All these vessels, the “Unicorn” excepted, arrived safely at Hirado. She was stranded on the coast of China, and her crew were the first Englishmen known to have landed there. A joint embassy was sent to the emperor with presents, which, notwithstanding the privileges of trade, were expected from every vessel that came. Having completed his repairs, and leaving the other vessels behind him, Pring sailed on the 7th of December, 1620, in the “Royal James,” for Jacatra, carrying with him the news of the death of Adams, who, having remained in the service of the Company, had never again visited England.[107]
The arrangement with the Dutch was but of short duration. Fresh quarrels broke out. In 1623 occurred the famous massacre of Amboyna, followed by the expulsion of the English from the Spice Islands; and about the same time the Company abandoned the trade to Japan, after having lost forty thousand pounds in the adventure.[108] This massacre of Amboyna consisted in the execution, by the Dutch, of ten or twelve factors of the English East India Company, on the charge of having conspired with some thirty Japanese residents to seize the Dutch fort. One of these Japanese having put some questions to a Dutch sentinel about the strength of the fort, he and others of his countrymen were arrested on suspicion, and by torture were compelled to accuse the English, who were then tortured in their turn into accusing each other. The residence of these Japanese at Amboyna is a proof, in addition to those already mentioned, of the adventurous spirit of the Japanese of that day, who had indeed a reputation for desperate daring, such as might give some color to the suspicions of the Dutch.[109]
Meanwhile the persecution continued as violently as ever. In the year 1622 fourteen Jesuits were burnt at the stake, including Spinola, a missionary of illustrious birth, who had been twenty years in Japan. Two friars were also burnt, who had been found on board a Japanese vessel from the Philippines, captured in 1620, by one of the English ships, the Elizabeth, employed in the blockade of Macao, and by her commander carried to Hirado. The master and crew of the Japanese vessel and many other native converts were executed at the same time. The Spaniards were suspected of smuggling in missionaries, and were wholly forbidden the islands. As a greater security against this danger, by an edict, issued in 1624,[110]—shortly previous to which there had been a very severe inquisition in Yedo and its neighborhood for concealed priests,—all the ports of Japan were closed against foreigners, except Hirado and Nagasaki, of which Hirado remained open to the Dutch and English, Nagasaki to the Portuguese, and both to the Chinese. At the same time was introduced the custom of requiring an exact muster roll, and making a strict inspection of the crews of all foreign vessels. By the same edict all the subjects of the Catholic king, whether Portuguese or Spaniards, were banished the country, however long they might have been settled there, and even though they might have families by Japanese wives.
What aggravated the misfortunes of the Japanese church, and greatly diminished the dignity of its fall, was the still hot jealousy and mutual hatred of the Jesuits and of the friars, inflamed rather than quenched by all this common danger and suffering. The bishop of Japan having died (it was said of grief, at the peril of his flock) just as the persecution broke out, a most unseemly quarrel arose, which was carried on for several years with great virulence, as to the administration of the bishopric. It was claimed, on the one hand, by Father Corvailho, the provincial of the Jesuits, under an authority from the Pope; and, on the other, by Father Pierre Baptiste, a Franciscan, as vicar-general of the archbishop of Manila, to whose jurisdiction it was pretended the bishopric of Japan appertained. This quarrel about the administration of the bishopric was finally settled by the Pope in favor of the Jesuits.
Facsimile of an Anti-Christian Edict
The Jesuit seminaries in Japan being broken up, they had organized one at Macao for the education of Japanese ecclesiastics; but the severe penalties denounced against all priests coming into Japan, and against all, whether natives or foreigners, who should shelter them after their arrival, made the existence of the church and the celebration of divine service every day more precarious. From year to year it grew more and more difficult for new missionaries to get landed, great as was the zeal for that service. Of those who did land, the greater part were immediately seized and put to death. Large rewards were offered to any person who would betray or take a missionary. Those already in the country lived in hourly danger of arrest, forced to conceal themselves in cellars, holes and caverns and the huts of lepers, exposing to tortures and death all who might bring them food, or in any way assist in concealing them. The greatness of their sufferings does not depend merely upon the testimony of their own letters. Roger Gysbert, a Dutch Protestant and a resident in Japan, between the years 1622 and 1629, wrote an affecting narrative of it, and the general fact is strongly stated in Caron’s account of Japan, written a few years later.
Gysbert, in his narrative[111], relates the martyrdom of more than five hundred persons; but there was a still larger amount of suffering which terminated not in martyrdom, but in recantation. The Japanese officers seldom exhibited any personal malice against the Catholics. Their sole object was the extinction of that faith. They made it a study to deny the crown of martyrdom so enthusiastically sought, and by a series of protracted and ingenious tortures to force a renunciation. For this purpose the prisoners were sprinkled with water from the boiling sulphur springs, not far from Nagasaki, and exposed to breathe their stifling odor. The modesty of the women was barbarously assailed, and numerous means of protracted torture were resorted to, such as in general proved sooner or later successful. Other means were employed still more efficacious. All natives engaged in foreign trade were required to give in an exact statement of their property, which, unless the proprietors would conform to the national faith, was declared forfeited. It was even forbidden that European merchants should lodge in the houses of any who were or had been Catholics. At Hirado and Nagasaki all heads of families were obliged to swear, in the presence of an idol, that there were no Catholics in their houses, and, according to the Japanese usage, to sign this declaration with their blood. From Melchior Santvoort, an old Dutchman, one of the companions of Adams in the first Dutch voyage to Japan, and a resident at Nagasaki, the authorities were indeed satisfied to take instead a declaration that he was a Hollander,—a circumstance which gave occasion to the scandal at which Kämpfer is so indignant, that the Hollanders were accustomed to report themselves to the Japanese authorities as not Christians, but Dutchmen. All who refused to conform to the national worship were deprived of their employments, and driven out to live as they could among the barren mountains. The seafaring people had been mostly Catholics, but no Catholic was henceforth to be permitted to sail on board any ship. So successful were these means, that although when Gysbert first visited Nagasaki, in 1626, it was said to contain forty thousand native Christians, when he left it, in 1629, there was not one who admitted himself to be such.
In the midst of these martyrdoms the Jesuits were called upon to suffer still severer torments, in new attacks upon their policy and conduct in Japan, published throughout Europe. Father Collado, a Dominican, for some time resident at Nagasaki, who returned to Europe in 1622, was known to have gone home charged with accusations against the Jesuits; by way of answer to which a memorial was transmitted, prepared by the provincial Father Pacheco, who, four years after, himself suffered martyrdom at the stake. Nor was Collado their only assailant. Among those arrested in 1622 was Father Sotelo, that same enterprising Franciscan of whom already we have had occasion to make mention. Insisting upon his character of legate from the Pope, he had disobeyed the orders of his superiors, had sailed from New Spain to Manila, and had contrived to get a passage thence to Nagasaki, in a Chinese vessel, under the character of a merchant. But the captain detected and betrayed him; he was immediately arrested and thrown into prison, and in 1624 was put to death.
In 1628 there was published at Madrid what purported to be a letter from Sotelo to Pope Urban VIII, written in Latin, dated just before his martyrdom, and containing, under the form of a narrative of his own proceedings, a violent attack upon the Jesuits, and their conduct in Japan. Not liking to be thus attacked as it were by a martyr from his grave, they denied its authenticity. A memorial of Collado, printed in 1633, reiterated the same charges, to most of which it must be admitted that the replies made on behalf of the Jesuits are entirely satisfactory[112].