[Footnote 22: No such place as Oringgaw is to be found in modern maps of Japan. Jedo is situated at the head of a deep gulf of the same name, in the south-east corner of Japan. About the distance indicated in the text, there is a town and bay named Odavara, on the western side of the gulf, and in the direct way back to Surunga, which may possibly be the Oringgaw of the text.--E.]
[Footnote 23: The characters have by some been thought to be those of China, but I compared them with Chinese books, and they seemed to me quite different, yet not letters to compound words by spelling, as ours, but words expressed in their several characters, such as are used by the Chinais and as the brevity manifesteth. I take them to be characters peculiar to Japan.--Purch.
In a marginal reference in the plate given by Purchas, the lines are said to read downwards, beginning at the right hand. It may possibly be so: But they appear letters, or literal characters, to compound words by spelling, and to be read like those used in Europe, from left to right horizontally. In a future portion of our work, the subject of the Japanese language and writing will be farther elucidated; when, we believe, it will appear that they have two modes of writing, one by verbal or ideal characters like the Chinese, and the other by literal signs like all the rest of the world.--E.]
Letter from the Emperor of Japan to the King of Great Britain.
Your majesty's kind letter, sent me by your servant Captain Saris, who is the first of your subjects that I have known to arrive in any part of my dominions, I heartily embrace, being not a little glad to understand of your great wisdom and power, as having three plentiful and mighty kingdoms under your powerful command. I acknowledge your majesty's great bounty, in sending me so undeserved a present of many rare things, such as my land affordeth not, neither have I ever before seen: Which I receive, not as from a stranger, but as from your majesty, whom I esteem as myself, desiring the continuance of friendship with your highness: And that it may consist with your good pleasure to send your subjects to any part or port of my dominions, where they shall be most heartily welcome, applauding much their worthiness in the admirable knowledge of navigation, as having with much facility discovered a country so remote, not being amazed by the distance of so mighty a gulf, nor the greatness of such infinite clouds and storms, from prosecuting the honourable enterprises of discovery and merchandising, in which they shall find me to encourage them as they desire. By your said subject, I return to your majesty a small token of my love, desiring you to accept the same as from one who much rejoices in your friendship. And, whereas your majesty's subjects have desired certain privileges for trade and the settlement of a factory in my dominions, I have not only granted what they desired, but have confirmed the same to them under my broad seal, for the better establishment thereof. Given from my castle of Surunga, this fourth day of the ninth month, in the eighteenth year of our reign, according to our computation; resting your majesty's friend, the highest commander in the kingdom of Japan.
Subscribed
Minna Muttono[24]. Yei. Ye. Yeas.
[Footnote 24: In the copy of the privileges, Purchas gives this name Mottono while the editor of Astley's Collection has altered it to Monttono. In the privileges formerly inserted, the date is made in the nineteenth month, perhaps an error of the press in the Pilgrims, which we have therefore corrected to ninth.--E.]
At my return to Surunga, I found a Spanish ambassador from the Philippine islands, who had only been once introduced to the emperor, and delivered his presents, being certain Chinese damasks, and five jars of European sweet wine, and could not obtain any farther access to the emperor. The purpose of his embassy was, to require that such Portuguese and Spaniards as were then in Japan, not authorised by the king of Spain, might be delivered up to him, that he might carry them to the Philippines. This the emperor refused, saying his country was free, and none should be forced out of it: But, if the ambassador could persuade any to go with him, they should not be detained. The cause of the ambassador making this request was on account of the great want of men to defend the Molucca islands against the Dutch, who were then making great preparations for the entire conquest of these islands. After the ambassador had waited for an answer till the time limited by his commission was expired, and receiving none, he went away much dissatisfied: And when at the sea side, an answer was returned, as mentioned above, together with a slender present of five Japanese gowns, and two cattans or swords.
About a month before I came to Surunga, being displeased with the Christians, the emperor issued a proclamation commanding that they should all remove immediately, and carry their churches to Nangasaki, a maritime town about eight leagues from Firando, and that no Christian church should be permitted, neither any mass be sung, within ten leagues of his court, on pain of death. Some time after, twenty-seven natives, men of good fashion, being assembled in an hospital or Christian Leper-house, where they had mass performed, and this coming to the knowledge of the emperor, they were all commanded to be shut up in a house for a night, and to be led to execution next day. That same evening, another man was committed to the same house for debt, who at his coming was a heathen and quite ignorant of Christ or his holy religion; but, next morning, when the officer called at the door for the Christians to come forth for execution, and those who renounced it to remain behind, this man had been so instructed during the night by the others, that he came resolutely forth along with the rest, and was crucified with them.
We departed from Surunga on the 9th of October, and during our journey towards Miaco we had for the most part much rain, by which the rivers were greatly swelled, and we were forced to stop by the way, so that it was the 16th of October before we got there. Miaco is the largest city in Japan, depending mostly upon trade, and having the chief Fotoqui or temple of the whole empire, which is all built of freestone, and is as long as the western end of St Paul's in London from the choir; being also as high, arched in the roof and borne upon pillars as that is. Many bonzes are here in attendance for their maintenance, as priests are among the papists. They have here an altar, on which the votaries offer rice and small money, called cundrijus, twenty of which are equal to an English shilling, which offerings are applied to the use of the bonzes. Near this altar is an idol, called Mannada, much resembling that of Dabis formerly mentioned, and like it made of copper, but much higher, as it reaches up to the arched roof. This Fotoqui was begun to be built by Taicosama, and has since been finished by his son, having been ended only while we were there. According to report, there were buried within its enclosure the ears and noses of 3000 Coreans, who were massacred at one time; and upon their grave a mount is raised, having a pyramid on its summit, the mount being grown over with grass, and very neatly kept. The horse that Taicosama last rode upon is kept near this Fotoqui, having never been ridden since, and his hoofs have grown extraordinarily long by age.