Drinking-glasses of all sorts, bottles, canns, cups, trenchers, plates, beer-glasses, salt-sellers, wine-glasses, beakers, gilt looking-glasses of large size, Muscovy glass, salt, writing-papers, table-books, paper-books, lead to neal pots. Spanish soap is in much request, and sells for one masse the small cake. Amber beads, worth 140 to 160. Silk stockings, of all colours. Spanish leather, neats leather, and other kinds of leather used for gloves, worth six, eight, or nine. Blue candiques of China, from fifteen to twenty. Black candiques, from ten to fifteen. Wax for candles, 100 pounds Flemish worth from 200 to 250. Honey, the pekul, worth sixty. Samell of Cochin-China, the pekul, worth 180. Nutmegs, the pekul, twenty-five. Camphor of Borneo, or barous, the pound hollans, from 250 to 400. Sanders of Solier, the pekul, worth 100. Good and heavy Callomback wood, the pound, worth one, two, three, to five. Sapan, or red wood, the pekul, from twenty to twenty-six. Good and large elephants teeth, from 400, to 500, 600, 700, and even 800. Rhinoceros horns, the Javan cattee, worth thirty. Gilded harts-horns, the piece, worth 300, 400, 500. Roch allum in request, in so much that what cost only three gilders has sold for 100 gilders; but not in demand by every one.
The Chinese in Japan will commonly truck for silver, giving gold of twenty-three carats, at the rate of from fifteen to twenty times its weight in silver, according as silver is plenty or scarce.
The following commodities are to be bought in Japan, and at the rates here quoted. Very good hemp, 100 cattees, being 120 pounds of Holland, are worth from sixty-five to seventy. Eye-colours for dying blue, almost as good as indigo, made up in round cakes, and packed 100 cakes in a fardel, worth fifty to sixty. Dye-stuff for white, turning to red colour, made up in fardels of fifty gautins malios, worth five to eight. Very good white rice, cased, worth, the fares, eight three-fifths. Rice of a worse sort, the bale, worth seven three-tenths. At Jedo, Osaka, and Miaco, there is the best dying of all sorts of colours, as red, black, and green; and for gliding gold and silver, is better than the Chinese varnish. Brimstone is in great abundance, and the pekul may be bought for seven. Saltpetre is dearer in one place than another, being worth one and a half. Cotton-wool, the pekul, may be bought for ten.
S.15. Supplementary Notices of Occurrences in Japan, after the Departure of Captain Saris.[53]
"This subdivision consists entirely of letters from Japan, and conveys some curious information respecting the transactions of the English in Japan, whence they have been long excluded. They are now perhaps of some interest, beyond the mere gratification of curiosity, as, by the entire expulsion of the Dutch from India, there seems a possibility of the British merchants in India being able to restore trade to that distant country. In the Third PART of our Collection, various other relations of Japan will be inserted."--E.
[Footnote 53: These are appended in the Pilgrims, vol. I. pp. 406--413, to the observations of Mr. Richard Cocks, already given in conjunction with the voyage of Captain Saris.--E.]
No. I. Letter from Mr Richard Cocks, dated Firando, 10th December, 1614.[54]
To this day, I have been unable to complete my old books of accounts, owing to the dispatching of our people, some to one place and some to another, and owing to the rebuilding of our house, and afterwards buying a junk, and repairing her. She is now ready to set sail for Siam, having been at anchor these ten days, waiting for a fair wind to proceed on her voyage, at Couchi, a league from Firando, where your ship rode at your departure from hence. She is called the Sea-Adventure, of about 200 tons burden, in which Mr Adams goes as master, with Mr Wickham and Mr Edward Sayers as merchants, in consequence of the death of Mr Peacock, slain in Cochin-China, and the probability that Mr Carwarden has been cast away in his return from thence, as we have no news of him or of the junk in which he sailed, as I have at large informed the worshipful company.
[Footnote 54: This letter appears to have been written to Captain Saris.--E.]
Since your departure from Japan, the emperor has banished all jesuits, priests, nuns, and friars, from the country, shipping them off for Anacau [Macao] in China, or Manilla in the Philippine islands, and has caused all their churches and monasteries to be pulled down or burnt. Foyne Same, the old king of Firando, is dead, and Ushiandono, his governor, with two other servants, cut open their bellies to bear him company, their bodies being burned, and their ashes entombed along with his. Wars are likely to ensue between Ogusho Same, the old emperor, and Fidaia Same, the young prince, son of Tico Same, who has strongly fortified himself in the castle of Osaka, having collected an army of 80,000 or 100,000 men, consisting of malcontents, runaways, and banished people, who have repaired from all parts to his standard, and he is said to have collected sufficient provisions for three years. The old emperor has marched against him in person, with an army of 300,000 men, and is at the castle of Fusima. The advanced parties of the two armies have already had several skirmishes, and many have been slain on both sides. The entire city of Osaka has been burned to the ground, excepting only the castle, so that Mr Eaton had to retire with his goods to Sakey,[55] yet not without danger, as a part of that town has likewise been burnt. So great a tempest or tuffoon has lately occurred at Edoo [Jedo,] as had never been before experienced at that place. The sea overflowed the whole city, obliging the people to take refuge on the hills: and the prodigious inundation has defaced or thrown down all the houses of the nobles, which you know were very beautiful and magnificent.