Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan (20 page)

Read Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan Online

Authors: Giles Milton

Almost six months after leaving Bantam, Saris spied land on the horizon—“a most plesent and fruitefull land as any we have seen since we came out of England.” The Clove had reached Miyako-jima, the most outlying of the Ryukyu Islands, which lay some 500 miles to the south of Japan. They attempted to land, but the strong winds blew them straight past the island and they were forced to continue northward across the East China Sea. After five days of struggling with ropes and sails, the men once again caught sight of land. This time it was Kyushu.
As they neared the entrance to Nagasaki Bay, the
Clove
met with four Japanese fishing skiffs. Two of the skippers were hired to guide the
Clove
toward the offshore island of Hirado, which Saris knew to be home to a small band of Dutch traders. The
Clove
was edged through a narrow channel between the mainland of Kyushu and the rocky shoreline of Hirado. On the left side—at the point where the two coasts appeared to touch—a small opening led into a deep bay. In the center of the bay, rising abruptly from the shimmering water, was a small island forested with pines. The brilliant red archway of a Shinto temple shone out against the dark green background.
At three o’clock in the afternoon of June 10, 1613, the
Clove
came to anchor in Hirado Bay. After more than two years at sea, Captain Saris had at last reached Japan.
GREETING MR. ADAMS
T
HE SIGHT of the
Clove
caused quite a stir on shore. The townsfolk of Hirado were not used to unexpected visitors, and word of the ship’s arrival soon reached the local lord. He made his way directly to the harbor and ordered his boats to be made ready. He was going to visit the
Clove
.
Captain Saris watched with interest as the flotilla approached, admiring the flamboyant costumes of his lordship and the young lad who was accompanying him. “Both of them [were] in silk gowns,” he wrote, “girt to them with a skirt and a pair of breeches.” At their sides hung two huge swords with fearsome-looking blades. Their manner of greeting Saris when they finally clambered aboard was quite extraordinary. They removed their shoes and proceeded to bow, over and over, while Saris and his men watched in bemusement. “Clapping their right hand within their left,” wrote Saris, “they put them downe towards their knees, and so wagging or moving of their hands … [they] crie,
‘Augh, augh.’” As they continued to bow, the captain led them to his cabin, “where I had prepared a banquet for them, and a good consort of musicke.”
Saris was concerned to treat his guests with all due decorum. He was fortunate to have on board a copy of Richard Hakluyt’s
Principal Navigations
, which contained the advice given to Captains Pet and Jackman more than thirty years earlier. Now, it finally proved its use, and Saris followed it to the letter: “I entertained his majestie with a banquet of severall sorts [of] conserves furnished all in glasse, which gave him great content …” As the visitors got their first taste of salt pork and dried peas, Saris made polite conversation, using his interpreters to discover more about his noble guests. Both were from the ruling Matsura family, which had controlled the little fiefdom of Hirado since the thirteenth century. The older of the two was called Shigenobu and had been lord of Hirado until 1589, when he had ostensibly retired from public life. He had been officially succeeded by his youthful grandson, but the old man kept a firm grip on the reins of power and clearly remained in control. Saris found it almost impossible to pronounce their names and was even more confused by their honorary titles. Brushing aside Japanese etiquette, he called the elderly ruler King Foyne and the young one King Figen.
Their fiefdom was tiny—Hirado Island was just twenty miles long and five miles wide—but it occupied a strategic position just off the northwest coast of Kyushu. The Portuguese had first arrived here in 1550, when the island was locked in combat with one of Kyushu’s lords, and they had quickly made converts to Christianity. Although the then ruler had declared himself to be an “astute abhorrer of the Christian religion,” he was prepared to tolerate the Jesuits in the hope that their presence would bring commerce to Hirado. This policy of openness had been continued by King Foyne, who was delighted that the English captain had chosen his fiefdom in which to drop anchor.
When the meal was over, Saris reached into his doublet and
plucked out a letter from King James I, “which he received with great joye, saying he would not open it till Ange [had] come, who could interpret it.” Saris was puzzled as to the identity of Ange, until his interpreter told him that it was a Japanese word—
anjin
—that translated as pilot, “and ment Mr Adams, who is here so called.”
Saris, who had been on the point of inquiring about William Adams, was delighted to learn that he was still alive and that his fame stretched across the length and breadth of Japan. He now realized that Sir Thomas Smythe had been absolutely correct in describing Adams as being “in greate favour with the kinge.” Smythe had told Captain Saris that Adams was to be questioned on every detail of trade and etiquette: “[We] desire his opinion [on] what course should be held … for the delivery of His Majestie’s letter now sent.” He was also to be asked for advice on what gifts should be given to the shogun and the manner in which they should be presented. Saris was ordered to give Adams passage home if he so desired. “If, at your departure from Japan, the said William Adams shall importune you to transporte him into his native countrie, … we pray you then to accommodate him with as convenient a cabben as you may.” He was to be treated with dignity and respect, and given “all other necessaries which your shipp may afford him.”
Saris informed King Foyne that he was extremely anxious to make contact with Ange—who held the key to the Japanese court—and his lordship offered to assist by providing boats and messengers. These were immediately dispatched to Edo, where Adams was currently residing, with a request that he travel to Hirado with all possible speed.
It was growing dark by the time Saris’s little banquet was over, and King Foyne was anxious to return to shore. As he said his farewells, he thanked the captain for his hospitality and promised much “kinde and free entertainement.” This arrived rather sooner than anyone expected. Scarcely had the “king” and his grandson
pushed off in their boats than a new troupe of visitors rowed over to the
Clove
. They included a large retinue of nobles, as well as dozens of soldiers, who clambered aboard clutching gifts of venison, wildfowl, and wild boar, along with baskets of fruit and fish. Saris suspected treachery, but their smiles and gifts were genuine enough. They greeted the English crew, deposited their gifts, then rowed back ashore.
On the day that followed the
Clove
’s arrival, King Foyne came aboard once again, bringing with him a retinue of noblemen, as well as their curious wives and daughters. Saris was keen to show the girls his collection of erotica and at one point managed to draw them to one side. They entered “into my cabbin, where the picture of Venus hung, very lasiviously set out … [and] fell down and worshipped it, [mistaking it] for Our Lady, with shows of great devotion.” Saris watched in bemused disbelief. The women, it transpired, had secretly converted to Christianity and were unaware that this painting was the pride and joy of Saris’s pornography collection.
Saris was embarrassed but not deterred. He had taken quite a shine to the Japanese ladies and found their pretty features much to his liking. “They were well faced, handed and footed,” he wrote, “cleare skinned and white, but wanting colour, which they amend by arte.” They adorned themselves in the most exquisite silk kimonos, and on their delicate little feet they wore “halfe buskins [boots] bound with silk ribbon.” Saris was delighted to see that they were bare-legged and particularly liked their hair, which was “tied up in a knot … in a comely manner.” Not all newcomers to Japan were quite so smitten. One Jesuit expressed his horror at discovering the women’s habit of dyeing their teeth black, noting that it “gives their mouths a most extraordinary appearance of a cavernous darkness.”
Old King Foyne quickly noted Saris’s interest and, anxious to avoid an awkward incident, “requested that none might stay in the cabbin.” Saris reluctantly complied, but was pleased that the king’s
restriction did nothing to dampen the increasingly convivial atmosphere. Indeed, the king himself began to join in the merriment and appeared to contradict his earlier request by urging the ladies to enjoy themselves. “The king’s women seemed to be somewhat bashfull,” wrote Saris, “but he willed them to be frollicke.” And frolic they were. They sang for the English sea dogs and gave a recital on the shamisen—an instrument which, Saris noted, “did much resemble our lute, being bellied like it, but longer in the neck.” After much jollity on all sides, Saris invited them to a great feast.
A few days later, King Foyne brought yet more women aboard. These were rather less bashful, and soon proved so “frollicke” that Saris began to wonder if they were prostitutes. “[They] were actors of comedies,” he wrote, “ … [and] are as the slaves of one man.” The owner, or pimp, treated the women as commodities and “puts a price what every man shall pay that to doe with any of them.” They could be used for any service that was required, and the Japanese saw nothing immoral in hiring them. Indeed, “the greatest of their nobilitie, [when] travelling, hold it no disgrace to send for these panders to their inn.” The girls were often highly cultivated—being well versed in the arts of acting and singing—and knew the exact etiquette of pouring drinks. They were accorded the greatest respect by those who had hired them, even by lusty men who intended “to have the use of them,” yet were treated like animals when they died. “Unworthy to rest amongst the worst, they are bridled with a bridle made of straw … [and] dragged through the streetes into the fields, and there cast upon a dunghill for dogges and fowls to devoure.”
The more unruly members of Saris’s crew soon grew jealous of the flirtatious antics of their captain and decided they wanted their own share of the fun. Thomas Jones, the ship’s baker, decided to swim ashore under the cover of darkness, but was caught in the water and hauled back to the
Clove
. Others were more successful. Christopher Evans, who had a long history of outlandish
behavior, was fortunate to be a faster swimmer than Jones. He managed to get ashore on several occasions “and in most lewd fashion spending his time in base bawdy places, denying to come aboard.” When Evans was finally caught, Saris made an example of him by putting him in the bilboes, or onboard shackles. Evans was furious. “He did more deeplye sweare to be the distruction of Jack Saris, for so it pleased him to calle me.”
from Arnoldus Montanus’s Atlas Japannensis, 1670
.
Captain Saris found Japanese ladies much to his liking. “They were well faced, handed and footed,” he later wrote. They were also very “frollicke,” and knew exactly how to entertain Saris and his men.
Saris might have had more success had he employed Japanese punishment, which, he soon discovered, was as brutal as it was severe. When three local men started a street brawl, King Foyne ordered their summary execution. When this had been carried out, all the able-bodied men of the town “came to try the sharpenesse of their
katanas
[scimitars] upon the corps[es], so that before they
left off they had hewn them all three into pieces as small as a man’s hand.”
The casual violence of the Japanese never ceased to amaze newcomers. It was common practice for samurai to test their swords on criminals, hacking at their corpses “until the wretched body is chopped into mincemeat.” They were also in the habit of stitching the bodies together so that the same exercise could be repeated again and again. “They often sew up bodies which have been cut up by swords,” observed the Jesuit João Rodrigues, who said that “the delight and pleasure which they feel in cutting up bodies is astonishing.”
Saris’s principal purpose for sailing to Japan was to oversee the establishment of an English factory. This required the assistance of William Adams, for the English could not begin to trade without permission from the ruling shogun. But Saris soon discovered that, in provincial Hirado, the mere mention of Adams’s name was enough to open doors. When he asked King Foyne if he could have “a convenient howse ashoare,” the old man readily agreed and suggested that a couple of the crewmen should go with him in order to view some properties.
Hirado was a bustling little town with a small harbor and a long waterfront. A couple of stone staircases led down to the shoreline, and an old bridge spanned the narrow creek. The better dwellings were constructed of sweet-smelling camphor wood and were protected from the worst of the storms by the mountainous backdrop that encircled the town. Although Hirado was not a prosperous place, it was built upon ancient foundations and its few monasteries had accrued considerable riches over the centuries. The great Zen monastery of Yasumadake was already 400 years old when Saris and his men set foot in Japan. It was surrounded by lush greenery, and its fine wooden buildings housed about a hundred monks.

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