Japan and the Japanese

118 JAPAN. A. D. 15931595.
Manilla, inflamed the zeal of some Franciscans whom he found
there, by representing that it was to the Jesuit missionaries person-
The
ally, and not to their religion, that the emperor was opposed.
Spanish governor, not having received the emperor's answer to his
former letter, was induced, in the hope of opening the door to commercial
intercourse, to write a new one; and four Franciscans
attached themselves to the bearer of it, eagerly seizing upon this
opportunity to gain admission into Japan.
When the emperor found that these new deputies had not brought
the submission which he had demanded, at first he was very angry,
but was finally persuaded to allow them to travel through the em-
pire, in order to see and to report its greatness. The Franciscans
were even suffered to build or buy a house at Miako, to which they
presently added a church ; and, being joined by others of their order,
a convent was established at Osaka. Two of them having gone to
Nagasaki, took possession of a church in the environs of that city,
which had remained closed since the commencement of the persecu-
tion ; and here, as well as in the other two cities, they performed
their religious functions with an ostentation and publicity which
greatly alarmed the Jesuits, whom the Franciscans accused of an
unworthy timidity.
The Jesuits, under these circumstances, thought proper to call
the attention of these new comers to the bull of Gregory XIII.,
above referred to, prohibiting the entry into Japan of any ecclesias-
tics except those of the Company of Jesus ; to which the Francis-
cans replied, that they had entered Japan not as ecclesiastics, but
as envoys from the governor of Manilla ; and that being there
without any violation of the bull, nobody had any right to prevent
them from exercising their ecclesiastical functions a piece of
casuistry which not even a Jesuit could have outdone. Very soon,
however, the governor of Nagasaki closed the church of the Fran-
ciscans, and, before long, an edict appeared threatening the punishment
of death to all who frequented their convent and church at
Miako, procedures
which the Franciscans were uncharitable
enough to ascribe to the intrigues of the Jesuits. It seems probable,
however, that decisive steps would still earlier have been
taken against these over-zealous Franciscans, had not the emperor's
attention been engrossed by other more pressing matters. He had