26 INTRODUCTION. 



in such case, the conveyance of the bishop shoukl be stopped, and that he shonhl alight and pay 

 his respects to the nobleman. Instead of conforming to this established act of courtesy, tlie 

 bishop took not the least notice of the Japanese dignitary, but, turning his head away from him, 

 ordered his bearers to carry him on. The insult, evidently intended, was so gross that the 

 grandee took mortal offence, and confounding the Portuguese generally with their haughty 

 clergy, he conceived toward all an implacable resentment. He forthwith presented his grievance 

 to the Emperor, and touched his sense of dignity and national pride by a strong picture of the 

 vanity and insolence of the Portuguese. Taiko, of whom we have already spoken, was at that 

 time Emperor, and he was the last man to permit the laws and customs of his Empire to be 

 treated with contempt by a set of presumptuous foreigners, who had neither good feeling nor 

 good sense enough to repay the kindness they had received with the decency of common civility. 

 With the Emperor's kind sentiments thus alienated the end was certain ; it involved a question 

 of time only ; and such was the infatuation of these inflated ecclesiastics that this stupid act of 

 episcojDal insolence was perpetrated at a time when the Portuguese, by their pride and avarice, 

 had already lost the best part of the favor they had once possessed. 



At length a Portuguese ship, on its way from the East to Lisbon, was captured by the Dutch, 

 and among other matters found on board were certain treasonable letters, written by Moro, a 

 native Japanese, to the King of Portugal. Moro was a zealous Komanist, a warm friend of the 

 Jesuits, and one of the chief agents and friends of the Portuguese in Japan. From these letters 

 it appeared that the Japanese Christians, in conjunction with the Portuguese, were plotting the 

 overthrow of the throne ; and all they wanted was a supply of ships and soldiers from Portugal. 

 It may be difScult to ascertain, with certainty, all the details of the conspiracy ; but of the 

 consp iracy itself there can be no doubt. 



The Dutch, who were the sworn foes of the Portuguese, lost no time in communicating the 

 intercepted letters to the authorities of Japan, and the result was that in 1637 an imperial 

 proclamation decreed that " the whole race of the Portuguese, with their mothers, nurses, and 

 whatever belongs to them, shall be banished forever." The same proclamation forbade, under 

 penalty of death to those concerned, any Japanese ship, or native of Japan, to depart from the 

 country. It directed that any Japanese returning home from a foreign country should be put 

 to death; that any person presuming to bring a letter from abroad should die; that no 

 nobleman or soldier should purchase anything from a foreigner ; that any person propagating 

 Christian doctrines, or even bearing the title of Christian, should suffer ; and a reward was 

 offered for the discovery of every priest, as well as of every native Christian. Under these 

 severe edicts some of the Portuguese were at once frightened out of the country. Others, 

 however, lingered, cooped up in their factory at Dezima, hoping that the tempest would 

 presently pass over, and that they might resume their traflSc. But the Emperor was firmly 

 resolved to root them out forever, and forbade them ever to import even the goods of their own 

 country ; and so ended the trade of the Portuguese with Japan, and the toleration of the 

 Christian religion in the Empire. 



The writers of the church of Eome assert that it was owing to the malice and misrepresenta- 

 tions of the heretical Dutch that the missionaries and early Japanese converts were exposed to 

 the persecutions, which afterward resulted in the expulsion of Christianity. An examination 

 of dates, however, will show that this statement is entirely erroneous. The Portuguese, clerical 

 and lay, must blame theinselves only for their final expulsion. Doubtless, the Dutch, as we shall 



