Japan and the Japanese

15 JAPAN. A. D. 1C07 1018.
From Miako Don llodrigo proceeded to Faxima (Fucimi;
adjoining, where he embarked for Osaka, ten leagues down a
river, as large as the Guadalquivir at Seville, and full of vessels.
Osaka, built close to the sea, he reckons to contain one million
inhabitants. Here he embarked in a junk for Nagasaki. Not
finding his vessel in proper repair, he accepted an invitation
from the emperor to return to Seruga, where lie renewed his endeav-
ors to persuade that prince to expt^l the Dutch, but without effect
At last, with presents and despatches for the king of Spain, he set
sail August 1st, 1610, after a stay in Japan of nearly two years.*
Meanwhile an event occurred, of which Rodrigo makes no mention,
but for which the Portuguese were inclined to hold him
responsible, no less than the Dutch. The annual carac from Macao
had arrived, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1609, after an
interval of three years, commanded, as it happened, by the very
same person who had been chief magistrate there on occasion of the
late seizure and execution of certain Japanese. The emperor
strengthened, as it was thought, by the expectation of Dutch and
Spanish trade, encouraged the prince of Arima to revenge the death
of his subjects who had perished at Macao ; and when the carac was
ready to sail on her return voyage she was attacked by
a fleet of
Japanese boats. They were two or three times repulsed, but, taking
the carac at a disadvantage, becalmed and drifted into a narrow
passage, they succeeded in
setting her on fire, and in
destroying
her with all her crew.
Both the Dutch factors who had been left in Japan, and the
king of that island, Foyne-Sama (or Foie-Sama), who had exerted
himself greatly for the establishment of Dutch commerce, were not
letter of that year, was almost three thousand. According to the letter of
1603, the number of confessions heard that year was eighty thousand. It
appears from these letters that many female converts were made, among the
higher classes, by the reputed efficacy of relics and the prayers of the church
in cases of difficult labor.
* Don Rodrigo published in Spanish a narrative of his residence in Japan.
Of this very rare and curious work an abstract, with extracts, is given in
the Jlsiatic Journal, vol. ii., new series, 1830. The Spaniard is rathef
excessive in his estimates of population, but appears to have been sensible and
judicious. His accounts are well borne out, as we shall see, by those of Saris,
Kampfer, and others. His whole title was Don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velisco.