This Retort Made The
Spaniards And Portuguese Laugh Heartily At The Poor Hollander, And Made
Him Shut His Mouth.
And now for the news of this country.
The emperor is great enemy to the
name of Christians, especially to the Japanese who have embraced the
faith; so that all such as are found are put to death. While at Meaco, I
saw fifty-five martyred at one time, because they would not forsake the
faith, and among them were some children of five or six years old, who
were burnt in the arms of their mothers, calling on Jesus to receive
their souls. Also, in the town of Nangasaki, sixteen others were
martyred for the same cause, of whom five were burnt, and the rest
beheaded and cut in pieces, and their remains put into sacks and cast
into the sea in thirty fathoms deep: Yet the priests got them up again,
and kept their remains secretly as relics. There are many others in
prison, both here and in other places, who look hourly to be ordered for
execution, as very few of them revert to paganism. Last year, about
Christmas, the emperor deposed one of the greatest princes in all Japan,
called Frushma-tay, lord of sixty or seventy mangocas, and banished
him to a corner in the north of Japan, where he has a very small portion
in comparison with what was taken from him, and he had the choice of
this or of cutting open his own belly.
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