Japan and the Japanese

EXTINCTION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH. 205
the renewal of the trade with Japan, by despatching a ship thither
The Japanese, through the medium of the Dutch, kept themselves
informed, as they still do, of the affairs of Europe ; and the first
question put to the new comers was, how long since the English
king (Charles II.) had married a daughter of the king of Portugal.
Though otherwise courteously enough received and entertained, the
vessel was not allowed to sell her cargo. This refusal of intercourse
the English ascribed to Dutch jealousy ; but it probably was a step,
as will be seen in the next chapter, to which the Japanese did not
need any urging.*
Though the Catholics of Japan were effectually cut off from
all intercourse with Europe, the Catholic faith still lingered for a
good while in those parts of Ximo in which it had taken the deepest
root. So late as 1690, there were, according to Kampfer, fifty per
sons, men, women and children (of whom three had been arrested in
1683), imprisoned at Nagasaki for life, or until they should renounce
the Catholic faith, and conform to the religious usages of the coun-
try.
These were peasants, who knew little more of the faith which
they professed, except the name of the Saviour and the Virgin
Mary, which indeed, according to the Dutch accounts, was all that
the greater part of the Japanese converts had ever known.
To land in Japan, to strengthen and comfort the faithful there,
or at least to secure the crown of martyrdom in the attempt, long
continued an attractive enterprise to the more romantic spirits
among the religious orders of the Catholic church. Most of those
who undertook this adventure were known to have been seized and
executed soon after landing. The last effort of this sort appears to
have been made in 1707. From that time, and notwithstanding
the great revival, within fifty or sixty years past, of the missionary
spirit, Japan has remained even less attempted by missionary than
by mercantile enterprise.
on his return to France in 1G74. He was president of the Dutch factory at
the time of its removal to Desima ; and Kampfer undertakes to represent his
mismanagement as in some degree the cause of that removal. This story was
doubtless current at Desima in Kampfer's time, but probably it grew out of
disgust of the Dutch at Caron's having passed into the French service.
* A curious narrative of this visit is printed in Pinkerton's great colleo-
tion, vol. vu.
18