Japan and the Japanese

102 JAPAN. A. D. 15881593.
being placed, along with Miako, Osaka and Sakai, in the list of
imperial towns.
At the date of the edict, so unexpectedly issued in 1787, for the
banishment of the Jesuits, there were in Japan three hundred
members of the company, a novitiate, a college, two preparatory
seminaries for the education of young nobles designed for the church,
two hundred and fifty churches, and a number of converts, amount-
ing, probably, to between two and three hundred thousand, though
the estimate of the Jesuits was much larger. Notwithstanding the
apostasy of Joscimon, the young king of Bungo (whose father,
Civan, had died just before the emperor's edict had appeared), the
numerous converts in that kingdom remained firm in the faith.
That zealous Catholic, the prince of Omura, had also lately deceased ;
but the young prince, his only son and successor, who had been
educated by the Jesuits, was hardly less zealous than his father
had been. The king of Arima also continued steady in the faith.
It was this king who, along with the deceased king of Bungo and
the deceased prince of Omura, had sent the ambassadors to the
Pope, of whose visit to Europe an account has been given in a pre-
ceding chapter, and whom the last chapter left at Macao, on their
return to Japan, in company with Father Valignani, who had been
deputed by the viceroy of Goa as his ambassador to the emperor.
It was at Macao that Valignani and his companions learned
the news of the edict for the banishment of the Jesuits. It
was said at Macao that the emperor was a good deal mollified,
and seemed inclined to wink at the general disregard of his edict,
yet as Valignani was himself a Jesuit, and had once already visited
Japan in that character, he did not it judge best to proceed to
Japan till he had first obtained express permission to do so. On
the representations of the Christian princes, who put forward Valig-
nani's character as ambassador, the emperor readily consented to
receive him ; and, accompanied by the returning Japanese envoys
and some twenty Jesuits, he landed at Nagasaki, in June, 1500,
where he was received with great affection by the converted
princes of Ximo, and by Father Gomez, who, on the death of
Cuello, had succeeded to the post of vice-provincial. The emperor
in the late re-distribution of the kingdoms of that island, had liber-
ally provided for Tsucamidono, the grand admiral, and for Condera