Japan and the Japanese

FATHER LOUIS SOTELO. 159
Thence they proceeded to Rome, and had an audience of the Pope,
November 30, 1615, by whom Sotelo was nominated bishop for the
north and east parts of Japan, and his legate for the whole of it.*
Having reached New Spain on his return, he found in the port of
Acapulco a Japanese vessel belonging to Mazamoney, the same,
probably, in which he had arrived, and which, having disposed of a
cargo of Japanese goods, took on freight for Manilla a part of the
suite of a new Spanish governor of the Philippines, intending to
purchase at Manilla a cai'go
of Chinese silks. But the Council of
the Indies, under the influence of the Jesuits, and on the plea that
the nomination of all eastern bishops belonged to the king, opposed
Sotelo's consecration ; and the merchants of Manilla, alarmed at
the rivalry of New Spain for the Japanese trade, made such representations
that, on his arrival there, his papers were seized, and he
himself was sent back to the superiors of his order in New Mexico.
But long before the occurrence of this event, in fact, previous
to the departure of Sotelo from Japan, the Catholic faith there
had received a blow from which it never recovered, and which
brought it to speedy ruin.
* A.n account in Italian of Sotelo's embassy, Historia del Rer/no de Voxu
del Graponi, fyc., e ilel Jlmbasciata, ff-c., was published at Rome the same
year, 1615. There is no Japanese letter of later date than 1G01, in the collection
of Hay, or, as perhaps it ought rather to be called, of Martin Nutius
(at least so his name was written in Latin), citizen and bookseller of Ant-
werp, at the sign of the two storks, " a man zealous for the Catholic filth,"
so Hay says, and by whom the collection .was projected. He applied to the
rector of the Jesuit college at Antwerp, for an editor, and Hay was appointed.
A few of the letters were translated by Hay ; the greater part had already
appeared as separate pamphlets, translated by others. Hay's vehement
Scotch controversial spirit breaks out hotly in some of the dedicatory letters
which he has iiftroduced. Of the Japanese letters subsequent to 1601, there
were received,
is no collection. They were published separately as they
translated into Italian, from which were made French and Spanish trans-
lations.