Though the prohibition of the export of silver, mentioned as having taken place in 1671, did not affect the Dutch, the very next year the Japanese commenced a system of measures which, within a quarter of a century, reduced the Dutch commerce to the very narrow limit at which it has ever since remained. The first step was to raise the value of the koban to six tael eight maas of silver; nor was this by any means the worst of it. The Dutch were no longer allowed to sell to the native merchants. The government appointed appraisers, who set a certain value on the goods, much less than the old prices, at which valuation the Dutch must sell, or else take the goods away. Anything which the goods sold for to the Japanese merchants, over the appraisement, went into the town treasury of Nagasaki.[132] These appraisements grew lower and lower every year, till at last the Dutch, threatening, if things went on in this way, to abandon the trade altogether, petitioned the emperor to be restored to their ancient privileges, assured to them by the concession of Gongen-Sama [Iyeyasu]. After waiting three years, they got a gracious answer. The appraisements were abolished, but at the same time, in 1685, an order was suddenly issued, limiting the amount which the Dutch might sell in any one year to the value of a hundred thousand taels, or in Dutch money to ten tons and a half of gold, equal to four hundred and twenty thousand dollars. All the goods of any one year’s importation, remaining after that amount had been realized, were to lie over till the next annual sale. At the same time, the annual export of copper was limited to twenty-five thousand piculs; and so matters stood at the time of Kämpfer’s visit.
The Chinese trade had meanwhile gone on increasing “to that degree”—we quote again from Kämpfer—“as to make the suspicious and circumspect Japanese extremely jealous of them. In the years 1683 and 1684 there arrived at Nagasaki, in each year, at least two hundred junks, every junk with not less than fifty people on board, making for each year more than ten thousand Chinese visitors.” Nor was it trade alone that drew the Chinese thither. In China, the women, except those of servile condition, are kept in perfect seclusion. No man sees even the woman he is to marry till she has actually become his wife; and courtesanship is strictly forbidden and punished. The case, as we have seen, is widely different in Japan, and numerous young and wealthy Chinese were attracted to Nagasaki, “purely for their pleasure,” as Kämpfer observes, “and to spend some part of their money with Japanese wenches, which proved very beneficial to that town,”—truly a very mercantile view of the matter!
“Not only did this increasing number of Chinese visitors excite jealousy, but what still more aroused the suspicion of the Japanese was, that the Jesuits, having gained the favor of the then reigning monarch of China, (the celebrated Kanghi), with the liberty of preaching and propagating their religion in all parts of the empire, some tracts and books, which the Jesuit fathers had found the means to print in China, in Chinese characters, were brought over to Japan among other Chinese books, and sold privately, which made the Japanese apprehensive that by this means the Catholic religion, which had been exterminated with so much trouble and the loss of so many thousand persons, might be revived again in the country.” And they even suspected that the importers of these books, if not actual converts, were at least favorers of the Catholic doctrine.
These reasons combined to produce, in 1684, at the same time with the restrictions placed upon the Dutch, an edict, by which the Chinese were limited to an annual importation, double the value of that allowed the Dutch; namely, six hundred thousand taels, equivalent to eight hundred and forty thousand dollars, the annual number of junks not to exceed seventy, of which a specific number was assigned to each province and colony, and each to bring not more than thirty persons. Chinese books were, at the same time, subjected to a censorship, two censors being appointed, one for theological, the other for historical and scientific works, none to be imported without their approval.
This was followed up, in the year 1688, by another order, by which the Chinese were, like the Dutch, shut up in a sort of prison, for which, like the Dutch, they were compelled to pay a heavy rent. The site chosen for this spot was a garden, pleasantly situated, just outside of the town, on the side of the harbor opposite Deshima. It was covered with several rows of small houses, each row having a common roof, and the whole was surrounded with a ditch and a strong palisade, from which the only exit was through well-guarded double gates[133]. Even here the Chinese had no permanent residence, like the Dutch. They arrived in detachments, twenty junks in spring, thirty in summer, and twenty in autumn; and, after selling their goods, went away, leaving the houses empty.
Besides the trade with the Dutch and the Chinese, the Lew Chew Islands [Riūkiū] were also permitted to carry on a particular trade with the province of Satsuma, the prince of which they acknowledged as in some respects their sovereign. The import and sale of their goods was limited to the annual amount of one hundred and twenty-five thousand taels, though, in Kämpfer’s time, a much larger amount was smuggled in, large quantities of Chinese goods being thus introduced.
CHAPTER XXVII
Engelbert Kämpfer—His Visit to Japan—Deshima and its Inhabitants as described by him—A. D. 1690.
Engelbert Kämpfer was the first scientific and systematic observer who visited Japan. Of those who have since followed him, but one or two had either his zeal, his assiduity, or his qualifications, and it is to him that we remain indebted for no inconsiderable part of what we yet know of that country, especially of its natural history, and its social, religious, and political institutions. Subsequent visitors, correcting him in some few particulars, have generally confirmed him. The Japanese, according to the most recent observations, appear to have changed very little since his time.