Scarcely anything was ever recovered from the debts owing to the Company in Japan. The Council at Batavia, writing home on the 6th February, 1626, announce that the Dutch factor at Firando had informed them of the death of the Chinaman, Andrea Dittis, who had left only a small estate to satisfy his creditors, out of which the Company was to receive its share. All other debts were bad, and no return was to be expected but by mere accident.
Thus was severed our connection with Japan, not to be re-united until our own day. But the re-occupation of our factory was often proposed and more than once attempted. Even when writing their letter just referred to, the Council at Batavia spoke of it. Again in 1627 they proposed it. In 1633 a freeman of the Company, named Smithwick, again raised the question; and again in 1635 it was debated. In 1658 the Company actually fitted three ships to re-open the trade, but the lateness of the season and the prospect of a Dutch war caused them to abandon the expedition. In 1664 the Company again seriously thought of the undertaking and wrote to Bantam for information respecting the late settlement at Firando; and it is remarkable that so soon after our retirement so little was remembered. The reply was that “in this factory here is not the least remembrance of your servants acting in Japan formerly; only your agent hath procured a jornall of a voyage made thither in 1615; but it mentions only the acting of the mariner, nothing of the factor.”[43] In 1668 a committee was appointed to consider how trade could be re-opened, and in the next year enquiries were again addressed to Bantam. From thence was announced a rumour that the Dutch had tried to purchase the English buildings at Firando, but were refused by the daimio, who was in expectation of our return! In 1670 the ship Advance was sent out to Bantam, to be used in reopening trade, if thought convenient; but she was despatched to Persia. But in 1671 two ships, the Crown and Bantam, were actually commissioned to make a voyage from Bantam to Taiwan and thence to Nagasaki; the supercargoes receiving instructions to find out where the English formerly resided at Firando and why they were removed. These vessels were lost. The same year the agent at Bantam reported that “there are some Scotch, Irish, etc., there [at Firando], although wee know not by what occasion there”, an interesting remark, probably referring to descendants of the old settlers. At last the matter was seriously taken in hand, and ships were despatched from England in 1672 with a letter from Charles II to the emperor of Japan, every care being taken to escape the attention of the Dutch. Those wary traders, however, did not fail to discover the English designs; so that, when at length the ship Return arrived at Nagasaki on the 29th of June, 1673, it was found that her coming was expected. The crew were well treated and allowed provisions while a message was despatched to the shogun; but the new-comers were closely watched and sharply questioned about their religion. Again, as in Cocks’s days, the cross of St. George in the English flag gave trouble. It is interesting to find it noticed that one of his old interpreters was still living. At last, on the 28th of July, the shogun’s decision was announced. The Dutch had taken care to inform the Japanese of Charles’s marriage with a princess of the Roman Catholic family of Portugal; and the shogun refused to accept the friendship of one who had allied himself with a daughter of the enemies of Japan. So the Return sailed away on the 28th of August; and, after this, only indirect attempts to open negotiations by the mediation of the princes of Bantam, Amoy, Taiwan, Tonquin, and Siam were made in 1681 and 1683.[44]
The social relations of the English with their Japanese neighbours were on the whole friendly. Periodical exchanges of presents and courtesies were the rule, although an occasional quarrel or street row was only to be expected where so many elements of turbulence were present in drunken sailors and factory-men. The domestic arrangements of the English are patent enough in the pages of the diary, and appear to have given no offence to the natives. Only on one occasion do we read of “rhymes cast abroad and sung up and down” against the native women at the English factory; which, moreover, Cocks attributed to the instigation of the Dutch, “songs having been made against them to like effect before, but not against us.” They were even allowed to hold slaves, although they were afterwards forbidden to export them. They also appear to have kept on good terms with the princes of the neighbouring provinces; the daimio of Satsuma being specially noticed for his friendliness. The Dutch, on the other hand, were not so conciliatory; and we have seen that the natives of Firando sided with the English against them, when they attacked the English factory. But they were richer and could afford handsomer presents; and thus had always friends at court.
Many of the notices of native customs are interesting. The reader will at once remark several instances of the Japanese severity in punishing offences which our modern code regards as comparatively trivial. Death was the penalty for the most petty theft. Cocks tells us of a boy of sixteen who was cut in pieces with great cruelty for stealing a little boat and taking it to another island; and again, of a man who was “roasted to death, running round about a post, fire being made about him”, the offence being also theft of a “small bark of little or no value” (i. 291). A curious form of degradation is mentioned in connection with an execution on a certain occasion, when the brother of a criminal “had the lock of his hair cut off by the hangman with the same cattan which cut his brother in pieces” (i. 156). The difference in European and Japanese ideas of justice was well exemplified when the Dutch factor, complaining of an assault on one of his countrymen, demanded that “the parties which offered the abuse might be brought to the place where they did it and be beaten with cudgels. At which the king smiled and said it could not be, but, if he would have them cut in pieces, he would do it.”
The custom of suicide of friends and retainers at the funeral of a great man is referred to more than once. Saris mentions the mint-master of Iyéyasu as “one that hath vowed that, whensoever the Emperor shall die, he will cut his own guts and die with him.”[45] No doubt he was one of the two nobles who “killed themselves to accompany Ogosho Sama in another world, as they think”, and whose monument Cocks saw at Yedo in 1618. In his letter of 10th December, 1614, Cocks also reports that, at the death of old Foyne Sama, “Ushian Dono, his governor, and two other servants, cut their bellies to bear him company”;[46] and in the curious account of the funeral of Foyne’s brother, in 1621, we are told that “one bose or priest hanged himself in a tree hard by the place of funeral ... for boses may not cut their bellies, but hang themselves they may”. Some of the dead man’s servants too were only restrained from self-sacrifice by the king’s orders; and “many others, his friends, cut off the two foremost joints of their little fingers and threw them into the fire to be burned with the corpse” (ii. 202).
The practice of hara-kiri, or self destruction to avoid disgrace, is mentioned as occurring at Firando on two occasions (i. 337; ii. 136).
A few other points of interest may be noticed. The spread of Christianity through the southern and western provinces has already been referred to. The mother of the king of Firando is called “a papistical Jesuit, and he and the rest of his brethren and sisters papistical Christians” (ii. 250). Again, at the funeral of Foyne’s brother, mentioned above, it was said that a log of wood was substituted for the real body and burned, “for he was thought to be a Christian” (ii. 201). On the other hand, it seems that the Japanese would not admit into their faith perverts from Christianity, for an Englishman “went and cut his hair after the pagan fashion, thinking to turn pagan; which he could not do here, although he would” (i. 179). The changing of names, which gives so much trouble in reading Japanese history, is often mentioned. Figen a Sama is at first called Tome Sama; and some of his relatives appear suddenly under new names in 1621 (ii. 169). The caboques, or dancing bears as Cocks calls them, that is, the dancing women or players, and their male companions, are present at every large entertainment mentioned in the diary. And, lastly, the readiness of the Japanese to adopt foreign customs is curiously exemplified in the rapidity with which tobacco-smoking spread among the people. “It is strange”, says Cocks, writing in 1615, “to see how these Japons, men, women, and children, are besotted in drinking that herb; and not ten years since it was in use first.” When once the habit had got such a hold, no measures for the destruction of the plant could change it. The “drinking” inevitably went on, and in 1619 the burning of half a town is ascribed to it.
In conclusion I should mention that one of the chief difficulties with which I have had to contend in editing these volumes has been that of finding explanations of the foreign words and terms in the diary. Cocks adopted words from other languages besides Japanese, and generally wrote them down as they sounded. Hence it was no easy matter for one ignorant of eastern languages to decide whether particular words, thus disguised, are Japanese or of some other tongue; and I fear that I have too often taxed the patience and good nature of my orientalist friends for solutions of these difficulties. It is with pleasure that I take this opportunity of thanking Dr. William Anderson, whose knowledge of the language of Japan is so extensive, and my colleagues Dr. Charles Rieu and Professor R. K. Douglas, for much valuable assistance. I also gratefully acknowledge kind help and many courtesies from Mr. Charles C. Prinsep, Superintendent of the Records, and Mr. Edward J. Wade, Assistant-Librarian, in the India office; and from Mr. W. Noel Sainsbury, of the Public Record Office.