Japan and the Japanese

142 JAPAX. A. D. 1G07 1618.
cargo, at several millions of florins. When the Dutch, under
Matelief, attacked Malacca, in 1600, the Portuguese were greatly
indebted to a small body of Japanese, who formed a part of the
garrison, for their success in repelling
the assault. On the other
hand, in 1008, a large number of Japanese, obliged to winter at
Macao, got into collision with the Portuguese
authorities of that
city, who suspected them of a design to seize the place, and who, in
consequence, put a number of them to death. During this and the
two preceding years the annual Portuguese carac had been pre-
vented from sailing from Macao by fear of Dutch cruisers ; and,
with the effect of this interruption of intercourse and of the bad
feeling produced by the collision at Macao, still other circumstances
cooperated to endanger the Portuguese ascendency.
The first was the arrival at Firando, in July, 1009, of the Dutch
vessel, the Red Lion, attended by the yacht Griffon. They
belonged to the fleet of Verhceven, who had left Holland December
12th, 1007, with thirteen ships (of which several were of
a thousand tons burden), nineteen hundred men, and three hun-
dred and seventy-seven pieces of artillery. The Portuguese fleet,
^aich sailed, about the same time, from Lisbon, to take out a new
/iceroy to Goa, was composed of eight great caracs and six galleons.
This fleet was scattered by a storm off the Canaries, and one of the
galleons, mounting ten cannon, and with one hundred and eighty men,
fell into Verhoaven's hands. He had previously made an unsuccess-
ful attack on Mozambique, but had taken, however, in the harbor
a carac, mounting thirty-four guns, and loaded with merchandise.
Off Goa another carac was burnt by the Portuguese, to prevent its
falling into the hands of the Dutch, who proceeded to Calicut, where
a treaty of alliance against the Portuguese was entered into with the
king.
The Dutch then proceeded by Cochin to Johor, on the penin-
sula of Malacca (whence the two ships were despatched to Japan),
and finally to Bantam and the Moluccas, where the Dutch expected
that a truce with Spain, announced by a ship late from Holland,
would enable them to devote all their strength to guard against the
English, who were also aiming at an establishment in those islands.
The ships detached from Johor, equally equipped for trading and
for fighting, as were all the Indiamen of that period, having missed,
by keing a few days too late, the carac of Macao, proceeded to carry