Finding that the means as yet employed had little effect upon the missionaries and their native assistants, a new and more effectual, because more protracted, torture was resorted to, known in the relations of the missionaries as the Torment of the Fosse. A hole was dug in the ground, over which a gallows was erected. From this gallows the sufferer, swathed in bandages, was suspended by his feet, being lowered for half his length, head downward, into the hole, which was then closed by two boards which fitted together around the victim so as to exclude the light and air. One hand was bound behind the back, the other was left loose, with which to make the prescribed signal of recantation and renunciation of the foreign creed; in which case the sufferer was at once released.
This was a most terrible trial, indeed. The victim suffered under a continual sense of suffocation, the blood burst from the mouth, nose and ears, with a twitching of the nerves and muscles, attended by the most intolerable pains. Yet the sufferer, it was said, lived sometimes for nine or ten days. The year 1633, in which this punishment was first introduced, the second year of a new emperor, son of Shōgun Sama[113], proved more fatal than any previous one to the new religion. In the month of August of that year forty-two persons were burnt alive in various parts of Japan, eleven decapitated, and sixteen suspended in the fosse. The Dutchman Hagenaar, who was at Hirado in 1634, states, in his printed voyages, that during the time of his visit thirty-seven persons lost their lives at that place on the charge of being Catholics. Five of these perished by the torment of the fosse, others were beheaded, others cut to pieces, and others burnt.
What at last struck the deepest horror to the souls of the few surviving Jesuits, and was greatly improved in Europe to the damage of the Company, by its enemies, was the apostasy of Father Christopher Ferreyra, a Portuguese, an old missionary, the provincial of the order, and the administrator of the bishopric. He was taken in 1633 at Nagasaki, and being suspended in the fosse, after five hours he gave the fatal signal of renunciation. After having been kept some time in prison, and given what information he could for the detection of those of his late brethren still concealed in Japan, he was set at liberty; and, having assumed the Japanese dress and a Japanese name, he lived for several years at Nagasaki. He had been compelled to marry a Japanese woman, who was very rich, being the widow of a Chinese goldsmith, who had been executed for some offence; but the Jesuits comforted themselves with the idea that the marriage was never consummated; and they even got up a report that in his old age this renegade brother recovered his courage, and having, on his death-bed, confessed himself a Christian, was immediately hurried off to perish a martyr by that very torment of the fosse, the terror of which had first made and had so long kept him an apostate. But for this fine story there seems to have been no foundation except the wishes and hopes of those who circulated it.
As a further security against the surreptitious introduction of missionaries, the policy was adopted, in 1635, of confining the Portuguese sailors and merchants to the little artificial island of Deshima, in the harbor of Nagasaki, a spot but just large enough to hold the necessary residences and warehouses. Shortly after the issue of this edict, the people of the kingdom of Arima, all of them still Catholic except the king and the nobility, seeing no other hope, broke out into open revolt. They were headed by a descendant of their ancient kings, and mustering, it is said, to the number of thirty-seven thousand, took possession of the fortress of Shimabara, situated about due east from Nagasaki, on the gulf of the same name. Here they were besieged; and the place being taken in 1638, those who held it were cut off to a man.
The Portuguese were accused of having encouraged this revolt; in consequence of which an edict was issued, in 1638, not only banishing all the Portuguese, but forbidding also any Japanese to go out of the country. That edict, as given by Kämpfer, was as follows:
“No Japanese ship or boat whatever, nor any native of Japan, shall presume to go out of the country: who acts contrary to this shall die, and the ship with the crew and goods aboard shall be sequestered till further order.
“All Japanese who return from abroad shall be put to death.
“Whoever discovers a priest shall have a reward of 400 to 500 shuets of silver, and for every Christian in proportion[114].
“All persons who propagate the doctrine of the Christians, or bear this scandalous name, shall be imprisoned in the Ombra, or common jail of the town.
“The whole race of the Portuguese, with their mothers, nurses, and whatever belongs to them, shall be banished to Macao.