32 I N T R O D U C T I O N
The quarrels of these Roman monastic orders may, therefore, be accounted
as one cause of the expulsion of Christianity from Japan.
But this was not all. The pride, avarice, and extortions of the Portuguese
laity had become excessive about the close of the sixteenth century,
and disgusted the Japanese. Very many of the clergy, forgetful of the
spirit of their office, instead of rebuking these sins, rather gave their
countenance to their wealthy countrymen, and often sustained their acts
without inquiring into their propriety. Indeed, their own pride quite
equalled that of the laity; and even the native Christians are said to have
been both shocked and disgusted when they saw that their spiritual instructors
were quite as diligent in the effort to acquire their property as in the
endeavor to save their souls. The Japanese traditions, to this day, represent
the downfall of Christianity in the Empire as having been, in part at
least, produced by the avarice, sensuality, and pride of the ecclesiastics.
They treated with open contempt the institutions and customs of the
country, and insulted the highest officials of the government by studied
indignities. A circumstance is related as having occurred in 1596, which is
said to have been the immediate cause of the great persecution. A Portuguese
bishop was met on the high road by one of the highest officers of the
State on his way to court. Each was in his sedan. The usage of the
country required that, in such case, the conveyance of the bishop should be
stopped, and that he should alight and pay his respects to the nobleman.
Instead of conforming to this established act of courtesy, the bishop took
not the least notice of the Japanese dignitary, but, turning his head away
from him, ordered his bearers to carry him on. The insult, evidently intended,
was so gross that the grandee took mortal offence, and confounding
the Portuguese generally with their haughty clergy, he conceived toward all
an implacable resentment. He forthwith presented his grievance to the
Emperor, and touched his sense of dignity and national pride by a strong
picture of the vanity and insolence of the Portuguese. Taiko, of whom we
have already spoken, was at that time Emperor, and he was the last man to
permit the laws and customs of his Empire to be treated with contempt by a
set of presumptuous foreigners, who had neither good feeling nor good sense
enough to repay the kindness they had received with the decency of common
civility. With the Emperor’s kind sentiments thus alienated the end was
certain; it involved a question of time only; and such was the infatuation
of these inflated ecclesiastics that this stupid act of episcopal insolence was
perpetrated at a time when the Portuguese, by their pride and avarice, had
already lost the best part of the favor they had once possessed.
At length a Portuguese ship, on its way from the East to Lisbon, was
captured by the Dutch, and among other matters found on board were
certain treasonable letters, written by Moro, a native Japanese, to the King
of Portugal. Moro was a zealous Romanist, a warm friend of the Jesuits,
and one of the chief agents and friends of the Portuguese in Japan. From
these letters it appeared that the Japanese Christians, in conjunction with
the Portuguese, were plotting the overthrow of the throne; and all they
wanted was a supply of ships and soldiers from Portugal. I t may be difficult
to ascertain, with certainty, all the details of the conspiracy; but of
the conspiracy itself there can be no doubt.
The Dutch, who were the sworn foes of the Portuguese, lost no time in
communicating the intercepted letters to the authorities of Japan, and the
result was that in 1637 an imperial proclamation decreed that “ the whole
race of the Portuguese, with their mothers, nurses, and whatever belongs to
them, shall be banished forever.” The same proclamation forbade, under
penalty of death to those concerned, any Japanese ship, or native of Japan,
to depart from the country. I t directed that any Japanese returning home
from a foreign country should be put to death; that any person presuming
to bring a letter from abroad should die; that no nobleman or soldier should
purchase anything from a foreigner; that any person propagating Christian
doctrines, or even bearing the title of Christian, should suffer; and a reward
was offbred for the discovery of every priest, as well as of every native
Christian. Under these severe edicts some of the Portuguese were at once
frightened out of the country. Others, however, lingered, cooped up in
their factory at.Dezima, hoping that the tempest would presently pass over,
and that they might resume their traffic. But the Emperor was firmly resolved
to root them out forever, and forbade them ever to import even the
goods of their own country; and so ended the trade of the Portuguese with
Japan, and the toleration of the Christian religion in the Empire.
The writers of the church of Rome assert that it was owing to the
malice and misrepresentations of the heretical Dutch that the missionaries
and early Japanese converts were exposed to the persecutions, which afterwards
resulted in the expulsion of Christianity. An examination of dates,
however, will show, that this statement is entirely erroneous. The Portuguese,
clerical and lay, must blame themselves only for their final expulsion.
Doubtless, the Dutch, as we shall see presently, were ready enough to give
increased impetus, whenever they could, to the tide of calamity which ultimately
overwhelmed their rivals, but that tide had commenced its flow, in
the form of persecution of Christianity, fully three years before a Dutchman
set foot in Japan. I t began, as we have said, in the quarrels of the monastic
orders themselves.
I t would be wrong to leave this brief sketch of the Portuguese relations
with Japan without bearing witness to the noble constancy of the thousands
of native Christians who were put to death for their religion. The history
of Christianity’s persecutions contains no more touching chapter than that
which records the cruel torments and heroic Christian courage of men,