Pinto was accordingly appointed ambassador from the Portuguese viceroy to the king of Bungo, and Nugnes sailed for Malacca in his company, taking with him Father Gaspard Vilela, four brothers, not yet priests, and five young orphans from the Seminary of the Holy Faith, to act as catechists. Before setting out, Nugnes and his brother Jesuits renewed their vows, according to a rule of the order, which required such a renewal once every six months. Pinto was present at this ceremony, and his excitable temperament was so wrought upon by it, that, seized with a sudden impulse, he insisted upon himself repeating the vows, with an additional one to consecrate his person and his goods to the Japanese mission. As he was the viceroy’s ambassador, it was resolved that he should not adopt the Jesuit habit till after he had fulfilled his mission—a delay which proved a lucky thing for Pinto, whose zeal speedily began to evaporate. He served, indeed, for some time in the hospitals of Malacca, where they arrived in June, 1554, and where, by the sickness of Nugnes and other accidents, they were detained upwards of a year; and, according to the letters of Nugnes, he gave great edification, the people admiring to see so rich a man, and one lately so fond of display and good living, clothed in rags and begging alms from door to door, having given up all his wealth that he might the better obey the Lord.
Sailing from Malacca, Nugnes and his company, after perils from pirates, were driven by storms first to Sancian, and then to Macao, whence, in the spring of 1556, Nugnes proceeded to Canton, where he made many unavailing efforts for the introduction of Catholicism into China. Meanwhile, he received letters from Goa, urging his return, enclosing one from Loyola himself, disapproving of such long voyages by the vice-provincials of the order; but he was still induced to Japan by a pressing letter from the prince of Hirado, who hoped by this means to attract the Portuguese trade from Bungo to that port. He sailed accordingly for Hirado, but was compelled by stress of weather to find a harbor in Bungo.
Meanwhile, the parts of Japan occupied by the missionaries had been the seats of serious commotions. The king of Bungo had indeed confirmed his power by suppressing an insurrection; but his brother, the king of Nagato, had been driven from his throne and defeated and slain by Mōri Motonari, a relative of the late king; and during this civil war the city of Yamaguchi had been sacked and burnt, and the missionaries obliged to flee for their lives to Bungo. There, too, a new insurrection had been attempted, but again without success; though the king still kept himself shut up in a fortress at a distance from his capital. He returned, however, to receive Nugnes, which he did very graciously, but resisted, on grounds of expediency, all his exhortations to make an open profession of Catholicism. Thus disappointed, Nugnes, after sending Gago to establish himself at Hirado, thought it best to return to Goa.
The Kintai Bridge, Snō
On arriving in Japan, the zeal of Pinto had speedily declined, and he had begun to sigh for his liberty. Perhaps he was alarmed at the appearance of Cosme de Torres, who, from being plump and portly, had, under the thin diet of the country, and the labors of the mission, grown to be exceedingly lean and haggard. At all events, it was found impossible to revive his fervor, and, as the Jesuits wanted no unwilling members, it was decided to release him from his vows. He returned with Nugnes to Goa, whence, not long after, he sailed for Lisbon. In his book he relates his last visit to Japan, but with no mention of his having joined the Jesuits,—of which our knowledge is drawn from the published letters of the missionaries, including one dated in 1554, and written by Pinto himself, from the college at Malacca, addressed to the scholars of the college of Coimbra, and giving a sketch of his travels in the East.
Having arrived at Lisbon, September 22, 1558, he delivered to the queen regent a commendatory letter from the viceroy of Goa, and had the honor to explain to her what his long experience suggested as of most utility for the affairs of Portugal in the East, not forgetting also some private application for himself. The queen referred him to the minister, who gave him high hopes; but at the end of four or five years of tedious solicitation, which became more insupportable than all his past fatigues, he concluded to content himself with the little fortune which he had brought from India, and for which he was indebted to nobody but himself. Yet he piously and loyally concludes that, if he had been no better rewarded for twenty-one years’ services, during which he had been thirteen times a slave, and seventeen times sold, it could only be attributed to the divine justice, which disposes of all things for the best, and rather to his own sins than to any want of royal discernment. He died about 1580, leaving his narrative behind him, which was not printed till 1614, and which was written, as he says at the beginning of it, in his old age, that he might leave it a memorial and heritage to his children to excite their confidence in the aid of Heaven by the example of his own sufferings and deliverances.[42]
CHAPTER IX
Louis Almeida—The Missionaries establish themselves at Miyako (Kyōto)—Louis Froez—Princes converted in Shimo—Rise of Nobunaga—Prosperity of the Missions—Noble and Princely Converts—Nagasaki built—Nobunaga makes himself Emperor—A. D. 1557-1577.
The loss of Pinto and Nugnes, and even that of Father Gago, who, three or four years later, after a very zealous career as a missionary, grew weary of the work, and obtained permission to return to Goa, was more than made up for by the accession of William and Ruys Pereyra, two of the catechists brought by Nugnes, and whom, before his departure, he admitted into the order, and especially by that of Louis Almeida, who had arrived in Japan as surgeon to a trading vessel, and who, after amassing a large fortune, gave it all to pious uses,—of which a hospital for abandoned infants was one,—and, joining the Jesuits, soon became distinguished for his zeal and assiduity as a missionary.