1845.] EARLY INTERCOURSE WITH JAPAN. 37 



baptized more than 30,000 converts with his own hands. 

 Yet mingled with these successes, we have accounts of 

 the apostacy of one of the Princes, and the persecutions 

 inflicted by order of another." 



"In 1 570, the Kubo (or Djogoun) Nobunanga succeeded 

 to the throne and favoured the Christians, and in 1583, 

 the then Princes of Omura, Bungo, and Arima, visited 

 Lisbon, and paid their respects to the Pope, returning to 

 their own country in 1586. 



" Nobunanga was succeeded in 1582 by Fide Yosi, (the 

 famous Taico,) who still continued his patronage of the 

 Jesuits, many of his best Officers being their friends. 

 It is asserted that the only bar to Taico's embracing 

 Christianity was his refusal to give up his Harem. In 

 1587 the Japanese began to suspect their friends, and 

 from various causes assigned, Taico, on the 25th of June, 

 issued an edict banishing the Christian Missionaries. 

 They were required to retire to Firando within twenty 

 days, and to depart for India within six months, on pain 

 of death. The crosses they had erected were ordered to 

 be thrown down, and the churches razed." 



About this period Taico declared war on China and 

 Korea, under the intention, as ascribed by the mission- 

 aries, " of getting rid of the Christians among his Officers 

 and troops, by sacrificing them in a foreign war. That 

 he cherished such a design is inferred from his after life, 

 and that he was unwilling to accomplish it by domestic 

 persecution is shown by the fact that of 200 priests, and 

 1,000,000 converts, then in his dominions, he put but 

 twenty-six or twenty-seven to death. The war with 

 Korea and China terminated in favour of the Japanese in 

 1593." 



