Japan and the Japanese

176 JAPAN. A. 1>. 1C13 1C20.
especially in the island of Ximo, where they were most numerous,
and which, from being mainly ruled by converted princes, was now
chiefly governed by apostates or infidels ; nor could the favor of
the emperor be at any time certainly relied upon.
The new Dutch and English visitors were prompted no less by
religious than by mercantile jealousies and hatreds to do all they
could to diminish the credit of the Catholic missionaries ; and it is
by no means improbable that, as the Portuguese asserted, their sug-
gestions had considerable weight in producing the new persecuting
edicts of Ogosho-Sama. Indeed, they had only to confirm
the truth of what flic Portuguese and Spanish said of each other
to excite in the minds of the Japanese rulers the gravest distrust
as to the designs of the priests of both nations.
The edicts already mentioned were followed by another, about
the beginning of the year 1G14, of which the substance was that all
priests and missionaries of the Catholic faith should forthwith
depart the empire, that all their houses and churches should be
destroyed, and that all the Japanese converts should renounce the
foreign faith.
There were in Japan when this edict was issued about a hundred
and thirty Jesuits, in possession of some fifty schools, colleges
and convents, or houses of residence, also some thirty friars of the
three orders of St. Augustin, St. Dominic and St. Francis, besides
a few secular ecclesiastics, or parish priests. Most of them were
shipped off at once. Some found means to return in disguise ;
but the new persecution speedily assumed a character far more
alarming than any of the former ones. Severe measures were now
taken against the native converts. Those who refused to renounce
their faith were stripped of their property,
those of the most illustrious
rank, among whom was Ucondono, being shipped off to Manilla
and Macao, and others sent into a frightful
sort of Siberian
banishment among the mountains of Northern Japan, now first
described in the letters of some of the missionaries who found their
way thither to console and strengthen these exiles. Many, also,
were put to death, most of -whom exhibited in the midst of tor
ments all the firmness of the national character.
The violence of this persecution was interrupt l d for a moment
by an attempt on the part of Fide Jori, now grown to man's