Japan and the Japanese

ADAMS AND HIS COMPANIONS. 139
pounds of rice a day, besides an annual pension in money amount-
ing to about twenty-four dollars. In Adams' case this pension was
afterward raised to one hundred and forty dollars, as a reward for
having built two ships for the emperor on the European model.
Adams' knowledge of mathematics also proved serviceable to him,
and he was soon in such favor as to be able, according to his own
O
account, to return good for evil to several of his former maligners.
The emperor acknowledged his services, and endeavored to content
him by giving him " a living like unto a lordship in England, with
eighty or ninety husbandmen as his servants and slaves ;" but he
still pined for home, and importuned for leave to depart, desiring,
as he says,
"
to see his poor wife and children, according to con-
science and nature." This suit he again renewed, upon hearing
from some Japanese traders that Dutch merchants had established
themselves at Acheen in Sumatra, and Patania on the east coast of
Malacca. He promised to bring both the Dutch and English to
trade in Japan ; but all he could obtain was leave for the Dutch
captain and another Dutchman to depart.
This they presently did,
for Patania, in a Japanese junk, furnished by the king or prince of
Firando, whence they proceeded to Jor, at the southern end of th&
peninsula of Malacca, where they found a Dutch fleet of nine sail.
In this fleet the Dutch captain obtained an appointment as master,
but was soon after killed in a sea-fight with the Portuguese, with
whom the Dutch were, by this time, vigorously and successfully
contending for the mastership of the eastern seas.*
* An account of Adams' voyage in two letters of his from Japan, may be
found in Purchas His Pil/jrimes, part I., book in., sect. 5. Purchas also
gives, book n., ch,-ip. v., Captain
Wert's adventures and return ; and in
book in., chap. L, sect. 4, a narrative by Davis, who acted as chief pilot of
the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, under Houtman. Hackluyt gives,
in his second volume, a narrative of Lancaster's voyage, taken down from the
mouth of Edmund Baker, Lancaster's lieutenant. Henry May's narrative
of the same voyage is given in Hackluyt's second volume. What is known of
the English expedition fitted out in 1594, will be found in Hackluyt, vol.
iv., and Pilgrimes, book in., chap. i.,sect. '2. The English East India Company
was formed in 1600, and Lancaster was immediately despatched on a
second "
voyage with four tall ships and a victualler," and by him the Eng-
lish, trade was commenced. Pilyriin.es, book m., chap. iii.. sect. 1.