[Footnote 55: It has been formerly explained that Sakey was a town on the river Jodo, directly opposite to Osakey or Osaka, the river only being interposed.--E.]
Let this suffice for Japanese news; and I now proceed to inform you of our success in selling our goods. The emperor took all our ordnance, with most of our lead, and ten barrels of gunpowder, with two or three pieces of broad-cloth. Most of our other broad-cloths are sold, namely, black, hair-colour, and cinnamon-colour, at fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, and twelve tayes the tattamy; but they will not even look at Venice-reds and flame-colours, neither are stammels in such request as formerly, but they enquire much for whites and yellows. As the Dutch sold most of their broad-cloths at low prices, we were forced to do so likewise. In regard to our Cambaya goods, they will not look at our red Zelas, blue byrams, or dutties, being the principal part of what is now left us; and only some white bastas sell at fourteen or fifteen masses each. Cassedys nill, alleias, broad pintados, with spotted, striped, and checquered stuffs, are most in request, and sell at good profit. We have also sold nearly half of our Bantam pepper for sixty-five masse the pekull, and all the rest had been gone before now, had it not been for the war. I am in great hope of procuring trade into China, through the means of Andrea, the China captain, and his two brothers, who have undertaken the matter, and have no doubt of being able to bring it to bear, for three ships to come yearly to a place near Lanquin,[56] to which we may go from hence in three or four days with a fair wind. Of this I have written at large to the worshipful company, and also to the lord-treasurer.
[Footnote 56: As Nangasaki is uniformly named Langasaque in this first English voyage to Japan, I am apt to suspect the Lanquin of the text may have been Nan-kin.--E.]
Some little sickness with which I have been afflicted is now gone, for which I thank God. Mr Easton, Mr Nealson, Mr Wickham, and Mr Sayer, have all been very sick, but are all now well recovered, except Mr Eaton, who still labours under flux and tertian ague. May God restore his health, for I cannot too much praise his diligence and pains in the affairs of the worshipful company. Jacob Speck, who was thought to have been cast away in a voyage from hence to the Moluccas, is now returned to Firando in the command of a great ship called the Zelandia, together with a small pinnace called the Jacatra. The cause of his being so long missing was, that in going from hence by the eastward of the Philippines, the way we came, he was unable to fetch the Moluccas, owing to currents and contrary winds, and was driven to the west of the island of Celebes, and so passed round it through the straits of Desalon, and back to the Moluccas. The Chinese complain much against the Hollanders for robbing and pilfering their junks, of which they are said to have taken and rifled seven. The emperor of Japan has taken some displeasure against the Hollanders, having refused a present they lately sent him, and would not even speak to those who brought it. He did the same in regard to a present sent by the Portuguese, which came in a great ship from Macao to Nangasaki. You thought, when here, that if any other ship came from England we might continue to sell our goods without sending another present to the emperor; but I now find that every ship which comes to Japan must send a present to the emperor, as an established custom. I find likewise that we cannot send away any junk from hence without procuring the yearly licence from the emperor, as otherwise no Japanese mariner dare to leave the country, under pain of death. Our own ships from England may, however, come in and go out again when they please, and no one to gainsay them.
We have not as yet been able by any means to procure trade from Tushma into Corea; neither indeed have the inhabitants of Tushma any farther privilege than to frequent one small town or fortress, and must not on pain of death go beyond the walls of that place. Yet the king of Tushma is not subject to the emperor of Japan.[57] We have only been able to sell some pepper at Tushma, and no great quantity of that. The weight there is much heavier than in Japan, but the price is proportionally higher.
[Footnote 57: No place or island of any name resembling Tushma is to be found in our best maps. The name in the text probably refers to Tausima, called an some maps Jasus, an island about forty miles long, about midway between Kiusiu and Corea.--E.]
I have been given to understand that there are no great cities in the interior of Corea, between which inland country and the sea there are immense bogs or morasses, so that no one can travel on horseback, and hardly even a-foot; and as a remedy against this, they have great waggons or carts upon broad flat wheels, which are moved by means of sails like ships. Thus, by observing the monsoons or periodical winds, they transport their goods backwards and forwards, by means of these sailing waggons. In that country they make damasks, sattins, taffaties, and other silk stuffs, as well as in China.
It is said that Fico Same, otherwise called Quabicondono, the former emperor of Japan, pretended to have conveyed a great army in these sailing waggons, to make a sudden assault upon the emperor of China in his great city of Pekin, where he ordinarily resides; but was prevented by a nobleman of Corea, who poisoned himself to poison the emperor and many of the nobles of Japan. On which occasion, as is said, the Japanese lost, about twenty-two years ago, all that they had conquered in Corea.
James Turner, the youth who used to play the fiddle, left a girl here with child; and though I gave her two tayes in silver to bring up the child; she killed it as soon as it was born, which is a common thing in this country. The whistle and chain belonging to Mr Foster, the master of the Clove, are found, and are under the charge of Mr Adams, who will be accountable for them. I meant to have sent you a Japanese almanack by a former letter to the same effect as this, dated the 25th ultimo, and sent by the Sea Adventure by way of Siam, but forgot to do so; and which I now send along with this letter. I pray you that this letter may suffice for your brother, Mr George Saris, and the rest of my loving friends: And, with hearty commendations in general, I leave you all to the holy protection of the Almighty; resting always your ever loving friend at command, RICHARD COCKS.
No. 2. Letter from Mr Richard Cocks, dated Firando, 10th December, 1614, to the Worshipful Thomas Wilson, Esq. at his House in the Britain-burse[58] in the Strand.