The “Royal James” carried also to England a copy in Japanese, still preserved in the archives of the East India Company, of Adams’ will. With commendable impartiality he divided his property, which, by the inventory annexed, amounted to nineteen hundred and seventy-two tael, two mas, four kandarins (two thousand four hundred and sixty-five dollars and twenty-nine cents), equally between his Japanese and his English family,—the English share to go, one half to the wife and the other half to the daughter, it not being his mind, so Cocks wrote, “his wife should have all, in regard she might marry another husband, and carry all from his child.” By the same ship Cocks made a remittance to the English family, having delivered “one hundred pounds sterling to diverse of the ‘Royal James’Company, entered into the purser’s books, to pay in England, two for one,”—a very handsome rate of exchange, which throws some light on the profits of East India trade in those days. Adams’ Japanese estate probably descended to his Japanese son; and who knows but the family survives to this day? The situation of this estate was but a very short distance from the spot where the recent American treaty was made; nor is the distance great from Shimoda, one of the ports granted by that treaty. The command of the fleet left behind, on Pring’s departure, devolved on Captain Robert Adams. According to Cocks’ account, the crews, both Dutch and English, inferior officers as well as men, were a drunken, dissolute, quarrelsome set. Rundall gives a curious record of the trial by jury and execution of an Englishman of this fleet for the murder of a Dutchman; and it seems the Dutch reciprocated by hanging a Dutchman for killing an Englishman. Master Arthur Hatch was chaplain of this fleet. Purchas gives (vol. i, part ii, book x, ch. i) a letter from him, written after his return, containing a brief sketch of his observations in Japan. Purchas also gives a letter from Cocks, which, in reference to the koku of rice, agrees very well with Titsingh’s statement quoted on page fifty-nine. Cocks represents the revenues of the Japanese princes as being estimated in mankoku of rice, each containing ten thousand koku, and each koku containing one hundred gantas (gantings), a ganta being a measure equal to three English ale pints.
Cocks states the revenue of the king of Hirado at six mankoku. He maintained four thousand soldiers, his quota for the emperor’s service being two thousand. The income of Kodzuke-no-Suke, formerly three, had lately been raised to fifteen mankoku. That of the king of Satsuma was one hundred, and that of the prince next in rank to the emperor, two hundred mankoku. The value of the mankoku was calculated at the English factory at nine thousand three hundred and seventy-five pounds, which would make the koku worth eighteen shillings and sixpence sterling, or four dollars and fifty cents, and agrees very well with Caron’s estimates of the koku, which he calls cokien, as worth ten Dutch florins, or four dollars. The estimates of Kämpfer and Titsingh, given on page fifty-nine, are higher.
[108] Dr. Riess estimates the loss at less than ten thousand pounds.—Edr.
[109] See Appendix F.
[110] 1624 ought to be 1616.—K. M.
[111] It may be found in Thevenot’s Collection of Voyages, also in “Voyages des Indes,” tom. v.
[112] A candid and conclusive answer to Sotelo, or the false Sotelo, as the Jesuits persisted in calling him, was published at Madrid immediately after the appearance of his letter, by Don Jean Cevicos, a commissary of the holy office, who was able to speak from personal observation. Cevicos had been captain of the galleon “St. Francis,” the ship in which Don Rodrigo de Vivero had been wrecked on the coast of Japan, as related in a former chapter. After a six months’ stay in Japan, and an acquaintance there with Sotelo, Cevicos sailed for Manila, was captured on the passage by the Dutch, but recaptured by a Spanish fleet. Arrived at Manila, he renounced the seas, commenced the study of theology, was ordained priest, and became provisor of the archbishopric of the Philippines. The business of this office brought him to Spain, and being at Madrid when the letter ascribed to Sotelo appeared, he thought it his duty to reply to it. A full abstract of this answer, as well as of Sotelo’s charges, may be found at the end of Charlevoix’s “Histoire du Japon.” It appears, from documents quoted in it, that the missionaries of the other orders agreed with the Jesuits in ascribing the persecution mainly to the idea, which the Dutch made themselves very busy in insinuating, that the independence of Japan was in danger from the Spaniards and the Pope, who were on the watch to gain, by means of the missionaries, the mastery of Japan, as they had of Portugal and so many other countries.
The charges made in the name of Sotelo against the Jesuits are of more interest from the fact that, at the time of the Jansenist quarrel, they were revived and reurged with a bitterness of hatred little short of that which had prompted their original concoction.
A Spanish history of the Franciscan mission, full of bitter hatred against the Jesuits, was published at Madrid in 1632, written down to 1620, by Father Fray Jacinto Orfanel, who was arrested that year, and burnt two years after, and continued by Collado, who was also the author of a Japanese grammar and dictionary.
[113] Shōgun-Sama seems to be only a title, not a name. This is Lyemitsu, the “third Shōgun.”—Edr.