FOREIGN TRADE UP TO OPENING OF COUNTRY. 523 



of June, 16 1 3. The old Daimio appreciated the commercial ad- 

 vantages which the foreigners brought to this little island, and 

 received the English kindly. After Adams had joined them and 

 Captain Saris had rented a house to be used as a factory, the latter, 

 with Adams to interpret, and the necessary credentials, and pre- 

 sents from King James I., departed for the court in a boat which 

 the Daimio placed at his disposal. The embassy was amicably 

 received both by lyeyasu in Sumpu (Shidzuoka), and by his son, 

 Hidetada, the reigning Shogun in Yedo. After brief negotiations, 

 conducted by Adams, who was favourably known at court, it 

 secured a general commercial privilege. This was, however, by an 

 amendment of the year 1616, restricted to Hirado, like that of the 

 Dutch. Richard Cocks acted as director of the factory, from its 

 establishment to the dissolution, which the company ordered in 

 1623. A competition of ten years with the Dutch had cost it a 

 total loss of over ;^40,ooo. But even though the commercial enter- 

 prises of the English in Japan were unsuccessful, they departed 

 with honour from a well-contested field. They had made the 

 attempt at a very unfavourable time and an unsuitable place, a 

 small, non-productive island, in direct competition with the Dutch, 

 and with the Portuguese and Spaniards, who still retained great 

 influence in Nagasaki. Their hope that the Chinese market would 

 open to them was not fulfilled, and in Japan the Dutch possessed 

 more experience and practice. These scorned no means of crowd- 

 ing the English out, even selling many of their wares below cost, 

 as, for example, cloths manufactured in England, Their conduct, 

 as Cocks in many parts of his journal remarks, was unendurable, 

 even when, by higher command, the English took sides with 

 them against Spaniards and Portuguese. For such extraordinary 

 difficulties the intelligence and activity of the director Richard 

 Cocks were insufficient. It is easily seen from his tedious journal 

 that he was uneducated, weak, and slow, though good-natured and 

 honest enough ; and that there must have been great disorder in 

 his conduct of business. All this we learn, too, from the bitter 

 censure with which his "loving friends" and superiors at Batavia 

 recalled him in May, 1623. Subsequently the Dutch were 

 successful in frustrating all attempts of the English, as well as of 

 other nations, to renew commercial relations with Japan. Stories 

 about the over-crowding of the market with imported goods, and a 

 fall in prices, remind one of many an occurrence in the Japanese 

 trade of modern times, except that formerly it was not customary 

 to sell at public auction. White raw-silk from China and Siam, 

 which used to be sold in Nagasaki and Hirado for 500, 400, and 

 300 Ts. (Taels at 6 shillings), were offered at 130 Ts. in the year 

 1620. The market was as much flooded via Patani with Siamese 

 velvet and flowered silks, red and white sandal-wood, deer-skins, 

 and ivory, as with Spanish cloths, imported from New Spain 

 (Mexico), and English, brought by Dutch and English vessels. 



