1845.] INTERCOURSE WITH THE DUTCH. 29 



us the liberty of trading there, to the exclusion of all 

 the other nations of Europe. The Japanese, perceiving 

 that incessant seditions were to be apprehended from the 

 secret intrigues of the Roman Catholics, and the numerous 

 converts made by them, found, at length, that in order 

 to strike at the root of the evil, they ought to apply to the 

 Dutch, whose flag was then the terror of the Indian seas. 

 "The bold arrest of Governor Nuyts, at Fayoan, in 

 1630, showed them that the point of honour might every 

 moment involve them in quarrels for the purpose of re- 

 venging the insults which their subjects might suffer in 

 foreign countries or at sea. The decree of the Djogoun, 

 which confiscated the arms of the people of Sankan, 

 wounded the vanity of the Japanese. Numbers of male- 

 factors, to avoid the punishment due to their crimes, 

 turned pirates, and chiefly infested the coasts of China, 

 the Government of which made frequent complaints on 

 the subject to that of Japan. The nine Japanese vessels, 

 then trading with licenses from the Djogoun, were to be 

 furnished with Dutch passports and flags, in case of their 

 falling in either with Chinese corsairs, or with our ships 

 cruizing against those of the Spaniards of Manila and the 

 Portuguese at Macao. The residence of Japanese in foreign 

 countries, rendered their Government apprehensive that 

 it would never be able entirely to extirpate popery. 

 These various considerations induced the Djogoun, in the 

 twelfth year of the nengo quanje (1631), to decree the 

 penalty of death against every Japanese who should quit 

 the country; at the same time the most efficacious 

 measures were taken in regard to the construction of 

 vessels. The dimensions were so regulated, that it be- 



