, et cinq prêtres séculiers Japonais. La plupart de ces religieux et prêtres étaient cachés à Nangasaki.”—Pagés, Hist. de la Religion Chrétienne au Japon, 1869, p. 347.
[29] Father João Baptista Machado, Jesuit, and Pedro de l’Assumpcion, Franciscan, whose martyrdoms are narrated by Pagés.
[30] “He was made an officer and given the revenues of the village of Hémi, in Sagami, near the modern Yokosuka, where are situated the dry docks, machine-shops, and ship-building houses in which the modern war vessels of the imperial navy are built and launched—a fitting location, so near the ground made classic by this exile from the greatest marine nation in the world.”—Griffis, The Mikado’s Empire, 1876, p. 262.
[31] Saris makes an interesting remark on this practice of the Dutch:—“Before our coming they passed generally by the name of Englishmen, for our English nation hath been long known by report among them, but much scandalled by the Portugals Jesuits as pirates and rovers upon the seas; so that the naturals have a song which they call the English Crofonia, shewing how the English do take the Spanish ships, which they (singing) do act likewise in gesture with their cattans by their sides, with which song and acting they terrify and scare their children, as the French sometimes did theirs with the name of the Lord Talbot.”—Purchas, i. 368.
[32] The letter printed in Purchas, i. 411, is, by a printer’s error, dated 1610, instead of 1620.
[33] Cocks mentions another child at Firando.
[34] Adams left a will, drawn up apparently in duplicate, in English and Japanese. It was formerly preserved in the archives of the East India Company. In the MS. volume, T. (b), vol. i. Supplement to China Materials, the English document is referred to as being among the “Collection of wills”, and the Japanese version as among “Foreign papers”. In 1850, Mr. Rundall appears to have seen the Japanese, but not the English, version, for he states that “the will of William Adams, in Japanese, is preserved among the records of the Honourable the East India Company”, but that “a translation has not been traced” (Memorials of the Empire of Japon, p. 87). He also quotes the Inventory of the Estate of Capt. William Adams, showing that the value of the property was about £500. I regret to say that these documents cannot now be found in the India Office, although, by the kindness of Mr. C. C. Prinsep, I have had every assistance in making a search.
Mr. Griffis, in The Mikado’s Empire, 1876, p. 262, gives the following interesting particulars respecting Adams and his last resting-place:—“Will Adams had a son and daughter born to him in Japan, and there are still living Japanese who claim descent from him. One of the streets of Yedo was named after him Anjin Chō (Pilot Street), and the people of that street still hold an annual celebration on the 15th of June in his honor, one of which I attended in 1873. When Adams died, he, and afterwards his Japanese wife, were buried on the summit of one of the lovely hills overlooking the Bay of Yedo, Goldsborough Inlet, and the surrounding beautiful and classic landscape. Adams chose the spot himself. The people of Yedo erected memorial-stone lanterns at his tomb. Parry’s fleet, in 1854, anchored within the very shadow of the Englishman’s sepulchre. In May, 1872, Mr. Walter, of Yokohama, after a study of Hildreth and some search, discovered the tomb which others had sought for in vain. Two neat stone shafts in the characteristic style of native monumental architecture, set on a stone pediment, mark the spot. I visited it, in company of the bonze in charge of the Shin shin temple of the village, in July, 1873.”