William Adams (pilot)

For other uses, see William Adams (disambiguation).

William Adams (Japanese: ウィリアム・アダムス, Hepburn: Uwiriamu Adamusu, kyūjitai: ウヰリアム・アダムス; 24 September 1564 – 16 May 1620), better known in Japan as Miura Anjin (三浦按針, 'the pilot of Miura'), was an English navigator who, in 1600, became the first Englishman to reach Japan. He did so on a trading ship called Liefde^[3] under the leadership of Jacob Quaeckernaeck; it was the only vessel reaching Japan from a five-ship expedition launched by a company of Rotterdam merchants^[3] (a voorcompagnie, or predecessor of the Dutch East India Company).^[4] Among the few survivors of the expedition who reached Japan, for more than a decade, the authorities did not allow Adams and his second mate Jan Joosten to leave the country. Earlier, they did permit Quaeckernaeck and Melchior van Santvoort to return to the Dutch Republic to establish formal trade relations. Adams and Joosten settled in Japan, and the two men became Western samurai.^[5]

William Adams
William Adams before Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu
Born	(1564-09-24)24 September 1564 Gillingham, Kent, Kingdom of England
Died	16 May 1620(1620-05-16) (aged 55) Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Edo shogunate
Resting place	William Adams Memorial Park, Sakigata Hill, Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan
Nationality	English
Other names	Miura Anjin (三浦按針)
Citizenship	Japanese
Occupation	Navigator
Known for	First Englishman to travel to Japan Amongst the first known Western samurai One of the first Englishmen to travel to Thailand Third Englishman to travel to Vietnam
Title	Miura Anjin
Term	1600–1620
Successor	Joseph Adams
Spouses	Mary Hyn ​ (m. 1589)​ Oyuki ​ (m. 1613)​ ^[1]^[2]
Children	John Adams (son) Deliverance Adams (daughter) Joseph Adams (son) Susanna Adams (daughter)^[1]^[2]

Soon after Adams' arrival in Japan, he became a key advisor to the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Under his authority, Adams directed construction of the first Western-style ships in the country. He was later part of Japan's approving the establishment of trading factories by the Netherlands. Although eventually given permission to return home to England, he ultimately decided to stay in Japan. He became highly involved in Japan's red seal trade, chartering and serving as captain of four expeditions to Southeast Asia. He died in Japan at age 55. He has been recognized as one of the most influential foreigners in Japan during this period.^[6]

Early life

Adams was born in Gillingham, Kent, England. His father died when he was twelve, and he was apprenticed to shipyard owner Master Nicholas Diggins at Limehouse for the seafaring life.^[7][8] He spent the next twelve years learning shipbuilding,^[9] astronomy, and navigation before entering the Royal Navy.^[9]

With England at war with Spain, Adams served in the Royal Navy under Sir Francis Drake. He saw naval service against the Spanish Armada in 1588 as master of the Richarde Dyffylde, a resupply ship carrying ammunition and victuals for the English fleet.^[10]

Adams became a pilot for the Barbary Company.^[9] During this service, Jesuit sources claim he took part in an expedition to the Arctic that lasted about two years, in search of a Northeast Passage along the coast of Siberia to the Far East.^[9] The veracity of this claim is somewhat suspect, because he never referred to such an expedition in his autobiographical letter written from Japan; its wording implies that the 1598 voyage was his first involvement with the Dutch. The Jesuit source may have misattributed to Adams a claim by one of the Dutch members of Jacques Mahu's crew who had been on Jan Rijp's ship during the voyage that discovered Spitsbergen.^[11]

Voyage to Japan (1598-1600)

 

17th century engraving. From left to right, Blijde Boodschap, Trouw, Geloof, Liefde and Hoope

 

1934 imaginary depiction of Adams

I am a Kentish-man, borne in a Towne called Gillingham, two English miles from Rochester, one mile from Chattam, where the Kings ships lye : and that from the age of twelve yeares, I was brought up in Lime-house neere London, being Prentise twelve yeares to one Master Nicholas Diggines, and have served in the place of Master and Pilot in her Majesties ships, and about eleven or twelve yeares served the Worshipfull Company of the Barbarie Marchants, untill the Indian Trafficke from Holland began, in which Indian Trafficke I was desirous to make a little experience of the small knowledge which God had given me. So, in the yeare of our Lord God, 1598. I was hired for chiefe Pilot of a Fleete of five sayle, which was made readie by the chiefe of the Indian Company Peter Vanderhag, and Hance Vanderueke...

— William Adams letter, 22 October 1611^[12]

Attracted by the Dutch trade with India, Adams, then 34 years old, shipped as pilot major with a five-ship fleet dispatched from the isle of Texel to the Far East in 1598 by a company of Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, predecessor of the Dutch East India Company). His brother Thomas accompanied him. The Dutch were allied with England at that time; both were Protestant nations and were fighting against Spain for Dutch independence.

The Adams brothers set sail from Texel on the Hoope and joined with the rest of the fleet on 24 June.^{[citation needed]} The fleet consisted of:

• the Hoope ("Hope"), under Admiral Jacques Mahu (d. 1598), who was succeeded by Simon de Cordes (d. 1599) and Simon de Cordes Jr; this ship was lost near the Hawaiian Islands;
• the Liefde ("Love" or "Charity"), under Simon de Cordes, second in command, succeeded by Gerrit van Beuningen, and finally under Jacob Quaeckernaeck; this was the only ship to reach Japan;
• the Geloof ("Faith"), under Gerrit van Beuningen and in the end, Sebald de Weert; this was the only ship that returned to Rotterdam;
• the Trouw ("Loyalty"), under Jurriaan van Boekhout (d. 1599) and finally, Baltazar de Cordes; this ship was captured in Tidore;
• the Blijde Boodschap ("Good Tiding" or "The Gospel"), under Sebald de Weert, and later, Dirck Gerritz, was seized in Valparaiso.^[13]

Jacques Mahu and Simon de Cordes were the leaders of an expedition with the goal to reach Chile, Peru and other kingdoms in New Spain such as Nueva Galicia, the Captaincy General of Guatemala, Nueva Vizcaya the New Kingdom of León and Santa Fe de Nuevo México.^[14] The fleet's original mission was to sail for the west coast of South America, where they would sell their cargo for silver and to head for Japan only if the first mission failed. In that case, they were supposed to obtain silver in Japan and to buy spices in the Moluccas, before heading back to Europe.^[15] Their goal was to sail through the Strait of Magellan to get to their destination, which scared many sailors because of the harsh weather conditions.

The first major expedition around South America was organized by a voorcompagnie, the Rotterdam or Magelhaen Company. It organized two fleets of five and four ships with 750 sailors and soldiers, including 30 English musicians.^[16]

 

Location of Annobón in the Gulf of Guinea

After leaving Goeree on 27 June 1598, the ships sailed to the Channel, but anchored in the Downs until mid July. When the ships approached the shores of North Africa, Simon de Cordes realized he had been far too generous in the early weeks of the voyage and instituted a 'bread policy'.^{[17][clarification needed]} At the end of August, they landed at Santiago, Cape Verde and Mayo off the coast of Africa because of a lack of water and need for fresh fruit. They stayed around three weeks in the hope of buying some goats. Near Praia they succeeded in occupying a Portuguese castle on the top of a hill, but came back without anything substantial. At Brava, Cape Verde, half of the crew of the Hoope caught fever and most of the men were sick, among them Admiral Jacques Mahu. After his death the leadership of the expedition was taken over by Simon de Cordes, with Van Beuningen as vice admiral. Because of contrary wind, the fleet was blown off course (northeast in the opposite direction) and arrived at Cape Lopez, Gabon, Central Africa.^[18] An outbreak of scurvy forced a landing on Annobón on 9 December.^[19] Several men became sick because of dysentery. They stormed the island only to find that the Portuguese and their native allies had set fire to their houses and fled into the hills.^[20] The Dutch put all their sick men ashore to recover and left in early January.^[21] Because of starvation, the men fell into great weakness; some tried to eat leather. On 10 March 1599 they reached the Rio de la Plata, in what is now Argentina.^[22]

By early April, they arrived at the Strait, 570 km long, 2 km wide at its narrowest point, with an inaccurate chart of the seabed.^[18] The wind turned out to be unfavorable and this remained so for the next four months. Under freezing temperatures and poor visibility, they caught penguins, seals, mussels, duck and fish. About two hundred crew members died. On 23 August, the weather improved.^[23]

In the Pacific

 

Blue skies over Chiloe

 

Aerial view of La Mocha

 

Coast near Punta Lavapié

When the expedition finally reached the Pacific Ocean on 3 September 1599, the ships were caught in a storm and lost sight of each other. The Trouw and the Geloof were driven back in the strait. After more than a year, each ship went its own way.^[18] The Geloof returned to Rotterdam in July 1600 with 36 survivors of the original 109 crew.

De Cordes ordered his small fleet to wait four weeks for each other on Santa María Island, Chile, but some ships missed the island. Adams wrote "they brought us sheep and potatoes". From here the story becomes less reliable because of a lack of sources and changes in command. In early November, the Hoope arrived at Mocha Island where 27 people, including Simon de Cordes, were killed by people from Araucania. (In the account given to Olivier van Noort, it was said that Simon de Cordes was slain at the Punta de Lavapie, but Adams gives Mocha Island as the scene of his death.^[24]) The Liefde hit the island, but went on to Punta Lavapié near Concepción, Chile. A Spanish captain supplied the Trouw and Hoope with food; the Dutch helped him against the Araucans, who had killed 23 Dutch, including Thomas Adams (according to his brother in his second letter) and Gerrit van Beuningen. He was replaced by Jacob Quaeckernaeck.

 

Wooden figure of Desiderius Erasmus

During the voyage, before December 1598, Adams changed ships to the Liefde (originally named Erasmus and adorned with a wooden carving of Erasmus on her stern). The statue was preserved in the Ryuko-in Buddhist temple in Sano City, Tochigi-ken and moved to the Tokyo National Museum in the 1920s. The Liefde was said to have waited for the other ships at Floreana Island off the Ecuadorean coast. This is probably not true. Only the Hoope had arrived by the spring of 1599. The captains of both vessels, together with Adams's brother Thomas, a mate, and twenty other men, lost their lives in a violent encounter with native Araucians.^{[citation needed]} The Trouw reached Tidore (Eastern Indonesia). The crew were killed by Portuguese there in January 1601.^[25]

In fear of the Spaniards, the remaining crews determined to leave Floreana Island and sail across the Pacific. It was 27 November 1599 when the two ships sailed westward for Japan. On their way, the two ships made landfall in "certain islands"^{[citation needed]} (probably either Hawaii^[26][27] or the Line Islands of Kiribati, both of which were officially discovered only about 200 years later), where eight sailors deserted the ships. Later during the voyage, a typhoon claimed the Hoope with all hands, in late February 1600.

Arrival in Japan

 

The arrival of the ship Liefde at the coast of Kyushu. William Adams wears a blue hat and clothes, and Jan Joosten red clothes. It was their first encounter with the Japanese in 1600.

 

William Adams with a daimyo (feudal lord) and their attendants

On 19 April 1600,^[28] after more than 19 months at sea, a crew of 23 sick and dying men (out of the 100 who started the voyage) brought the Liefde to anchor off the island of Kyushu, Japan. Their cargo consisted of eleven chests of trade goods: coarse woolen cloth, glass beads, mirrors, and spectacles; and metal tools and weapons: nails, iron, hammers, nineteen bronze cannon; 5,000 cannonballs; 500 muskets, 300 chain-shot, and three chests filled with coats of mail.

When the nine surviving crew members were strong enough to stand, they made landfall on 19 April off Bungo (present-day Usuki, Ōita Prefecture). They were met by Japanese locals. The former lord of the region Otomo Yoshimune made the initial decision to look after Adams's crew so that they could be questioned by the Council of Five Elders. The crew spent their first five days in Japan in comfortable accommodations, but then Portuguese Jesuit missionary priests came to serve as interpreters, and claimed that Adams's ship was a pirate vessel and that the crew should be executed as pirates. Thereafter, Ota Shigemasa, the lord of Usuki Castle, decided to seize the ship and imprison the crew in a filthy prison.^[29]

After nine days in Japan, Adams and the ship's merchant Jan Joosten were sent to Osaka Castle on orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the daimyo of Edo, guardian of the young son of the late Taikō Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and future shogun. They arrived in Osaka on 12 May 1600. Adams met Ieyasu in Osaka three times between May and June, and was questioned about a broad scope of European knowledge through interpreter Suminokura Ryoi. His serious knowledge of ships, shipbuilding and navigation appealed to Ieyasu.^[29]

 

William Adams meets Tokugawa Ieyasu, in an idealised depiction of 1707.

Coming before the king,^[a] he viewed me well, and seemed to be wonderfully favourable. He made many signs unto me, some of which I understood, and some I did not. In the end, there came one that could speak Portuguese. By him, the king demanded of me of what land I was, and what moved us to come to his land, being so far off. I showed unto him the name of our country, and that our land had long sought out the East Indies, and desired friendship with all kings and potentates in way of merchandise, having in our land diverse commodities, which these lands had not... Then he asked whether our country had wars? I answered him yea, with the Spaniards and Portugals, being in peace with all other nations. Further, he asked me, in what I did believe? I said, in God, that made heaven and earth. He asked me diverse other questions of things of religions, and many other things: As what way we came to the country. Having a chart of the whole world, I showed him, through the Strait of Magellan. At which he wondered, and thought me to lie. Thus, from one thing to another, I abode with him till mid-night. (from William Adams' letter to his wife)^[30]

Adams wrote that Ieyasu denied the Jesuits' request for execution on the ground that:

we as yet had not done to him nor to none of his land any harm or damage; therefore against Reason or Justice to put us to death. If our country had wars the one with the other, that was no cause that he should put us to death; with which they were out of heart that their cruel pretence failed them. For which God be forever praised. (William Adams's letter to his wife)^[30]

Service for Tokugawa shogunate

Through Suminokura, Ieyasu offered to free Adams and his crew in exchange for support in the upcoming civil war. Adams and Joosten were released from Osaka Castle after six weeks and were sent back to their ship. Ieyasu ordered the crew to sail the Liefde from Bungo to Edo, and the ship arrived at Uraga in August 1600. Adams thereafter lodged with Honda Masazumi in Edo, while his crew resided with Mukai Shogen in Uraga. In Edo, Adams trained Tokugawa's army in firing the cannon that had been removed from the ship. In late August, Adams joined Tokugawa's army in a battle in Aizu, and in October he again joined the army in its march westward, culminating in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara that effectively secured Ieyasu's control over Japan.^[29]

Following the victory at Sekigahara, Tokugawa awarded Adams 10,000 Portuguese reals, but did not allow the Liefde crew to leave Japan. Instead, in 1601, he decided to give each of them a regular rice allowance in exchange for serving as teachers and advisors to the shogunate. In May 1603, he further granted Adams a mansion in Edo with housekeepers, a monthly allowance of 50 ryo, and a daily allowance of a kilogram of rice, as well as an expanded allowance for his crew members.^[29]

Adams successfully piloted the first Spanish merchant ship into Edo Bay in the autumn of 1603, after which Edo became a trading port. Ieyasu dubbed Adams "Anjin" around this time, in recognition of his piloting skills.^[29]

Late in 1604, Tokugawa decreed that Adams would stay in Japan permanently, and in 1605 Tokugawa further granted Adams the status of samurai.^[29] Adams had a wife Mary Hyn and two children back in England,^[2] but Ieyasu forbade the Englishman to leave Japan. Adams also was given the title of jikatatori hatamoto (direct bannerman), a prestigious position as a direct retainer in the shogun's court.^[31]

Adams was given generous revenues: "For the services that I have done and do daily, being employed in the Emperor's service, the emperor^[b] has given me a living" (Letters). He was granted a fief in Hemi (Jpn: 逸見) within the boundaries of present-day Yokosuka City, "with eighty or ninety husbandmen, that be my slaves or servants" (Letters). His estate was valued at 250 koku and was located next to the harbor of Uraga, the traditional point of entrance to Edo Bay.

Adams is also recorded as having chartered red seal ships during his later travels to Southeast Asia. (The Ikoku Tokai Goshuinjō has a reference to Miura Anjin receiving a shuinjō, a document bearing a red Shogunal seal authorizing the holder to engage in foreign trade, in 1614.)

Adams appeared to have had a high regard for Japan, its people, and its civilization:

"The people of this Land of Japan are good of nature, courteous above measure, and valiant in war: their justice is severely executed without any partiality upon transgressors of the law. They are governed in great civility. I mean, not a land better governed in the world by civil policy. The people be very superstitious in their religion, and are of diverse opinions."^[32][33]

Shipbuilding

In late 1603, Adams and Quaeckernaeck oversaw the breaking up of Liefde, which had deteriorated beyond repair.^[29]

In 1604, Tokugawa ordered Adams and his companions to help Mukai Shōgen, who was commander-in-chief of the navy of Uraga, to build Japan's first Western-style ship. The sailing ship was built at the harbor of Itō on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula. Carpenters from the harbor supplied the manpower to construct an 80-ton vessel. It was used to survey the Japanese coast. The following year, the shōgun ordered a larger ship of 120 tons to be built; it was still much smaller than the Liefde, which was 300 tons.^[34] According to Adams, Tokugawa "came aboard to see it, and the sight whereof gave him great content".^[30]

Diplomacy with the Netherlands and Spain

 

The "trade pass" (Dutch: handelspas) issued in the name of Tokugawa Ieyasu. The text commands: "Dutch ships are allowed to travel to Japan, and they can disembark on any coast, without any reserve. From now on this regulation must be observed, and the Dutch left free to sail where they want throughout Japan. No offenses to them will be allowed, such as on previous occasions" – dated 24 August 1609 (Keichō 14, 25th day of the 7th month); n.b., the goshuin (御朱印) identifies this as an official document bearing the shōgun's scarlet seal.^{[citation needed]}

In 1604, Ieyasu sent the Liefde's captain, Jacob Quaeckernaeck, and the treasurer, Melchior van Santvoort, on a shogun-licensed red seal ship to Patani in Southeast Asia. He ordered them to contact the Dutch East India Company trading factory, which had just been established in 1602, in order to bring more western trade to Japan and break the Portuguese monopoly. In 1605, Adams obtained a letter of authorization from Ieyasu formally inviting the Dutch to trade with Japan.^{[32][full citation needed]} At this time, Adams also attempted to send letters to his family and friends in England through the Dutch, but Quaeckerneck and Santvoort did not deliver the letters in order to avoid making Adams's fate known to the English East India Company, which was becoming a trading rival to the Dutch.^[35]

 

The Dutch VOC trading factory in Hirado (depicted here) was said to have been much larger than the English one. 17th-century engraving.

Hampered by conflicts with the Portuguese and limited resources in Asia, the Dutch were not able to send ships to Japan until 1609. Two Dutch ships, commanded by Jacques Specx, De Griffioen (the "Griffin", 19 cannons) and Roode Leeuw met Pijlen (the "Red lion with arrows", 400 tons, 26 cannons), were sent from Holland and reached Japan on 2 July 1609. The men of this Dutch expeditionary fleet established a trading base on Hirado Island. Two Dutch envoys, Puyck and van den Broek, were the official bearers of a letter from Prince Maurice of Nassau to the court of Edo. Adams negotiated on behalf of these emissaries. The Dutch obtained free trading rights throughout Japan and the right to establish a trading factory there. (By contrast, the Portuguese were allowed to sell their goods only in Nagasaki at fixed, negotiated prices.)

The Hollandes be now settled (in Japan) and I have got them that privilege as the Spaniards and Portingals could never get in this 50 or 60 years in Japan.^[32]

 

Topographical map of the bay of Hirado in 1621. To the right on the shore-line, the Dutch East India Company trading post is marked with the red-white-blue flag of the Netherlands. To the far left, back from the shore-line is a white flag with red cross, the St George's Cross of England at the East India Company trading post.

After obtaining this trading right through an edict of Tokugawa Ieyasu on 24 August 1609, the Dutch inaugurated a trading factory in Hirado on 20 September 1609. The Dutch preserved their "trade pass" (Dutch: handelspas) in Hirado and then Dejima as a guarantee of their trading rights during the following two centuries that they operated in Japan.^{[citation needed]}

In the same year, Ieyasu sent Adams to Onjuku, where the Spanish galleon San Francisco was wrecked while carrying the interim governor of the Philippines, Rodrigo de Vivero y Aberrucia. Friendly letters were exchanged, officially starting relations between Japan and New Spain.^[36] In 1610, the Japanese-built 120-ton ship, named San Buena Ventura, was lent to the Spanish. They sailed it to New Spain, accompanied by a mission of twenty-two Japanese led by Tanaka Shōsuke. Following the construction, Tokugawa invited Adams to visit his palace whenever he liked and said "that always I must come in his presence."^[30]

The Spanish sent Sebastian Viscaino to Japan to negotiate terms for a shogunate-sponsored mining expedition in New Spain in June 1611. Adams attempted to persuade Tokugawa Ieyasu and his successor Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada that the Spanish parlays were a precursor to a colonization attempt. In an effort to counter this, Adams arranged for a Dutch mining engineer to visit Japan in late 1611 to assist in developing the Toi gold mine in western Izu.^[37] Adams and Mukai Shogen oversaw the construction of the new ship for Viscaino's expedition, San Sebastian, which sank shortly after being loaded and sailed off in October.^[38]

The Jesuits and other Catholic religious orders considered Adams, as a Protestant who hated their religion, to be a very serious threat to the future survival of the Catholic Church in Japan. After Adams's power and influence had grown, the Jesuits tried to convert him to Roman Catholicism; when he refused, they allegedly offered to smuggle him out of Japan on a Portuguese ship. When Adams exposed this offer to defy the Shogun's orders to Lord Tokugawa, Roman Catholic priests asserted that Adams was lying and trying to discredit them. In 1614, Father Carvalho complained about the threat posed by Adams and other Protestant merchants in his annual report to Pope Paul V, saying that "by false accusation [Adams and others] have rendered our preachers such objects of suspicion that he [Ieyasu] fears and readily believes that they are rather spies than sowers of the Holy Faith in his kingdom."^[39][40] Adams apparently warned Ieyasu against Spanish approaches as well.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, influenced by Adams's anti-Catholic counsels and Jesuit conspiracy theories, and further disturbed by intrigues from samurai and daimyos who were Catholic converts (for example, the Okamoto Daihachi incident), banished all Portuguese Jesuits from Japan in 1614.^[41] He also demanded that all Japanese Catholics abandon their new faith, and launched what would become a centuries-long policy of religious persecution aimed at those who refused.^[42][43][44]

 

1707 map of Japan, with a cartouche representing the audience of William Adams with the shōgun. From Naaukeurige Versameling der Gedenk-Waardigste Zee en Land-Reysen (a series of accounts of famous Sea and Land-Voyages). By Pieter van der Aa.

Anglo-Japanese relations

In 1611, Adams learned of an English East India Company settlement in Banten Sultanate, present-day Indonesia, which had been established in 1602. At this point, he became aware that the Dutch had not delivered his letters to England.^[45] He wrote to the Banten settlement to convey news of him to his family and friends in England, and invited them to engage in trade with Japan which "the Hollanders have here an Indies of money."^[32] Adams entrusted this 5,960-word letter to English sailor Thomas Hill, who had come to Hirado on a Dutch ship.^[46] Hill then delivered a reply to Adams from Company factor Augustine Spalding in January 1613.^[47]

 

One of the two Japanese suits of armour presented by Tokugawa Hidetada and entrusted to John Saris to convey to King James I in 1613. The pictured suit of armour is displayed in the Tower of London.

In June 1613, the English captain John Saris arrived at Hirado in the ship Clove, intending to establish a trading factory for the Company. Adams traveled from Hemi to Hirado to meet Saris on July 27, the first meeting of Englishmen on Japanese soil.^[48] Saris noted that Adams gave "admirable and affectionated commendations of Japan" and that "it is generally thought amongst us that he is a naturalized Japaner." In Hirado, Adams refused to stay in English quarters, residing instead with a local Japanese magistrate. The English noted that he wore Japanese dress and spoke Japanese fluently. Adams estimated the cargo of the Clove was of little value, essentially broadcloth, tin and cloves (acquired in the Spice Islands), saying that "such things as he had brought were not very vendible".^{[citation needed]}

 

The 1613 letter of King James I remitted to Tokugawa Ieyasu (preserved in the Tokyo University archives)

Adams traveled with Saris to Sumpu Castle in Suruga, where they met with Ieyasu. At this meeting, Adams asked for and obtained Tokugawa's authorisation to return to his home country. The Englishmen continued to Kamakura where they visited the noted Kamakura Great Buddha, and to Edo, where they met Shogun Hidetada and received suits of Japanese armor as a gift for King James I. Thereafter, they returned to Sumpu on 29 September, where Ieyasu conferred trading privileges to the English by a Red Seal permit, giving them "free license to abide, buy, sell and barter" in Japan.^[49] The English party returned to Hirado on 6 November 1613.^[50]

 

Excerpt from a letter written by William Adams at Hirado in Japan to the East India Company in London, 1 December 1613. British Library.

Although Adams had intended to give up his status and property in Japan to return to England on the Clove, he changed his mind after returning to Hirado with Saris.^[51] After thirteen years spent in Japan, Adams had a difficult time establishing relations with the English arrivals. He initially shunned the company of English sailors and could not get on good terms with Saris, but Richard Cocks, the head of the Hirado factory, came to appreciate Adams's character and what he had acquired of Japanese self-control. In a letter to the East India Company, Cocks wrote:

I find the man tractable and willing to do your worships the best service he may... I am persuaded I could live with him seven years before any extraordinary speeches should happen between us.^[52]

Instead of returning to England, Adams accepted employment with the newly founded Hirado trading factory, signing a contract on 24 November 1613, with the East India Company for the yearly salary of 100 English Pounds. This was more than double the regular salary of 40 pounds earned by the other factors at Hirado. Adams had a lead role, under Richard Cocks and together with six other compatriots (Tempest Peacock, Richard Wickham, William Eaton, Walter Carwarden, Edmund Sayers and William Nealson), in organising this new English settlement. Adams had advised the Company against the choice of Hirado, which was small and far away from the major markets in Osaka and Edo; he had recommended selection of Uraga near Edo for a post. However, Saris wanted to keep an eye on the Dutch activities, and also distrusted Adams.^[53]

Expeditions to Asia

During the ten-year operations of the East India Company (1613 to 1623), only three English ships after the Clove brought cargoes directly from London to Japan. They were invariably described as having poor value on the Japanese market. The only trade which helped support the factory was that organised between Japan and South-East Asia; this was chiefly Adams selling Chinese goods for Japanese silver:

Were it not for hope of trade into China, or procuring some benefit from Siam, Pattania and Cochin China, it were no staying in Japon, yet it is certen here is silver enough & may be carried out at pleasure, but then we must bring them commodities to their liking.^{[52][full citation needed]}

 

A Japanese red seal ship used for Asian trade – 1634, unknown artist

Adams tried to organise an expedition to the legendary Northwest Passage from Asia, which would have greatly reduced the sailing distance between Japan and Europe. Ieyasu asked him if "our countrimen could not find the northwest passage" and Adams contacted the East India Company to organise manpower and supplies. The expedition never got underway. In his later years, Adams made a number of trading voyages to Siam and Cochinchina, sometimes for the company, sometimes for his own account. He is recorded in Japanese records as the owner of a red seal ship of 500 tons. Given the few ships that the company sent from England and the poor trading value of their cargoes (broadcloth, knives, looking glasses, Indian cotton, etc.), Adams was influential in gaining trading certificates from the shogun to allow the company to participate in the red seal system. It made a total of seven junk voyages to Southeast Asia with mixed profit results. Four were led by William Adams as captain. Adams renamed a ship he acquired in 1617 as Gift of God; he sailed it on his expedition that year to Cochinchina. The expeditions he led are described more fully below.

In 1614, Adams wanted to organise a trade expedition to Siam to bolster the company factory's activities and cash situation. He bought and upgraded a 200-ton Japanese junk for the company, renaming her Sea Adventure, and hired about 120 Japanese sailors and merchants, as well as several Chinese traders, an Italian and a Castilian (Spanish) trader. The heavily laden ship left Hirado in November 1614. The merchants Richard Wickham and Edmund Sayers of the English factory's staff also joined the voyage. The expedition was to purchase raw silk, Chinese goods, sappan wood, deer skins and ray skins (the latter used for the hilts of Japanese swords). The ship carried £1,250 in silver and £175 of merchandise (Indian cottons, Japanese weapons and lacquerware). The party encountered a typhoon near the Ryukyu Islands (modern Okinawa) and had to stop at Naha on 27 January 1615. King Shō Nei refused to assist with repairs, the crew went on strike, and the ship was ordered to surrender its anchorage in February.^[54] It returned to Hirado in June 1615 with a cargo of produce from the Ryukyus, including Japan's first sweet potatoes, which were initially cultivated by the Company in Hirado and later grown in Satsuma province.^[55]

After a trip to Edo to meet with the ambassador from New Spain on Shogun Hidetada's orders, Adams left Hirado on 7 December 1615 for Ayutthaya in Siam on the refitted Sea Adventure, intent on obtaining sappan wood for resale in Japan.^[56] His cargo was chiefly silver (£600) and the Japanese and Indian goods unsold from the previous voyage.^{[citation needed]} In Bangkok, Adams met with the King of Siam and obtained a trading license for the English, and then sailed the Sea Adventure to Japan with 143 tonnes of sappan wood and 3,700 deer skins, returning to Hirado in 47 days. (The return trip took from 5 June to 22 July 1616).^[57]

Less than a week before Adams's return, Ieyasu died, giving his son Shogun Hidetada practical control over the country. Hidetada was less interested in foreign affairs than Ieyasu, and excluded Adams from his next audience with the Company, in part due to distrust stemming from Adams's wife's conversion to Christianity.^[58] However, three weeks later, Hidetada met with Adams, and in September he agreed to maintain the English trading privileges and also issued a new red seal permit (shuinjō) to Adams, which allowed Adams to continue trade activities overseas under the shogun's protection. While Hidetada confined English trading activities to Hirado and Nagasaki, and barred Japanese merchants from purchasing goods from foreigners in Osaka and Kyoto, Adams retained his hatamoto status and was exempt from these restrictions.^[59]

Adams declined to join an English expedition from Hirado in December 1616; there is evidence that he was suffering from a mental breakdown around this time due to the death of Ieyasu and political aftershocks, as well as physical injuries Adams sustained on the way back from Edo after meeting Hidetada.^[60]

In March 1617, Adams set sail for Cochinchina, having purchased the junk Sayers had brought from Siam and renamed it the Gift of God. He intended to find two English factors, Tempest Peacock and Walter Carwarden, who had departed from Hirado two years before to explore commercial opportunities on the first voyage to Southeast Asia by the English factory in Hirado. Adams learned in Cochinchina that Peacock had been plied with drink, and killed for his silver. Carwarden, who was waiting in a boat downstream, realised that Peacock had been killed and hastily tried to reach his ship. His boat overturned and he drowned. Adams sold a small cargo of broadcloth, Indian piece goods and ivory in Cochinchina for the modest amount of £351.^{[citation needed]}

Adams then sailed Gift of God to Osaka, met with Hidetada at Fushimi Castle in September 1617, and obtained new red seal licenses. He agreed to sell both the ship and the licenses to the English factory in Hirado.^[61]

Rifts with English and Dutch

Adams joined a Dutch mission from Hirado to Edo in July 1618. Shortly thereafter, the Dutch brought the captured English ship Attendance to Hirado, sparking hostilities between the previously friendly English and Dutch merchants there. Adams refused to help the English appeal to the Shogun about the issue, arguing that Hidetada would not be interested.^[62] Adams later changed his mind and met with Hidetada in October, but due to Adams's prior sale of his Red Seal license to the English, and disturbances that occurred on the resulting voyage, Hidetada refused to grant further licenses to the factory. Adams returned to Hirado in December after spending months attempting to save the English factory.^[63]

Adams arranged a final voyage to Cochinchina and Tonkin from March to August 1619, using a personal Red Seal license rather than working for the English. During this voyage, England and the Netherlands went to war in Asia, and Adams contracted a tropical disease which caused his health to deteriorate remarkably. However, after returning to Hirado, Adams managed to rescue three English prisoners who were imprisoned on a Dutch ship.^[64] In the final months of his life, Adams assisted the English factory by acting as a broker for trade with the governor of Nagasaki.^[65]

Family

Adams was recorded to have married Mary Hyn in the parish church of St Dunstan's, Stepney^[9] on 20 August 1589. They had two children together: a son John^[66] and a daughter Deliverance.^[2] After Adams's voyage to Japan, Mary Hyn was forced to leave Limehouse and became destitute for some time, although she received a portion of Adams's wages from the East India Company in 1615.^[67]

Deliverance married Ratcliff mariner Raph Goodchild at St Dunstan's, Stepney on 30 September 1618. They had two daughters, Abigail in October 1619 who died in the same month, and Jane in April 1621. Deliverance would later marry for a second time, to John Wright at St Alfege Church, Greenwich on 13 October 1624. Mary died in 1620 at Gillingham in Kent.^[68]

After settling in Japan, Adams married a Japanese woman, although there is no clear evidence of her name and background in either Japanese or European historical records.^[69] A common account is that his wife was named Oyuki (お雪) and was the adopted daughter of Magome Kageyu, a highway official who was in charge of a pack-horse exchange on one of the grand imperial roads that led out of Edo. Although Magome was important, Oyuki was not of noble birth, nor high social standing.^[1] The family link to Magome is shown in Japanese historical accounts written in the 1800s, while the first known reference to the name "Oyuki" is from a fictional work in 1973, and earlier fictional accounts refer to Adams's wife by names such as Mary, Tsu, Bikuni, Tae, and Chrysanthemum.^[69]

Adams and his Japanese wife had a son Joseph and a daughter Susanna. Some accounts describe Adams having other children with concubines or mistresses, but no such children were named in his will.^[2][70] Richard Cocks wrote that Adams's interpreter, "Coshuro", claimed support for Adams's son "Cowjohns" in 1621, after Adams's death, and that he also made similar support payments for another alleged child of Adams.^[71]

Death and family legacy

 

 

Left: Jōdo-ji temple in Yokosuka City
Right: Memorial towers for Anjin Miura and Anjin's wife.

Adams died at Hirado, north of Nagasaki, on 16 May 1620, at the age of 55. In his will, he left his townhouse in Edo, his fief in Hemi, and 500 English pounds to be divided evenly between his family in England and his family in Japan. The English family's portion of the inheritance did not reach London until 1622, at which point Mary Hyn was already dead.^[72]

Cocks wrote: "I cannot but be sorrowful for the loss of such a man as Capt William Adams, he having been in such favour with two Emperors of Japan as never any Christian in these part of the world."^[52]

Cocks records that Hidetada transferred the lordship from William Adams to his son Joseph Adams with the attendant rights to the estate at Hemi.^[52] Cocks continued to remain in contact with Adams's Japanese family, sending gifts. On the Christmas after Adams's death, Cocks gave Joseph his father's sword and dagger. In March 1622, he offered silks to Joseph and Susanna. Cocks also administered Adams's trading rights (the shuinjō) for the benefit of Adams's children, Joseph and Susanna. He carried this out conscientiously.

In 1623, the unprofitable English trading factory in Hirado was dissolved by the East India Company and Cocks departed for England, the Dutch traded on Adams' children's behalf via the red seal ships. Joseph Adams inherited the title of Miura Anjin, became a trader, and made five voyages to Cochinchina and Siam between 1624 and 1635.

By 1629, only two of Adams's shipmates from 1600 survived in Japan: Melchior van Santvoort and Vincent Romeyn lived quietly in Nagasaki.^[73]

In 1635, Hidetada's successor Tokugawa Iemitsu enforced the Sakoku Edict for Japan to be closed against foreign trading; both Joseph and Susanna disappear from historical records at that time.^[74] All Japanese of mixed race were expelled to Jakarta, and it is presumed that Adams's children were among them.^[75]

Remains

 

Grave of Miura Anjin, Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The small hiragana characters to the right are a phonetic transcription of "William Adams", using the historical character 'ゐ' for 'wi'.

Adams was buried in Hirado in 1620.^[76] His gravesite is next to a memorial to Saint Francis Xavier. However, a few years later foreign cemeteries were destroyed and there was persecution of Christians by the Tokugawa shogunate.^[76] The bones of Anjin were taken for safekeeping and reburied.^[76] In 1931, skeletal remains were first discovered there and assumed to be of Anjin, but this could not be confirmed due to technological limitations at the time. The remains were later placed in a Showa period ceramic funerary urn and reburied where they were discovered.^[76]

In July 2017, the excavation of the skeletal remains began at the William Adams Memorial Park on Sakigata Hill, Hirado.^[77] In 2019, Japanese archaeologists announced the discovery of bones at the site believed to be those of Adams.^[78] These remains match the 1931 description.^[76] The subsequent biomolecular anthropological investigation of the genetic background showed the mtDNA analysis indicates Anjin's mitochondrial DNA likely belongs to haplogroup H. The analysis also showed aspects such as the dietary habits and burial style matched with Anjin.^[76] In April 2020, the University of Tokyo conducted conclusive forensic tests on the bones and confirmed it was William Adams' grave.^[77][79]

Honours

 

The monument to William Adams at the location of his former Tokyo townhouse, in Anjin-chō, today Nihonbashi Muromachi 1-10-8, Tokyo.

• A town in Edo (modern Tokyo), Anjin-chō (in modern-day Nihonbashi) was named after Adams, who had a house there. Anjin-chō no longer exists in Nihonbashi and is now known as Nihonbashi Muromachi 1-Chōme. However within Muromachi 1-Chōme a street, Anjin-dori, remains named after Adams.^[80]
• A village and a railroad station in his fiefdom, Hemi, in modern Yokosuka, were named for him.
• In the city of Itō, Shizuoka, the Miura Anjin Festival is held annually on 10 August. On the seafront at Itō is a monument to Adams. Next to it is a plaque inscribed with Edmund Blunden's poem, "To the Citizens of Ito", which commemorates Adams' achievement.
• Adams's birth town, Gillingham, has held a Will Adams Festival every September since 2000.^[81] Since the late 20th century, both Itō and Yokosuka have become sister cities of Gillingham.
• A monument to Adams was installed in Watling Street, Gillingham, Kent, opposite Darland Avenue. The monument was unveiled 11 May 1934 by Tsuneo Matsudaira GCVO, Japanese ambassador to the Court of St James.
• A roundabout named Will Adams Roundabout with a Japanese theme, just along from the Gillingham monument to Adams, with two roads named after the Gillingham sister cities "Ito Way" and "Yokosuka Way"
• The townhouse of Will Adams still exists in Hirado. It is currently a sweet shop called Tsutaya at 431 Kihikidacho. It is known as Anjin no Yakata (Anjin's House).^[82]
• Adams has a second memorial monument at the location of his residence in Hemi. Consisting of a pair of hōkyōintō, the tuff memorial on the right is that of Adams, and the andesite one of the left is for his wife. The monuments were erected by his family in accordance with his will, and the site was designated as a National Historic Site in 1923.^[83]

Media portrayals

• James Clavell based his best-selling novel Shōgun (1975) on Adams' life and changed the name of his protagonist to "John Blackthorne". It has been adapted in various forms:
  • 1980, as the NBC miniseries, Shōgun^[84]
  • 1989, as a video game James Clavell's Shōgun
  • 1990, as a Broadway production, Shōgun: The Musical
  • 2024, as the FX miniseries, Shōgun
• Michel Foucault retold Adams' tale in The Discourse on Language.^[85] According to Foucault, the story embodies one of the "great myths of European culture," and the idea that a mere sailor could teach mathematics to the Japanese shogun shows the difference between the open exchange of knowledge in Europe, as opposed to the secretive control of knowledge under "oriental tyranny". In fact, however, Adams was not a mere sailor but the chief navigator of the fleet, and his value to the Shogun was along the practical lines of shipbuilding.

There were numerous earlier works of fiction and non-fiction based on Adams.^[86]

• William Dalton wrote Will Adams, The First Englishman in Japan: A Romantic Biography (London, 1861).^[86]
• Richard Blaker's The Needlewatcher (London, 1932) is the least romantic of the novels; he consciously attempted to de-mythologize Adams and write a careful historical work of fiction.^[86]
• James Scherer's Pilot and Shōgun (1935) dramatises a series of incidents based on Adams' life.^[86]
• American Robert Lund wrote Daishi-san (New York, 1960).^[86]
• Christopher Nicole's Lord of the Golden Fan (1973) portrays Adams as sexually frustrated in England and freed by living in Japan, where he has numerous encounters. The work is considered light pornography.^[86]
• In 2002, Giles Milton's historical biography Samurai William (2002)^[87] is based on historical sources, especially Richard Cocks' diary.
• The 2002 alternate history novel Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove features a brief appearance by Adams, piloting cargo and passengers between England and Ostend, both of which are puppet states of the Habsburg Empire in this timeline.
• In the second season of Heroes, a story set in samurai-era Japan features an Englishman who seems to be based on Adams.
• A book series called Young Samurai is about a young English boy who is ship wrecked in Japan, and is trained as a samurai.
• Adams also serves as the template for the protagonist in the PlayStation 4 and PC video game series Nioh (2017) and non-playable character in its prequel/sequel hybrid game (2020), but with supernatural and historical fiction elements. Unlike the historical William Adams, the game portrays him as an Irishman. As of the end of the second game, some time after managing to arrest the Spaniard Maria, he married Okatsu and had an English-Japanese son named Joseph who inherited his mother's guardian spirit.
  • This version also appeared in the Warriors series' crossover game, Warriors All-Stars.

Depiction

According to Professor Derek Massarella of Chuo University in Tokyo:^[88]

Some in England were embarrassed that no similar monument to Adams existed in his native land and after years of lobbying a memorial clock was erected in Gillingham in honour of a native son who, according to the booklet produced for the dedication ceremony in 1934, a time of Anglo-Japanese alienation, had "discovered" Japan. Like the inscription at the anjin-tsuka, the booklet is a product of fantasy and hyperbole, only much more so. ... The booklet also contains a drawing of Adams, which is pure invention, depicting him standing on a ship's deck, chart in right hand, left hand resting on sword, gazing resolutely towards the unknown horizon.

There is however one genuine contemporary image: "It is a derivative drawing of William Adams, which appears to be based in a sketch attributed to Dorothy Burmingham, from a description given by Melchior von Santvoort. The original drawing is to be found at the Rotterdam Maritime Museum, whose specialist Marcel Kroon considers it to be from Adams' time. A copy is preserved at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford."^[89]

See also

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Adams (sailor).

• Anglo-Japanese relations
• Jan Joosten – known in Japanese as Yan Yōsuten, was a Dutch colleague of Adams, and the only known Dutch samurai. The Yaesu neighbourhood in Chūō, Tokyo was named for him.
• Bernardo the Japanese – the first Japanese who visited Europe
• Hasekura Tsunenaga – a Japanese samurai who traveled to New Spain
• Henry Schnell – known in Japanese as Hiramatsu Buhei, was a Prussian arms dealer, who served the Aizu domain as a military instructor and procurer of weapons.
• Eugène Collache – French Navy officer, who fought for the shōgun during the Boshin War (1868–1869).
• Jules Brunet (1838–1911) – French officer who fought for the shōgun in the Boshin War
• Ernest Mason Satow (1843–1929) – British scholar, diplomat and Japanologist
• Hendrick Hamel (1630–1692) – first European to live in the Joseon-dynasty era in Korea (1666) and write about it
• Yasuke (b. c. 1556) – a black (African) retainer briefly in the service of the Japanese warlord Nobunaga Oda
• List of foreign-born samurai in Japan
• List of Westerners who visited Japan before 1868

Notes

1. Adams refers to Tokugawa Ieyasu as "the king"; this, however, was not his title. Ieyasu was a daimyo, later the shōgun, serving under Emperor Go-Yōzei.
2. Adams here refers to Tokugawa Ieyasu as "the Emperor"; however, this was not his title. Ieyasu was the shogun, serving under Emperor Go-Yōzei.

References

1. Hiromi Rogers (2016). Anjin – The Life and Times of Samurai William Adams, 1564-1620. p. 121. ASIN 1898823227. Adams' marriage with Yuki was arranged by Mukai Shogen, authorised by the Shogun. There is no official record that Magome Kageyu had a daughter, and it is believed that he adopted Yuki, his maid, for marrying to Adams and to advance his own trading activities. Primary source Nishiyama Toshio – Aoime-no-sodanyaku, leyasu-to-Anjin.
2. . British Library. 16 May 2016. Archived from the original on 24 March 2018.
3. "VOC Knowledge Center – Rotterdam Chamber". VOC-Kenniscentrum (in Dutch).
4. Fergusson, Niall. The Ascent of Money (2009 ed.). London: Penguin Books. p. 129.
5. アレキサンダー・ベネット. (2018). JAPAN The Ultimate SAMURAI Guide : an Insider Looks at the Japanese Martial Arts and Surviving in the Land of Bushido and Zen. Chāruzuītatorushuppan. ISBN 978-4-8053-1375-6. OCLC 1038661169.
6. Foster Rhea Dulles (1931). Eastward Ho! The First English Adventurers to the Orient. Books for Libraries Press. p. 127. ISBN 9780836912562. So it was that this outspoken English seaman, rather than the wily Jesuits who had looked with jaundiced eyes upon all newcomers to Japan, became the medium through whom Ieyasu learned of the Western world and maintained those slender ties which bound his empire to Europe. Adam's influence grew steadily, but, even more remarkable, there developed between the Englishman and the Japanese a friendship which was to endure until Ieyasu's death.
7. Mizuno, Fuzuki; Ishiya, Koji; Matsushita, Masami; Matsushita, Takayuki; Hampson, Katherine; Hayashi, Michiko; Tokanai, Fuyuki; Kurosaki, Kunihiko; Ueda, Shintaroh (10 December 2020). "A biomolecular anthropological investigation of William Adams, the first SAMURAI from England". Scientific Reports. 10 (1): 21651. Bibcode:2020NatSR..1021651M. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-78723-2. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 7729870. PMID 33303940.
8. William Dalton, Will Adams, The First Englishman in Japan, (1861) preface, page vii
9. Milton, Giles (2011). Samurai William The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan. John Murray Press. ISBN 9781444731774.
10. Milton 2011, p. 57.
11. Thomas Rundall, Narratives of Voyages Towards the North-West in Search of a Passage to Cathay and India, (1849) xiv-xv, xx
12. Purchas, Samuel (1905). Hakluytus Posthumus Or Purchas His Pilgrimes. Vol. 2. Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons. p. 327. Retrieved 14 May 2018.
13. Asia in the Making of Europe, Volume 3, By Donald Frederick Lach, Edwin J. Van Kley, p. 441
14. Amsterdam City Archives, NA 5057-93, f. 89-92, not. J.F. Bruijningh; transcription R. Koopman, Zaandam
15. Hendrik Doeff, Recollections of Japan, orig. Herinneringen uit Japan, 1833.
16. DE REIS VAN MAHU EN DE CORDES DOOR DE STRAAT VAN MAGALHAES NAAR ZUID-AMERIKA EN JAPAN 1598—1600, p. 31
17. Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan, by Giles Milton
18. Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan ,by Giles Milton
19. The Dutch Discovery of Japan: The True Story Behind James Clavell's Famous ... by Dirk J. Barreveld, p. 70
20. Willoz-Egnor, Jeanne (15 October 2018). . Mariners' Blog. Archived from the original on 6 June 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
21. 'The Dutch Discovery of Japan: The True Story Behind James Clavell's Famous ... By Dirk J. Barreveld, p. 72
22. The Dutch Discovery of Japan: The True Story Behind James Clavell's Famous ... By Dirk J. Barreveld, p. 74
23. F. C. Wieder, ed., De reis van Mahu en De Cordes door de straat van Magalhaes naar Zuid-Amerika en Japan, 1598-1600 (Werken uitgegeven door de Linschoten Vereeniging, XXI-XXIII, Hague, 1923-1925).
24. Cambridge Geographical Series By Bertram-Hughes Farmer, p. 51
25. Ernst van Veen, Decay or defeat ? : an inquiry into the Portuguese decline in Asia 1580-1645, dissertation Leiden University, 2000, ch. 8 fn. 14.
26. "Hoop". Archeosousmarine. 24 September 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
27. Kane, Herb Kawainui (1996). "The Manila Galleons". In Bob Dye (ed.). Hawaiʻ Chronicles: Island History from the Pages of Honolulu Magazine. Vol. I. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. pp. 25–32. ISBN 0-8248-1829-6. Although the book author links the reported piece of oral Hawaiian history to the Spanish Manila galleons, both the timing (eight generations before the arrival of James Cook in 1779) and the number of sailors staying in Hawaii (seven) also make a link to William Adam's journey possible.
28. https://archive.org/details/letterswrittenby00mura
29. Rogers, Hiromi (23 April 2024). Anjin - The Life and Times of Samurai William Adams, 1564-1620. As Seen Through Japanese Eyes. Renaissance Books. ISBN 978-1-898823-85-8.
30. Letters Written by the English Residents in Japan, 1611-1623, with Other Documents on the English Trading Settlement in Japan in the Seventeenth Century, N. Murakami and K. Murakawa, eds., Tokyo: The Sankosha, 1900, pp. 23-24. Spelling has been modernized.
31. Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric et al. (2005). "Hatamoto" in Japan encyclopedia, p. 297., p. 297, at Google Books; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, see Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Authority File Archived 24 May 2012 at archive.today.
32. William Adams' letter to Bantam, 1612
33. . William Adams ウィリアム･アダムス. 11 November 2015. Archived from the original on 19 September 2020.
34. "Liefde (1598)". De VOCsite (in Dutch). Jaap van Overbeek, Wageningen. Retrieved 10 March 2024.
35. Rogers, pp. 173-176.
36. Rogers, p. 159.
37. Rogers, pp. 166-171.
38. Rogers, p. 187.
39. Milton, Giles (18 January 2003). Samurai William : the Englishman Who Opened Japan. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 265. ISBN 9780374706234. Quoting Le P. Valentin Carvalho, S.J.
40. Murdoch, James; Yamagata, Isoh (1903). A History of Japan. Kelly & Walsh. p. 500.
41. Kouamé, Nathalie (2020), Meyer, Éric P.; Viguier, Anne (eds.), "Sûden's Anti‑Christian Edict (The) (1614)", Encyclopédie des historiographies : Afriques, Amériques, Asies : Volume 1 : sources et genres historiques (Tome 1 et Tome 2), TransAireS, Paris: Presses de l'Inalco, pp. 1760–1779, ISBN 978-2-85831-345-7, retrieved 6 March 2024
42. Ward, Haruko Nawata (10 March 2015). Japan and Europe: the Christian Century, 1549-1650 (Report). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0286.
43. Kouamé, Nathalie (2020), Meyer, Éric P.; Viguier, Anne (eds.), "Sûden's Anti‑Christian Edict (The) (1614)", Encyclopédie des historiographies : Afriques, Amériques, Asies : Volume 1 : sources et genres historiques (Tome 1 et Tome 2), TransAireS, Paris: Presses de l'Inalco, ISBN 978-2-85831-345-7, retrieved 6 March 2024
44. Rausch, Franklin (3 March 2014). Violence against Catholics in East Asia: Japan, China, and Korea from the Late Sixteenth Century to the Early Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.013.002.
45. Rogers, pp. 173-174.
46. Rogers, pp. 180-182.
47. Rogers, p. 192.
48. Rogers, pp. 200-202.
49. The Red Seal permit was re-discovered in 1985 by Professor Hayashi Nozomu, in the Oxford Bodleian Library. Reference
50. Rogers, p. 210.
51. Rogers, pp. 211-212.
52. Richard Cocks' diary, 1617
53. Rogers, p. 217.
54. Rogers, p. 221-222.
55. Rogers, p. 223.
56. Rogers, pp. 223-224.
57. Rogers, p. 224.
58. Rogers, p. 229.
59. Rogers, p. 230-231.
60. Rogers, p. 232.
61. Rogers, p. 242.
62. Rogers, pp. 246-249.
63. Rogers, p. 250.
64. Rogers, pp. 251-252.
65. Rogers, p. 257.
66. Japanese wiki page ja:ウィリアム・アダムス
67. Rogers, p. 235.
68. Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1538–1812, London.
69. Mori, Yoshikazu (1 May 2016). "三浦按針の日本人妻". www.tamagawa.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 20 April 2024.
70. Rogers, pp. 215, 259.
71. Rogers, p. 263.
72. Rogers, p. 262.
73. Hendrik Doeff, "Recollections of Japan", p. 27.
74. "William Adams". Retrieved 13 June 2016.
75. Rogers, p. 266
76. Fuzuki Mizuno (10 December 2020). (PDF). Nature Portfolio. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 November 2021.
77. . British Chamber of Commerce in Japan. 16 May 2020. Archived from the original on 20 January 2021.
78. Parry, Richard Lloyd (3 April 2019). "Final resting place of sailor who inspired TV's Shogun". The Times. No. 72811. London. p. 3.
79. Ryall, Julian (16 May 2020). "First English national to visit Japan who became honorary samurai formally identified". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
80. "東京都文化財・三浦按針遺跡". www.syougai.metro.tokyo.lg.jp. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
81. "BBC News – Medway Will Adams festival marks 400 years of Japan trade". BBC News. 14 September 2013. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
82. "店舗のご案内 | カスドースの平戸蔦屋". hirado-tsutaya.jp. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
83. "三浦安針墓" [Miura Anjin haka] (in Japanese). Agency for Cultural Affairs. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
84. O'Connor, John J. "TV: Shogun, Englishman's Adventures in Japan," New York Times. 15 September 1980.
85. Foucault, Michel, "The Discourse on Language." in The Archaeology of Knowledge, Pantheon Books, 1972.
86. Henry Smith, editor. Learning from Shogun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy, Program in Asian Studies University of California, Santa Barbara, 1980. Pg. 7–13
87. Giles Milton
88. Farrington, Anthony; Massarella, Derek (July 2000). "William Adams and Early Enterprise in Japan" (PDF). LSE STICERD Research Paper No. IS394. SSRN 1162034.
89. Hiromi Rogers (2016). Anjin – The Life and Times of Samurai William Adams, 1564-1620. p. Frontispiece. ASIN 1898823227.

Bibliography

• England's Earliest Intercourse with Japan, by C. W. Hillary (1905)
• Letters written by the English Residents in Japan, ed. by N. Murakami (1900, containing Adams' Letters reprinted from Memorials of the Empire of Japan, ed. by T. Rundall, Hakluyt Society, 1850)
• Diary of Richard Cocks, with preface by N. Murakami (1899, reprinted from the Hakluyt Society ed. 1883)
• Hildreth, Richard, Japan as it was and is (1855)
• John Harris, Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca (1764), i. 856
• Voyage of John Saris, edited by Sir Ernest M. Satow (Hakluyt Society, 1900)
• Asiatic Society of Japan Transactions, xxvi. (sec. 1898) pp. I and 194, where four formerly unpublished letters of Adams are printed;
• Collection of State Papers; East Indies, China and Japan. The MS. of his logs written during his voyages to Siam and China is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
• Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan, by Giles Milton (UK 2002: ISBN 0-340-79468-2)
• William Adams and Early English Enterprise in Japan, by Anthony Farrington and Derek Massarella [1]
• Adams the Pilot: The Life and Times of Captain William Adams: 1564–1620, by William Corr, Curzon Press, 1995 ISBN 1-873410-44-1
• The English Factory in Japan 1613–1623, ed. by Anthony Farrington, British Library, 1991. (Includes all of William Adams' extant letters, as well as his will.)
• A World Elsewhere. Europe's Encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by Derek Massarella, Yale University Press, 1990.
• Recollections of Japan, Hendrik Doeff, ISBN 1-55395-849-7

Hardcopy

• The Needle-Watcher: The Will Adams Story, British Samurai by Richard Blaker
• Servant of the Shogun by Richard Tames. Paul Norbury Publications, Tenterden, Kent, England.ISBN 0 904404 39 0.
• Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan, by Giles Milton; ISBN 978-0-14-200378-7; December 2003

External links

• Williams Adams- Blue Eyed Samurai, Meeting Anjin
• "Learning from Shogun. Japanese history and Western fantasy"
• William Adams and Early English enterprise in Japan
• William Adams – The First Englishman In Japan, full text online, Internet Archive
• Will Adams Memorial
• "Adams, William" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
• "Adams, William (pioneer)" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
• Hutchinson, John (1892). "William Adams" . Men of Kent and Kentishmen (Subscription ed.). Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. pp. 2–3.