Note (return) — Chapter XI · - A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY
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About the same time, Protestant influences began to work against the papal emissaries. The new forces from the triumphant Dutch republic, which having successfully defied Spain for a whole generation had reached Japan even before the Great Truce, were opposed to the Spaniards and to the influence of both Jesuits and Franciscans. Hollanders at Lisbon, obtaining from the Spanish archives charts and geographical information, had boldly sailed out into the Eastern seas, and carried the orange white and blue flag to the ends of the earth, even to Nippon. Between Prince Maurice, son of William the Silent, and the envoys of Iyéyasŭ, there was made a league of commerce as well as of peace and friendship. Will Adams,15 the English pilot of the Dutch ships, by his information given to Iyéyasŭ, also helped much to destroy the Jesuits influence and to hurt their cause, while both the Dutch and English were ever busy in disseminating both correct information and polemic exaggeration, forging letters and delivering up to death by fire the padres when captured at sea.