Volume 19 — Of the Kingdoms of Japon

The above-mentioned father provincial is a strong pillar in Japon, and an excellent interpreter. He is director of the Christian community there, by virtue of a brief from his Holiness, which arrived last year, and in which, it is ordered that in default of a bishop in japon the provincial of the Society who may be in office at the time shall rule that bishopric and Christian community. Therefore, although the bishop has come; the provincial has governed up to the present time, and continues to govern, because, as I have said, conditions in Japon do not admit of the [53] bishop’s going there, since it is feared that the situation may be aggravated and persecution increased thereby. Consequently his Lordship is now in Macan.

Father Carlos Espinola, of our Society, is still in prison, waiting each day for the crown. It has incurred to me to insert here a letter which he wrote to the father provincial of this province of Filipinas. It reads as follows: [55]

Carlos, a prisoner for Christ.”

This ends the letter of Father Carlos. I have nothing to add to it except that this Domingo Jorge, whom he mentions therein, was burned alive, in November, in Nangasaqui, because he sheltered preachers of the holy gospel in his house. Brother Leonardo, a Japanese who had been imprisoned for three years, and four others, were burned with him. After this, eleven other Japanese were beheaded. Later on, in January, 620, Brother Ambrosio Fernandez, a [57] Portuguese who was the companion of Father Carlos Espinola, died in jail from hunger, and excessive cold, and the hardships and discomforts of the prison, and thus gained the martyr’s crown. He was seventy years old.

Although so many in Japon have thus become blessed martyrs, two persons bent the knee to Baal and miserably recanted for fear of torture. A Japanese religious who was in Rome and Spain, and who is now an apostate, did the same thing. He often says that when he was in Madrid he knew that certain religious were persuading the king to conquer Japon, but that our fathers dissuaded him from this. He adds that, although it is a fact that religion is our primary motive for entering Japon, yet it is our intention through religion to prepare matters for conquering the country. With this and other lies this apostate has done great harm to Christianity. The governors and principal men of Japon are so thoroughly convinced of our evil intentions that they say that one of the principal reasons for keeping the Hollanders in Japon is for their own greater security and to annoy us. They even have begun to discuss the possibility of conquering the Filipinas, in order not to have the Spaniards so near. On the other hand, it is said that in Japon they are thinking of driving out all Europeans from that kingdom—Spanish, Hollanders, Portuguese and English. If this is done it will not be possible for any of our fathers to remain there. At present they escape notice among other Europeans by wearing European dress—I mean that of Castilians and Portuguese; but if the Europeans are driven from Japon this will no longer be possible. [58]

Passing from spiritual affairs to those temporal affairs of Japon that concern these islands, let me say that on the twelfth of July, 619, there arrived at Firando, a port of Japon designated for the trade of the Hollanders, four of their ships, which, as I informed you last year, have been off the coast of Manila. When our fleet prepared to sally out, the Dutch ships withdrew in good order, carrying with them a great many sick, beside the large number who had died from disease and from an infection which they say was given them in Bigan, a village on the coast of Manila. Since this is not known here, it must be their own imagination. Many of their people were drowned, also. In one ship which sank suddenly many people were drowned, among them a large number of Japanese, who were brought from Japon in the service of the Hollanders. These ships plundered nothing but three Chinese vessels of little value, which were coming to this city. A ship and a patache were sent from this coast of Manila to Maluco. It is well known that the ship was lost on the same coast by running aground, although the Hollanders hide the fact. The patache, driven by contrary winds, soon put into harbor. It reached Firando on the fourteenth of July; and as soon as it secured munitions, provisions, and people was sent to wait for the Portuguese galeotas which were going from Macan to Japon. But it was the Lord’s will that it should not find them, and so it returned to Firando. On October 3, however, it was sent to Pulocondor [i.e., Condor Island], opposite Camboxa, with thirty men, fourteen pieces of artillery, munitions and provisions, to search for the crew and artillery of a ship that the Hollanders lost there. [59]

On the twelfth of October of the same year, 619, another ship, greatly injured and with its crew wounded and crippled, came to the same port of Firando from Patane, on the further side of Malaca. It, with two other Dutch ships, had fought, in the port of Patane, two English ships that were there. Although anchored and unprepared, the latter fought to the death, over the anchor-ropes. The smaller English vessel, seeing that it could not defend itself, and that there was no help for it, blew itself up by setting fire to the powder. The larger ship, when nearly all the crew were dead, and the general himself had been killed by a ball, was overcome and boarded by the Hollanders. They say that they secured two hundred thousand pesos in that ship. It may be true, but I do not vouch for that. Two Portuguese had gone from the shore, on the preceding day, to see the English ships. They were seized by the Hollanders, who carried them to Japon in the ship which I mentioned, together with some Englishmen. When the prisoners reached Firando they formed a plot and escaped to land in that kingdom, where all the world is allowed.

The quantity of munitions and provisions which the Hollanders secure every year from Japon for supplying all their fortifications is very great, and therefore if they were not harbored there, it would be a great injury to them and of much benefit to these islands.