INTRODUCTION. 31 



their European teachers, persevered in their faith, though threatened with imprisonment, 

 torture, and death. Oppression presently drove them into open rebellion, and they took refuge 

 and made a stand against the imperial forces in Simabara. The Japanese authorities called on 

 the Dutch to assist them in making war against these Christians, and the Dutch did it. Kocke- 

 hecker was then director of the Dutch trade and nation in Japan. The native Christians had 

 endeavored to fortify themselves in an old town, which the troops of the Emperor could not take. 

 A Dutch ship was lying at Firando, and on board of this Kockebecker repaired to Simabara, and 

 battered the old town with the ship's guns as well as from a battery he had erected on shore. After 

 a fortnight of this work the Japanese were satisfied to discharge the Dutch director ; for though the 

 Christians had not surrendered, yet they had lost so many of their number and the place was so 

 weakened that it was obvious it could not hold out much longer. Eequiring, therefore, of the 

 Dutch director that he should land six more guns for the use of the Emperor, they dismissed 

 him. The place was finally taken, after a very large number of the besieged had perished by 

 famine, and a total massacre of men, women and children followed ; not one was spared. 



We have spoken of this act as perpetrated by the Dutch in Japan, for we cannot deem it fair 

 to involve every Hollander in an indiscriminate censure. There were other Dutch ships at 

 Firando beside that which was employed in the bombardment ; but the commanders of these, 

 either suspecting, or having.intimation that the Japanese would demand aid at their hands, quietly 

 left their anchorage, and went to sea before the demand was made, and thus escaped participation 

 in this atrocious wickedness. To us it seems that the infamy must rest chiefly on the Dutch 

 director, and that M. Kockebecker deliberately preferred this most foul murder of the innocent to 

 the loss or interruption of the Dutch trade. Be this as it may, i\efact is distinctly admitted by 

 all the Dutch writers on Japan from the middle of the seventeenth century up to Fischer's work, 

 published in 1833. It is true, one says, that the Dutch were compelled to do it ; another states, 

 that the Dutch only supplied cannon, powder, and ball, taught the Japanese artillery practice, and 

 sent ammunition, arms, and troops in their ships to the scene of action ; but old Ksempfer, who, 

 though in the Dutch service as a physician, was by birth a German, afSrms positively that the 

 Dutch were active as belligerents. Fraissinet (a recent French writer) endeavors to give a 

 different coloring to the fact, but, as we think, in vain. He represents the case as one of 

 political rebellion, in which the native Christians took sides with the rebels ; and is pleased to 

 consider the Dutch as allies merely of the Emperor, carrying on a lawful war as allies ; and he 

 says that the archives of the Dutch factory at Dezima, as well as the relations of natives of 

 respectability, acquit the Hollanders of all blame. What the archives of the Dezima factory 

 may now state, we have not the means of knowing, and we are not furnished by the French 

 apologist with their language ; but it is certainly very remarkable, if they do contain exculpatory 

 evidence, that the Dutch writers, all of whom were officials at Dezima, and many of whom lived 

 much nearer to the time of the transaction than an author of this day, should have overlooked 

 this evidence ; particularly when some of them seek to palliate the act itself. Surely the Dezima 

 records were open to Fischer, the last Dutch writer on the subject, (1833 ;) why, then, instead 

 of producing them, does he admit the fact, and urge in extenuation compidsion of the Dutch by 

 the Japanese? As to the relations of respectable natives, we can only say we have never seen, 

 in any work on Japan, such relations as M. Fraissinet has named. But there is one fact which, 

 as it seems to us, conclusively negatives the supposition that it was a mere political insurrection 

 which the Dutch assisted in suppressing. Over the vast common grave in which these unhappy 



