Japan and the Japanese

THE SPANIARDS OF MANILLA. 141
certain of being buoyed up by faith and providence. But he was
soon floundering over his head, and was only saved from drowning
by some boats sent to his assistance ; nor did this experiment add
much either to the faith of the Dutchman, or to the docility of the
Japanese. About the same time, also, the institution of parish
priests was introduced ; but this, like the admission of friars, led
only to new disputes and collisions.
The merchants of Mai.' ilia, no less than the monks, still looked
with longing eyes in the direction of Japan, anxious to share in its
commerce ; and Don Rodrigo de Vivero, upon his accession to that
government, by way of conciliation, discharged from confinement
and sent home some two hundred Japanese, whom he found imprisoned
there, either by way of retaliation for the confiscation of the
San Philip and the execution of the Spanish missionaries, or for
some other cause.
Besides these European rivals, a dangerous competition in the way
of trade seems to have been threatened on the part of the Japanese
themselves, who appear to have been much more adventurous at
thig time, whether in point of navigation or the visiting of foreign
countries, than the present jealous policy of their government permits.
Japanese vessels frequented Manilla for the purchase of rich
China silks, which formed the chief article of export from Macao
to Japan, the policy of China and the relations of Japan towards
her not allowing a direct trade. Japanese vessels appeared even
in the Pacific Spanish American ports. It is to this period that
the Japanese ascribe the conquest by the king of Saxuma of the
Lew Chew Islands ; and Macao, Siam and Annam are enumerated,
on Japanese authority, as additional places to which Japanese
vessels traded.*
The Portuguese seem, on the other hand, to have had little left
of that courage and spirit by which their forefathers of the pre-
ceding century had been so distinguished. The Dutch cruisers in
the East Indies proved a great annoyance to them. In 1603, they
blockaded Goa, and the same year Hemkirk took the carac of
Macao, a prize of fourteen hundred tons, and valued, with her
* See Klaproth's translation (JVov. Journal Jlsiatique, torn, n.) of a curi-
ous Japanese tract, on the Wealth of Japan, written in 1708.