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.  It was thought that this would have occasioned great troubles in Japan, for all the subjects of Frushma-tay were up in arms, and meant to hold out to the utmost extremity, having fortified the city of Frushma, and laid in provisions for a long time.  But the tay and his son, being then at the emperor’s court, were commanded to write to their vassals, ordering them to lay down their arms and submit to the emperor, or otherwise to cut open their own bellies.  Life being sweet, they all submitted, and those were pardoned who had taken up arms for their tay.  The emperor has given their dominions, which were two kingdoms, to two of his own kinsmen; and this year the emperor has ordered the castle belonging to Frushma to be pulled down, being a very beautiful and gallant fortress, in which I saw him this year, and far larger than the city of Rochester.  All the stones are ordered to be conveyed to Osaka, where the ruined castle, formerly built by Fico-Same, and pulled down by Ogosha-Same, is ordered to be rebuilt three times larger than before; for which purpose all the tonos or kings have each their several tasks appointed them; to be executed at their several charges, not without much grumbling:  For they had got leave, after so many years attendance at court, to return to their own residences, and were now sent for again all of a sadden to court, which angreth them not a little:  “But go they must, will they nill they, on pain of belly-cutting.”

At this time there runs a secret rumour, that Fidaia Same is alive, and in the house of the Dairo[67] at Meaco; but I think it has been reported several times before this that he was living in other places, but proved untrue.  There are some rich merchants here that belong to Meaco, who are much alarmed by this report, lest, if true, the emperor may burn Meaco; and who are therefore in haste to get home.  Were Fidaia actually alive it might tend to overthrow the emperor’s power, for, though a great politician, he is not a martial man:  But be this as it may, things can hardly be worse for us.  I advised you in my last of the destruction of all the Christian churches in Japan; yet there were some remnants left at Nangasaki till this year, and in particular the