COCKS'S DIARY IN JAPAN IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.* IsT the
history of our relations with the Far East, one of the most interesting episodes, as Mr. Thompson well says in his preface, is that of our early and brief connection with Japan in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. These volumes contain a record of the only factory established by the English —that of Firando (Hirado) —previously to the Treaties of 1858. The factory, consisting of eight members, endured for twelve years, namely, from 1612 to 1623; but the Diary of its Cape (capo) or head merchant, Richard Cocks—at least, so much of it as has been preserved—which forms the bulk of the present work, covers only portions of that interval, from the middle of 1615 to the beginning of 1619, and from the end of 1620 to March, 1622, nearly two years anterior to the abandonment of the factory, which at no period of its existence had shown much vitality. The Dutch had preceded us at Firando (first made a trading station by the Spaniards and Portuguese about 1550), their settlement dating from 1609, and they remained there long after Cocks's departure, but finally removed to the far more com- modious harbour and convenient commercial centre of Nagasaki. The Dutch and English were allied in hostility to the Spaniards and Portuguese, who claimed the commercial supremacy of the Eastern seas ; but the Diary gives many amusing proofs, and some which are not amusing, of the bitter feelings of jealousy and hatred with which they regarded each other.
Before dipping into the Diary, a few words must be said about its author. Mr. Thompson supposes him to have been a native of Coventry, but we are inclined to think that be was a North- countryman. In a postscript to a letter dated from Fushamy (Fushimi), September, 1617, and addressed to two of the " mer- chants " at Firando, printed by Mr. Thompson among the corre- spondence appended to the second volume, Cocks asks to be commended " to all our frendes, both hees and howes." Now, howe (hoo), which Mr. Thompson rightly supposes to be a descendant
• Mary of Richard Cocks, Cope-Merchont in the .English Factory in Japan, 1615- 16. with Correspondence. Edited by G. hi. Thompson. 2 vols. London: Halloyt Sooiety. 1883. of the Anglo-Saxon loco, is a common North-country expression for she, but is not, we believe, often heard south of the Trent or the Mersey. Cocks was a man of some substance and position, an original member of the East India Company, incorporated on the last day of December, 1600, and a member also of the Company of "Merchant Adventurers." He was likewise "free of the old House," as he himself tells us in one of his letters. He appears to have enjoyed the protection of Sir Thomas Wilson, Secretary to Lord Treasurer Salisbury. On the whole, he seems to have been, as Wilson describes him, a man of honesty and judgment, notwithstanding King James's exclama- tion on hearing some of his letters read, that they contained the "loudest lies he had ever heard." His book learning was not great, but he had some ; could quote Latin, pos- sessed a few books, and tells us of his purchase on one occasion of "fifty-four Japan bookes printed, their anti- queties and cronocles from their first begyning, cost eight taels nine mace," which according to his own computation would be about forty-five shillings, decidedly a high price, if by "bookes" he means volumes, as is most probably the case. The ill-success of the Firando factory was attributed, with some justice,.to the simplicity and carelessness of the " Cape" merchant, and poor Cocks found anything but at welcome on his return to Batavia, whence he took ship home in February, 1624, and died at sea, a worn-out and disappointed man, in the following month.
With the Japanese he appears to have lived on good terms, though the traders and labourers he has to deal with are de- scribed by him as a fickle, " brabling," treacherous folk, not too fond of paying their debts. He goes to the play, but unfor- tunately tells us nothing of what he saw, and joins often enough in the Japanese -diversion of witnessing the per- formances of " caboques," by which he probably means "Kabuki yakusha" (operatic performers), rather than " Kabu," as Mr. Thompson supposes. He never forgets, when he makes a journey, to bring back with him presents for his friends, " nifon. catange " (nippon katachi) —in the Japanese fashion—and is especially careful to remember his Japanese wife, whom he calls Matinga, a name the present writer- is wholly unable to recog- nise. To " nifon catange," indeed, he is always anxious to con- form, but is not sorry when circumstances allow of his escaping an expensive observance of it. Thus, on October 16th, 1615, he tells us that a " fyre arrow "was "shot out of a sherbo "—what- ever that may be—before the King of Crates (Karatsu, or Kuratsn) and the King of Firando, but that the latter, depart- ing about midnight, "saved the geveing a present of two damoskt (damascened) fowling-peeces, yf he had staid till morn- inge." A true Protestant, he hates the Spaniards and Portu- guese, or " Portugals " ; in his letters, he notes delightedly that the" E mperour" is " noe frend "to either, and seldom loses an occa- sion in his Diary of saying an ill word about them. Sometimes he extends hospitality to a fugitive "padre," but when the ' Eliza- beth ' captures a Japanese junk having on board the two fathers, Zuniga and Flores, his chief anxiety is to prove them to be Catholic missionaries, in order that the junk may be adjudged to him and his Dutch colleague as a prize. There are Japanese accounts extant of this occurrence which tally with Cocks's narration, and leave little doubt that forged ietters were used to ensure the condemnation of the fathers, who were burnt, while all the crew were beheaded, and that Cocks and his Dutch colleague were at least accessories to the shameful plot. One can hardly wonder at the Japanese massing all foreigners together under the title of southern or western barbarians. The conduct of the Dutch and English sailors was an equal reproach to either nation ; they were eternally drinking and brawling with each other or the natives. On one occasion the Japanese authori- ties lost patience, and seizing a couple of Dutchmen who had given "a skram or two to some Japons," had them "haled out into the fields and their heads cat offe and sent home to the Hollands' howse," and this "notwithstand- ing the previleges which we and the Hollanders," says Cocks in a letter dated September, .1621, "have from the emperonrs of Japan, that the Japons shall not execute any justice upon our people." In anether letter, dated October, 1621, Cocks himself complains "of the nnrulynesse of many of our marrenors and sealers, and some of them not of the meanest sort, whoa dailie lie ashore at tipling howses, wasting their goodes, &c." Severe measures were taken with but little effect. The Dutch beheaded a man who had killed an Englishman ; an Englishman was hanged at the yardarm of the Elizabeth ' for killing a Dutch- man. Four Englishmen who were deserters were caught by.
the Japanese and hanged " by general! consent [of the Factory P], according to marshal' law." Other defaulters and brawlers were flogged, and "then washed in brine" and flogged again. It must, however, be remembered that these men were taken out of the slums of London, were ill-lodged, ill-fed, and ill-treated on board, and had—what is still the case in many foreign ports—no place whatever to go to save ii. low gmgshop when on leave ashore.
Cocks relates two journeys to Yedo, on either occasion taking the Tokaid6 both out and homewards. Though somewhat bare, the accounts he gives of these journeys are among the most in- teresting portions of the Diary. At Fushimi he saw a man " curseyfied upon a crosse" for murder, and in another place "Some eight or ten malefactor's heades set upon tymbers by the hieway side." "Yf it were not," he adds, "for this strict justice, it were no liming among them,—they are so villanonse desperate." Much the same sights, we may add, were common enough throughout Japan up to less than twenty years ago. The fact is hardly credible to those who have known the country only since 1868, but so it was. Of Haconey (Hakone), so well known to Yokohama residents, who make it one of their summer resorts, he only notices "the great pond (a lake occupying an ancient crater some four miles long by one and a half miles broad) with the devill." Shortly after his arrival at Edo (Yedo), on the first journey there " hapned an exceeding earthquake," which became " soe extreame that I thought the howse would hove false downe on our heads, and so wos glad to run out of doares without hat or shewes." Twenty-two years before, he was told, there had been an earth- quake in Bungo, in which a city of 4,000 " howseholds " 'sank into the sea, a mountain hard by was clove " in the midden," and "it rayned long hake lyke unto that of men's heads." Cocks had an audience of the " Shrongo " (ShOgun),Hidetada,— Iyeyasu, commonly referred to in the Diary as Ogosho Sama, had died shortly before. On the latter, the author of the Jingo Daiki (History of the Fifteen Sovereigns of the Tokugawa Line) passes the following panegyric :—" Was he not an invincible warrior in the field, an incomparable ruler in the cabinet, full of love for the people, the justest of men ! "
With Cocks were admitted Eaton and Wilson, two of the "merchants." Hidetada "sat alone upon a place something
rising and had a silk cat abra (a summer cape, katabica) of a bright blewe on his backe. He set upon the mattes cross- leged, like a teller." Cocks was greatly struck by the rich decoration of the " Emperours pallis," especially by the lavish gilding and the " paynting of lyons, tigers, once, panthers, eagles, and other beastes and fowles, very lyvely drawne, and more esteemed than the gilding." Hicletada re- turned the obeisance of his visitors, but does not appear to have conversed with them. Of Cocks's doings upon this visit to Yedo, the best account will be found in his letter to the East India Company, dated January 1st, 1616 (7), and printed in the correspondence. The Shogun had evidently determined to get rid of all foreign Christians, and Cocks had much ado to make the Court understand that although the English were Christians, they were of a totally different sort from those who held with the Pope and followed the "padres." The Government, however, were only half-convinced, and would not definitely confirm the privileges granted by Taiko and Iyeyasu.
Cocks saw a good deal of William Adams, who died during the existence of the factory, but gives fewer details about him than one would wish. He recognises the influence he had at Court, and no doubt held him in great respect. He did not, however, quite like him, and thought he did not use his influ- ence in favour of his countrymen as much as he might have done. Probably, Adams was a little more anxious to be just than suited the "Cape-merchant."
Mr. Thompson's introduction is an excellent piece of work, and places vividly before the reader the situation of Japan at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The mysteries of Cocks's orthography he has taken nb small pains to unravel, and, on the whole, with great success. The correspondence printed at the end of the second volume is, perhaps, more interesting than the Diary, but the latter is full of quaint entries, which will be read with especial delight by those—and their number is increasing daily—who have some personal knowledge of the country, its people, and their ways.
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