Note 65 — Chapter XIX

Father Valignani died in 1606, at Macao, whither he had gone to look after the Chinese missions, a few Jesuits having at length got admission into that empire. Father Rodriguez, in his annual letter of 1606, from Miyako, in noticing Valignani’s death, speaks of him as justly entitled to be called the apostle of the missions of Japan and China,—a title, indeed, which he had already received from the king of Portugal. Purchas, who published a few years later, mentions him as the “great Jesuit.” He enjoyed in his own day, and deservedly, a reputation quite equal to that of our most famous modern missionaries; but these missionary reputations are apt not to be very long-lived. Five of his letters are in the collection of Hay, “De Rebus Japonicis,” etc.

The death of Father Louis Froez has been mentioned in the previous chapter. We have of his letters, in Maffei’s “Select Epistles,” nine, written between the years 1563 and 1573; and in Hay’s collection, eight, written between 1577 and 1596. Many of these are of great length. That of February, 1565, contains a curious account of what he saw at Miyako, on his going thither with Almeida to aid Vilela, who had labored there alone for six years with only Japanese assistants. The translation of it in Hackluyt has an important passage in the beginning, giving a general account of the Japanese, not in the Latin editions that I have seen. Those in Hay’s collection are rather reports than letters. That of 1586 contains an account of Valignani’s first interview with Taikō-Sama, that of 1592 a full account of Valignani’s embassy, the second of 1595 the history of Taikō-Sama’s quarrel with his nephew, and the two of 1596 a full account of the first martyrdoms and of the state of the church at the time.

Almeida had died in 1583, after a missionary life of twenty-eight years. We have five of his letters, which show him a good man, but exceedingly credulous, even for a Portuguese Jesuit.