Cocks was still wondering how the factory would fare without Adams when he received news that was as astonishing as it was unexpected. On July 23, 1620, he heard rumors that a large English vessel had been sighted off the coastline of Hirado and that she was the vanguard of a huge fleet. The rumors soon turned out to be true. Captain Martin Pring of the
James Royal
confirmed that he had indeed sailed as part of a vast armada; he brought the even more startling news that the Dutch and English—who had been virtually at war for more than four years—were now allies. A peace accord had been signed by company directors in London and Amsterdam, and all hostilities had been suspended. Their accord went much further than reestablishing the status quo. The directors had established a joint squadron of ships—a “Fleet of
Defense”—whose mission was to “make spoile and havocke of all Portuguese and Spaniards, wheresoever we meet them.”
Cocks could scarcely believe his luck. He had lost one protector—Adams—only to have another take his place. The
James Royal
was followed in quick succession by three more vessels: the Moon, the
Elizabeth
, and the Dutch ship
Trouw.
A few days later, the
Palsgrave
sailed into the bay, followed by a squadron of other ships. Their arrival changed everything. Overnight, the warring factions in Hirado made their peace and the blockade of the English factory was lifted. Cocks and Specx managed to patch up their ruptured friendship and found themselves being encouraged to work together in a way that had earned them criticism in the past.
The wretched and hungry men in the English factory—still grieving over Adams’s untimely death—received the surprise news of the accord with great joy. Eaton wrote that “it was wellcome news unto us that live here … and to all others which are honnest men.” They had lived under constant threat of death for many months and had been able to leave their factory compound only if accompanied by Japanese guards. Now they could sleep without fear of attack. The newly arrived fleet brought security, desperately needed supplies, and four large chests filled with silver coins.
But it also brought more than 1,000 unruly sea dogs, who were desperate to seek pleasure in the local whorehouses. The pimps of Hirado were delighted by the arrival of these men and saw it as a fine opportunity to make money. “As our men go along the streets,” wrote Cocks, “the Japanese kindly call them in and give them wine and whores till they be drunk, and strip them of all they have (some of them stark naked).”
Adams had long ago warned of the dangers of unruly mariners being unleashed on the town of Hirado. Now, when that advice was most needed, it was brushed aside in the exuberance of the
moment. Some of the men were so enchanted with the oriental pleasures ashore that they spent all their savings on prostitutes. Others preferred to riot and fight, attacking anyone who blocked their path. On one occasion, they found themselves brawling with some local Japanese. “Being drunke, [a group of men] did brabble with the Japanese, and drew out their knives.” This proved a fatal mistake, for the men were seized, dragged to a field, and given a swift lesson in Japanese punishment. They were decapitated “[and] left in the fields to be eaten by crowes and dogges.”
It was inevitable that news of the fighting and debauchery would soon reach Java, where the puritanical Richard Fursland had recently taken up his position as England’s president of the Council of Defense. It was equally inevitable that he would react with fury and contempt. Fursland was a strict disciplinarian who had already vowed to purge the East India Company of its more disreputable characters. He had begun by putting his own house in order. Incompetent factors in Java were sent home in disgrace; others were punished for boorish behavior. One of his men, the Italian-born John Vincente, was put in the stocks after being caught flagrante delicto with a local prostitute.
As Fursland cast his eyes elsewhere in the East, he discovered a sorry picture of degeneracy and insolvency. Several outlying factories had long been abandoned, while trade in the Moluccas was in terminal decline. England’s only remaining toehold in the nutmeg-producing Banda Islands had been lost in 1620, when the last pocket of heroic English resistance had been snuffed out. The little factories at Jambi in Sumatra and Pattani were insolvent and “allmost decayed.” At Pattani, the factor was in debt to the tune of more than £120 and was forbidden from leaving by the local ruler. At Ayutthaya, it was a similarly depressing story. The dreams once harbored by Lucas Antheunis—of a factory thriving off trade with Japan—had proved hollow indeed.
Nor did the Fleet of Defense achieve the spectacular success that had been predicted. Its first foray into the South China Sea,
in January 1621, was dogged by poor command. It missed the big Portuguese prize and captured just five poorly laden junks. The second voyage proved little better. An attack on Macao was repulsed by the Portuguese, while most of the plunder from captured ships was spent on reequipping the fleet. Fursland took the bold decision to redeploy the English ships of the Fleet of Defense and, in doing so, he effectively terminated the Anglo-Dutch alliance. The spirit of cooperation was over before it had achieved anything of note.
Fursland also vowed to bring discipline to the chaotic regime in Hirado. He was horrified by the moral depravity into which—in his eyes—the men of Hirado had fallen. He was particularly disgusted by tales of banquets, feasts, and dancing girls, and he singled out Cocks as the author of the factory’s misfortunes. He informed the London merchants that Cocks’s bacchanalian antics “not only consumes so much of your estate, but also utterly ruins the most part of your men by their most beastlie living.” As Fursland received more and more information about partner-swapping, concubines, and illegitimate children, he was sickened to the core. He said that “it is a misery to know that men of such antique years should be so miserably given over to voluptuousness, regarding not what they consume therein.”
Fursland wanted to see Cocks and his men punished for their misdemeanors and decided to recall them to Java. In the spring of 1622, he sent a message to Japan ordering that Cocks, Eaton, and Sayers, “who have been a long time at Japan, [are] to come away from there.”
Cocks had no intention of obeying Fursland’s command. He was terrified of being blamed for all of Hirado’s woes and was equally worried by the chaotic state of his accounts. He decided to contravene the order to leave Japan, justifying his disobedience by arguing that his books were not yet up to date. Misjudging Fursland’s mood as well as the seriousness of his own predicament, he wrote a letter in which he joshed that if he were to arrive in
Java with inaccurate records, “your worshipp may bid me retorne back againe, like an old fool as I am, and do it.”
Many months passed before Fursland received Cocks’s letter, by which time the monsoon had started. For more than four months the winds blew in Cocks’s favor and Fursland was unable to dispatch a single vessel to Hirado. In the twilight of his time in Japan, Cocks returned to a quieter life, tending his beloved orchard, feeding his goldfish, and reliving his ten years in the Land of the Rising Sun. There was much to remember and celebrate: voyages to the shogun and banquets with courtiers; visits to temples and feasts with Buddhist monks. He was proud to have established a trading post on the far side of the world, separated from England by a two-year sea voyage, and kept it more or less solvent. He was also proud to have preserved his men in good health and ensured that they were amused and entertained in a way that few could ever have imagined. Yet Cocks knew that none of this would have been possible without Adams, who had been the unsung guardian of the English factory
He kept in regular contact with the Japanese Mrs. Adams after her husband’s death, sending her gifts of baubles and trinkets. In March 1622, he presented her with a large quantity of white silk, along with damasks and taffeta for Joseph and Susanna. He also gave her silver and offered to pay for Joseph’s schooling. When he visited the family on the first Christmas after Adams’s death, he handed Joseph his father’s sword and dagger. The young lad was grateful “[and there] were tears shed at delivery.”
Joseph was soon to receive a far more valuable gift. Shortly after his father’s death, the shogun summoned him to his palace and conferred upon him all the privileges that had been granted to William Adams more than a dozen years earlier. “[He] hath confirmed the lordship to his son,” wrote Cocks, “which the other emperour gave to the father.” Joseph Adams was also granted continued rights to his father’s estate at Hemi, along with all the villages and rice fields.
It was with heavy hearts that the English watched the good ship
Bull
sail into Hirado a year later with the first of the summer winds. She was carrying a letter, written by the still-furious Fursland, which could not have been more forthright in its demands. Addressed contemptuously to “Mr Cocks and the rest,” it lambasted the men for their “greate disobedience” in ignoring his previous orders. “What mooved you hereunto,” wrote Fursland, “we know not,” but he expressed shock that someone of “so many years” had not yet learned to obey his superiors.
The first part of Fursland’s letter was littered with veiled threats; the second was filled with orders. Cocks was to hand over his authority to the newly arrived Joseph Cockram—who was charged with closing the factory—and was also to surrender his account books. In addition he was told to recover all the money owed by Li Tan, who “hath too long deluded you.” Fursland was so concerned that Cocks would once again refuse to set sail that he repeated his orders at the end of the letter, “lest, having read it in the former part thereof, you should forgett it before you come to the end.”
Cocks read the letter with a heavy heart. He knew that it spelled the end of his time in Japan, as well as the end of his service with the East India Company. If the London merchants decided to withhold his wages, he would end his life in destitution. It was a terrifying prospect for any Jacobean gentleman—but more so for one who had few friends left alive in England.
The closure of the factory took time. Officials had to be notified and a visit had to be made to the shogun and his court. Small gifts of money were presented to the factory’s servants, and the few goods in the warehouse were loaded aboard the
Bull
. Fursland would later describe it as “trash and lumber” and he was probably right. There was little of worth to be carried away from Japan. Cocks and his men stalled for time and spent their last few days engaged in tearful farewells. On December 22, 1623, “many of the townsmen came with their wives and families to take leave of the
factors, some weeping at their departure.” It was an especially sad day for William Eaton’s mistress, Kamezo, who was saying farewell to both her partner and her son. She begged Cocks to look after the young lad and would soon write to him to beseech his help. “I am relying on you [more] than on my own father,” she wrote. “Please be kind enough to take good and gentle care of him.”
The English, too, were sad to be leaving the women and children they loved. Eaton embraced his daughter, Helena, while Sayers said his final farewell to his mistress and daughter. Cocks was alone in being glad to leave his mistress, the unfaithful Matinga, who had cost him a fortune. He had singularly failed to get her pregnant, despite many jokes about his virility.
On December 23, a few of the Dutch factors and many “Japanese friends” came on board the
Bull
to say their last good-byes. Captain Cockram was anxious to set sail, but he was moved by the tears and decided to postpone the departure so that there could be a final night’s party. The men and women celebrated late into the evening, and the dark harbor of Hirado echoed with the sound of revelry and music.
It was late by the time the last guests had returned ashore, and there was precious little left of the night. The men snatched a few hours’ sleep before the sun rose above the horizon and the crew were called on deck. The
Bull
’s anchors were raised; her great sails were unfurled. The wind was blowing from the north and there was snow in the air. It would be a cold day at sea.
The town receded into the distance, until the houses were a blur and the palace scarcely visible. Next, the land retreated to a shadow—the steep, pine-clad hillside standing darkly against the sky. Hirado was fast merging with the horizon. After ten years, six months, and thirteen days, the English were abandoning Japan.
Cocks and his men were leaving under a shadow that had been stalking them for years. They might have redeemed themselves if they had had treasure to take back to London—the sacks of silver so keenly desired by the company But the Hirado factory was
bankrupt; there was nothing to carry home. Their abandoned lodgings were the only reminder of the East India Company’s dreams—the warehouse and the chambers that had consumed so much money. Even these sturdy buildings were not to last for long. Battered by hurricanes and ruined by rain, they quickly crumbled and collapsed. Within a few years, every trace of the English had disappeared. It was as if they had never come. !
The company had long hoped to pin the blame for failure on their servant Richard Cocks. But Cocks was already a broken man, and his ebullient spirit had been shattered by his recall. He was weary and depressed and of a “testie and wayward disposition.” He was also desperately sick, having contracted a dangerous tropical disease shortly after leaving Japan. Cocks breathed his last on the long voyage to London and was laid to rest at sea, “under a discharge of ordnance.”