Japan and the Japanese

CHAPTER XXIV.
COLLISIONS OF THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH IN THE EASTERN SEAS. THE ENG-
LISH RETIRE FROM JAPAN. THE SPANIARDS REPELLED.
PROGRESS OF THE
PERSECUTION. JAPANESE PORTS, EXCEPT FIRANDO AND NAGASAKI, CLOSED
TO FOREIGNERS. CHARGES IN EUROPE AGAINST THE JESUITS. FATHERS
SOTELO AND COLLADO. TORMENT OF THE FOSSE. APOSTASIES. THE
PORTUGUESE CONFINED TO DESIMA. REBELLION OF XIMABARA. THE
PORTUGUESE EXCLUDED. AMBASSADORS PUT TO DEATH. A. D. 1621-1640
ALREADY the relations of the Dutch and English in the East
had assumed the character of open hostility. A letter from
Cocks, of March 10th, 1621,* complains that the Hollanders, hav-
ing seven ships, great and small, in the harbor of Firando, had, with
sound of trumpet, proclaimed open war against the English, both by
sea and land, to take their ships and goods, and kill their persons
as mortal enemies ; that they had seized his boat, fired at his barks,
and had beset the door of his factory a hundred Dutchmen to
one Englishman and would have entered and cut all their throats
but for the interference of the Japanese : all because Cocks had
refused to give up six Englishmen, who had escaped from two
English ships which the Dutch had captured, and whom they
claimed to have back, representing them to the Japanese as their
" slaves."
To sustain the English interest in the eastern seas, the English
East India Company, by great efforts, had fitted out, in 1017, the
largest expedition yet sent from England
to the East Indies. It
consisted of the Royal James, of one thousand tons ; the Royal
Anne, of nine hundred ; the Gift, of eight hundred ; the Bull, of
four hundred; and the Bee, of one hundred and fifty tons; and
* The date, as given by Pu;-lias (evidently by a misprint), is 1G10.