Japan and the Japanese

114 JAPAN. A. D. 15U2.
left again without any communication with the Portuguese mer-
chants, or the missionaries; and, accompanied by Firanda aud his>
Japanese friend, Faxagava, they hastened to the northern coast of
Ximo, where the emperor then was. Faxagava and Firanda
translated so ill the letter of the governor of Manilla, as to make
it express something of a disposition to comply with the emperor'a
pretensions, who, thereupon, wrote a second letter, declaring the
other to be genuine, and renewing the demand which it had con-
tained of submission and homage. The envoys, without fully un-
derstanding its contents, consented to receive this letter ; and in the
hope that, if the Portuguese were driven away, the commerce of
Japan might fall into the hands of the Spaniards of Manilla, they
proceeded to suggest heavy complaints against the Portuguese at
Nagasaki, whom they not only charg^-d as guilty of great harshness
in support of their commercial monopoly, hut also with protecting
the Jesuits, great numbers of whom, in spite of the emperor's edicts,
still continued to be sheltered in that city and its neighborhood.
The emperor either was, or had affected to be ignorant of the extent
to which his edicts had been disregarded. This information put
and he issued instant orders for the destruc-
him into a great rage ;
tion of the splendid church at Nagasaki, hitherto untouched, and
also of the house of the Jesuits, who had now no place of residence
left there except the hospital of Misrecordia. JJut these wicked
Spaniards did not long go unpunished. Solis, on his way back to
Satsuma, perished by shipwreck, as did the Spanish envoys on their
return voyage to Manilla. It was stated, too, that the emperor's
mother died at Miako, at the very moment of his signing the order
for the destruction of the church, judgments so striking as to
become, so we are told by the missionaries, the occasion of many
conversions.
Such was the state of affairs when Father Valignani, leaving Japan
for the second time, sailed for Macao in October, 1;VJ2.