Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan (34 page)

Read Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan Online

Authors: Giles Milton

Although Adams was doing Cocks a huge favor, the English factors in Siam were suspicious of his motives and were particularly wary of his close relationship with his Japanese mariners. Benjamin Farie went so far as to condemn him for allowing his crew to transport their own private cargo on board the vessel. He said that the East India Company was “exseedingly abused herein by his [Adams’s] lardge priviledges [to the crew].” But Farie was unaware that this was standard practice among Japanese mariners and was specifically designed to discourage them from deserting ship.
Adams had arrived back in Hirado in July 1616 to be greeted by the news of leyasu’s death. He had traveled straight to Edo, along with Cocks, and it was not until the two men’s return to Hirado that they could dispose of the sappanwood. The sale injected a huge sum of much-needed money into the near-bankrupt factory. The wood sold for more than three times its cost price—providing Cocks with a windfall of silver—while the hides reaped a 100 percent profit. The men were delighted and, feeling a sense of renewed optimism, decided to celebrate Christmas in lavish fashion. The
Thomas
and the
Advice
were still at anchor, and they blasted their cannon at dawn “in honor of Christmas day.” Now that the factory was once again solvent, everyone was determined to have a good time, and Cocks hired Japanese dancing girls to enliven their banquets and parties. The
Advice’s
master, John Totten, had noted Cocks’s love of bathing and presented him with eighteen bars of soap, while Li Tan gave him two bundles of black taffeta and “ten greate China cakes of
sweete bread.” Cocks had bought presents for the children of his Japanese friends; one little girl received a fan, a perfumed pomander, and “a bundell of paper.”
Once Christmas was over, the men turned their attention to a matter of pressing concern. For almost two years there had been no news from Tempest Peacock and Walter Carwarden, who had sailed to Cochinchina in the spring of 1614. They had been expected to return after four or five months—perhaps a little longer—and it was hoped that they would bring back a shipload of silks and hides. Instead, Cocks had heard numerous rumors that the men had been either killed or captured. One of the more colorful tales suggested that Peacock had drowned, dragged underwater by the weight of gold in his pockets. Another claimed that Carwarden had escaped danger and would soon be back in Japan. Such stories had continued for almost two years, yet Cocks had made no efforts to find the men. Now, in the spring of 1617, he at last had the opportunity to act when Adams offered to lead a search party to Cochinchina.
His new junk, the
Gift of God
, lacked supplies and cables, so he made a visit to Nagasaki, where such equipment could be bought for a song. When he returned to Hirado, he found that his money-saving measure had not pleased young King Figen, the fiefdom’s new ruler, who would have preferred Adams to have spent his money in Hirado. Nor had it been well received by the port’s principal merchants, who were still in dispute over Cocks’s sale of the Siamese sappanwood. Some of the more hotheaded among them—who had long been jealous of Adams’s access to the court—sent three henchmen down to the harbor with orders to punish and humiliate him. These men did rather more than was asked of them. They clambered aboard the
Gift of God
, “laid hold on Captain Adams’ armes and, before he was aware, wrung him in such extreme sort that he put him to much paine.” Adams was still recovering from the fall off his horse, and their arm-twisting and punches were excruciatingly painful. Indeed, his joints were
wrenched with such force that the thugs almost dislocated one of his arms. As Adams cried in agony, the henchmen set upon the other members of the crew. They grabbed the boatswain, John Phebie, and threatened to slice him to pieces with their swords, while Sayers found himself seized by “the hinder part of the haire” and caught in a suffocating headlock.
The situation looked grim, for the attackers were “passing in as violent sort as might be” and eager to put the men to the slaughter. They were under the illusion that Adams was no longer under the shogun’s protection and could therefore be treated in whatever way they chose. But as soon as Adams had escaped from their grip, he reached into his kimono and pulled out a document, signed and sealed by Hidetada. He waved it in the air, “kissing it and holding it up over his head, meaning to protest and take witnesse of the violence they offered him.” This theatrical gesture had an instant and dramatic effect. The document did indeed provide Adams with the protection of the shogun and it was inviolable upon pain of death. The attackers blanched when they saw it. Fearful of the repercussions, they resheathed their weapons and hurried back ashore.
Adams wisely turned a blind eye to this unpleasant episode. Toward the end of March 1617 he set sail for Cochinchina. After just three weeks at sea, he observed an earthy murkiness in the water, a clear sign that he was nearing the outfall of the mighty Quang Nam River. The following morning, Adams sighted the mouth of the estuary and carefully guided his vessel upstream.
The local official in charge of this stretch of river was intrigued by his arrival and quizzed him about the purpose of his visit. Adams explained that he had been dispatched by the English chief factor in Japan in order to discover the fate of Peacock and Carwarden. He added menacingly that if they had been killed “without offence,” then he intended to “seek justis.” The official mumbled some excuses and left, promising to investigate the men’s disappearance. Soon after this meeting, Adams found himself
greeted by the local king’s secretary, who also asked why he had come. This time, Adams was more forthright. “We told him … [we were] sent by the command of the King of England, to knowe what was become of the two Englishmen sent hither.” He added that “we heard they were kild here … but how, as yet, we did not knowe.” The secretary listened politely, feigned indignation, and washed his hands of the affair. He told Adams that Peacock and Carwarden “ware drowned by misechance in a small boat.”
Adams was convinced that the secretary knew more, but was silenced by the man and warned not to delve into such delicate matters. “That is gone and past,” said the secretary, “[and] is not needfoull fore to speake of this now.” Adams was infuriated by the man’s dismissive manner and persisted in his questioning. This provoked an unexpected response. The secretary suddenly snapped and, in a frenzy of anger, said that “the chiefeste of the two had given many skornfoull speeches, and proud not makinge any reckning of the kinge nor his countrey.” Then, aware that he had already said too much, he checked himself and refused to provide any more information. He left Adams and Sayers with the growing suspicion that there had indeed been foul play.
Over the coming days, Adams quizzed a number of other local traders about the fate of Peacock and Carwarden. After receiving numerous testimonies, he managed to compile a plausible reconstruction of what had happened. Peacock, it seemed, had been lured upstream by the promise of trade and had secured lodgings with a Japanese merchant called Mangosa. This merchant was outwardly friendly, but was actually a hit man who had been paid by local officials to murder Peacock. Their motive was straightforward: they were shocked by Peacock’s drunkenness and took offense at his boast that the English could cripple Cochinchina by blockading all the coastal ports. The exact manner of his death was unknown, although Cocks later recorded a rumor—probably brought back by Adams—that he was “trecharousely set upon … [and] kild in the water with harping irons, like fishes.”
Walter Carwarden’s end was less mysterious. He had remained in the river estuary while Peacock headed upstream and probably learned of his friend’s murder from local merchants. Terrified that he would meet with a similar fate, he fled in a little boat. This had the misfortune to get overturned in a heavy squall; Carwarden was drowned before he could swim to the shore.
Adams had threatened to have his revenge if either of the men had been killed, but he knew that he was in no position to carry out that threat. Nor was he able to recover the huge amount of silver that they were carrying, for it had disappeared without trace. There was further bad news when Sayers, who had rowed ashore to buy silks, was robbed of all his money. With heavy hearts, the two men decided that luck was against them and set sail for Hirado. Their news was greeted with grim resignation by Cocks and his dwindling band of men.
 
 
Trade had proved difficult during the period of Adams’s absence, and Cocks spent more and more time pruning his fruit trees, tending his goldfish, and writing colorful letters and entries in his diary. On one occasion, he watched in amazement as Nealson turned up at the factory carrying a giant wooden penis. Cocks asked the chuckling Nealson where he had acquired such an object. Nealson explained that he had, by chance, “found an alter of the ancient god Priapus, or lecherous god, with a greate tool.” This penis was an object of devotion for women wanting to fall pregnant, and they were accustomed to process around the altar “carrying wooden pricks … made like unto a man’s member.” Nealson had quickly realized that one of these wooden penises would be a splendid ornament for the Hirado factory and had acquired one from the bemused ladies.
Nealson’s tale reminded Cocks of a fertility altar he had seen in France, when he was traveling to Bayonne in the service of Sir Thomas Wilson. It, too, had a “greate tool … to which all baron
women went on pilgrimage.” They would solemnly approach the penis with sharp knives “[and] shaved, or scraped off a littell of the prick, and put it into wine and drunck it.”
from Arnoldus Montanus’s Atlas Japannensis, 1670
.
Richard Cocks was astonished by Japan’s temples and shrines (above; possibly the Honno-ji near Kyoto) and wrote colorful descriptions to friends in England. King James I did not believe them, and declared them to be “the loudest lies that ever [he] heard of.”
Although the men were increasingly harassed by financial difficulties in 1617, Cocks never abandoned hope that he would transform Hirado into a factory of fabulous wealth. He had long held the belief that this could only be achieved by opening trade with China, and in his very first letter to the London directors—written three years earlier—he had proposed making contact with the Ming emperors. “Nothing seek,” he told them, “nothing gain.” For too long he had relied upon William Adams to help out in times of crisis. Now, Cocks was determined to bring to a
successful conclusion one of his own initiatives. It was a tall order. Trade with China was altogether more complex than with Siam or Pattani, for it was forbidden by Peking’s mandarins on pain of death. Cocks’s only hope of acquiring Chinese silk was by employing middlemen.
It was his good fortune that Li Tan, onetime landlord of the English factory, was more than willing to help. Rich, influential, and head of Hirado’s little Chinese community, Li was on good terms with the English and was one of the principal buyers of their goods. He was a frequent guest at the English factory and often sent gifts of food and cloth to Cocks and his men. Their friendship was sealed when Li asked Cocks to be godfather to his infant daughter. Cocks accepted and gave her the name Elizabeth.
Not everyone was as persuaded as Cocks of Li Tan’s honesty and probity A Dutch account describes him as “a sly man” and adds—with a detectable note of suspicion—that he had magnificent houses in both Hirado and Nagasaki, along with “several pretty wives and children.” Others accused him of being totally untrustworthy in financial matters and said that he overstated his influence over the merchants of coastal China. Cocks dismissed such criticisms and accepted Li Tan’s assurances at face value. He had already written to London, telling the company directors that he had “extraordinary hope to get trade into China.” Now, convinced of a breakthrough, he decided to gamble the last of the factory’s resources on gaining access to the silks of Ming dynasty China. He advanced the Chinese man a staggering £1,500—money that the factory could ill afford—and also gave him costly gifts.
News of Cocks’s reckless dealings was carried to Bantam by Richard Wickham, who sailed to Java in the spring of 1617 aboard the departing
Advice
. Cocks had selected Wickham to report on affairs in Hirado, believing him to be the person with the best understanding of company affairs. Wickham soon proved himself rather too qualified for the task: he used his visit to deliver a stinging
attack on Cocks’s leadership, criticizing everything from his management of finances to his gullibility and foolishness.
Wickham’s broadside met with a receptive audience in Bantam. The new chief factor, George Ball, was a disreputable character who derived great pleasure from undermining his peers. He had already lambasted Cocks for his rambling correspondence and regarded him as an old windbag. “Your letters are copious but not compendious; large, but stuffed with idle and needless chatter ill beseeming one of your place, years and experience.” His sentiments would later be echoed by King James I, who read one of Cocks’s letters with interest, but “co[u]ld not be induced to beleeve that the things written are true.” He declared them to be “the loudest lies that ever [he] heard of.”

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