FOREIGN TRADE UP TO OPENING OF COUNTRY. 521 



were forbidden by law to leave the country and to trade with 

 foreigners, commercial relations with Siam did not fully cease. 

 The Chinese, to whom, with the Dutch, trade with Nagasaki was 

 permitted, became the middlemen. Siamese junks, as Satow 

 states, following Japanese authorities, came in six different cases, 

 viz., in the years 1680, 1687, 1693, 1716, 1718, and 1745, though 

 with what success is not said. Before the closing up of Japan 

 under the third Shogun (Ij^emitsu) Siamese ships brought away 

 gold and silver, copper in small bars, goldsmiths' work, umbrellas 

 and parasols, lacquer wares, porcelain and tea. 



The various occurrences that led to the closing up of Japan and 

 the extirpation of Christianity were dealt with in detail in vol. i. 

 of this work. From the short account here given of the rela- 

 tions of the Shogunate to the Spaniards in Manila and to the 

 Siamese, it is evident that these measures are not to be looked 

 upon as immediate consequences of the battle of Sekijahara in the 

 year 1600, but that the political and religious motives in which 

 they originated were only of gradual growth. The conclusion of 

 commercial relations with the Dutch and English had great in- 

 fluence upon this change in opinion and feelings. These powers at 

 the beginning of the 17th century extended their struggles against 

 Catholic Spain and therewith annexed Portugal, even to the dis- 

 tant stations of the world's market, and with success. 



The struggles of the Protestant Dutch for their civil and religious 

 liberty had fostered in them an irreconcileable enmity against the 

 Spaniards and Roman Catholicism, had developed their courage 

 and enterprise, and prepared them for further deeds of prowess. 

 Scarcely had they thrown off the Spanish yoke when Dutch ships, 

 impelled by commercial interests, cruised through every sea. In 

 Amsterdam the nautical school of Peter Plancius gave the incipient 

 seafarer a better education, and the atlas of L. J. Waghenaer of 

 Leyden furnished him with more reliable maps. Thus the general 

 demand received effective support, — the demand to become wholly 

 independent of Spain even in commerce, now that her power 

 was enlarged by the addition of Portugal and its colonies. Narrow- 

 minded decrees of Philip II. of Spain closing Lisbon, the former 

 world-market, to the Dutch, did the rest. The enterprises of the 

 Dutch led to important geographical discoveries — I mention only 

 those of Barents and Tasman — as well as to their acquisition of 

 most of the Portuguese possessions, with their Asiatic trade. 



Upon the first Dutch circumnavigation of the globe (in the years 

 1 598-1601) under Oliver van Noort, who followed the route of 

 Magelhaes and inflicted heavy losses on the Spanish in a sea fight 

 off Manila, there followed, in 1602, the establishment of the 

 Dutch East India Company. Batavia became its chief point of 

 support and of the trade it carried on in South-eastern Asia, while 

 Goa, Malacca, and Macao lost their commercial significance. In 

 April of the year 1600 the Dutch flag appeared for the first time 



