but it made itself felt in a discourteous reception accorded to the commandant of Fort Zelandia when he visited Tōkyō in 1627. He attempted to retaliate upon the Japanese vessels which put into Zelandia in the following year, but the Japanese managed to seize his person, exact reparation for loss of time and obtain five hostages whom they carried to prison in Japan. The Japanese government of that time was wholly intolerant of any injury done to its subjects by foreigners. When news of the Zelandia affair reached Yedo, orders were immediately issued for the sequestration of certain Dutch vessels and for the suspension of the Hirado factory, which veto was not removed for four years. Commercial arrangements, also, became less favourable. The Dutch, instead of selling their silk—which generally formed the principal staple of import—in the open market, were required to send it to the Osaka gild of licensed merchants at Nagasaki, by which means, Nagasaki and Osaka being Imperial cities, the Yedo government derived advantage from the transaction. An attempt to evade this onerous system provoked a very stern rebuke from Yedo, and shortly afterwards all Japanese subjects were forbidden to act as servants to the Dutch outside the latter’s dwellings. The co-operation of the Hollanders in bombarding the castle of Hara during the Shimabara rebellion (1638) gave them some claim on the shōgun’s government, but in the same year the Dutch received an imperious warning that the severest penalties would be inflicted if their ships carried priests or any religious objects or books. So profound was the dislike of everything relating to Christianity that the Dutch nearly caused the ruin of their factory and probably their own destruction by inscribing on some newly erected warehouses the date according to the Christian era. The factory happened to be then presided over by Caron, a man of extraordinary penetration. Without a moment’s hesitation he set 400 men to pull down the warehouses, thus depriving the Japanese of all pretext for recourse to violence. He was compelled, however, to promise that there should be no observance of the Sabbath hereafter and that time should no longer be reckoned by the Christian era. In a few months, further evidence of Yedo’s ill will was furnished. An edict appeared ordering the Dutch to dispose of all their imports during the year of their arrival, without any option of carrying them away should prices be low. They were thus placed at the mercy of the Osaka gild. Further, they were forbidden to slaughter cattle or carry arms, and altogether it seemed as though the situation was to be rendered impossible for them. An envoy despatched from Batavia to remonstrate could not obtain audience of the shōgun, and though he presented, by way of remonstrance, the charter originally granted by Iyeyasu, the reply he received was:—
“His Majesty charges us to inform you that it is of but slight importance to the Empire of Japan whether foreigners come or do not come to trade. But in consideration of the charter granted to them by Iyeyasu, he is pleased to allow the Hollanders to continue their operations, and to leave them their commercial and other privileges, on the condition that they evacuate Hirado and establish themselves with their vessels in the port of Nagasaki.”
The Dutch did not at first regard this as a calamity. During their residence of 31 years at Hirado they had enjoyed full freedom, had been on excellent terms with the feudatory and his samurai, and had prospered in their business. But the pettiness of the place and the inconvenience of the anchorage having always been recognized, transfer to Nagasaki promised a splendid harbour and much larger custom. Bitter, therefore, was their disappointment when they found that they were to be imprisoned in Deshima, a quadrangular island whose longest face did not measure 300 yds., and that, so far from living in the town of Nagasaki, they would not be allowed even to enter it. Siebold writes:—
“A guard at the gate prevented all communications with the city of Nagasaki; no Dutchman without weighty reasons and without the permission of the governor might pass the gate; no Japanese (unless public women) might live in a Dutchman’s house. As if this were not enough, even within Deshima itself our state prisoners were keenly watched. No Japanese might speak with them in his own language unless in the presence of a witness (a government spy) or visit them in their houses. The creatures of the governor had the warehouses under key and the Dutch traders ceased to be masters of their property.”
There were worse indignities to be endured. No Dutchman might be buried in Japanese soil: the dead had to be committed to the deep. Every Dutch ship, her rudder, guns and ammunition removed and her sails sealed, was subjected to the strictest search. No religious service could be held. No one was suffered to pass from one Dutch ship to another without the governor’s permit. Sometimes the officers and men were wantonly cudgelled by petty Japanese officials. They led, in short, a life of extreme abasement. Some relaxation of this extreme severity was afterwards obtained, but at no time of their sojourn in Deshima, a period of 217 years, were the Dutch relieved from irksome and humiliating restraints. Eleven years after their removal thither, the expediency of consulting the national honour by finally abandoning an enterprise so derogatory was gravely discussed, but hopes of improvement supplementing natural reluctance to surrender a monopoly which still brought large gains, induced them to persevere. At that time this Nagasaki over-sea trade was considerable. From 7 to 10 Dutch ships used to enter the port annually, carrying cargo valued at some 80,000 ℔ of silver, the chief staples of import being silk and piece-goods, and the government levying 5% by way of customs dues. But this did not represent the whole of the charges imposed. A rent of 459 ℔ of silver had to be paid each year for the little island of Deshima and the houses standing on it; and, further, every spring, the Hollanders were required to send to Yedo a mission bearing for the shōgun, the heir-apparent and the court officials presents representing an aggregate value of about 550 ℔ of silver. They found their account, nevertheless, in buying gold and copper—especially the latter—for exportation, until the Japanese authorities, becoming alarmed at the great quantity of copper thus carried away, adopted the policy of limiting the number of vessels, as well as their inward and outward cargoes, so that, in 1790, only one ship might enter annually, nor could she carry away more than 350 tons of copper. On the other hand, the formal visits of the captain of the factory to Yedo were reduced to one every fifth year, and the value of the presents carried by him was cut down to one half.
Well-informed historians have contended that, by thus segregating herself from contact with the West, Japan’s direct losses were small. Certainly it is true that she could not have learned much from European nations in Loss to Japan by adopting the Policy of Exclusion. the 17th century. They had little to teach her in the way of religious tolerance; in the way of international morality; in the way of social amenities and etiquette; in the way of artistic conception and execution; or in the way of that notable shibboleth of modern civilization, the open door and equal opportunities. Yet when all this is admitted, there remains the vital fact that Japan was thus shut off from the atmosphere of competition, and that for nearly two centuries and a half she never had an opportunity of warming her intelligence at the fire of international rivalry or deriving inspiration from an exchange of ideas. She stood comparatively still while the world went on, and the interval between her and the leading peoples of the Occident in matters of material civilization had become very wide before she awoke to a sense of its existence. The sequel of this page of her history has been faithfully summarized by a modern writer:—
“A more complete metamorphosis of a nation’s policy could scarcely be conceived. In 1541 we find the Japanese celebrated, or notorious, throughout the whole of the Far East for exploits abroad; we find them known as the ‘kings of the sea’; we find them welcoming foreigners with cordiality and opposing no obstacles to foreign commerce or even to the propagandism of foreign creeds; we find them so quick to recognize the benefits of foreign trade and so apt to pursue them that, in the space of a few years, they establish commercial relations with no less than twenty over-sea markets; we find them authorizing the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English to trade at every port in the empire; we find, in short, all the elements requisite for a career of commercial enterprise, ocean-going adventure and industrial liberality. In 1641 everything is reversed. Trade is interdicted to all Western peoples except the Dutch, and
