Japan

by Walter G. Dickson

In 1599 the East India Company of England was set on foot, and commenced operations, after being nearly arrested by the English government to please the Spaniards, by acknowledging their rights in the Eastern seas; and in 1598 the Dutch fleet sailed, of which William Adams of Gillingham was pilot.

According to native accounts, in the sixth year of Kay cho English vessels came to Ike no oora; but one of these was wrecked during a gale in the Sea of Segami. A message was dispatched from Yedo to order the crew to be sent there. Among them was Adams. He remained in Yedo, but the others returned.

The vessels belonging to the East India Company sailed from England upon the eighth voyage, under the command of Captain Saris, in 1611, with the intention of opening a trade with Japan. There seemed at this time every prospect of the Portuguese monopoly being broken up, and of the trade of this distant country being thrown open to the Western world. Amid the broils and quarrels with which Japan was torn, whether among the lords, or between the Buddhists and Roman Catholics, or the natives and Portuguese merchants, or the Portuguese and Dutch and English, it is curious to see the practical and sound good sense of one man, putting him into a position of eminence and trust, when all around him was deceit and jealousy. Rising, after five years of obscurity and hardship, on the ground of his simple strength of character and practical training, William Adams seems to have become the trusted confidant and referee of Iyeyas on foreign questions. Residing in Yedo, at the southwest corner of the Nihon bashi, or bridge of Japan, the street where he lived retains to this day the distinguishing name of “The Pilot’s,” or Anjin. He seems to have afterward removed to the street Yaiyossu, in close proximity to the castle moat.—Both Anjin and Yaiyossu may be corruptions of the name Adams. In Cantonese dialect, an cham is a word for a compass, and “Adams” might be written with these characters.—Here his knowledge of geometry, navigation and mathematics, with some acquaintance with shipbuilding, brought him under the notice of Iyeyas, by whom he seems to have been employed as interpreter, shipbuilder, and general confidant on foreign affairs. He was ultimately raised to the position of a small Hattamoto, or lesser baron, with ground equal to the support of eighty or ninety families, besides his own rental. This estate is said, in one of the letters from Japan, to be in Segami, and to have been named Fibi, and situated in the neighborhood of Ooraga, the port of Yedo, and must certainly be known to the Japanese government as having belonged to the English officer.

Doubtless, by all these changes, the position of the Portuguese and of the Roman Catholic priests was changed in Japan. The converts of Nagasaki would see foreigners coming who paid no respect to the priests and bishops whom they had been taught to reverence. The powers in the country would begin to see that the profits of the trade could be enjoyed without winking at the coercion of their own people to a foreign religion, and which placed them at the disposal of a power exterior to the state. The English and Dutch tried to loosen the hold which their rivals had in the good opinion of their customers; and the eyes of the Japanese were thus opened to the evils of admitting to their shores foreigners who were likely to prove centers of disaffection and to instill ideas of freedom and lawlessness among the subjects of the empire.

The letters of the Jesuits throw their own light upon the state of the Roman Catholic Church in Japan at the different points where churches or seminaries had been erected, and it may thence be gathered in what manner they treated their neighbors, or those over whom they could pretend to assume any power. On the other hand, from the narratives given by Cocks and Saris, some idea of the position of the seafaring communities at Firado and Nagasaki, and other ports, may be obtained. These seaports seem to have been too often the resorts of the lowest class of adventurers. The result was uproars, broils and murders among the foreigners, requiring ever and anon the intervention of the native authorities.

Iyeyas was in all probability ignorant of all these circumstances, which were effecting an indirect change upon those resorting to the country. At the Roman Catholic party he had aimed an effectual blow by putting the leading man of the party, Don Austin, out of the way on grounds totally unconnected with his religion. And the foreign priests do not seem to have given him personally much concern at this time. In the neighborhood of Miako they did not dare of late to make any public displays. In 1604 there were of the Jesuits 120 in Japan. They flattered themselves that “as for religion, it flourished everywhere, and made vast progress through all the kingdoms under so easy and peaceable a government. Notwithstanding, two obstacles still existed—the one Taikosama’s edict, and the other the vices of the people. But what gave our religion most reputation was the gracious reception the Cubo himself [Iyeyas] was pleased to give the fathers of the Society.” The Jesuits had recently extended their mission to the extreme north of Japan, and even into the islands of Yezo and Sado.

During this and the previous year the Jesuits were unfortunate, inasmuch as the vessels bringing the yearly supplies, as well as the large annual carrack from Macao to Japan, were taken by the Dutch privateers; but Iyeyas, hearing of their loss, presented a donation to the Society, by which means they “made a tolerable shift for the rest of this year.”

Terasawa, Sima no kami, who had been governor of Nagasaki, irritated by the influence brought to bear against him by the Roman Catholic party at Miako, turned the weapons they had taught him to use against themselves, and tried to force his subjects to renounce the new doctrines. Part of the estates of Don Austin had fallen to his share. Another part had fallen under the rule of Toronosuqui, who in the year 1602 “ravaged the vineyard of the Lord like a wild boar that thirsts after nothing but blood. He began like a fox and ended like a lion.” Thus it was in the part of the empire in which most intolerance had been shown by Don Austin (under the instruction of foreign priests) to his countrymen, and where they were obliged either to adopt the Roman Catholic doctrines or leave the country, that the plan was retaliated upon themselves.

Native accounts tell: “In 1608 a Dutch ship came to Hirado and asked that Adams might be sent down from Yedo. He was sent. Iyeyas wrote under the red seal that the English and Dutch might trade in any part of Japan. Hide tada also allowed them to trade; but the padre sect were not allowed to come to Japan. But the English traders said that there was no profit to be made out of the trade as it was obliged to be conducted, and said they could not come back; therefore the Dutch only remained.”

About this time Iyeyas directed his attention to the internal economy of the empire—improving the public roads, placing inns upon them, and strengthening his castles at Yedo, Suraga, Miako, Osaka, and Kofu. He was aided in this by the discovery of valuable gold-deposits in the island of Sado, and the coin the koban was for the first time put into circulation. During the year 1609 Shimadzu yoshi hissa, a relative of the Prince of Satsuma, set out from Satsuma with a force of vessels and troops to bring the King of the Liookioo Islands more completely under the power of Japan, and succeeded in his object, receiving the islands he had conquered as a gift from the hands of Iyeyas.