VOLUME XV SLICE II Jacobites to Japan (part) (continued 11)

From the 9th century, when Buddhism absorbed Shintō, the two grew together so intimately that their differentiation seemed hopeless. But in the middle of the 17th century a strong revival of the indigenous faith was effected by the efforts of a group of illustrious scholars and politicians, at whose head stood Mabuchi, Motoori and Hirata. These men applied themselves with great diligence and acumen to reproduce the pure Shintō of the Kojiki and to restore it to its old place in the nation’s reverence, their political purpose being to educate a spirit of revolt against the feudal system which deprived the emperor of administrative power. The principles thus revived became the basis of the restoration of 1867; Shintō rites and Shintō rituals were readopted, and Buddhism fell for a season into comparative disfavour, Shintō being regarded as the national religion. But Buddhism had twined its roots too deeply around the heart of the people to be thus easily torn up. It gradually recovered its old place, though not its old magnificence, for its disestablishment at the hands of the Meiji government robbed it of a large part of its revenues.

Buddhism entered China at the beginning of the Christian era, but not until the 4th century did it obtain any strong footing. Thence, two centuries later (522), it reached Japan through Korea. The reception extended to it was Buddhism. not encouraging at first. Its images and its brilliant appurtenances might well deter a nation which had never seen an idol nor ever worshipped in a decorated temple. But the ethical teachings and the positive doctrines of the foreign faith presented an attractive contrast to the colourless Shintō. After a struggle, not without bloodshed, Buddhism won its way. It owed much to the active patronage of Shōtoku taishi, prince-regent during the reign of the empress Suiko (593-621). At his command many new temples were built; the country was divided into dioceses under Buddhist prelates; priests were encouraged to teach the arts of road-making and bridge-building, and students were sent to China to investigate the mysteries of the faith at its supposed fountain-head. Between the middle of the 7th century and that of the 8th, six sects were introduced from China, all imperfect and all based on the teachings of the Hinayana system. Up to this time the propagandists of the creed had been chiefly Chinese and Korean teachers. But from the 8th century onwards, when Kiōto became the permanent capital of the empire, Japanese priests of lofty intelligence and profound piety began to repair to China and bring thence modified forms of the doctrines current there. It was thus that Dengyō daishi (c. 800) became the founder of the Tendai (heavenly tranquillity) sect and Kōbō daishi (774-834) the apostle of the Shingon (true word). Other sects followed, until the country possessed six principal sects in all with thirty-seven sub-sects. It must be remembered that Buddhism offers an almost limitless field for eclecticism. There is not in the world any literary production of such magnitude as the Chinese scriptures of the Mahayana. “The canon is seven hundred times the amount of the New Testament. Hsüan Tsang’s translation of the Prajna paramita is twenty-five times as large as the whole Christian Bible.”

It is natural that out of such a mass of doctrine different systems should be elaborated. The Buddhism that came to Japan prior to the days of Dengyō daishi was that of the Vaipulya school, which seems to have been accepted in its entirety. But the Tendai doctrines, introduced by Dengyō, Iikaku and other fellow-thinkers, though founded mainly on the Saddharma pundarika, were subjected to the process of eclecticism which all foreign institutions undergo at Japanese hands. Dengyō studied it in the monastery of Tientai which “had been founded towards the close of the 6th century of our era on a lofty range of mountains in the province of Chehkiang by the celebrated preacher Chikai” (Lloyd, “Developments of Japanese Buddhism,” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. xxii.), and carrying it to Japan he fitted its disciplinary and meditative methods to the foundations of the sects already existing there.

This eclecticism was even more marked in the case of the Shingon (true word) doctrines, taught by Dengyō’s illustrious contemporary, Kōbō daishi, who was regarded as the incarnation of Vairocana. He led his countrymen, by a path almost wholly his own, from the comparatively low platform of Hinayana Buddhism, whose sole aim is individual salvation, to the Mahayana doctrine, which teaches its devotee to strive after perfect enlightenment, not for his own sake alone, but also that he may help his fellows and intercede for them. Then followed the Jōdo (Pure Land) sect, introduced in 1153 by a priest, Senku, who is remembered by later generations as Hōnen shōnin. He taught salvation by faith ritualistically expressed. The virtue that saves comes, not from imitation of and conformity to the person and character of the saviour Amida, but from blind trust in his efforts and ceaseless repetition of pious formulae. It is really a religion of despair rather than of hope, and in that respect it reflects the profound sympathy awakened in the bosom of its teacher by the sorrows and sufferings of the troublous times in which he lived.

A favourite pupil of Hōnen shōnin was Shinran (1173-1262). He founded the Jōdo Shinshū (true sect of jōdo), commonly called simply Shinshū and sometimes Monto, which subsequently became the most influential of Japanese sects, with its splendid monasteries, the two Hongwana-ji in Kiōto. The differences between the doctrines of this sect and those of its predecessors were that the former “divested itself of all metaphysics”; knew nothing of a philosophy of religion, dispensed with a multiplicity of acts of devotion and the keeping of many commandments; did not impose any vows of celibacy or any renunciation of the world, and simply made faith in Amida the all in all. In modern days the Shinshū sect has been the most progressive of all Buddhist sects and has freely sent forth its promising priests to study in Europe and America. Its devotees make no use of charms or spells, which are common among the followers of other sects.

Anterior by a few years to that introduction of the Shinshū was the Zen sect, which has three main divisions, the Rinzai (1168), the Sōtō (1223) and the Obaku (1650). This is essentially a contemplative sect. Truth is reached by pure contemplation, and knowledge can be transmitted from heart to heart without the use of words. In that simple form the doctrine was accepted by the Rinzai believers. But the founders of the Sōtō branch—Shōyo taishi and Butsuji zenshi—added scholarship and research to contemplation, and taught that the “highest wisdom and the most perfect enlightenment are attained when all the elements of phenomenal existence are recognized as empty, vain and unreal.” This creed played an important part in the development of Bushidō, and its priests have always been distinguished for erudition and indifference to worldly possessions.

Last but not least important among Japanese sects of Buddhism is the Nichiren or Hokke, called after its founder, Nichiren (1222-1282). It was based on the Saddharma pundarika, and it taught that there was only one true Buddha—the moon in the heavens—the other Buddhas being like the moon reflected in the waters, transient, shadowy reflections of the Buddha of truth. It is this being who is the source of all phenomenal existence, and in whom all phenomenal existence has its being. The imperfect Buddhism teaches a chain of cause and effect; true Buddhism teaches that the first link in this chain of cause and effect is the Buddha of original enlightenment. When this point has been reached true wisdom has at length been attained. Thus the monotheistic faith of Christianity was virtually reached in one God in whom all creatures “live, move and have their being.” It will readily be conceived that these varied doctrines caused dissension and strife among the sects professing them. Sectarian controversies and squabbles were nearly as prominent among Japanese Buddhists as they were among European Christians, but to the credit of Buddhism it has to be recorded that the stake and the rack never found a place among its instruments of self-assertion. On the other hand, during the wars that devastated Japan from the 12th to the end of the 16th century, many of the monasteries became military camps, and the monks, wearing armour and wielding glaives, fought in secular as well as religious causes.

The story of the first Christian missionaries to Japan is told elsewhere (see § VIII. Foreign Intercourse). Their work suffered an interruption for more than 200 years until, in 1858, almost simultaneously with the conclusion of the Christianity in Modern Japan. treaties, a small band of Catholic fathers entered Japan from the Riūkiū islands, where they had carried on their ministrations since 1846. They found that, in the neighbourhood of Nagasaki, there were some small communities where Christian worship was still carried on. It would seem that these communities had not been subjected to any severe official scrutiny. But the arrival of the fathers revived the old question, and the native Christians, or such of them as refused to apostatize, were removed from their homes and sent into banishment. This was the last example of religious intolerance in Japan. At the instance of the foreign representatives in Tōkyō the exiles were set at liberty in 1873, and from that time complete freedom of conscience existed in fact, though it was not declared by law until the promulgation of the constitution in 1889. In 1905 there were 60,000 Roman Catholic converts in Japan forming 360 congregations, with 130 missionaries and 215 teachers, including 145 nuns. These were all European. They were assisted by 32 Japanese priests, 52 Japanese nuns, 280 male catechists and 265 female catechists and nurses. Three seminaries for native priests existed, together with 58 schools and orphanages and two lepers’ homes. The whole was presided over by an archbishop and three bishops.

The Anglican Church was established in Japan in 1859 by two American clergymen who settled in Nagasaki, and now, in conjunction with the Episcopal Churches of America and Canada, it has missions collectively designated Nihon Sei-Kōkai. There are 6 bishops—2 American and 4 English—with about 60 foreign and 50 Japanese priests and deacons, besides many foreign lay workers of both sexes and Japanese catechists and school teachers. The converts number 11,000. The Protestant missions include Presbyterian (Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai), Congregational (Kumi-ai), Methodist, Baptist and the Salvation Army (Kyusei-gun). The pioneer Protestant mission was founded in 1859 by representatives of the American Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Churches. To this mission belongs the credit of having published, in 1880, the first complete Japanese version of the New Testament, followed by the Old Testament in 1887. The Presbyterians, representing 7 religious societies, have over a hundred missionaries; 12,400 converts; a number of boarding schools for boys and girls and day schools. The Congregational churches are associated exclusively with the mission of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. They have about 11,400 converts, and the largest Christian educational institution in Japan, namely, the Dōshisha in Kiōto. The Methodists represent 6 American societies and 1 Canadian. They have 130 missionaries and 10,000 converts; boarding schools, day schools, and the most important Christian college in Tōkyō, namely, the Awoyama Gaku-in. The Baptists represent 4 American societies; have 60 missionaries, a theological seminary, an academy for boys, boarding schools for girls, day schools and 3500 converts. The Salvation Army, which did not enter Japan until 1895, has organized 15 corps, and publishes ten thousand copies of a fortnightly magazine, the War Cry (Toki no Koe). Finally, the Society of Friends, the American and London Religious Tract Societies and the Young Men’s Christian Association have a number of missions. It will be seen from the above that the missionaries in Japan, in the space of half a century (1858 to 1908), had won 110,000 converts, in round numbers. To these must be added the Orthodox Russian Church, which has a fine cathedral in Tōkyō, a staff of about 40 Japanese priests and deacons and 27,000 converts, the whole presided over by a bishop. Thus the total number of converts becomes 137,000. In spite of the numerous sects represented in Japan there has been virtually no sectarian strife, and it may be said of the Japanese converts that they concern themselves scarcely at all about the subtleties of dogma which divide European Christianity. Their tendency is to consider only the practical aspects of the faith as a moral and ethical guide. They are disposed, also, to adapt the creed to their own requirements just as they adapted Buddhism, and this is a disposition which promises to grow.

VIII.—Foreign Intercourse

Foreign Intercourse in Early and Medieval Times.—There can be no doubt that commerce was carried on by Japan with China and Korea earlier that the 8th century of the Christian era. It would appear that from the very outset over-sea trade was regarded as a government monopoly. Foreigners were allowed to travel freely in the interior of the country provided that they submitted their baggage for official inspection and made no purchases of weapons of war, but all imported goods were bought in the first place by official appraisers who subsequently sold them to the people at arbitrarily fixed prices. Greater importance attached to the trade with China under the Ashikaga shōguns (14th, 15th and 16th centuries), who were in constant need of funds to defray the cost of interminable military operations caused by civil disturbances. In this distress they turned to the neighbouring empire as a source from which money might be obtained. This idea seems to have been suggested to the shōgun Takauji by a Buddhist priest, when he undertook the construction of the temple Tenryū-ji. Two ships laden with goods were fitted out, and it was decided that the enterprise should be repeated annually. Within a few years after this development of commercial relations between the two empires, an interruption occurred owing partly to the overthrow of the Yuen Mongols by the Chinese Ming, and partly to the activity of Japanese pirates and adventurers who raided the coasts of China. The shōgun Yoshimitsu (1368-1394), however, succeeded in restoring commercial intercourse, though in order to effect his object he consented that goods sent from Japan should bear the character of tribute and that he himself should receive investiture at the hands of the Chinese emperor’s ambassador. The Nanking government granted a certain number of commercial passports, and these were given by the shōgun to Ouchi, feudal chief of Cho-shu, which had long been the principal port for trade with the neighbouring empire. Tribute goods formed only a small fraction of a vessel’s cargo: the bulk consisted of articles which were delivered into the government’s stores in China, payment being received in copper cash. It was from this transaction that the shōgun derived a considerable part of his profits, for the articles did not cost him anything originally, being either presents from the great temples and provincial governors or compulsory contributions from the house of Ouchi. As for the gifts by the Chinese government and the goods shipped in China, they were arbitrarily distributed among the noble families in Japan at prices fixed by the shōgun’s assessor. Thus, so far as the shōgun was concerned, these enterprises could not fail to be lucrative. They also brought large profits to the Ouchi family, for, in the absence of competition, the products and manufactures of each country found ready sale in the markets of the other. The articles found most suitable in China were swords, fans, screens, lacquer wares, copper and agate, and the goods brought back to Japan were brocade and other silk fabrics, ceramic productions, jade and fragrant woods. The Chinese seem to have had a just appreciation of the wonderful swords of Japan. At first they were willing to pay the equivalent of 12 guineas for a pair of blades, but by degrees, as the Japanese began to increase the supply, the price fell, and at the beginning of the 16th century all the diplomacy of the Japanese envoys was needed to obtain good figures for the large and constantly growing quantity of goods that they took over by way of supplement to the tribute. Buddhist priests generally enjoyed the distinction of being selected as envoys, for experience showed that their subtle reasoning invariably overcame the economical scruples of the Chinese authorities and secured a fine profit for their master, the shōgun. In the middle of the 16th century these tribute-bearing missions came to an end with the ruin of the Ouchi family and the overthrow of the Ashikaga shōguns, and they were never renewed.

Japan’s medieval commerce with Korea was less ceremonious than that with China. No passports had to be obtained from the Korean government. A trader was sufficiently equipped when he carried a permit from the So With Korea. family, which held the island of Tsushima in fief. Fifty vessels were allowed to pass yearly from ports in Japan to the three Japanese settlements in Korea. Little is recorded about the nature of this trade, but it was rudely interrupted by the Japanese settlers, who, offended at some arbitrary procedure on the part of the local Korean authorities, took up arms (A.D. 1510) and at first signally routed the Koreans. An army from Seoul turned the tables, and the Japanese were compelled to abandon the three settlements. Subsequently the shōgun’s government—which had not been concerned in the struggle—approached Korea with amicable proposals, and it was agreed that the ringleaders of the raiders should be decapitated and their heads sent to Seoul, Japan’s compliance with this condition affording, perhaps, a measure of the value she attached to neighbourly friendship. Thenceforth the number of vessels was limited to 25 annually and the settlements were abolished. Some years later, the Japanese again resorted to violent acts of self-assertion, and on this occasion, although the offenders were arrested by order of the shōgun Yoshiharu, and handed over to Korea for punishment, the Seoul court persisted in declining to restore the system of settlements or to allow the trade to be resumed on its former basis. Fifty years afterwards the taikō’s armies invaded Korea, overrunning it for seven years, and leaving, when they retired in 1598, a country so impoverished that it no longer offered any attraction to commercial enterprise from beyond the sea.

The Portuguese discovered Japan by accident in 1542 or 1543—the exact date is uncertain. On a voyage to Macao from Siam, a junk carrying three Portuguese was blown from her course and fetched Tanegashima, a small With Occidental Nations. island lying south of the province of Satsuma. The Japanese, always hospitable and inquisitive, welcomed the newcomers and showed special curiosity about the arquebuses carried by the Portuguese, fire-arms being then a novelty in Japan and all weapons of war being in great request. Conversation was impossible, of course, but, by tracing ideographs upon the sand, a Chinese member of the crew succeeded in explaining the cause of the junk’s arrival. She was then piloted to a more commodious harbour, and the Portuguese sold two arquebuses to the local feudatory, who immediately ordered his armourer to manufacture similar weapons. Very soon the news of the discovery reached all the Portuguese settlements in the East, and at least seven expeditions were fitted out during the next few years to exploit this new market. Their objective points were all in the island of Kiūshiū—the principal stage where the drama—ultimately converted into a tragedy—of Christian propagandism and European commercial intercourse was acted in the interval between 1542 and 1637.

It does not appear that the Jesuits at Macao, Goa or other centres of Portuguese influence in the East took immediate advantage of the discovery of Japan. The pioneer propagandist was Francis Xavier, who landed at Arrival of the Jesuits. Kagoshima on the 15th of August 1549. During the interval of six (or seven) years that separated this event from the drifting of the junk to Tanegashima, the Portuguese had traded freely in the ports of Kiūshiū, had visited Kiōto, and had reported the Japanese capital to be a city of 96,000 houses, therefore larger than Lisbon. Xavier would certainly have gone to Japan even though he had not been specially encouraged, for the reports of his countrymen depicted the Japanese as “very desirous of being instructed,” and he longed to find a field more promising than that inhabited by “all these Indian nations, barbarous, vicious and without inclination to virtue.” There were, however, two special determinants. One was a request addressed by a feudatory, supposed to have been the chief of the Bungo fief, to the viceroy of the Indies at Goa; the other, an appeal made in person by a Japanese named Yajiro, whom the fathers spoke of as Anjiro, and who subsequently attained celebrity under his baptismal name, Paul of the holy faith. No credible reason is historically assigned for the action of the Japanese feudatory. Probably his curiosity had been excited by accounts which the Portuguese traders gave of the noble devotion of their country’s missionaries, and being entirely without bigotry, as nearly all Japanese were at that epoch, he issued the invitation partly out of curiosity and partly from a sincere desire for progress. Anjiro’s case was very different. Labouring under stress of repentant zeal, and fearful that his evil acts might entail murderous consequences, he sought an asylum abroad, and was taken away in 1548 by a Portuguese vessel whose master advised him to repair to Malacca for the purpose of confessing to Xavier. This might well have seemed to the Jesuits a providential dispensation, for Anjiro, already able to speak Portuguese, soon mastered it sufficiently to interpret for Xavier and his fellow-missionaries (without which aid they must have remained long helpless in the face of the immense difficulty of the Japanese language), and to this linguistic skill he added extraordinary gifts of intelligence and memory. Xavier, with two Portuguese companions and Anjiro, were excellently received by the feudal chiefs of Satsuma and obtained permission to preach their doctrine in any part of the fief. This permit is not to be construed as an evidence of official sympathy with the foreign creed. Commercial considerations alone were in question. A Japanese feudal chief in that era had sedulously to foster every source of wealth or strength, and as the newly opened trade with the outer world seemed full of golden promise, each feudatory was not less anxious to secure a monopoly of it in the 16th century than the Ashikaga shōguns had been in the 15th. The Satsuma daimyō was led to believe that the presence of the Jesuits in Kagoshima would certainly prelude the advent of trading vessels. But within a few months one of the expected merchantmen sailed to Hirado without touching at Kagoshima, and her example was followed by two others in the following year, so that the Satsuma chief saw himself flouted for the sake of a petty rival, Matsudaira of Hirado. This fact could not fail to provoke his resentment. But there was another influence at work. Buddhism has always been a tolerant religion, eclectic rather than exclusive. Xavier, however, had all the bigoted intolerance of his time. The Buddhist priests in Kagoshima received him with courtesy and listened respectfully to the doctrines he expounded through the mouth of Anjiro. Xavier rejoined with a display of aggressive intolerance which shocked and alienated the Buddhists. They represented to the Satsuma chief that peace and good order were inconsistent with such a display of militant propagandism, and he, already profoundly chagrined by his commercial disappointment, issued in 1550 an edict making it a capital offence for any of his vassals to embrace Christianity. Xavier, or, more correctly speaking, Anjiro, had won 150 converts, who remained without molestation, but Xavier himself took ship for Hirado. There he was received with salvoes of artillery by the Portuguese merchantmen lying in the harbour and with marks of profound respect by the Portuguese traders, a display which induced the local chief to issue orders that courteous attention should be paid to the teaching of the foreign missionaries. In ten days a hundred baptisms took place; another significant index of the mood of the Japanese in the early era of Occidental intercourse: the men in authority always showed a complaisant attitude towards Christianity where trade could be fostered by so doing, and wherever the men in authority showed such an attitude, considerable numbers of the lower orders embraced the foreign faith. Thus, in considering the commercial history of the era, the element of religion constantly thrusts itself into the foreground.

Xavier next resolved to visit Kiōto. The first town of importance he reached on the way was Yamaguchi, capital of the Chōshū fief, situated on the northern shore of the Shimonoseki Strait. There the feudal chief, First Visit of Europeans to Kiōto. Ouchi, though sufficiently courteous and inquisitive, showed no special cordiality towards humble missionaries unconnected with commerce, and the work of proselytizing made no progress, so that Xavier and his companion, Fernandez, pushed on to Kiōto. The time was mid-winter; the two fathers suffered terrible privations during their journey of two months on foot, and on reaching Kiōto they found a city which had been almost wholly reduced to ruins by internecine war. Necessarily they failed to obtain audience of either emperor or shōgun, at that time the most inaccessible potentates in the world, the Chinese “son of heaven” excepted, and nothing remained but street preaching, a strange resource, seeing that Xavier, constitutionally a bad linguist, had only a most rudimentary acquaintance with the profoundly difficult tongue in which he attempted to expound the mysteries of a novel creed. A fortnight sufficed to convince him that Kiōto was unfruitful soil. He therefore returned to Yamaguchi. But he had now learned a lesson. He saw that propagandism without scrip or staff and without the countenance of those sitting in the seats of power would be futile in Japan. So he obtained from Hirado his canonicals, together with a clock and other novel products of European skill, which, as well as credentials from the viceroy of India, the governor of Malacca and the bishop of Goa, he presented to the Chōshū chief. His prayer for permission to preach Christianity was now readily granted, and Ouchi issued a proclamation announcing his approval of the introduction of the new religion and according perfect liberty to embrace it. Xavier and Fernandez now made many converts. They also gained the valuable knowledge that the road to success in Japan lay in associating themselves with over-sea commerce and its directors, and in thus winning the co-operation of the feudal chiefs.

Nearly ten years had now elapsed since the first Portuguese landed in Kagoshima, and during that time trade had gone on steadily and prosperously. No attempt was made to find markets in the main island: the Portuguese Christian Propagandists. confined themselves to Kiūshiū for two reasons: one, that having no knowledge of the coasts, they hesitated to risk their ships and their lives in unsurveyed waters; the other, that whereas the main island, almost from end to end, was seething with internecine war, Kiūshiū remained beyond the pale of disturbance and enjoyed comparative tranquillity. At the time of Xavier’s second sojourn in Yamaguchi, a Portuguese ship happened to be visiting Bungo, and at its master’s suggestion the great missionary proceeded thither, with the intention of returning temporarily to the Indies. At Bungo there was then ruling Otomo, second in power to only the Satsuma chief among the feudatories of Kiūshiū. By him the Jesuit father was received with all honour. Xavier did not now neglect the lesson he had learned in Yamaguchi. He repaired to the Bungo chieftain’s court, escorted by nearly the whole of the Portuguese crew, gorgeously bedizened, carrying their arms and with banners flying. Otomo, a young and ambitious ruler, was keenly anxious to attract foreign traders with their rich cargoes and puissant weapons of war. Witnessing the reverence paid to Xavier by the Portuguese traders, he appreciated the importance of gaining the goodwill of the Jesuits, and accordingly not only granted them full freedom to teach and preach, but also enjoined upon his younger brother, who, in the sequel of a sudden rebellion, had succeeded to the lordship of Yamaguchi, the advisability of extending protection to Torres and Fernandez, then sojourning there. After some four months’ stay in Bungo, Xavier set sail for Goa in February 1552. Death overtook him in the last month of the same year.

Xavier’s departure from Japan marked the conclusion of the first epoch of Christian propagandism. His sojourn in Japan extended to 27 months. In that time he and his coadjutors won about 760 converts. In Satsuma more than a year’s labour produced 150 believers. There Xavier had the assistance of Anjiro to expound his doctrines. No language lends itself with greater difficulty than Japanese to the discussion of theological questions. The terms necessary for such a purpose are not current among laymen, and only by special study, which, it need scarcely be said, must be preluded by an accurate acquaintance with the tongue itself, can a man hope to become duly equipped for the task of exposition and dissertation. It is open to grave doubt whether any foreigner has ever attained the requisite proficiency. Leaving Anjiro in Kagoshima to care for the converts made there, Xavier pushed on to Hirado, where he baptized a hundred Japanese in a few days. Now we have it on the authority of Xavier himself that in this Hirado campaign “none of us knew Japanese.” How then did they proceed? “By reciting a semi-Japanese volume” (a translation made by Anjiro of a treatise from Xavier’s pen) “and by delivering sermons, we brought several over to the Christian cult.” Sermons preached in Portuguese or Latin to a Japanese audience on the island of Hirado in the year 1550 can scarcely have attracted intelligent interest. On his first visit to Yamaguchi, Xavier’s means of access to the understanding of his hearers was confined to the rudimentary knowledge of Japanese which Fernandez had been able to acquire in 14 months, a period of study which, in modern times, with all the aids now procurable, would not suffice to carry a student beyond the margin of the colloquial. No converts were won. The people of Yamaguchi probably admired the splendid faith and devotion of these over-sea philosophers, but as for their doctrine, it was unintelligible. In Kiōto the same experience was repeated, with an addition of much physical hardship. But when the Jesuits returned to Yamaguchi in the early autumn of 1551, they baptized 500 persons, including several members of the military class. Still Fernandez with his broken Japanese was the only medium for communicating the profound doctrines of Christianity. It must be concluded that the teachings of the missionaries produced much less effect than the attitude of the local chieftain.

Only two missionaries, Torres and Fernandez, remained in Japan after the departure of Xavier, but they were soon joined by three others. These newcomers landed at Kagoshima and found that, in spite of the official veto Second Period of Christian Propagandism. against the adoption of Christianity, the feudal chief had lost nothing of his desire to foster foreign trade. Two years later, all the Jesuits in Japan were assembled in Bungo. Their only church stood there; and they had also built two hospitals. Local disturbances had compelled them to withdraw from Yamaguchi, not, however, before their violent disputes with the Buddhist priests in that town had induced the feudatory to proscribe the foreign religion, as had previously been done in Kagoshima. From Funai, the chief town of Bungo, the Jesuits began in 1579 to send yearly reports to their Generals in Rome. These reports, known as the Annual Letters, comprise some of the most valuable information available about the conditions then existing in Japan. They describe a state of abject poverty among the lower orders; poverty so cruel that the destruction of children by their famishing parents was an everyday occurrence, and in some instances choice had to be made between cannibalism and starvation. Such suffering becomes easily intelligible when the fact is recalled that Japan had been racked by civil war during more than 200 years, each feudal chief fighting for his own hand, to save or to extend his territorial possessions. From these Annual Letters it is possible also to gather a tolerably clear idea of the course of events during the years immediately subsequent to Xavier’s departure. There was no break in the continuity of the newly inaugurated foreign trade. Portuguese ships visited Hirado as well as Bungo, and in those days their masters and crews not only attended scrupulously to their religious duties, but also showed such profound respect for the missionaries that the Japanese received constant object lessons in the influence wielded over the traders by the Jesuits. Thirty years later, this orderly and reverential demeanour was exchanged for riotous excesses such as had already made the Portuguese sailor a byword in China. But in the early days of intercourse with Japan the crews of the merchant vessels seem to have preached Christianity by their exemplary conduct. Just as Xavier had been induced to visit Bungo by the anxiety of a ship-captain for Christian ministrations, so in 1557 two of the fathers repaired to Hirado in obedience to the solicitations of Portuguese sailors. There the fathers, under the guidance of Vilela, sent brothers to parade the streets ringing bells and chaunting litanies; they organized bands of boys for the same purpose; they caused the converts, and even children, to flagellate themselves at a model of Mount Calvary, and they worked miracles, healing the sick by contact with scourges or with a booklet in which Xavier had written litanies and prayers. It may well be imagined that such doings attracted surprised attention in Japan. They were supplemented by even more striking practices. For a sub-feudatory of the Hirado chief, having been converted, showed his zeal by destroying Buddhist temples and throwing down the idols, thus inaugurating a campaign of violence destined to mark the progress of Christianity throughout the greater part of its history in Japan. There followed the overthrowing of a cross in the Christian cemetery, the burning of a temple in the town of Hirado, and a street riot, the sequel being that the Jesuit fathers were compelled to return once more to Bungo. It is essential to follow all these events, for not otherwise can a clear understanding be reached as to the aspects under which Christianity presented itself originally to the Japanese. The Portuguese traders, reverent as was their demeanour towards Christianity, did not allow their commerce to be interrupted by vicissitudes of propagandism. They still repaired to Hirado, and rumours of the wealth-begetting effects of their presence having reached the neighbouring fief of Omura, its chief, Sumitada, made overtures to the Jesuits in Bungo, offering a port free from all dues for ten years, a large tract of land, a residence for the missionaries and other privileges. The Jesuits hastened to take advantage of this proposal, and no sooner did the news reach Hirado than the feudatory of that island repented of having expelled the fathers and invited them to return. But while they hesitated, a Portuguese vessel arrived at Hirado, and the feudal chief declared publicly that no need existed to conciliate the missionaries, since trade went on without them. When this became known in Bungo, Torres hastened to Hirado, was received with extraordinary honours by the crew of the vessel, and at his instance she left the port, her master declaring that “he could not remain in a country where they maltreated those who professed the same religion as himself.” Hirado remained a closed port for some years, but ultimately the advent of three merchantmen, which intimated their determination not to put in unless the anti-Christian ban was removed, induced the feudal chief to receive the Jesuits, once more. This incident was paralleled a few years later in the island of Amakusa, where a petty feudatory, in order to attract foreign trade, as the missionaries themselves frankly explain, embraced Christianity and ordered all his vassals to follow his example; but when no Portuguese ship appeared, he apostatized, required his subjects to revert to Buddhism arid made the missionaries withdraw. In fact, the competition for the patronage of Portuguese traders was so keen that the Hirado feudatory attempted to burn several of their vessels because they frequented the territorial waters of his neighbour and rival, Sumitada. The latter became a most stalwart Christian when his wish was gratified. He set himself to eradicate idolatry throughout his fief with the strong arm, and his fierce intolerance provoked results which ended in the destruction of the Christian town at the newly opened free port. Sumitada, however, quickly reasserted his authority, and five years later (1567), he took a step which had far-reaching consequences, namely, the building of a church at Nagasaki, in order that Portuguese commerce might have a centre and the Christians an assured asylum. Nagasaki was then a little fishing village. In five years it grew to be a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, and Sumitada became one of the richest of the Kiūshiū feudatories. When in 1573 successful conflicts with the neighbouring fiefs brought him an access of territory, he declared that he owed these victories to the influence of the Christian God, and shortly afterwards he publicly proclaimed banishment for all who would not accept the foreign faith. There were then no Jesuits by his side, but immediately two hastened to join him, and “these, accompanied by a strong guard, but yet not without danger of their lives, went round causing the churches of the Gentiles, with their idols, to be thrown to the ground, while three Japanese Christians went preaching the law of God everywhere. Three of us who were in the neighbouring kingdoms all withdrew therefrom to work in this abundant harvest, and in the space of seven months twenty thousand persons were baptized, including the bonzes of about sixty monasteries, except a few who quitted the State.” In Bungo, however, where the Jesuits were originally so well received, it is doubtful whether Christian propagandism would not have ended in failure but for an event which occurred in 1576, namely, the conversion of the chieftain’s son, a youth of some 16 years. Two years later Otomo himself came over to the Christian faith. He rendered inestimable aid, not merely within his own fief, but also by the influence he exercised on others. His intervention, supported by recourse to arms, obtained for the Jesuits a footing on the island of Amakusa, where one of the feudatories gave his vassals the choice of conversion or exile, and announced to the Buddhist priests that unless they accepted Christianity their property would be confiscated and they themselves banished. Nearly the whole population of the fief did violence to their conscience for the sake of their homes. Christianity was then becoming established in Kiūshiū by methods similar to those of Islam and the inquisition. Another notable illustration is furnished by the story of the Arima fief, adjoining that of Sumitada (Omura), where such resolute means had been adopted to force Christianity upon the vassals. Moreover, the heads of the two fiefs were brothers. Accordingly, at the time of Sumitada’s very dramatic conversion, the Jesuits were invited to Arima and encouraged to form settlements at the ports of Kuchinotsu and Shimabara, which thenceforth began to be frequented by Portuguese merchantmen. The fief naturally became involved in the turmoil resulting from Sumitada’s iconoclastic methods of propagandism; but, in 1576, the then ruling feudatory, influenced largely by the object lesson of Sumitada’s prosperity and puissance, which that chieftain openly ascribed to the tutelary aid of the Christian deity, accepted baptism and became the “Prince Andrew” of missionary records. It is written in those records that “the first thing Prince Andrew did after his baptism was to convert the chief temple of his capital into a church, its revenues being assigned for the maintenance of the building and the support of the missionaries. He then took measures to have the same thing done in the other towns of his fief, and he seconded the preachers of the gospel so well in everything else that he could flatter himself that he soon would not have one single idolater in his states.” Thus in the two years that separated his baptism from his death, twenty thousand converts were won in Arima. But his successor was an enemy of the alien creed. He ordered the Jesuits to quit his dominions, required the converts to return to their ancestral faith, and caused “the holy places to be destroyed and the crosses to be thrown down.” Nearly one-half of the converts apostatized under this pressure, but others had recourse to a device of proved potency. They threatened to leave Kuchinotsu en masse, and as that would have involved the loss of foreign trade, the hostile edict was materially modified. To this same weapon the Christians owed a still more signal victory. For just at that time the great ship from Macao, now an annual visitor, arrived in Japanese waters carrying the visitor-general, Valegnani. She put into Kuchinotsu, and her presence, with its suggested eventualities, gave such satisfaction that the feudatory offered to accept baptism and to sanction its acceptance by his vassals. This did not satisfy Valegnani, a man of profound political sagacity. He saw that the fief was menaced by serious dangers at the hands of its neighbours, and seizing the psychological moment of its extreme peril, he used the secular arm so adroitly that the fief’s chance of survival seemed to be limited to the unreserved adoption of Christianity. Thus, in 1580, the chieftain and his wife were baptized; “all the city was made Christian; they burned their idols and destroyed 40 temples, reserving some materials to build churches.”

Christian propagandism had now made substantial progress. The Annual Letter of 1582 recorded that at the close of 1581, thirty-two years after the landing of Xavier in Japan, there were about 150,000 converts, of whom some 125,000 were in Kiūshiū and the remainder in Yamaguchi, Kiōto and the neighbourhood of the latter city. The Jesuits in the empire then numbered 75, but down to the year 1563 there had never been more than 9, and down to 1577, not more than 18. The harvest was certainly great in proportion to the number of sowers. But it was a harvest mainly of artificial growth; forced by the despotic insistence of feudal chiefs who possessed the power of life and death over their vassals, and were influenced by a desire to attract foreign trade. To the Buddhist priests this movement of Christian propagandism had brought an experience hitherto unknown to them, persecution on account of creed. They had suffered for interfering in politics, but the fierce cruelty of the Christian fanatic now became known for the first time to men themselves conspicuous for tolerance of heresy and receptivity of instruction. They had had no previous experience of humanity in the garb of an Otomo of Bungo, who, in the words of Crasset, “went to the chase of the bonzes as to that of wild beasts, and made it his singular pleasure to exterminate them from his states.”

In 1582 the first Japanese envoys sailed from Nagasaki for Europe. The embassy consisted of four youths, the oldest not more than 16, representing the fiefs of Arima, Omura and Bungo. They visited Lisbon, Madrid and Rome, First Japanese Embassy to Europe. and in all these cities they were received with displays of magnificence such as 16th century Europe delighted to make. That, indeed, had been the motive of Valegnani in organizing the mission: he desired to let the Japanese see with their own eyes how great were the riches and might of Western states.

In the above statistics of converts at the close of 1581 mention is made of Christians in Kiōto, though we have already seen that the visit by Xavier and Fernandez to that city was wholly barren of results. A second visit, however, Second Visit of Jesuits to Kiōto. made by Vilela in 1559, proved more successful. He carried letters of recommendation from the Bungo chieftain, and the proximate cause of his journey was an invitation from a Buddhist priest in the celebrated monastery of Hiei-zan, who sought information about Christianity. This was before the razing of temples and the overthrow of idols had commenced in Kiūshiū. On arrival at Hiei-zan, Vilela found that the Buddhist prior who had invited him was dead and that only a portion of the old man’s authority had descended to his successor. Nevertheless the Jesuit obtained an opportunity to expound his doctrines to a party of bonzes at the monastery. Subsequently, through the good offices of a priest, described as “one of the most respected men in the city,” and with the assistance of the Bungo feudatory’s letter, Vilela enjoyed the rare honour of being received by the shōgun in Kiōto, who treated him with all consideration and assigned a house for his residence. It may be imagined that, owing such a debt of gratitude to Buddhist priests, Vilela would have behaved towards them and their creed with courtesy. But the Jesuit fathers were proof against all influences calculated to impair their stern sense of duty. Speaking through the mouth of a Japanese convert, Vilela attacked the bonzes in unmeasured terms and denounced their faith. Soon the bonzes, on their side, were seeking the destruction of these uncompromising assailants with insistence inferior only to that which the Jesuits themselves would have shown in similar circumstances. Against these perils Vilela was protected by the goodwill of the shōgun, who had already issued a decree threatening with death any one who injured the missionaries or obstructed their work. In spite of all difficulties and dangers these wonderful missionaries, whose courage, zeal and devotion are beyond all eulogy, toiled on resolutely and even recklessly, and such success attended their efforts that by 1564 many converts had been won and churches had been established in five walled towns within a distance of 50 miles from Kiōto. Among the converts were two Buddhist priests, notoriously hostile at the outset, who had been nominated as official commissioners to investigate and report upon the doctrine of Christianity. The first conversion en masse was due to pressure from above. A petty feudatory, Takayama, whose fief lay at Takatsuki in the neighbourhood of the capital, challenged Vilela to a public controversy, the result of which was that the Japanese acknowledged himself vanquished, embraced Christianity and invited his vassals as well as his family to follow his example. This man’s son—Takayama Yūsho—proved one of the stanchest supporters of Christianity in all Japan, and has been immortalized by the Jesuits under the name of Don Justo Ucondono. Incidentally this event furnishes an index to the character of the Japanese samurai: he accepted the consequences of defeat as frankly as he dared it. In the same year (1564) the feudatory of Sawa, a brother of Takayama, became a Christian and imposed the faith on all his vassals, just as Sumitada and other feudal chiefs had done in Kiūshiū. But the Kiōto record differs from that of Kiūshiū in one important respect—the former is free from any intrusion of commercial motives.

Kiōto was at that time the scene of sanguinary tumults, which culminated in the murder of the shōgun (1565), and led to the issue of a decree by the emperor proscribing Christianity. In Japanese medieval history this Nobunaga and the Jesuits. is one of the only two instances of Imperial interference with Christian propagandism. There is evidence that the edict was obtained at the instance of one of the shōgun’s assassins and certain Buddhist priests. The Jesuits—their number had been increased to three—were obliged to take refuge in Sakai, now little more than a suburb of Osaka, but at that time a great and wealthy mart, and the only town in Japan which did not acknowledge the sway of any feudal chief. Three years later they were summoned thence to be presented to Oda Nobunaga, one of the greatest captains Japan has ever produced. In the very year of Xavier’s landing at Kagoshima, Nobunaga had succeeded to his father’s fief, a comparatively petty estate in the province of Owari. In 1568 he was seated in Kiōto, a maker of shōguns and acknowledged ruler of 30 among the 66 provinces of Japan. Had Nobunaga, wielding such immense power, adopted a hostile attitude towards Christianity, the fires lit by the Jesuits in Japan must soon have been extinguished. Nobunaga, however, to great breadth and liberality of view added strong animosity towards Buddhist priests. Many of the great monasteries had become armed camps, their inmates skilled equally in field-attacks and in the defence of ramparts. One sect (the Nichiren), which was specially affected by the samurai, had lent powerful aid to the murderers of the shōgun three years before Nobunaga’s victories carried him to Kiōto, and the armed monasteries constituted imperia in imperio which assorted ill with his ambition of complete supremacy. He therefore welcomed Christianity for the sake of its opposition to Buddhism, and when Takayama conducted Froez from Sakai to Nobunaga’s presence, the reception accorded to the Jesuit was of the most cordial character. Throughout the fourteen years of life that remained to him, Nobunaga continued to be the constant friend of the missionaries in particular and of foreigners visiting Japan in general. He stood between the Jesuits and the Throne when, in reply to an appeal from the Buddhist priests, the emperor, for the second time, issued an anti-Christian decree (1568); he granted a site for a church and residence at Azuchi on Lake Biwa, where his new fortress stood; he addressed to various powerful feudatories letters signifying a desire for the spread of Christianity; he frequently made handsome presents to the fathers, and whenever they visited him he showed a degree of accessibility and graciousness very foreign to his usually haughty and imperious demeanour. The Jesuits themselves said of him: “This man seems to have been chosen by God to open and prepare the way for our faith.” Nevertheless they do not appear to have entertained much hope at any time of converting Nobunaga. They must have understood that their doctrines had not made any profound impression on a man who could treat them as this potentate did in 1579, when he plainly showed that political exigencies might at any moment induce him to sacrifice them.30 His last act, too, proved that sacrilege was of no account in his eyes, for he took steps to have himself apotheosized at Azuchi with the utmost pomp and circumstance. Still nothing can obscure the benefits he heaped upon the propagandists of Christianity.

The terrible tumult of domestic war through which Japan passed in the 15th and 16th centuries brought to her service three of the greatest men ever produced in Occident or Orient. They were Oda Nobunaga, Hideyshi and the Christians. Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Hideyoshi, as Nobunaga’s lieutenant, contributed largely to the building of the latter’s fortunes, and, succeeding him in 1582, brought the whole 66 provinces of the empire under his own administrative sway. For the Jesuits now the absorbing question was, what attitude Hideyoshi would assume towards their propagandism. His power was virtually limitless. With a word he could have overthrown the whole edifice created by them at the cost of so much splendid effort and noble devotion. They were very quickly reassured. In this matter Hideyoshi walked in Nobunaga’s footsteps. He not only accorded a friendly audience to Father Organtino, who waited on him as representative of the Jesuits, but also he went in person to assign to the company a site for a church and a residence in Osaka, where there was presently to rise the most massive fortress ever built in the East. At that time many Christian converts were serving in high positions, and in 1584 the Jesuits placed it on record that “Hideyoshi was not only not opposed to the things of God, but he even showed that he made much account of them and preferred them to all the sects of the bonzes.... He is entrusting to Christians his treasures, his secrets and his fortresses of most importance, and shows himself well pleased that the sons of the great lords about him should adopt our customs and our law.” Two years later in Osaka he received with every mark of cordiality and favour a Jesuit mission which had come from Nagasaki seeking audience, and on that occasion his visitor recorded that he spoke of an intention of christianizing one half of Japan. Nor did Hideyoshi confine himself to words. He actually signed a patent licensing the missionaries to preach throughout all Japan, and exempting not only their houses and churches from the billeting of soldiers but also the priests themselves from local burdens. This was in 1586, on the eve of Hideyoshi’s greatest military enterprise, the invasion of Kiūshiū and its complete reduction. He carried that difficult campaign to completion by the middle of 1587, and throughout its course he maintained a uniformly friendly demeanour towards the Jesuits. But suddenly, when on the return journey he reached Hakata in the north of the island, his policy underwent a radical metamorphosis. Five questions were by his order propounded to the vice-provincial of the Jesuits: “Why and by what authority he and his fellow-propagandists had constrained Japanese subjects to become Christians? Why they had induced their disciples and their sectaries to overthrow temples? Why they persecuted the bonzes? Why they and other Portuguese ate animals useful to men, such as oxen and cows? Why the vice-provincial allowed merchants of his nation to buy Japanese to make slaves of them in the Indies?” To these queries Coelho, the vice-provincial, made answer that the missionaries had never themselves resorted, or incited, to violence in their propagandism or persecuted bonzes; that if their eating of beef were considered inadvisable, they would give up the practice; and that they were powerless to prevent or restrain the outrages perpetrated by their countrymen. Hideyoshi read the vice-provincial’s reply and, without comment, sent him word to retire to Hirado, assemble all his followers there, and quit the country within six months. On the next day (July 25, 1587) the following edict was published:—

“Having learned from our faithful councillors that foreign priests have come into our estates, where they preach a law contrary to that of Japan, and that they even had the audacity to destroy temples dedicated to our Kami and Hotoke; although the outrage merits the most extreme punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that space no harm or hurt will be done to them. But at the expiration of that term, we order that if any of them be found in our states, they should be seized and punished as the greatest criminals. As for the Portuguese merchants, we permit them to enter our ports, there to continue their accustomed trade, and to remain in our states provided our affairs need this. But we forbid them to bring any foreign priests into the country, under the penalty of the confiscation of their ships and goods.”

How are we to account for this apparently rapid change of mood on the part of Hideyoshi? Some historians insist that from the very outset he conceived the resolve of suppressing Christianity and expelling its propagandists, but that he concealed his design pending the subjugation of Kiūshiū, lest, by premature action, he might weaken his hand for that enterprise. This hypothesis rests mainly on conjecture. Its formulators found it easier to believe in a hidden purpose than to attribute to a statesman so shrewd and far-seeing a sudden change of mind. A more reasonable theory is that, shortly before leaving Osaka for Kiūshiū, Hideyoshi began to entertain doubts as to the expediency of tolerating Christian propagandism, and that his doubts were signally strengthened by direct observation of the state of affairs in Kiūshiū. While still in Osaka, he one day remarked publicly that “he feared much that all the virtue of the European priests served only to conceal pernicious designs against the empire.” There had been no demolishing of temples or overthrowing of images at Christian instance in the metropolitan provinces. In Kiūshiū, however, very different conditions prevailed. There Christianity may be said to have been preached at the point of the sword. Temples and images had been destroyed wholesale; vassals in thousands had been compelled to embrace the foreign faith; and the missionaries themselves had come to be treated as demi-gods whose nod was worth conciliating at any cost of self-abasement. Brought into direct contact with these evidences of the growth of a new power, temporal as well as spiritual, Hideyoshi may well have reached the conclusion that a choice had to be finally made between his own supremacy and that of the alien creed, if not between the independence of Japan and the yoke of the great Christian states of Europe.

Hideyoshi gauged the character of the medieval Christians with sufficient accuracy to know that for the sake of their faith they would at any time defy the laws of the island. His estimate received immediate verification, Sequel of the Edict of Banishment. for when the Jesuits, numbering 120, assembled at Hirado and received his order to embark at once they decided that only those should sail whose services were needed in China. The others remained and went about their duties as usual, under the protection of the converted feudatories. Hideyoshi, however, saw reason to wink at this disregard of his authority. At first he showed uncompromising resolution. All the churches in Kiōto, Osaka and Sakai were demolished, while troops were sent to raze the Christian places of worship in Kiūshiū and seize the port of Nagasaki. These troops were munificently dissuaded from their purpose by the Christian feudatories. But Hideyoshi did not protest, and in 1588 he allowed himself to be convinced by a Portuguese envoy that in the absence of missionaries foreign trade must cease, since without the intervention of the fathers peace and good order could not be maintained among the merchants. Rather than suffer the trade to be interrupted Hideyoshi agreed to the coming of priests, and thenceforth, during some years, Christianity not only continued to flourish and grow in Kiūshiū but also found a favourable field of operations in Kiōto itself. Care was taken that Hideyoshi’s attention should not be attracted by any salient evidences of what he had called a “diabolical religion,” and thus for a time all went well. There is evidence that, like the feudal chiefs in Kiūshiū, Hideyoshi set great store by foreign trade and would even have sacrificed to its maintenance and expansion something of the aversion he had conceived for Christianity. He did indeed make one very large concession. For on being assured that Portuguese traders could not frequent Japan unless they found Christian priests there to minister to them, he consented to sanction the presence of a limited number of Jesuits. The statistics of 1595 show how Christianity fared under even this partial tolerance, for there were then 137 Jesuits in Japan with 300,000 converts, among whom were 17 feudal chiefs, to say nothing of many men of lesser though still considerable note, and even not a few bonzes.

For ten years after his unlooked-for order of expulsion, Hideyoshi preserved a tolerant mien. But in 1597 his forbearance gave place to a mood of uncompromising severity. The reasons of this second change are very clear, Hideyoshi’s Final Attitude towards Christianity. though diverse accounts have been transmitted. Up to 1593 the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly of religious propagandism and over-sea commerce in Japan. The privilege was secured to them by agreement between Spain and Portugal and by a papal bull. But the Spaniards in Manila had long looked with somewhat jealous eyes on this Jesuit reservation, and when news of the disaster of 1587 reached the Philippines, the Dominicans and Franciscans residing there were fired with zeal to enter an arena where the crown of martyrdom seemed to be the least reward within reach. The papal bull, however, demanded obedience, and to overcome that difficulty a ruse was necessary: the governor of Manila agreed to send a party of Franciscans as ambassadors to Hideyoshi. In that guise the friars, being neither traders nor propagandists, considered that they did not violate either the treaty or the bull. It was a technical subterfuge very unworthy of the object contemplated, and the friars supplemented it by swearing to Hideyoshi that the Philippines would submit to his sway. Thus they obtained permission to visit Kiōto, Osaka and Fushimi, but with the explicit proviso that they must not preach. Very soon they had built a church in Kiōto, consecrated it with the utmost pomp, and were preaching sermons and chaunting litanies there in flagrant defiance of Hideyoshi’s veto. Presently their number received an access of three friars who came bearing gifts from the governor at Manila, and now they not only established a convent in Osaka, but also seized a Jesuit church in Nagasaki and converted the circumspect worship hitherto conducted there by the fathers into services of the most public character. Officially checked in Nagasaki, they charged the Jesuits in Kiōto with having intrigued to impede them, and they further vaunted the courageous openness of their own ministrations as compared with the clandestine timidity of the methods which wise prudence had induced the Jesuits to adopt. Retribution would have followed quickly had not Hideyoshi’s attention been engrossed by an attempt to invade China through Korea. At this stage, however, a memorable incident occurred. Driven out of her course by a storm, a great and richly laden Spanish galleon, bound for Acapulco from Manila, drifted to the coast of Tosa province, and running—or being purposely run—on a sand-bank as she was being towed into port by Japanese boats, broke her back. She carried goods to the value of some 600,000 crowns, and certain officials urged Hideyoshi to confiscate her as derelict, conveying to him at the same time a detailed account of the doings of the Franciscans and their open flouting of his orders. Hideyoshi, much incensed, commanded the arrest of the Franciscans and despatched officers to Tosa to confiscate the “San Felipe.” The pilot of the galleon sought to intimidate these officers by showing them on a map of the world the vast extent of Spain’s dominions, and being asked how one country had acquired such extended sway, replied: “Our kings begin by sending into the countries they wish to conquer missionaries who induce the people to embrace our religion, and when they have made considerable progress, troops are sent who combine with the new Christians, and then our kings have not much trouble in accomplishing the rest.”

On learning of this speech Hideyoshi was overcome with fury. He condemned the Franciscans to have their noses and ears cut off, to be promenaded through Kiōto, Osaka and Sakai, and to be crucified at Nagasaki. “I The First Execution of Christians. have ordered these foreigners to be treated thus, because they have come from the Philippines to Japan, calling themselves ambassadors, although they were not so; because they have remained here far too long without my permission; because, in defiance of my prohibition, they have built churches, preached their religion and caused disorders.” Twenty-six suffered under this sentence—six Franciscans, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen native Christians, chiefly domestic servants of the Franciscans.31 They met their fate with noble fortitude. Hideyoshi further issued a special injunction against the adoption of Christianity by a feudal chief, and took steps to give practical effect to his expulsion edict of 1587. The governor of Nagasaki received instructions to send away all the Jesuits, permitting only two or three to remain for the service of the Portuguese merchants. But the Jesuits were not the kind of men who, to escape personal peril, turn their back upon an unaccomplished work of grace. There were 125 of them in Japan at that time. In October 1597 a junk sailed out of Nagasaki harbour, her decks crowded with seeming Jesuits. In reality she carried 11 of the company, the apparent Jesuits being disguised sailors. It is not to be supposed that such a manœuvre could be hidden from the local authorities. They winked at it, until rumour became insistent that Hideyoshi was about to visit Kiūshiū in person, and all Japanese in administrative posts knew how Hideyoshi visited disobedience and how hopeless was any attempt to deceive him. Therefore, early in 1598, really drastic steps were taken. Churches to the number of 137 were demolished in Kiūshiū, seminaries and residences fell, and the governor of Nagasaki assembled there all the fathers of the company for deportation to Macao by the great ship in the following year. But while they waited, Hideyoshi died. It is not on record that the Jesuits openly declared his removal from the earth to have been a special dispensation in their favour. But they pronounced him an execrable tyrant and consigned his “soul to hell for all eternity.” Yet no impartial reader of history can pretend to think that a 16th-century Jesuit general in Hideyoshi’s place would have shown towards an alien creed and its propagandists even a small measure of the tolerance exercised by the Japanese statesman towards Christianity and the Jesuits.

Hideyoshi’s death occurred in 1598. Two years later, his authority as administrative ruler of all Japan had passed into the hands of Iyeyasu, the Tokugawa chief, and thirty-nine years later the Tokugawa potentates had not Foreign Policy of the Tokugawa Rulers. only exterminated Christianity in Japan but had also condemned their country to a period of international isolation which continued unbroken until 1853, an interval of 214 years. It has been shown that even when they were most incensed against Christianity, Japanese administrators sought to foster and preserve foreign trade. Why then did they close the country’s doors to the outside world and suspend a commerce once so much esteemed? To answer that question some retrospect is needed. Certain historians allege that from the outset Iyeyasu shared Hideyoshi’s misgivings about the real designs of Christian potentates and Christian propagandists. But that verdict is not supported by facts. The first occasion of the Tokugawa chief’s recorded contact with a Christian propagandist was less than three months after Hideyoshi’s death. There was then led into his presence a Franciscan, by name Jerome de Jesus, originally a member of the fictitious embassy from Manila. This man’s conduct constitutes an example of the invincible zeal and courage inspiring a Christian priest in those days. Barely escaping the doom of crucifixion which overtook his companions, he had been deported from Japan to Manila at a time when death seemed to be the certain penalty of remaining. But no sooner had he been landed at Manila than he took passage in a Chinese junk, and, returning to Nagasaki, made his way secretly from the far south of Japan to the province of Kii. There arrested, he was brought into the presence of Iyeyasu, and his own record of what ensued is given in a letter subsequently sent to Manila:—

“When the Prince saw me he asked how I had managed to escape the previous persecution. I answered him that at that date God had delivered me in order that I might go to Manila and bring back new colleagues from there—preachers of the divine law—and that I had returned from Manila to encourage the Christians, cherishing the desire to die on the cross in order to go to enjoy eternal glory like my former colleagues. On hearing these words the Emperor began to smile, whether in his quality of a pagan of the sect of Shaka, which teaches that there is no future life, or whether from the thought that I was frightened at having to be put to death. Then, looking at me kindly, he said, ‘Be no longer afraid and no longer conceal yourself, and no longer change your habit, for I wish you well; and as for the Christians who every year pass within sight of the Kwantō where my domains are, when they go to Mexico with their ships, I have a keen desire for them to visit the harbours of this island, to refresh themselves there, and to take what they wish, to trade with my vassals and to teach them how to develop silver mines; and that my intentions may be accomplished before my death, I wish you to indicate to me the means to take to realize them.’ I answered that it was necessary that Spanish pilots should take the soundings of his harbours, so that ships might not be lost in future as the ‘San Felipe’ had been, and that he should solicit this service from the governor of the Philippines. The Prince approved of my advice, and accordingly he has sent a Japanese gentleman, a native of Sakai, the bearer of this message.... It is essential to oppose no obstacle to the complete liberty offered by the Emperor to the Spaniards and to our holy order, for the preaching of the holy gospel.... The same Prince (who is about to visit the Kwantō) invites me to accompany him to make choice of a house, and to visit the harbour which he promises to open to us; his desires in this respect are keener than I can express.”

The above version of the Tokugawa chief’s mood is confirmed by events, for not only did he allow the contumelious Franciscan to build a church—the first—in Yedo and to celebrate Mass there, but also he sent three embassies to the Philippines, proposing reciprocal freedom of commerce, offering to open ports in the Kwantō and asking for competent naval architects. He never obtained the architects, and though the trade came, its volume was small in comparison with the abundance of friars that accompanied it. There is just a possibility that Iyeyasu saw in these Spanish monks an instrument of counteracting the influence of the Jesuits, for he must have known that the Franciscans opened their mission in Yedo by “declaiming with violence against the fathers of the company of Jesus.” In short, the Spanish monks assumed towards the Jesuits in Japan the same intolerant and abusive tone that the Jesuits themselves had previously assumed towards Buddhism.

At that time there appeared upon the scene another factor destined greatly to complicate events. It was a Dutch merchant ship, the “Liefde.” Until the Netherlands revolted from Spain, the Dutch had been the principal distributors of all goods arriving at Lisbon from the Far East; but in 1594 Philip II. closed the port of Lisbon to these rebels, and the Dutch met the situation by turning their prows to the Orient to invade the sources of Portuguese commerce. One of the first expeditions despatched for that purpose set out in 1598, and of the five vessels composing it one only was ever heard of again. This was the “Liefde.” She reached Japan during the spring of 1600, with only four-and-twenty alive out of her original crew of 110. Towed into the harbour at Funai, the “Liefde” was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate and endeavoured to incense the Japanese against them. The “Liefde” had on board in the capacity of “pilot major” an Englishman, Will Adams of Gillingham in Kent, whom Iyeyasu summoned to Osaka, where there commenced between the rough British sailor and the Tokugawa chief a curiously friendly intercourse which was not interrupted until the death of Adams twenty years later. The Englishman became master ship-builder to the Yedo government; was employed as diplomatic agent when other traders from his own country and from Holland arrived in Japan, received in perpetual gift a substantial estate, and from first to last possessed the implicit confidence of the shōgun. Iyeyasu quickly discerned the man’s honesty, perceived that whatever benefits foreign commerce might confer would be increased by encouraging competition among the foreigners, and realized that English and Dutch trade presented the wholesome feature of complete dissociation from religious propagandism. On the other hand, he showed no intolerance to either Spaniards or Portuguese. He issued (1601) two official patents sanctioning the residence of the fathers in Kiōto, Osaka and Nagasaki; he employed Father Rodriguez as interpreter to the court at Yedo; and in 1603 he gave munificent succour to the Jesuits who were reduced to dire straits owing to the capture of the great ship from Macao by the Dutch and the consequent loss of several years’ supplies for the mission in Japan.

It is thus seen that each of the great trio of Japan’s 16th-century statesmen—Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu—adopted at the outset a most tolerant demeanour towards Christianity. The reasons of Hideyoshi’s change of mood have been set forth. We have now to examine the reasons that produced a similar metamorphosis in the case of Iyeyasu. Two causes present themselves immediately. The first is that, while tolerating Christianity, Iyeyasu did not approve of it as a creed; the second, that he himself, whether from state policy or genuine piety, strongly encouraged Buddhism. Proof of the former proposition is found in an order issued by him in 1602 to insure the safety of foreign merchantmen entering Japanese ports: it concluded with the reservation, “but we rigorously forbid them” (foreigners coming in such ships) “to promulgate their faith.” Proof of the latter is furnished by the facts that he invariably carried about with him a miniature Buddhist image which he regarded as his tutelary deity, and that he fostered the creed of Shaka as zealously as Oda Nobunaga had suppressed it. There is much difficulty in tracing the exact sequence of events which gradually educated a strong antipathy to the Christian faith in the mind of the Tokugawa chief. He must have been influenced in some degree by the views of his great predecessor, Hideyoshi. But he did not accept those views implicitly. At the end of the 16th century he sent a trusted emissary to Europe for the purpose of directly observing the conditions in the home of Christianity, and this man, the better to achieve his aim, embraced the foreign faith, and studied it from within as well as from without. The story that he had to tell on his return could not fail to shock the ruler of a country where freedom of conscience had existed from time immemorial. It was a story of the inquisition and of the stake; of unlimited aggression in the name of the cross; of the pope’s overlordship which entitled him to confiscate the realm of heretical sovereigns; of religious wars and of well-nigh incredible fanaticism. Iyeyasu must have received an evil impression while he listened to his emissary’s statements. Under his own eyes, too, were abundant evidences of the spirit of strife that Christian dogma engendered in those times. From the moment when the Franciscans and Dominicans arrived in Japan, a fierce quarrel began between them and the Jesuits; a quarrel which even community of suffering could not compose. Not less repellent was an attempt on the part of the Spaniards to dictate to Iyeyasu the expulsion of all Hollanders from Japan, and on the part of the Jesuits to dictate the expulsion of the Spaniards. The former proposal, couched almost in the form of a demand, was twice formulated, and accompanied on the second occasion by a scarcely less insulting offer, namely, that Spanish men-of-war would be sent to Japan to burn all Dutch ships found in the ports of the empire. If in the face of proposals so contumelious of his sovereign authority Iyeyasu preserved a calm and dignified mien, merely replying that his country was open to all comers, and that, if other nations had quarrels among themselves, they must not take Japan for battle-ground, it is nevertheless unimaginable that he did not strongly resent such interference with his own independent foreign policy, and that he did not interpret it as foreshadowing a disturbance of the realm’s peace by sectarian quarrels among Christians. These experiences, predisposing Iyeyasu to dislike Christianity as a creed and to distrust it as a political influence, were soon supplemented by incidents of an immediately determinative character. The first was an act of fraud and forgery committed in the interests of a Christian feudatory by a trusted official, himself a Christian. Thereupon Iyeyasu, conceiving it unsafe that Christians should fill offices at his court, dismissed all those so employed, banished them from Yedo and forbade any feudal chief to harbour them. The second incident was an attempted survey of the coast of Japan by a Spanish mariner and a Franciscan friar. Permission to take this step had been obtained by an envoy from New Spain, but no deep consideration of reasons seems to have preluded the permission on Japan’s side, and when the mariner (Sebastian) and the friar (Sotelo) hastened to carry out the project, Iyeyasu asked Will Adams to explain this display of industry. The Englishman replied that such a proceeding would be regarded in Europe as an act of hostility, especially on the part of the Spaniards or Portuguese, whose aggressions were notorious. He added, in reply to further questions, that “the Roman priesthood had been expelled from many parts of Germany, from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland and England, and that although his own country preserved the pure form of the Christian faith from which Spain and Portugal had deviated, yet neither English nor Dutch considered that that fact afforded them any reason to war with, or to annex, States which were not Christian solely for the reason that they were non-Christian.” Iyeyasu reposed entire confidence in Adams. Hearing the Englishman’s testimony, he is said to have exclaimed, “If the sovereigns of Europe do not tolerate these priests, I do them no wrong if I refuse to tolerate them.” Japanese historians add that Iyeyasu discovered a conspiracy on the part of some Japanese Christians to overthrow his government by the aid of foreign troops. It was not a widely ramified plot, but it lent additional importance to the fact that the sympathy of the fathers and their converts was plainly with the only magnate in the empire who continued to dispute the Tokugawa supremacy, Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi. Nevertheless Iyeyasu shrank from proceeding to extremities in the case of any foreign priest, and this attitude he maintained until his death (1616). Possibly he might have been not less tolerant towards native Christians also had not the Tokugawa authority been openly defied by a Franciscan father—the Sotelo mentioned above—in Yedo itself. Then (1613) the first execution of Japanese converts took place, though the monk himself was released after a short incarceration. At that time, as is still the case even in these more enlightened days, insignificant differences of custom sometimes induced serious misconceptions. A Christian who had violated the secular law was crucified in Nagasaki. Many of his fellow-believers kneeled around his cross and prayed for the peace of his soul. A party of converts were afterwards burned to death in the same place for refusing to apostatize, and their Christian friends crowded to carry off portions of their bodies as holy relics. When these things were reported to Iyeyasu, he said, “Without doubt that must be a diabolic faith which persuades people not only to worship criminals condemned to death for their crimes, but also to honour those who have been burned or cut in pieces by the order of their lord” (feudal chief).

The fateful edict ordering that all foreign priests should be collected in Nagasaki preparatory to removal from Japan, that all churches should be demolished, and that the converts should be compelled to abjure Christianity, Suppression of Christianity. was issued on the 27th of January 1614. There were then in Japan 122 Jesuits, 14 Franciscans, 9 Dominicans, 4 Augustins and 7 secular priests. Had these men obeyed the orders of the Japanese authorities by leaving the country finally, not one foreigner would have suffered for his faith in Japan, except the 6 Franciscans executed at Nagasaki by order of Hideyoshi in 1597. But suffering and death counted for nothing with the missionaries as against the possibility of winning or keeping even one convert. Forty-seven of them evaded the edict, some by concealing themselves at the time of its issue, the rest by leaving their ships when the latter had passed out of sight of the shore of Japan, and returning by boats to the scene of their former labours. Moreover, in a few months, those that had actually crossed the sea re-crossed it in various disguises, and soon the Japanese government had to consider whether it would suffer its authority to be thus flouted or resort to extreme measures.

During two years immediately following the issue of the anti-Christian decree, the attention of the Tokugawa chief and indeed of all Japan was concentrated on the closing episode of the great struggle which assured to Iyeyasu final supremacy as administrative ruler of the empire. That episode was a terrible battle under the walls of Osaka castle between the adherents of the Tokugawa and the supporters of Hideyori. In this struggle fresh fuel was added to the fire of anti-Christian resentment, for many Christian converts threw in their lot with Hideyori, and in one part of the field the Tokugawa troops found themselves fighting against a foe whose banners were emblazoned with the cross and with images of the Saviour and St James, the patron saint of Spain. But the Christians had protectors. Many of the feudatories showed themselves strongly averse from inflicting the extreme penalty on men and women whose adoption of an alien religion had been partly forced by the feudatories themselves. As for the people at large, their liberal spirit is attested by the fact that five fathers who were in Osaka castle at the time of its capture made their way to distant refuges without encountering any risk of betrayal. During these events the death of Iyeyasu took place (June 1, 1616), and pending the dedication of his mausoleum the anti-Christian crusade was virtually suspended.

In September 1616 a new anti-Christian edict was promulgated by Hidetada, son and successor of Iyeyasu. It pronounced sentence of exile against all Christian priests, including even those whose presence had been sanctioned for ministering to the Portuguese merchants: it forbade the Japanese, under the penalty of being burned alive and of having all their property confiscated, to have any connexion with the ministers of religion or to give them hospitality. It was forbidden to any prince or lord to keep Christians in his service or even on his estates, and the edict was promulgated with more than usual solemnity, though its enforcement was deferred until the next year on account of the obsequies of Iyeyasu. This edict of 1616 differed from that issued by Iyeyasu in 1614, since the latter did not prescribe the death penalty for converts refusing to apostatize. But both agreed in indicating expulsion as the sole manner of dealing with the foreign priests. As for the shōgun and his advisers, it is reasonable to assume that they did not anticipate much necessity for recourse to violence. They must have known that a great majority of the converts had joined the Christian church at the instance or by the command of their local rulers, and nothing can have seemed less likely than that a creed thus lightly embraced would be adhered to in defiance of torture and death. It is moreover morally certain that had the foreign propagandists obeyed the Government’s edict and left the country, not one would have been put to death. They suffered because they defied the laws of the land. Some fifty missionaries happened to be in Nagasaki when Hidetada’s edict was issued. A number of these were apprehended and deported, but several of them returned almost immediately. This happened under the jurisdiction of Omura, who had been specially charged with the duty of sending away the bateren (padres). He appears to have concluded that a striking example must be furnished, and he therefore ordered the seizure and decapitation of two fathers, De l’Assumpcion and Machado. The result completely falsified his calculations, and presaged the cruel struggle now destined to begin.

The bodies, placed in different coffins, were interred in the same grave. Guards were placed over it, but the concourse was immense. The sick were carried to the sepulchre to be restored to health. The Christians found new strength in this martyrdom; the pagans themselves were full of admiration for it. Numerous conversions and numerous returns of apostates took place everywhere.

In the midst of all this, Navarette, the vice-provincial of the Dominicans, and Ayala, the vice-provincial of the Augustins, came out of their retreat, and in full priestly garb started upon an open propaganda. The two fanatics—for so even Charlevoix considers them to have been—were secretly conveyed to the island Takashima and there decapitated, while their coffins were weighted with big stones and sunk in the sea. Even more directly defiant was the attitude of the next martyred priest, an old Franciscan monk, Juan de Santa Martha. He had for three years suffered all the horrors of a medieval Japanese prison, when it was proposed to release him and deport him to New Spain. His answer was that, if released, he would stay in Japan and preach there. He laid his head on the block in August 1618. But from that time until 1622 no other foreign missionary suffered capital punishment in Japan, though many of them arrived in the country and continued their propagandism there. During that interval, also, there occurred another incident eminently calculated to fix upon the Christians still deeper suspicion of political designs. In a Portuguese ship captured by the Dutch a letter was found instigating the Japanese converts to revolt, and promising that, when the number of these disaffected Christians was sufficient, men-of-war would be sent to aid them. Not the least potent of the influences operating against the Christians was that pamphlets were written by apostates attributing the zeal of the foreign propagandists solely to political motives. Yet another indictment of Spanish and Portuguese propagandists was contained in a despatch addressed to Hidetada in 1620 by the admiral in command of the British and Dutch fleet then cruising in Far-Eastern waters. In that document the friars were flatly accused of treacherous practices, and the Japanese ruler was warned against the aggressive designs of Philip of Spain. In the face of all this evidence the Japanese ceased to hesitate, and a time of terror ensued for the fathers and their converts. The measures adopted towards the missionaries gradually increased in severity. In 1617 the first two fathers put to death (De l’Assumpcion and Machado) were beheaded, “not by the common executioner, but by one of the first officers of the prince.” Subsequently Navarette and Ayala were decapitated by the executioner. Then, in 1618, Juan de Santa Martha was executed like a common criminal, his body being dismembered and his head exposed. Finally, in 1622, Zuñiga and Flores were burnt alive. The same year was marked by the “great martyrdom” at Nagasaki when 9 foreign priests went to the stake with 19 Japanese converts. The shōgun seems to have been now labouring under vivid fear of a foreign invasion. An emissary sent by him to Europe had returned on the eve of the “great martyrdom” after seven years abroad, and had made a report more than ever unfavourable to Christianity. Therefore Hidetada deemed it necessary to refuse audience to a Philippine embassy in 1624 and to deport all Spaniards from Japan. Further, it was decreed that no Japanese Christian should thenceforth be suffered to go abroad for commerce, and that though non-Christians or men who had apostatized might travel freely, they must not visit the Philippines. Thus ended all intercourse between Japan and Spain. It had continued for 32 years and had engendered a widespread conviction that Christianity was an instrument of Spanish aggression.

Iyemitsu, son of Hidetada, now ruled in Yedo, though Hidetada himself remained the power behind the throne. The year (1623) of the former’s accession to power had been marked by the re-issue of anti-Christian decrees, and by the martyrdom of some 500 Christians within the Tokugawa domains, whither the tide of persecution now flowed for the first time. Thenceforth the campaign was continuous. The men most active and most relentless in carrying on the persecution were Mizuno and Takenaka, governors of Nagasaki, and Matsukura, feudatory of Shimabara. By the latter were invented the punishment of throwing converts into the solfataras at Unzen and the torture of the fosse, which consisted in suspension by the feet, head downwards, in a pit until blood oozed from the mouth, nose and ears. Many endured this latter torture for days, until death came to their relief, but a few—notably the Jesuit provincial Ferreyra—apostatized. Matsukura and Takenaka were so strongly obsessed by the Spanish menace that they contemplated the conquest of the Philippines in order to deprive the Spaniards of a Far-Eastern base. But timid counsels then prevailed in Yedo, where the spirit of a Nobunaga, a Hideyoshi or an Iyeyasu no longer presided. Of course the measures of repression grew in severity as the fortitude of the Christians became more obdurate. It is not possible to state the exact number of victims. Some historians say that, down to 1635, no fewer than 280,000 were punished, but that figure is probably exaggerated, for the most trustworthy records indicate that the converts never aggregated more than 300,000, and many of these, if not a great majority, having accepted the foreign faith very lightly, doubtless discarded it readily under menace of destruction. Every opportunity was given for apostatizing and for escaping death. Immunity could be secured by pointing out a fellow-convert, and when it is observed that among the seven or eight feudatories who embraced Christianity only two or three died in that faith, we must conclude that not a few cases of recanting occurred among the commoners. Remarkable fortitude, however, is said to have been displayed. If the converts were intrepid their teachers showed no less courage. Again and again the latter defied the Japanese authorities by coming to the country or returning thither after having been deported. Ignoring the orders of the governors of Macao and Manila and even of the king of Spain himself, they arrived, year after year, to be certainly apprehended and sent to the stake after brief periods of propagandism. In 1626 they actually baptized over 3000 converts. Large rewards were paid to anyone denouncing a propagandist, and as for the people, they had to trample upon a picture of Christ in order to prove that they were not Christians.

Meanwhile the feuds between the Dutch, the Spaniards and the Portuguese never ceased. In 1636, the Dutch found on a captured Portuguese vessel a report of the governor of Macao describing a two days’ festival which had been held there in honour of Vieyra, the vice-provincial whose martyrdom had just taken place in Japan. This report the Dutch handed to the Japanese authorities “in order that his majesty may see more clearly what great honour the Portuguese pay to those he has forbidden his realm as traitors to the state and to his crown.” Probably the accusation added little to the resentment and distrust already harboured by the Japanese against the Portuguese. At all events the Yedo government took no step distinctly hostile to Portuguese laymen until 1637, when an edict was issued forbidding any foreigners to travel in the empire, lest Portuguese with passports bearing Dutch names might enter it. This was the beginning of the end. In the last month of 1637 a rebellion broke out, commonly called the “Christian revolt of Shimabara,” which sealed the fate of Japan’s foreign intercourse for over 200 years.

The promontory of Shimabara and the island of Amakusa enclose the gulf of Nagasaki on the west. Among all the fiefs in Japan, Shimabara and Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly christianized in the early years of The Shimabara Revolt. Jesuit propagandism. Hence in later days they were naturally the scene of the severest persecutions. Still the people would probably have suffered in silence had they not been taxed beyond all endurance to supply funds for an extravagant chief who employed savage methods of extortion. Japanese annals, however, relegate the taxation grievance to an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt solely to the instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to avoid persecution for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever version be correct, it is certain that the outbreak ultimately attracted all the Christians from the surrounding regions, and was regarded by the authorities as in effect a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents passed over to Shimabara, and on the 27th of January 1638 the whole body—numbering, according to some authorities, 20,000 fighting men with 17,000 women and children; according to others, little more than one-half of these figures—took possession of the dilapidated castle of Hara, which stood on a plateau with three sides descending perpendicularly to the sea, a hundred feet beneath, and with a swamp on its fourth front. There the insurgents, who fought under flags with red crosses and whose battle cries were “Jesus,” “Maria” and “St Iago,” successfully maintained themselves against the repeated assaults of strong forces until the 12th of April, when, their ammunition and their provisions alike exhausted, they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the exception of 105 prisoners. During the siege the Dutch were enabled to furnish a vivid proof of enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards and the Portuguese. For the guns in possession of the besiegers being too light to accomplish anything, Koeckebacker, the factor at Hirado, was invited to send ships carrying heavier metal. He replied with the “de Ryp” of 20 guns, which threw 426 shot into the castle in 15 days. Probably the great bulk of the remaining Japanese Christians perished at the massacre of Hara. Thenceforth there were few martyrs.32

It has been clearly shown that Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu were all in favour of foreign intercourse and trade, and that the Tokugawa chief, even more than his predecessor Hideyoshi, made strenuous efforts to differentiate Foreign Trade in the 17th Century. between Christianity and commerce, so that the latter might not be involved in the former’s fate. In fact the three objects which Iyeyasu desired most earnestly to compass were the development of foreign commerce, the acquisition of a mercantile marine and the exploitation of Japan’s mines. He offered the Spaniards, Portuguese, English and Dutch a site for a settlement in Yedo, and had they accepted the offer the country might never have been closed. In his time Japan was virtually a free-trade country. Importers had not to pay any duties. It was expected, however, that they should make presents to the feudatory into whose port they carried their goods, and these presents were often very valuable. Naturally the Tokugawa chief desired to attract such a source of wealth to his own domains. He sent more than one envoy to Manila to urge the opening of commerce direct with the regions about Yedo, and to ask the Spaniards for competent naval architects. Perhaps the truest exposition of his attitude is given in a law enacted in 1602:—