Note 68 — Chapter XX

An account of Adams’ voyage, in two letters of his from Japan, may be found in Purchas, “His Pilgrimes,” part i, book iii, sect. 5. Purchas also gives, book ii, chap. v, Captain Wert’s adventures and return; and in book iii, chap. i, sect. 4, a narrative by Davis, who acted as chief pilot of the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, under Houtman. Hackluyt gives, in his second volume, a narrative of Lancaster’s voyage, taken down from the mouth of Edmund Baker, Lancaster’s lieutenant. Henry May’s narrative of the same voyage is given in Hackluyt’s second volume. What is known of the English expedition, fitted out in 1594, will be found in Hackluyt, vol. iv, and “Pilgrimes,” book iii, chap. i, sect. 2. The English East India Company was formed in 1600, and Lancaster was immediately despatched on a second voyage “with four tall ships and a victualler,” and by him the English trade was commenced.—Pilgrimes, book iii, chap. iii, sect. 1. [Ten extant letters of Will Adams may be found in “Letters written by the English Residents in Japan,” edited by K. Murakawn, and published in Tōkyō. See also paper by Dr. L. Riess on the “History of the English Factory at Kirado,” in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.]