Japan and the Japanese

FATHERS COLLADO AND SOTELO. 189
sations against the Jesuits ; by way of answer to which a memo-
rial was transmitted, prepared by the provincial Father Pacheco,
who, four
years after, himself suffered martyrdom at the stake.
Nor was Collado their only assailant. Among those arrested in
1622, was Father Sotelo, that same enterprising Franciscan; of
whom already we have had occasion to make mention. Insisting
upon his character of legate from the Pope, he had disobeyed the
orders of his superiors, had sailed from New Spain to Manilla, and
had contrived to get a passage thence to Nagasaki, in a Chinese
vessel, under the character of a merchant. But the captain detected
and betrayed him ; he was immediately arrested and thrown into
prison, and in 1624 was put to death.
In 1628 there was published at Madrid what purported to be a
letter from Sotelo to Pope Urban VIII., written in Latin, dated just
before his martyrdom, and containing, under the form of a narrative
of his own proceedings, a violent attack upon the Jesuits, and their
conduct in Japan. Not liking to be thus attacked as it were by a
martyr from his grave, they denied its authenticity. A memorial
of Collado, printed in 1683, reiterated the same charges, to most
of which it must be admitted that the replies made on behalf of the
Jesuits are entirely satisfactory.*
* A candid and conclusive answer to Sotelo, or the false Sotelo, as the
Jesuits persisted in calling him, was published at Madrid immediately after
the appearance of his letter by Don Jean Cevicos, a commissary of the holy
office, who was able to speak from personal observation. Cevicos had been
captain of the galleon St. Francis, the ship in which Don Rodrigo de Vivero
had been wrecked on the coast of Japan, as related in a former chapter.
After a six months' stay in Japan, and an acquaintance there with Sotelo,
Cevicos sailed for Manilla, was captured on the passage by the Dutch, but
recaptured by a Spanish fleet. Arrived at Manilla, he renounced the seas,
commenced the study of theology, was ordained priest, and became provisor
of the archbishopric of the Philippines. The business of this office brought
him to Spain, and being at Madrid when the letter ascribed to Sotelo ap-
peared, he thought it his duty to reply to it. A full abstract of this answer,
as well as of Sotelo's charges, may be found at the end of Charlevoix' Kis->
toirc du Jtipon. It appears, from documents quoted in it, that the mission-
aries of the other orders agreed with the Jesuits, in ascribing the persecution
mainly to the idea, which the Dutch made themselves very busy in insinuat-
ing, that the independence of Japan was in danger from the Spaniards
and the Pope, who were on the watch to gain, by means of the missionaries.
the mastery of Japan, as they had of Portugal and so many other countries