This Adam Westarwood, their lord-commander, set my life to sale; offering fifty dollars to any one that would kill me, and thirty dollars for every other Englishman that they could slay:  But hitherto God hath preserved me and the rest in this place; for though they have wounded two or three of our men, none have died.  This villainous proceeding[66] of their lord-commander was secretly told me by some of their own people, who advised me and the rest of us to take heed to our safety.  They also informed me of the noble parentage of this their lord-commander Westarwood, telling me that his father is a close-stool maker at Amsterdam, or thereabouts; and that the best of their captains are the sons of shoemakers, carpenters, or brewers.  God bless their honourable and worshipful generation!  I would say, God bless me from them.  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.

[Footnote 66:  Unchristian, uncivil, inhumane, immane, devilish impiety.—­Purch.]

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