To Make An End Of This Matter, I Went Up This Year To The
Emperor's Court At Meaco, To Complain Of The Abuses Offered To Us In His
Dominions, Contrary To The Privileges His Majesty Had Granted Us.
I had
very good words, and fair promises made me that we should have justice,
and that the tono or king of Firando should be ordered to see it
performed:
But as yet nothing has been done, though I have many times
made earnest suit on the subject.
While I was at the court, and in the emperor's palace at Meaco, there
were several Spaniards and Portuguese there to pay their obeisance to
the emperor, as is their custom every year on the arrival of their
ships. There was also a Hollander at the court, who had lived almost
twenty years in Japan, and speaks the Japanese language very fluently.
In my hearing, and that of others, this fellow began highly to extol
their king of Holland, pretending that he was the greatest king in
Christendom, and held all the others under his command. He little
thought that we understood what he said; but I was not slack in telling
him, that he need not be so loud, for they had no king in Holland, being
only governed by a count, or rather that they governed him. Nay, if they
had any king at all in whom they could boast, it certainly was the king
of England, who had hitherto been their protector, and without whose aid
they had never been able to brag of their States. 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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 76 of 474
Words from 39459 to 39983
of 247546
