Chapter XXXVII: Christianity in Japan (2)

*Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by Brinkley.

Subsequent events confirm the accuracy of the above story. Father Jerome was allowed to build the first Christian church in Yedo and to officiate there. Moreover, Ieyasu sent "three embassies in succession to the Philippines, proposing reciprocal freedom of commerce, offering to open ports in the Kwanto, and asking for competent naval architects." These architects never came, and the trade that resulted from the Tokugawa chief's overtures was paltry in comparison with the number of friars that accompanied it to Japan. It has been suggested that Ieyasu designed these Spanish monks to serve as a counterpoise to the influence of the Jesuits. For he must have known that the Franciscans opened their mission in Yedo by "declaiming with violence against the fathers of the Company of Jesus," and he must have understood that the Spanish monks assumed towards the Jesuits in Japan the same intolerent and abusive tone that the Jesuits themselves had previously assumed towards Buddhism.

ENGRAVING: ANJIN-ZUKA, NEAR YOKOSUKA, THE TOMB OF WILL ADAMS

WILL ADAMS

At about this time a Dutch merchant ship named the Liefde arrived in Japan. In 1598, a squadron of five ships sailed from Holland to exploit the sources of Portuguese commerce in the Orient, and of the five vessels only one, the Liefde, was ever heard of again. She reached Japan in the spring of 1600, with only four and twenty survivors of her original crew, numbering 110. Towed into the harbour of Funai, she was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate. On board the Liefde, serving in the capacity of pilot major was an Englishman, Will Adams, of Gillingham in Kent. Ieyasu summoned him to Osaka, and between the rough English sailor and the Tokugawa chief there commenced a curiously friendly intercourse which was not interrupted until the death of Adams, twenty years later.

"The Englishman became master-shipbuilder to the Yedo Government; was employed as diplomatic agent when other traders from his own country and from Holland arrived in Japan, received in perpetual gift a substantial estate, and from first to last possessed the implicit confidence of the shogun. Ieyasu quickly discerned the man's honesty; perceived that whatever benefits foreign commerce might confer would be increased by encouraging competition among the foreigners, and realized that English and Dutch trade presented the wholesome feature of complete dissociation from religious propagandism. On the other hand, he showed no intolerance to either Spaniards or Portuguese. He issued (1601) two official patents sanctioning the residence of the fathers in Kyoto, Osaka, and Nagasaki; he employed Father Rodriguez as interpreter at the Court in Yedo, and, in 1603 he gave munificent succour to the Jesuits who were reduced to dire straits owing to the capture of the great ship from Macao by the Dutch and the consequent loss of several years' supplies for the mission in Japan."*

*Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by Brinkley.

ULTIMATE ATTITUDE OF IEYASU TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN INTERCOURSE

From what has been written above it will have been evident that each of Japan's great trio of sixteenth century statesmen--Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu--adopted originally a tolerant demeanour towards Christianity, and an emphatically favourable attitude towards foreign commerce. The causes of Hideyoshi's change of mood are tolerably clear, but it is not possible to analyse the case of Ieyasu with certainty. That the Tokugawa baron strongly patronized Buddhism might be regarded as a sufficient explanation of his ultimate hostility to the foreign faith, but cannot be reconciled with his amicable attitude at the outset. The more credible explanation is that he was guided by intelligence obtained direct from Europe. He sent thither at the end of the sixteenth century an emissary whose instructions were to observe closely the social and political conditions in the home of Christianity. The better to accomplish his purpose this envoy embraced the Christian faith, and was thus enabled to carry on his observations from within as well as from without.

It may be easily conceived that the state of affairs in Europe at that time, when recounted to Ieyasu, could scarcely fail to shock and astonish the ruler of a country where freedom of conscience may be said to have always existed. The Inquisition and the stake; wholesale aggressions in the name of the Cross; a head of the Church whose authority extended to confiscation of the realms of heretical sovereigns; religious wars, and profound fanaticism--these were the elements of the story told to Ieyasu by his returned envoy. The details could not fail to produce an evil impression. Already his own observation had disclosed to the Tokugawa chief abundant evidence of the spirit of strife engendered by Christian dogma in those times. No sooner had the Franciscans and the Dominicans arrived in Japan than a fierce quarrel broke out between them and the Jesuits--a quarrel which even community of suffering could not compose. "Not less repellent was an attempt on the part of the Spaniards to dictate to Ieyasu the expulsion of all Hollanders from Japan, and an attempt on the part of the Jesuits to dictate the expulsion of the Spaniards. The former proposal, couched almost in the form of a demand, was twice formulated, and accompanied on the second occasion by a scarcely less insulting offer, namely, that Spanish men-of-war would be sent to Japan to burn all Dutch ships found in the ports of the empire. If in the face of proposals so contumelious of his authority Ieyasu preserved a calm and dignified mein, merely replying that his country was open to all comers, and that, if other nations had quarrels among themselves, they must not take Japan for battle-ground, it is nevertheless unimaginable that he did not strongly resent such interference with his own independent foreign policy, and that he did not interpret it as foreshadowing a disturbance of the realm's peace by sectarian quarrels among Christians."*

*Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by Brinkley.

The repellent aspects under which Christianity thus presented itself to Ieyasu were supplemented by an act of fraud and forgery perpetrated in the interest of a Christian feudatory by a trusted official, himself a Christian. This experience persuaded the Tokugawa ruler that it was unsafe to employ Christians at his Court. He not only dismissed all those so employed, but also banished them from Yedo and forbade any feudal chief to harbour them. Another incident, not without influence, was connected with the survey of the Japanese coast by a Spanish mariner and a Franciscan friar. An envoy from New Spain (Mexico) had obtained permission for this survey, but "when the mariner (Sebastian) and the friar (Sotelo) hastened to carry out the project, Ieyasu asked Will Adams to explain this display of industry. The Englishman replied that such a proceeding would be regarded in Europe as an act of hostility, especially on the part of the Spaniards or Portuguese, whose aggressions were notorious. He added, in reply to further questions, that 'the Roman priesthood had been expelled from many parts of Germany, from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and England, and that, although his own country preserved the pure form of the Christian faith from which Spain and Portugal had deviated, yet neither English nor Dutch considered that that fact afforded them any reason to war with, or to annex, States which were not Christian solely for the reason that they were non-Christian.'"* Hearing these things from Will Adams, Ieyasu is said to have remarked, "If the sovereigns of Europe do not tolerate these priests, I do them no wrong if I refuse to tolerate them."

*Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by Brinkley.

Another incident, too complicated to describe in detail, may be summed up by saying that some Japanese Christians were discovered to have conspired for the overthrow of the Tokugawa Government by the aid of foreign troops. It was not an extensive plot, but it helped to demonstrate that the sympathy of the priests and their converts was plainly with the enemies of Tokugawa's supremacy. Ieyasu, however, abstained from extreme measures in the case of any of the foreign priests, and he might have been equally tolerant towards native Christians, also, had not the Tokugawa authority been openly defied in Yedo itself by a Franciscan father--the Sotelo mentioned above. "Then (1613) the first execution of Japanese converts took place, though the monk himself was released after a short incarceration. At that time... insignificant differences of custom sometimes induced serious misconceptions. A Christian who had violated a secular law was crucified in Nagasaki. Many of his fellow-believers kneeled around his cross and prayed for the peace of his soul. A party of converts were afterwards burnt to death in the same place for refusing to apostatize, and their Christian friends crowded to carry off portions of their bodies as holy relics. When these things were reported to Ieyasu, he said, 'Without doubt that must be a diabolic faith which persuades people not only to worship criminals condemned to death for their crimes, but also to honour those who have been burned or cut to pieces by the order of their lord.'"*

*Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by Brinkley.

SUPPRESSION OF CHRISTIANITY

The first prohibition of Christianity was issued by Ieyasu in September, 1612, and was followed by another in April, 1613; but both bore the character of warnings rather than of punitive regulations. It was on the 27th of January, 1614--that is to say, fifty-four years and five months after the landing of Xavier at Kagoshima--that an edict appeared ordering that all the foreign priests should be collected in Nagasaki preparatory to removal from Japan; that all churches should be pulled down, and that all converts should be compelled to abjure Christianity. There were then in Japan 156 ministers of Christianity, namely, 122 Jesuits, 14 Franciscans, 9 Dominicans, 4 Augustinians, and 7 secular priests. It is virtually certain that if these men had obeyed the orders of the Japanese Government by leaving the country finally, not so much as one foreigner would have suffered for his faith in Japan, except the six Franciscans executed on the "Martyrs' Mount" at Nagasaki by Hideyoshi's order, in 1597. But the missionaries did not obey. Suffering or even death counted for nothing with these men as against the possibility of saving souls. "Forty-seven of them evaded the edict, some by concealing themselves at the time of its issue, the rest by leaving their ships when the latter had passed out of sight of the shore of Japan, and returning by boats to the scene of their former labours. Moreover, in a few months, those that had actually crossed the sea re-crossed it in various disguises."* The Japanese Government had then to consider whether it would suffer its authority to be thus defied by foreign visitors or whether it would resort to extreme measures.

*Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by Brinkley.

PERIOD SUBSEQUENT TO 1613

Throughout a period of two years immediately following the issue of the anti-Christian edict of 1614, the attention of Ieyasu, and indeed of the whole Japanese nation, was concentrated on the struggle which took place between the adherents of the Tokugawa and the supporters of Hideyori. That struggle culminated in an assault on the castle of Osaka, and fresh fuel was added to the fire of anti-Christian resentment inasmuch as many Christian converts espoused Hideyori's cause, and in one part of the field the troops of Ieyasu had to fight against a foe whose banners were emblazoned with a cross and with images of Christ and of St. James, the patron saint of Spain. Nevertheless, the Christian converts possessed the sympathy of so many of the feudal chiefs that much reluctance was shown to inflict the extreme penalty of the law on men and women whose only crime was the adoption of an alien religion. Some of the feudal chiefs, even at the risk of losing their estates, gave asylum to the converts; others falsely reported a complete absence of Christians in their dominions, and some endeavoured earnestly to protect the fanatics; while, as to the people at large, their liberal spirit is shown in the fact that five priests who were in Osaka Castle at the time of its capture were able to make their way to distant refuges without any risk of betrayal.

ENGRAVING: GREEN-ROOM OF A THEATRE (In the Middle of the Tokugawa Period)

On the other hand, there were not wanting feudatories who, judging that zeal in obeying the edict would prove a passport to official reward, acted on that conviction. Notably was this true of Hasegawa, who received the fief of Arima by way of recompense for barbarous cruelty towards the Christians. Yet it is on record that when this baron sent out a mixed force of Hizen and Satsuma troops to harry the converts, these samurai warned the Christians to flee and then reported that they were not to be found anywhere. During these events the death of Ieyasu took place (June 1, 1616), and pending the dedication of his mausoleum the anti-Christian crusade was virtually suspended.

ENGLISH AND DUTCH INTRIGUES AGAINST SPANIARDS AND PORTUGUESE

It has been frequently alleged that if the Spaniards and the Portuguese endeavoured to bring the Hollanders into bad odour, the English and the Dutch intrigued equally against the Portuguese and the Spaniards. The accusation cannot be rebutted. Cocks, the factor of the English commercial mission to Japan, has himself left it on record that, being at the Yedo Court in the fall of 1616, "I enformed the two secretaries that yf they lookt out well about these two Spanish shipps in Xaxama [Satsuma] full of men and treasure, they would fynd that they were sent off purpose by the king of Spaine, having knowledge of the death of the ould Emperour [Ieyasu], thinking som papisticall tono [daimyo] might rise and rebell and so draw all the papists to flock to them and take part, by which means they might on a sudden seaz upon som strong place and keepe it till more succors came, they not wanting money nor men for thackomplishing such a strattgin." The two vessels in question were "greate shipps arrived out of New Spaine, bound, as they said, for the Philippines, but driven into that place per contrary wynd, both shipps being full of souldiers, with great store of treasure, as it is said, above five millions of pezos." It is true that a Spanish captain sent from these vessels to pay respects to the Court in Yedo "gave it out that our shipps and the Hollanders which were at Firando [Hirado] had taken and robbed all the China junks, which was the occasion that very few or non came into Japan this yeare," and therefore Cocks was somewhat justified in saying "so in this sort I cried quittance with the Spaniards." It appears, however, that the Spaniards were not believed, whereas the Englishman could boast, "which speeches of myne wrought so far that the Emperour sent to stay them, and had not the greate shipp cut her cable in the hawse so as to escape, she had been arrested." It was this same Cocks who told a Japanese "admirall" that "My opinion was he might doe better to put it into the Emperour's mynd to make a conquest of the Manillas, and drive those small crew of Spaniards from thence."

In fact, none of the four Occidental nationalities then in Japan had any monopoly of slandering its rivals. The accusation preferred by Cocks, however, must have possessed special significance, confirming, as it did, what the pilot of the San Felipe had said twenty years previously as to the political uses to which the propagandists of Christianity were put by the King of Spain, and what Will Adams had said four years earlier as to the Imperial doctrine of Spain and Portugal that the annexation of a non-Christian country was always justifiable. The "greate shipps out of New Spaine," laden with soldiers and treasure and under orders to combine with any Christian converts willing to revolt against the Yedo Government, were concrete evidence of the truth of the Spanish sailor's revelation and of the English exile's charge. It has always to be remembered, too, that Kyushu, the headquarters of Christianity in Japan, did not owe to the Tokugawa shoguns the same degree of allegiance that it had been forced to render to Hideyoshi. A colossal campaign such as the latter had conducted against the southern island, in 1587, never commended itself to the ambition of Ieyasu or to that of his comparatively feeble successor, Hidetada. Hence, the presence of Spanish or Portuguese ships in Satsuma suggested danger of an exceptional degree.

In the very month (September, 1616) when Cocks "cried quittance with the Spaniards," a new anti-Christian edict was promulgated by Hidetada, son and successor of Ieyasu. It pronounced sentence of exile against all Christian priests, not excluding even those whose presence had been sanctioned for the purpose of ministering to the Portuguese merchants; it forbade the Japanese, under penalty of being burned alive and having all their property confiscated, to connect themselves in any way with the Christian propagandists or with their co-operators or servants, and above all, to show them any hospitality. The same penalties were extended to women and children, and to the five neighbours on both sides of a convert's abode, unless these became informers. Every feudal chief was forbidden to keep Christians in his service, and the edict was promulgated with more than usual severity, although its enforcement was deferred until the next year on account of the obsequies of Ieyasu. This edict of 1616 differed from that issued by Ieyasu in 1614, since the latter did not explicitly prescribe the death-penalty for converts refusing to apostatize. But both agreed in indicating expulsion as the sole manner of dealing with the foreign priests. It, is also noteworthy that, just as the edict of Ieyasu was immediately preceded by statements from Will Adams about the claim of Spain and Portugal to absorb all non-Christian countries, so the edict of Hidetada had for preface Cock's attribution of aggressive designs to the Spanish ships at Kagoshima in conjunction with Christian converts. Not without justice, therefore, have the English been charged with some share of responsibility for the terrible things that ultimately befell the propagandists and the professors of Christianity in Japan. As for the shogun, Hidetada, and his advisers, it is probable that they did not foresee much occasion for actual recourse to violence. They knew that a great majority of the converts had joined the Christian Church at the instance, or by the command, of their local rulers, and nothing can have seemed less likely than that a creed thus lightly embraced would be adhered to in defiance of torture and death. The foreign propagandists also might have escaped all peril by obeying the official edict and leaving Japan. They suffered because they defied the laws of the land.

Some fifty of them happened to be in Nagasaki at the time of Hidetada's edict. Several of these were apprehended and deported, but a number returned almost immediately. This happened under the jurisdiction of Omura, who had been specially charged with the duty of sending away the bateren (padres). He seems to have concluded that a striking example must be furnished, and he therefore ordered the seizure and decapitation of two fathers, De l'Assumpcion and Machado. The result completely falsified his calculations, for so far from proving a deterrent, the fate of the two fathers appealed widely to the people's sense of heroism. Multitudes flocked to the grave in which the two coffins were buried. The sick were carried thither to be restored to health, and the Christian converts derived new courage from the example of these martyrs. Numerous conversions and numerous returns of apostates took place everywhere.

While this enthusiasm was at its height, Navarette, vice-provincial of the Dominicans, and Ayala, vice-provincial of the Augustins, emerged from hiding, and robed in their full canonicals, commenced an open propaganda, heralding their approach by a letter addressed to Omura and couched in the most defiant terms. Thus challenged, Omura was obliged to act promptly, especially as Navarette declared that he (Navarette) did not recognize the Emperor of Japan but only the Emperor of Heaven. The two fanatics were seized, conveyed secretly to the island of Takashima, and there decapitated; their coffins being weighted with big stones and sunk in the sea, so as to prevent a repetition of the scenes witnessed at the tomb of the fathers mentioned above. Thereupon, the newly elected superior of the Dominicans at once sent three of his priests to preach in Omura's territories, and two of them, having been seized, were cast into prison where they remained for five years. Even more directly defiant was the attitude of the next martyred priest, an old Franciscan monk, Juan de Santa Martha. He had for three years suffered all the horrors of a medieval Japanese prison, yet when it was proposed to release him and deport him to New Spain, his answer was that, if released, he would stay in Japan and preach there. He laid his head on the block in August, 1618.

Throughout the next four years, however, no other foreign missionary was capitally punished in Japan, though many arrived and continued their propagandism. During that interval, also, there occurred another incident calculated to fix upon the Christians still deeper suspicion of political designs. In a Portuguese ship, captured by the Dutch, a letter was found instigating Japanese converts to revolt, and promising that, when the number of disaffected became sufficient, men-of-war would be sent from Portugal to aid them. Another factor tending to invest the converts with political potentialities was the writing of pamphlets by apostates, attributing the zeal of foreign propagandists solely to traitorous motives. Further, the Spanish and Portuguese propagandists were indicted in a despatch addressed to the second Tokugawa shogun, in 1620, by the admiral in command of the British and Dutch fleet of defence, then cruising in Oriental waters. The admiral unreservedly charged the friars with treacherous machinations, and warned the shogun against the aggressive designs of Philip of Spain.

This cumulative evidence dispelled the last doubts of the Japanese, and a time of sharp suffering ensued for the fathers and their converts. There were many shocking episodes. Among them may be mentioned the case of Zufliga, son of the marquis of Villamanrica. He visited Japan as a Dominican in 1618, but the governor of Nagasaki persuaded him to withdraw. Yielding for the moment, he returned two years later, accompanied by Father Flores. They travelled in a vessel commanded by a Japanese Christian, and off Formosa she was overhauled by an English warship, which took off the two priests and handed them over to the Dutch at Hirado. There they were tortured and held in prison for sixteen months, when an armed attempt made by some Japanese Christians to rescue them precipitated their fate. By order from Yedo, Zuniga, Flores, and the Japanese master of the vessel which had carried them, were roasted to death in Nagasaki on August 19, 1622. Thus the measures adopted against the missionaries are seen to have gradually increased in severity. The first two fathers put to death, De l'Assumpcion and Machado, were beheaded in 1617, not by the common executioner but by one of the principal officers of the daimyo. The next two, Navarette and Ayala, were decapitated by the executioner. Then, in 1618, Juan de Santa Martha was executed like a common criminal, his body being dismembered and his head exposed. Finally, in 1622, Zuniga and Flores were burned alive.

The same year was marked by the "great martyrdom" at Nagasaki, when nine foreign priests went to the stake together with nineteen Japanese converts. Apprehension of a foreign invasion seems to have greatly troubled the shogun at this time. He had sent an envoy to Europe who, after seven years abroad, returned on the eve of the "great martyrdom," and made a report thoroughly unfavourable to Christianity. Hidetada therefore refused to give audience to the Philippine embassy in 1624, and ordered that all Spaniards should be deported from Japan. It was further decreed that no Japanese Christians should thenceforth be allowed to go to sea in search of commerce, and that although non-Christians or men who had apostatized might travel freely, they must not visit the Philippines.

Thus ended all intercourse between Japan and Spain. The two countries had been on friendly terms for thirty-two years, and during that time a widespread conviction that Christianity was an instrument of Spanish aggression had been engendered. Iemitsu, son of Hidetada, now ruled in Yedo, though Hidetada himself remained "the power behind the throne." The year (1623) of the former's accession to the shogunate had seen the re-issue of anti-Christian decrees and the martyrdom of some five hundred Christians within the Tokugawa domains, whither the tide of persecution now flowed for the first time. From that period onwards official attempts to eradicate Christianity in Japan were unceasing. Conspicuously active in this cause were two governors of Nagasaki, by name Mizuno and Takenaka, and the feudal chief of Shimabara, by name Matsukura. To this last is to be credited the terrible device of throwing converts into the solfataras at Unzen, and under him, also, the punishment of the "fosse" was resorted to. It consisted in suspension by the feet, head downwards in a pit until death ensued. By many this latter torture was heroically endured to the end, but in the case of a few the pains proved unendurable.

It is on record that the menace of a Spanish invasion seemed so imminent to Matsukura and Takenaka that they proposed an attack on the Philippines so as to deprive the Spaniards of their base in the East. This bold measure failed to obtain approval in Yedo. In proportion as the Christian converts proved invincible, the severity of the repressive measures increased. There are no accurate statistics showing the number of victims. Some annalists allege that two hundred and eighty thousand perished up to the year 1635, but that figure is probably exaggerated, for the converts do not seem to have aggregated more than three hundred thousand at any time, and it is probable that a majority of these, having embraced the alien creed for light reasons, discarded it readily under menace of destruction. "Every opportunity was given for apostatizing and for escaping death. Immunity could be secured by pointing out a fellow convert, and when it is observed that among the seven or eight feudatories who embraced Christianity only two or three died in that faith, we must conclude that not a few cases of recanting occurred among the vassals. Remarkable fortitude, however, is said to have been displayed." Caron, one of the Dutch traders of Hirado, writing in 1636, says:

At first the believers in Christ were only beheaded and afterwards attached to a cross, which was considered as a sufficiently heavy punishment. But when many of them were seen to die with emotions of joy and pleasure, some even to go singing to the place of execution; and when although thirty and sometimes one hundred were put to death at a time, and it was found that their numbers did not appear to diminish, it was then determined to use every exertion to change their joy into grief and their songs into tears and groans of misery. To effect this they were tied to stakes and burned alive; were broiled on wooden gridirons, and thousands were thus wretchedly destroyed. But as the number of Christians was not perceptibly lessened by these cruel punishments, they became tired of putting them to death, and attempts were then made to make the Christians abandon their faith by the infliction of the most dreadful torments which the most diabolical invention could suggest. The Japanese Christians, however, endured these persecutions with a great deal of steadiness and courage; very few, in comparison with those who remained steadfast in the faith, were the number of those who fainted under the trials and abjured their religion. It is true that these people possess, on such occasions, a stoicism and an intrepidity of which no examples are to be met with in the bulk of other nations. Neither men nor women are afraid of death. Yet an uncommon steadfastness in the faith must, at the same time, be requisite to continue in these trying circumstances.

The intrepidity of the native converts was rivalled by the courage of their foreign teachers. Again and again these latter defied the Japanese authorities by visiting Japan--not for the first time but occasionally even after having been deported. Contrary to the orders of the governors of Macao and Manila, nay of the King of Spain himself, the priests arrived, year after year, with the certainty of being apprehended and sent to the stake after brief periods of propagandism. In 1626, when the campaign of persecution was at its height, more than three thousand converts were baptized by these brave priests, of whom none is known to have escaped death except those that apostatized under torture, and they were very few, although not only could life be saved by abandoning the faith but also ample allowances of money could be obtained from the authorities. Anyone denouncing a propagandist received large reward, and the people were required to prove their orthodoxy by trampling upon a picture of Christ.

CONTINUATION OF THE FEUDS BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND THE PORTUGUESE

While the above events were in progress, the disputes between the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards went on without cessation. In 1636, the Dutch discovered in a captured Portuguese vessel a report written by the governor of Macao, describing a festival which had just been held there in honour of Vieyra, who had been martyred in Japan. The Dutch transmitted this document to the Japanese "in order that his Majesty may see more clearly what great honour the Portuguese pay to those he had forbidden his realm as traitors to the State and to his crown." It does not appear that this accusation added much to the resentment and distrust against the Portuguese. At any rate, the Bakufu in Yedo took no step distinctly hostile to Portuguese laymen until the following year (1637), when an edict was issued forbidding "any foreigners to travel in the empire lest Portuguese with passports bearing Dutch names might enter."

THE SHIMABARA REVOLT

At the close of 1637, there occurred a rebellion, historically known as the "Christian Revolt of Shimabara," which put an end to Japan's foreign intercourse for over two hundred years. The Gulf of Nagasaki is bounded on the west by the island of Amakusa and by the promontory of Shimabara. In the early years of Jesuit propagandism in Japan, Shimabara and Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly Christianized regions, and in later days they were naturally the scene of the severest persecutions. Nevertheless, the people might have suffered in silence, as did their fellow believers elsewhere, had they not been taxed beyond endurance to supply funds for an extravagant feudatory. Japanese annalists, however, relegate the taxation grievance to an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt solely to the instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to avoid persecution for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever version be correct, it is certain that the outbreak attracted all the Christians from the surrounding regions, and was officially regarded as a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents passed over from that island to Shimabara, and on the 27th of January, 1638, the whole body--numbering, according to some authorities, twenty thousand fighting men with thirteen thousand women and children; according to others, little more than one-half of these figures--took possession of the dilapidated castle of Kara, which stood on a plateau with three sides descending one hundred feet perpendicularly to the sea and with a swamp on the fourth side.

The insurgents fought under flags inscribed with red crosses and their battle cries were "Jesus," "Maria," and "St. Iago." They defended the castle successfully against repeated assaults until the 12th of April, when, their provisions and their ammunition alike being exhausted, they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the exception of 105 prisoners. During this siege the Dutch gave practical proof of their enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards and Portuguese. For, the guns in the possession of the besiegers being too light to accomplish anything effective, application was made to Koeckebacker, the Dutch factor at Hirado, to lend ships carrying heavier metal. He complied by despatching the De Ryp, and her twenty guns threw 426 shots into the castle in fifteen days. There has been handed down a letter carried by an arrow from the castle to the besiegers. It was not an appeal for mercy but a simple enumeration of reasons:--

"For the sake of our people we have now resorted to this castle. You will no doubt think that we have done this with the hope of taking lands and houses. Such is by no means the case. It is simply because Christianity is not tolerated as a distinct sect, which is well known to you. Frequent prohibitions have been published by the shogun, to our great distress. Some among us there are who consider the hope of future life as of the highest importance. For these there is no escape. Because they will not change their religion they incur various kinds of severe punishments, being inhumanly subjected to shame and extensive suffering, till at last for their devotion to the Lord of Heaven, they are tortured to death. Others, even men of resolution, solicitous for the sensitive body and dreading the torture, have, while hiding their grief, obeyed the royal will and recanted. Things continuing in this state, all the people have united in an uprising in an unaccountable and miraculous manner. Should we continue to live as heretofore and the above laws not be repealed, we must incur all sorts of punishments hard to be endured; we must, our bodies being weak and sensitive, sin against the infinite Lord of Heaven and from solicitude for our brief lives incur the loss of what we highly esteem. These things fill us with grief beyond endurance. Hence we are in our present condition. It is not the result of a corrupt doctrine."

It seems probable that of the remaining Japanese Christians the great bulk perished at the massacre of Kara. Thenceforth there were few martyrs, and though Christianity was not entirely extirpated in Japan, it survived only in remote places and by stealth.

ENGRAVING: NANBAN BELL

ENGRAVING: THE "KAIYO KWAN," THE FIRST WARSHIP OF JAPAN (Built in Holland for the Tokugawa Feudal Government)