[Footnote 397:  Purch.  Pilg.  I. 884, Astl I. 451.]

The full title of this voyage in the Pilgrims is, “The Eighth Voyage set forth by the East Indian Society, wherein were employed three Ships, the Clove, the Hector, and the Thomas, under the Command of Captain John Saris:  His Course and Acts to and in the Red Sea, Java, the Moluccas, and Japan, by the Inhabitants called Neffoon, where also he first began and settled an English Trade and Factory; with other remarkable Rarities:  The whole collected out of his own Journal.”  In the preface to the 4th book of his Pilgrims, Purchas makes the following observations respecting this voyage:  “We here present the East Indies made westerly, by the illustrious voyage of Captain John Saris; who, having spent some years before in the Indies, by observations to rectify experience, and by experience to prepare for higher attempts, hath here left the known coasts of Europe, compassed those more unknown coasts of Africa from the Atlantic to the Erithrean Sea, and after commerce there, tum Marte quam Merurio, compasseth the shores, and pierceth the seas, to and beyond all just names of India and Asia, penetrating by a long journey, the islands, cities, and court of the Japonian empire, there settleth an English factory; and after safe return, is ready to render to the readers the pleasure of his pain, and [why stay I thee any longer?] by a more pleasant discoursive way, to discover to thee the rarities of that discovery, and by hand, by the eyes, to lead thee along with him all the way:  and then leave thee to those that shall tell thee of after accidents and later occurrences in the Japonian, Indian, and Asian affairs.”—­Purch.

“What Purchas has called collected out of the Journal of Captain Saris, means probably abbreviated by himself from that source.  Saris was factor at Bantam in 1608, at the time of the third voyage of the East India Company, and has given an account of occurrences there from the time Scott left off, as contained in Section II. of this chapter of our Collection.  In this voyage, he went farther eastwards than any English navigator had gone before, being the first of our nation that sailed to Japan in an English ship.  William Adams indeed had been there some years earlier, having been carried there in a Dutch ship, by a western course.  The remarks of Captain Saris are generally curious, judicious, and full of variety.  As already noticed in the extended title by Purchas, Captain Saris had three ships under his command, the Clove, in which he sailed as general, the Hector, and the Thomas.”—­Astl.

This journal occupies fifty pages in the Pilgrims of Purchas, besides eleven pages more of observations on various occurrences at Bantam, during the residence of Saris there from October 1605 to October 1609, and other circumstances respecting the English affairs in the East, which will be noticed in the sequel.  In the present edition, while we scrupulously adhere to that of Purchas, we have used the freedom of abridging even his abridgement, particularly respecting the nautical remarks, courses, distances, winds, currents, &c. which are now much better understood by navigators, and which would be quite uninteresting and tedious to most of our readers.—­E.