Japan and the Japanese

REBELLION OF SIMABARA. 191
What it last struck the deepest horror to the souls oi the
fef survi ring Jesuits, and was greatly improved in Europe to
the damage of the Company by its enemies, was the apostasy of
Father Christopher Ferreyra, a Portuguese, an old missionary, the
provincial of the order, and the administrator of the bishopric.
was taken in 1633 at Nagasaki, and being suspended in the fosse,
after five hours he gave the fatal
signal of renunciation. After
having been kept some time in prison, and given what information
he could for the detection of those of his late brethren still con-
cealed in Japan, he was set at liberty ; and, having
He
assumed the
Japanese dress and a Japanese name, he lived for several years at
Nagasaki. He had been compelled to marry a Japanese woman,
who was very rich, being the widow of a Chinese goldsmith, who
had been executed for some offence ; but the Jesuits comforted
themselves with the idea that the marriage was never consummated ;
and they even got up a report that in his old age this renegade
brother recovered his courage, and having, on his death-bed, con-
fessed himself a Christian, was immediately hurried off to perish a
martyr by that very torment of the fosse, the terror of which had
first made and had so long kept him an apostate. But for this fine
story there 'seems to have been no foundation except the wishes and
of those who circulated it.
hopes
As a further security against the surreptitious introduction of
missionaries, the policy was adopted, in 1635, of confining the Por-
tuguese sailors and merchants to the little artificial island of Desima,
in the harbor of Nagasaki, a spot but just large enough to hold the
necessary residences and warehouses. Shortly after the issue of
this edict, the people of the kingdom of Arima, all of them still
Catholic except the king and the nobility, seeing no other hope,
broke out into open revolt. They were headed by a descendant
of their ancient kings, and it mustering, is said, to the number of
thirty-seven thousand, took possession of the fortress ofXimabara,
situated about due east from Nagasaki, on the gulf of the same
name. Here they were besieged ; and the place being taken in
1637, those who held it were cut off to a man.
The Portuguese were accused of having encouraged this revolt ;
in consequence of which an edict was issued, in 1638, not only
banishing all the Portuguese, but forbiddipg also any Japanese