half of our Bantam pepper for sixty-five masse the pekull, and all the rest had been gone before now, had it not been for the war.  I am in great hope of procuring trade into China, through the means of Andrea, the China captain, and his two brothers, who have undertaken the matter, and have no doubt of being able to bring it to bear, for three ships to come yearly to a place near Lanquin,[56] to which we may go from hence in three or four days with a fair wind.  Of this I have written at large to the worshipful company, and also to the lord-treasurer.

[Footnote 56:  As Nangasaki is uniformly named Langasaque in this first English voyage to Japan, I am apt to suspect the Lanquin of the text may have been Nan-kin.—­E.]

Some little sickness with which I have been afflicted is now gone, for which I thank God.  Mr Easton, Mr Nealson, Mr Wickham, and Mr Sayer, have all been very sick, but are all now well recovered, except Mr Eaton, who still labours under flux and tertian ague.  May God restore his health, for I cannot too much praise his diligence and pains in the affairs of the worshipful company.  Jacob Speck, who was thought to have been cast away in a voyage from hence to the Moluccas, is now returned to Firando in the command of a great ship called the Zelandia, together with a small pinnace called the Jacatra.  The cause of his being so long missing was, that in going from hence by the eastward of the Philippines, the way we came, he was unable to fetch the Moluccas, owing to currents and contrary winds, and was driven to the west of the island of Celebes, and so passed round it through the straits of Desalon, and back to the Moluccas.  The Chinese complain much against the Hollanders for robbing and pilfering their junks, of which they are said to have taken and rifled seven.  The emperor of Japan has taken some displeasure against the Hollanders, having refused a present they lately sent him, and would not even speak to those who brought it.  He did the same in regard to a present sent by the Portuguese, which came in a great ship from Macao to Nangasaki.  You thought, when here, that if any other ship came from England we might continue to sell our goods without sending another present to the emperor; but I now find that every ship which comes to Japan must send a present to the emperor, as an established custom.  I find likewise that we cannot send away any junk from hence without procuring the yearly licence from the emperor, as otherwise no Japanese mariner dare to leave the country, under pain of death.  Our own ships from England may, however, come in and go out again when they please, and no one to gainsay them.

We have not as yet been able by any means to procure trade from Tushma into Corea; neither indeed have the inhabitants of Tushma any farther privilege than to frequent one small town or fortress, and must not on pain of death go beyond the walls of that place.  Yet the king of Tushma is not subject to the emperor of Japan.[57] We have only been able to sell some pepper at Tushma, and no great quantity of that.  The weight there is much heavier than in Japan, but the price is proportionally higher.