William Adams (samurai)

For other uses, see William Adams (disambiguation).

William Adams
William Adams before Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu
Born	(1564-09-24)24 September 1564 Gillingham, Kent, Kingdom of England
Died	16 May 1620(1620-05-16) (aged 55) Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Edo shogunate
Resting place	William Adams Memorial Park, Sakigata Hill, Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan
Nationality	English
Other names	Miura Anjin (三浦按針)
Citizenship	Japanese
Occupation	Navigator
Known for	First Englishman to travel to Japan Amongst the first known Western Hatamoto One of the first Englishmen to travel to Thailand Third Englishman to travel to Vietnam
Term	1600–1620
Successor	Joseph Adams
Spouses	Mary Hyn ​ (m. 1589)​ Oyuki ​ (m. 1613)​
Children	John Adams (son) Deliverance Adams (daughter) Joseph Adams (son) Susanna Adams (daughter)

William Adams (Japanese: ウィリアム・アダムス, Hepburn: Uiriamu Adamusu, historical kana orthography: ウヰリアム・アダムス; 24 September 1564 – 16 May 1620), better known in Japan as Miura Anjin (三浦按針, 'the pilot of Miura'), was an English navigator who, in 1600, became the first Englishman to reach Japan. He was recognized as one of the most influential foreigners in Japan during the early 17th century.

He arrived in Japan as one of the few survivors of the ship De Liefde under the leadership of Jacob Quaeckernaeck. It was the only vessel to reach Japan from a five-ship expedition launched by a company of Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, or predecessor of the Dutch East India Company).

Soon after his arrival in Japan, Adams and his second mate Jan Joosten became advisors to shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu, and each was appointed as hatamoto. Under Tokugawa's authority, Adams directed the construction of Western-style ships. He was later part of the envoy that gave permission to the Netherlands to build factories in Japan. He became highly involved in Japan's red seal trade, chartering and serving as captain of four expeditions to Southeast Asia.

Adams promoted a policy of religious intolerance, aimed particularly at Catholics, which would later become a centuries-long policy of religious persecution, primarily against Europeans and Christians of any denomination, but ultimately including Japanese converts as well. He also influenced Japan's isolationist policy, which barred the entry and exit of people from the nation and blocked trade with foreign countries.

For more than a decade, the Tokugawa authorities did not allow Adams and Joosten to leave Japan. Although eventually given permission to return home to England, Adams decided to stay in Japan, where he died at the age of 55. His Japan-born children, Joseph and Susanna, were likely expelled to Batavia in 1635 when Tokugawa Iemitsu closed Japan to foreign trade; they disappear from historical records at that time.

Early life

Adams was born in Gillingham, Kent, England. His father died when he was twelve, and he was apprenticed to shipyard owner Master Nicholas Diggins at Limehouse for the seafaring life. He spent the next twelve years learning shipbuilding, astronomy, and navigation before entering the Royal Navy.

With England at war with Spain, Adams served in the Royal Navy under Sir Francis Drake. He saw naval service against the Spanish Armada in 1588 as master of the Richarde Dyffylde, a resupply ship carrying ammunition and food for the English fleet. Adams became a pilot for the Barbary Company. During this service, Jesuit sources claim he took part in an expedition to the Arctic that lasted about two years, in search of a Northeast Passage along the coast of Siberia to the Far East.

17th century engraving. From left to right, Blijde Boodschap, Trouw, Geloof, Liefde and Hoop

I am a Kentish-man, borne in a Towne called Gillingham, two English miles from Rochester, one mile from Chattam, where the Kings ships lye: and that from the age of twelve yeares, I was brought up in Lime-house neere London, being Prentise twelve yeares to one Master Nicholas Diggines, and have served in the place of Master and Pilot in her Majesties ships, and about eleven or twelve yeares served the Worshipfull Company of the Barbarie Marchants, untill the Indian Trafficke from Holland began, in which Indian Trafficke I was desirous to make a little experience of the small knowledge which God had given me. So, in the yeare of our Lord God, 1598. I was hired for chiefe Pilot of a Fleete of five sayle, which was made readie by the chiefe of the Indian Company Peter Vanderhag, and Hance Vanderueke...

— William Adams letter, 22 October 1611

In 1598, Adams, who at that time was 34 years old, joined a Dutch East India Company fleet of five ships as pilot major and sailed from the isle of Texel to the Far East. Adams was accompanied by Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, predecessor of the Dutch East India Company), and his brother Thomas Adams. William Adams and his brother set sail from Texel on the Hoop ship, where they joined with the rest of their company fleet on 24 June. The fleet consisted of:

• Hoop ("Hope"), led by Admiral Jacques Mahu (d. 1598), who was succeeded by Simon de Cordes (d. 1599) and Simon de Cordes Jr; this ship was lost near the Hawaiian Islands;
• Liefde ("Love" or "Charity"), led by Simon de Cordes, second in command, succeeded by Gerrit van Beuningen, and finally under Jacob Quaeckernaeck; this was the only ship to reach Japan;
• Geloof ("Faith"), led by Gerrit van Beuningen and in the end, Sebald de Weert; this was the only ship that returned to Rotterdam;
• Trouw ("Loyalty"), led by Jurriaan van Boekhout (d. 1599) and finally, Baltazar de Cordes; this ship was captured in Tidore;
• Blijde Boodschap ("Good Tiding" or "The Gospel"), led by Sebald de Weert, and later, Dirck Gerritz, was seized in Valparaiso.

Jacques Mahu and Simon de Cordes were the leaders of an expedition with the goal to reach Chile, Peru and other kingdoms in New Spain such as Nueva Galicia, the Captaincy General of Guatemala, Nueva Vizcaya the New Kingdom of León and Santa Fe de Nuevo México. The fleet's original mission was to go to South America's western coast and trade their cargo for silver, then head to Japan only if the original mission failed. The crews were supposed to obtain silver in Japan and spices in Moluccas before returning home. Their goal was to sail through the Strait of Magellan to get to their destination, which scared many sailors because of the harsh weather conditions.

The first major expedition around South America was organized by a voorcompagnie, the Rotterdam or Magelhaen Company. It organized two fleets of five and four ships with 750 sailors and soldiers, including 30 English musicians.

Location of Annobón in the Gulf of Guinea

After leaving Goeree on 27 June 1598, the ships sailed to the Channel but anchored in the Downs until mid July. When the ships approached the shores of North Africa, Simon de Cordes realized his rations had been far too generous in the early weeks of the voyage and instituted a 'bread policy'. At the end of August, the ships landed at Santiago, Cape Verde and Mayo off the coast of Africa because of a lack of water and need for fresh fruit. They stayed around three weeks in the hope of buying some goats. Near Praia, the expedition succeeded in occupying a Portuguese castle on the top of a hill but came back without anything substantial. At Brava, Cape Verde, half of the crew of the Hoop caught fever and most of the men were sick, among them Admiral Jacques Mahu. After his death, leadership of the expedition was taken over by Simon de Cordes, with Van Beuningen as vice admiral. Because of contrary wind, the fleet was blown off course (northeast in the opposite direction) and arrived at Cape Lopez, Gabon, Central Africa. An outbreak of scurvy forced a landing on Annobón on 9 December. Several men became sick with dysentery. They stormed the island only to find that the Portuguese and their native allies had set fire to their houses and fled into the hills. The Dutch put all their sick men ashore to recover and left in early January. Because of starvation, the men fell into great weakness; some tried to eat leather. On 10 March 1599 they reached the Rio de la Plata in what is now Argentina.

By early April, the crew arrived at the Strait, 570 km long, 2 km wide at its narrowest point, with an inaccurate chart of the seabed. The wind was unfavorable and remained so for the next four months. Under freezing temperatures and poor visibility, they caught penguins, seals, mussels, duck and fish. About two hundred crew members died. On 23 August, the weather improved.

Voyage to Pacific

Blue skies over Chiloe

Aerial view of La Mocha

Coast near Punta Lavapié

When the expedition finally reached the Pacific Ocean on 3 September 1599, the ships were caught in a storm and lost sight of each other. The Trouw and the Geloof were driven back into the strait. After more than a year, each ship went its own way. The Geloof returned to Rotterdam in July 1600 with 36 survivors of the original 109 crew.

De Cordes ordered his small fleet to wait four weeks for each other on Santa María Island, Chile, but some ships missed the island. Adams wrote "they brought us sheep and potatoes". From here the story becomes less reliable because of a lack of sources and changes in command. In early November, the Hoop arrived at Mocha Island where 27 people, including Simon de Cordes, were killed by people from Araucania. (In the account given to Olivier van Noort, it was said that Simon de Cordes was slain at the Punta de Lavapie, but Adams gives Mocha Island as the scene of his death.) The Liefde hit the island, but went on to Punta Lavapié near Concepción, Chile. A Spanish captain supplied the Trouw and Hoop with food; the Dutch helped him against the Araucans, who had killed 23 Dutch, including Thomas Adams (according to his brother in his second letter) and Gerrit van Beuningen. He was replaced by Jacob Quaeckernaeck.

Wooden figure of Desiderius Erasmus

In 1598 before December, Adams entered the Liefde ship (originally named Erasmus and adorned with a wooden carving of Erasmus on her stern). The Trouw reached Tidore (Eastern Indonesia), where the crew were killed by the Portuguese in January 1601. In fear of the hostile Spaniards, the remaining crews determined to leave Floreana Island and sail across the Pacific. On 27 November 1599, when both ships sailed to Japan, the fleet was stranded on an isle which is believed to have been Hawaii or the Line Islands of Kiribati. During this time, eight sailors abandoned the fleet. A typhoon would later sink the Hoop.

Arrival in Japan

On 19 April In 1600, the nine surviving crew members arrived at Bungo (modern day Usuki, Ōita, Ōita Prefecture), controlled by Ōtomo Yoshimune, where they met with local peoples. The former daimyo of the region made the initial decision to look after Adams's crew so that they could be questioned by the Council of Five Elders. The crew spent their first five days in Japan in comfortable accommodations, but Portuguese Jesuit missionary priests arrived to serve as interpreters, claiming that Adams's ship was a pirate vessel and that the crew should be executed as pirates. Thereafter, Ota Shigemasa, the lord of Usuki Castle, decided to seize the ship and imprison the crew in a filthy prison. After nine days in Japan, Adams and Jan Joosten were sent to Osaka Castle by the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the daimyo of Edo. They arrived in Osaka on May 12, where Adams met Ieyasu in Osaka three times between May and June. He was interrogated about a broad scope of European knowledge with the help of interpreter named Suminokura Ryoi. In a letter to his wife, Adams refers to Ieyasu as a king of Japan. Adams writes that Ieyasu had taken an interest in him, that there are Portuguese speaking people in the court of Ieyasu, and that Ieyasu is interested in trading with the East India Company. Adams also reports that Ieyasu asked him which countries were enemies of England, and he responded that England was at war with Portugal and Spain. Finally, Adams writes that Ieyasu had rejected the Jesuits' request that Ieyasu execute him; their conversation continued until midnight.

Service under Tokugawa shogunate

Further information: Tokugawa shogunate

1707 map of Japan, with a cartouche representing the audience of William Adams with the shōgun. From Naaukeurige Versameling der Gedenk-Waardigste Zee en Land-Reysen (a series of accounts of famous Sea and Land-Voyages). By Pieter van der Aa.

In August 1600, Ieyasu, through his envoy Suminokura, offered to free Adams and his crew in exchange for support in the upcoming civil war. Adams and Joosten were released from Osaka Castle after six weeks and were sent back to their ship. Ieyasu ordered the crew to sail the Liefde from Bungo to Edo, and the ship arrived at Uraga. Adams thereafter lodged with Honda Masazumi in Edo, while his crew resided with Mukai Shogen in Uraga. In Edo, Adams trained Tokugawa's army in firing the cannon that had been removed from the ship. In late August, Adams joined Tokugawa's army in a battle in Aizu, and in October he again joined the army in its march westward, culminating in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara that effectively secured Ieyasu's control over Japan. Following the victory at Sekigahara, Ieyasu awarded Adams 10,000 Portuguese reals, although he did not allow the Liefde crew to leave Japan.

Service under Ieyasu

In 1601, Ieyasu gave each crew member a regular rice allowance in exchange for serving as teachers and advisors to the shogunate.

In the autumn of 1603, Adams successfully piloted the first Spanish merchant ship into Edo Bay, after which Edo became a trading port. In May 1603, Ieyasu further granted Adams a mansion in Edo with housekeepers, a monthly allowance of 50 Ryō, and a daily allowance of a kilogram of rice, as well as an expanded allowance for his crew members.

In 1604, he built the first shipbuilding dock in Japan in Ito.

In 1605, Ieyasu further granted Adams the status of samurai and the name Miura Anjin. Ieyasu also appointed him as jikatatori hatamoto, or a direct vassal in the court of the shōgun. In the same year, Adams secured an authorization letter from Ieyasu to invite the Dutch East India Company to trade with Japan. At this time, Adams also attempted to send letters to his family and friends in England through the Dutch, but Quaeckerneck and Santvoort did not deliver the letters in order to avoid making Adams's fate known to the English East India Company, which was becoming a trading rival to the Dutch.

In 1607, in response to Adams's achievements, Ieyasu selected him for the high-prestige position of direct retainer in the shōgun's court, entrusting him with territories and swords from Miura-gun (now a part of Yokosuka City). After Tokugawa Hidetada was installed as the second shōgun and Ieyasu became Ōgosho (retired shōgun), they formed a dual government: Hidetada controlled the official court with the government central located in Edo city, and Ieyasu controlled his own informal shadow body called the "Sunpu government" with its center at Sunpu Castle. The Sunpu government's cabinet consisted of trusted vassals of Ieyasu who were not in Hidetada's cabinet, including Adams and Lodensteijn, to whom Ieyasu entrusted foreign affairs and diplomacy. Adams also received generous revenues from his service under Ieyasu and was granted a domain in Hemi (ja:逸見) within the frontier of present-day Yokosuka City, with nearly a hundred slaves and servants. His estate was estimated at 250 koku and was located next to the Uraga, Kanagawa harbor, the traditional point of entrance to Edo Bay. Also in 1607, Ieyasu gave order to Adams and his companions to assist Mukai Shōgen, a chief commander of Uraga naval forces, to build the shogunate's first Western-style vessel. The sailing ship was built at the harbor of Itō on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula. Carpenters from the harbor supplied the manpower to built an 80-ton ship, which would be used to patrol the coast of Japan. The following year, the shōgun ordered a larger ship of 120 tons to be built. According to Adams, Ieyasu was satisfied with his work.

Until 1609, the Dutch were not able to send ships to Japan due to conflicts with the Portuguese and limited resources in Asia.

Diplomacy with Europe and New Spain

The "trade pass" (Dutch: handelspas) issued in the name of Tokugawa Ieyasu. The text commands: "Dutch ships are allowed to travel to Japan, and they can disembark on any coast, without any reserve. From now on this regulation must be observed, and the Dutch left free to sail where they want throughout Japan. No offenses to them will be allowed, such as on previous occasions" – dated 24 August 1609 (Keichō 14, 25th day of the 7th month); n.b., the goshuin (御朱印) identifies this as an official document bearing the shōgun's scarlet seal.

On 2 July 1609, a pair of Dutch ships led by Jacques Specx, De Griffioen ("the Griffin," armed with 19 cannons) and Roode Leeuw met Pijlen ("Red Lion with Arrows," weighing 400 tons and armed with 26 cannons), reached Japan. The men of this Dutch expeditionary fleet established a trading base on Hirado Island. Two Dutch envoys, Puyck and van den Broek, were the official bearers of a letter from Prince Maurice of Nassau to the court of Edo. Adams negotiated and helped these Dutch emissaries to obtain trading rights throughout Japan as well as the right to establish a trading factory:

The Hollandes be now settled (in Japan) and I have got them that privilege as the Spaniards and Portingals could never get in this 50 or 60 years in Japan.

After obtaining permission from Tokugawa Ieyasu on 24 August, the Dutch erected their factory at Hirado, Nagasaki, on 20 September. They preserved the "trade pass" (Dutch: handelspas) in Hirado and then Dejima for next two hundred years. In the same year, Ieyasu sent Adams to Onjuku, where the Spanish galleon San Francisco was wrecked while carrying the interim governor of the Philippines, Rodrigo de Vivero y Aberrucia. Adams managed to secure establish a friendly relationship between Japan and New Spain by exchanging letters with de Vivero.

Statue of the San Buena Ventura ship at Anjin Memorial Park

In 1610, after the Nossa Senhora da Graça incident, Ieyasu replaced Jesuit translator João Rodrigues Tçuzu with William Adams as his counselor of affairs with the Europeans. In the same year, the 120-ton Japanese warship San Buena Ventura was lent to the Spanish. They sailed it to New Spain, accompanied by a mission of twenty-two Japanese representatives led by Tanaka Shōsuke. Following the construction, Ieyasu ordered Adams to visit his palace anytime he called.

In June 1611, The Spanish sent Sebastián Vizcaíno to Japan to negotiate terms for a shogunate-sponsored mining expedition in New Spain. Adams attempted to persuade Ieyasu and his successor Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada that the Spanish parlays were a precursor to a colonization attempt. In an effort to counter this, Adams arranged for a Dutch mining engineer to visit Japan in late 1611 to assist in developing the Toi gold mine in western Izu. Adams and Mukai Shogen oversaw the construction of the new ship for Vizcaíno's expedition, San Sebastian, which sank shortly after being loaded and sailed off in October. The Jesuits and other Catholic religious orders considered Adams, as a Protestant who hated their religion, to be a serious threat to the future survival of the Catholic Church in Japan. In the same year, Adams learned of an English East India Company settlement in Old Banten of the Banten Sultanate (present-day Indonesia) and also became aware that the Dutch had not delivered his letters to England. He wrote a letter to the settlement to invite his family and friends in England to trade with Japan, suggesting that "the Hollanders have here an Indies of money." Adams entrusted this 5,960-word letter to English sailor Thomas Hill, who had come to Hirado on a Dutch ship.

The Dutch VOC trading factory in Hirado (depicted here) was said to have been much larger than the English one. 17th-century engraving.

In January 1613, Hill delivered a reply to Adams from company representative Augustine Spalding. In June, John Saris, captain of the ship Clove, arrived at Hirado on a mission to establish a trading factory for the company. Adams traveled from Hemi to Hirado to meet Saris on July 27, the first meeting of Englishmen on Japanese soil. Adams traveled with Saris to Sumpu Castle in Suruga to meet Ieyasu and seek permission to return to England. They continued to Kamakura, where they visited Kamakura Great Buddha, and Edo, where they met the acting shōgun Tokugawa Hidetada. Hidetada gave them a set of Japanese armour as a gift for King James I. They returned to Sumpu on 29 September, where Ieyasu gave them a "Red Seal", a license of permission for foreign tradings in Japan. The English party returned to Hirado on 6 November 1613. Instead of returning to England, Adams started his new job at Hirado trading factory on 24 November, under contract with the East India Company for an annual salary of 100 pounds, more than double the regular salary of 40 pounds earned by the other workers at Hirado. During this time, Adams worked under Richard Cocks and six of his friends (Tempest Peacock, Richard Wickham, William Eaton, Walter Carwarden, Edmund Sayers and William Nealson). Adams advised the company to cancel their original plan to erect an English settlement in Hirado, which he deemed too small and too far from Osaka and Edo markets; Adams instead recommended selection of Uraga, near Edo, for a post. Saris, however, who distrusted Adams, wanted to keep an eye on Dutch activities.

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  The 1613 letter of King James I remitted to Tokugawa Ieyasu (preserved in the Tokyo University archives).
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  One of the two Japanese suits of armour presented by Tokugawa Hidetada and entrusted to John Saris to convey to King James I in 1613. The pictured suit of armour is displayed in the Tower of London.
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  Excerpt from a letter written by William Adams at Hirado in Japan to the East India Company in London, 1 December 1613. British Library.

In 1614, Father Diogo de Carvalho complained about the threat posed by Adams and other Protestant merchants in his annual report to Pope Paul V, stating that William Adams and his companions had influenced Ieyasu to be hostile to Catholics. Tokugawa Ieyasu, influenced by Adams's anti-Catholic counsels and the increase in samurai and daimyos converting to Catholicism (as in the Okamoto Daihachi incident, for example), banished all Portuguese Jesuits from Japan in 1614. He also demanded that all Japanese Catholics abandon their new faith and launched what would become a centuries-long policy of religious persecution aimed at those who refused.

In the same year, Adams received permission from both Japan and England to return to England. Although Adams had intended to give up his status and property in Japan to make the voyage on the Clove, he changed his mind after returning to Hirado with Saris. Saris disliked Adams for his insistence on following Japanese customs, while Adams disliked Saris for his tendency to be impolite. After the Clove left, Adams helped out at the English trading post in Japan, although he was paid less than he had been working at the Dutch trading post. Richard Cocks, the head of the Hirado factory, praised Adams's manners and his calm temperament, which Cocks described as similar to those of his Japanese hosts. In a letter to the East India Company, Cocks wrote that he found Adams to be easy to approach and confirmed his willingness to cooperate with Adams for the next seven years. On the eve of Siege of Osaka, Ieyasu prepared for the war effort by stockpiling ammunition. In May, a company of English merchants tried to sell lead in Hirado but failed to find a buyer until, with the help of Adams, the shogunate purchased their entire stock. In the same month, the shogunate bought lead from a Dutch trading company. Later in June, Adams acted as middleman while Tokugawa Ieyasu stockpiled cannons, gunpowder, and bullets purchased from English merchants. The prices agreed upon were 1 kan for cannons, 2.3 bun for gunpowder, and 1.6 bun for bullets. Later in the same year, Adams wanted to organize a trade expedition to Siam to bolster profits and help the company's situation, so he bought and upgraded a 200-ton Japanese junk ship, renamed it Sea Adventure, and hired a crew: around 120 Japanese sailors and merchants, several Chinese traders, an Italian, a Spanish trader and Richard Wickham and Edmund Sayers of the English factory's staff. The ship sailed from Hirado in November. The enterprise aimed to purchase raw silk, Chinese goods, Biancaea sappan, deer skins and ray skins for the hilts of katana swords.

On 27 January 1615, the ships under Adams's command, carrying £1,250 in silver, £175 of Indian cottons, and a stock of Japanese weapons and lacquerware, encountered a storm near the Ryukyu Islands. They docked at Naha, but the Ryukyu ruler Shō Nei refused to help repair the ships, which prompted the crew to go on strike and forced the ship to give away its anchorage in February. In June, the fleet returned to Hirado after purchasing goods from Ryukyu islands, including sweet potatoes, which had initially been cultivated by the East India Company in Hirado and the seeds planted in Satsuma province. On 7 December, after a trip to Edo to meet with the ambassador from New Spain on Shogun Ieyasu's orders, Adams left Hirado for Ayutthaya in Siam on the refitted Sea Adventure, intent on obtaining sappan wood for resale in Japan. His cargo was chiefly silver (£600) and the Japanese and Indian goods unsold from the previous voyage. In Bangkok, Adams met with the King of Siam and obtained a trading license for the English, then sailed the Sea Adventure to Japan with 143 tonnes of sappan wood and 3,700 deer skins, returning to Hirado within 47 days. (The return trip took from 5 June to 22 July 1616).

Service under Hidetada and Death

In 1616, less than a week before Adams's return from Bangkok, Ieyasu died, giving his son shōgun Hidetada practical control over the country. Hidetada, less interested in foreign affairs than Ieyasu, barred Adams from his next audience with the Company, in part due to distrust stemming from the conversion of Adams's Japanese wife to Christianity. However, three weeks later, Hidetada met with Adams, and in September he agreed to maintain the English trading privileges and also issued a new Red Seal permit (shuinjō), which allowed Adams to continue trade activities overseas under the shōgun's protection. While Hidetada confined English trading activities to Hirado and Nagasaki and barred Japanese merchants from purchasing goods from foreigners in Osaka and Kyoto, Adams retained his hatamoto status and was exempted from these restrictions. Later in December, Adams declined to join an English expedition from Hirado; there is evidence that he was suffering from a mental breakdown due to the death of Ieyasu and its political aftershocks, as well as physical injuries Adams sustained on the way back from Edo after meeting Hidetada.

Topographical map of the bay of Hirado in 1621. To the right on the shore-line, the Dutch East India Company trading post is marked with the red-white-blue flag of the Netherlands. To the far left, back from the shore-line is a white flag with red cross, the St George's Cross of England at the East India Company trading post.

In March 1617, Adams set sail to Cochinchina on a junk ship which he had purchased and brought from Siam and renamed Gift of God. He intended to find two English sailors, Tempest Peacock and Walter Carwarden. Once in Cochinchina, however, Adams learned that Peacock, a drunk, had committed murder. Adams killed Peacock and chased after Carwarden, who was waiting downstream with a boat. Realizing that Adams had killed his companion, Carwarden panicked, capsized his boat, and drowned. Adams then sold the rest of small cargo for £351 before returning to Japan. When Adams reached Osaka with his ship Gift of God in September 1617, he met with Hidetada at Fushimi Castle and obtained new Red Seal licenses. He agreed to sell both the ship and the licenses to the English factory in Hirado.

in 1618, on July, Adams joined a Dutch mission from Hirado to Edo. Shortly thereafter, the Dutch brought the captured English ship Attendance to Hirado, sparking hostilities between the previously friendly English and Dutch merchants there. Though Adams initially refused to help the English appeal to the shōgun about the issue, arguing that Hidetada would not be interested, he later changed his mind and met with Hidetada in October. Because Adams had sold his Red Seal license to the English, however, and because of the disturbances that occurred on the resulting voyage, Hidetada refused to grant further licenses to the factory. Adams returned to Hirado in December after spending months attempting to save the English factory.

From March until August 1619, Adams undertook a final voyage to Cochinchina and Tonkin, using a personal Red Seal license rather than working for the English. During this voyage, England and the Netherlands went to war in Asia, and Adams contracted a tropical disease which caused his health to deteriorate. After returning to Hirado, Adams managed to rescue three English prisoners who were imprisoned on a Dutch ship. In the final months of his life, Adams assisted the English factory by acting as a broker for trade with the governor of Nagasaki.

Left: Jōdo-ji temple in Yokosuka City
Right: Memorial towers for Anjin Miura and Anjin's wife.

Adams died at Hirado, north of Nagasaki, on 16 May 1620, at the age of 55. In his will, he left his residence in Edo, his domain in Hemi (in Yokosuka), and 500 English pounds to be distributed evenly among his family in England and Japan. The English family's portion of the inheritance did not reach London until 1622, after his wife Mary Hyn was already dead.

Cocks wrote: "I cannot but be sorrowful for the loss of such a man as Capt William Adams, he having been in such favour with two Emperors of Japan as never any Christian in these part of the world." Cocks records that Hidetada transferred the lordship from William Adams to his son Joseph Adams with the attendant rights to the estate at Hemi. Cocks continued to remain in contact with Adams's Japanese family, sending gifts and, on the Christmas after Adams's death, giving Joseph his father's sword and dagger. In March 1622, Cocks offered silks to Joseph and Adams's daughter, Susanna. He also conscientiously administered Adams's trading rights (the shuinjō) for Joseph and Susanna's benefit.

Adams was buried in Hirado next to a memorial to Saint Francis Xavier. A few years later, many foreign cemeteries were destroyed and the Tokugawa shogunate began aggressively persecuting Christians.

Personal info

During his stay in Japan, Adams developed a high esteem for Japanese society under the Tokugawa shogunate. He viewed the Japanese as courteous, valiant, impartial in justice, and civilly governed.

According to American author and literature expert Susan Wise Bauer, William Adams was a fervent Protestant who detested Catholics.

Family

Adams was recorded to have married Mary Hyn in the parish church of St Dunstan's, Stepney, on 20 August 1589. They had two children together, a son John and a daughter Deliverance. After Adams's voyage to Japan, Mary Hyn was forced to leave Limehouse and became destitute for some time, although she received a portion of Adams's wages from the East India Company in 1615. Mary died in 1620 at Gillingham in Kent. Deliverance married Ratcliff mariner Raph Goodchild at St Dunstan's, Stepney, on 30 September 1618. They had two daughters, Abigail in October 1619, who died in the same month, and Jane in April 1621. Deliverance would later marry for a second time, to John Wright at St Alfege Church, Greenwich, on 13 October 1624.

After settling in Japan, Adams married a Japanese woman, although there is no clear evidence of her name and background in either Japanese or European historical records. A common account is that his wife was named Oyuki (お雪) and was the adopted daughter of Magome Kageyu, an official who was responsible for a pack-horse exchange on one of the imperial roads that led out of Edo. Although Magome was important, Oyuki was not of noble birth or high social standing. The family link to Magome is shown in Japanese historical accounts written in the 1800s, while the first known reference to the name "Oyuki" is from a fictional work in 1973, and earlier fictional accounts refer to Adams's wife by names such as Mary, Tsu, Bikuni, Tae, and Chrysanthemum.

Adams and his Japanese wife had a son Joseph and a daughter Susanna. Some accounts describe Adams having other children with concubines or mistresses, but no such children were named in his will. Richard Cocks wrote that Adams's interpreter, "Coshuro," claimed support for Adams's son "Cowjohns" in 1621, after Adams's death, and that he also made similar support payments for another alleged child of Adams.

In 1623, the unprofitable English trading factory in Hirado was dissolved by the East India Company and Cocks departed for England. The Dutch traded on Adams' children's behalf via the Red Seal ships. Joseph Adams inherited the title of Miura Anjin, became a trader, and made five voyages to Cochinchina and Siam between 1624 and 1635.

By 1629, only two of Adams's shipmates from 1600 survived in Japan: Melchior van Santvoort and Vincent Romeyn lived quietly in Nagasaki.

In 1635, Hidetada's successor Tokugawa Iemitsu enforced the Sakoku Edict for Japan to be closed against foreign trading; both Joseph and Susanna disappear from historical records at that time. It is presumed that, like all Japanese of mixed race, they were expelled to the Dutch colony of Batavia (modern day Jakarta, Indonesia).

Historical legacy and evaluations

Grave of Miura Anjin, Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The small hiragana characters to the right are a phonetic transcription of "William Adams", using the historical character 'ゐ' for 'wi'.

It was rumored that Adams's bones were taken for safekeeping by a family member or close friend and reburied at what is now the William Adams Memorial Park on Sakigata Hill, Hirado. In 1931, a grave marked as a Miura family tomb was excavated and skeletal remains discovered there were assumed to belong to Adams, but without DNA evidence this could not be confirmed with certainty. The remains were later placed in a Showa period ceramic funerary urn and reburied under a tombstone dedicated to Miura Anjin.

An urn matching the 1931 description was excavated in 2017. In 2019, Japanese archaeologists announced the discovery of bones at the site believed to be those of Adams. The subsequent mtDNA analysis had indicated that Adams' mitochondrial DNA likely belongs to haplogroup H. The analysis also showed aspects such as the dietary habits and burial style that matched with Adams. In April 2020, the University of Tokyo conducted conclusive forensic tests on the bones and confirmed it was William Adams' grave.

Modern french history and literary critic Michel Foucault retold Adams' tale in The Discourse on Language. According to Foucault, the story embodies one of the "great myths of European culture," and the idea that a mere sailor could teach mathematics to the Japanese shōgun shows the difference between the open exchange of knowledge in Europe, as opposed to the secretive control of knowledge under "oriental tyranny". In fact, Adams was not a mere sailor but the chief navigator of the fleet, and his value to the shōgun was in his practical knowledge of shipbuilding.

Posthumous honours

• A town in Edo (modern Tokyo), Anjin-chō (in modern-day Nihonbashi) was named after Adams, who had a house there. Anjin-chō no longer exists in Nihonbashi and is now known as Nihonbashi Muromachi 1-Chōme. However within Muromachi 1-Chōme a street, Anjin-dori, remains named after Adams.
• Anjinzuka railroad station in his former fiefdom, Hemi, in modern Yokosuka, and a nearby village were named for him.
• In the city of Itō, Shizuoka, the Miura Anjin Festival is held annually on 10 August. On the seafront at Itō is a monument to Adams. Next to it is a plaque inscribed with Edmund Blunden's poem, "To the Citizens of Ito", which commemorates Adams' achievement.
• Adams's birth town, Gillingham, has held a Will Adams Festival every September since 2000. Since the late 20th century, both Itō and Yokosuka have become sister cities of Gillingham.
• A monument to Adams was installed in Watling Street, Gillingham, Kent, opposite Darland Avenue. The monument was unveiled 11 May 1934 by Tsuneo Matsudaira GCVO, Japanese ambassador to the Court of St James's.
• A roundabout named Will Adams Roundabout with a Japanese theme, just along from the Gillingham monument to Adams, with two roads named after the Gillingham sister cities "Ito Way" and "Yokosuka Way".
• The townhouse of Will Adams still exists in Hirado. It is currently a sweet shop called Tsutaya at 431 Kihikidacho. It is known as Anjin no Yakata (Anjin's House).
• Adams has a second memorial monument at the location of his residence in Hemi. Consisting of a pair of hōkyōintō, the tuff memorial on the right is that of Adams, and the andesite one of the left is for his wife. The monuments were erected by his family in accordance with his will, and the site was designated as a National Historic Site in 1923.

Popular culture

• James Clavell based his best-selling novel Shōgun (1975) on Adams' life and changed the name of his protagonist to "John Blackthorne". It has been adapted in various forms:
  • 1980, as the NBC miniseries, Shōgun
  • 1989, as a video game James Clavell's Shōgun
  • 1990, as a Broadway production, Shōgun: The Musical
  • 2024, as the Emmy award winning FX series, Shōgun
• Murasame Tatsumasa, or more known for his birth name Jakob Sebastian Björk, a Swedish actor with Japanese citizenship, played the role of William Adams in the 2023 Jidaigeki historical television drama What Will You Do, Ieyasu?.

There were numerous earlier works of fiction and non-fiction based on Adams.

• William Dalton wrote Will Adams, The First Englishman in Japan: A Romantic Biography (London, 1861).
• Richard Blaker's The Needlewatcher (London, 1932) is the least romantic of the novels; he consciously attempted to de-mythologize Adams and write a careful historical work of fiction.
• James Scherer's Pilot and Shōgun (1935) dramatises a series of incidents based on Adams' life.
• American Robert Lund wrote Daishi-san (New York, 1960).
• Christopher Nicole's Lord of the Golden Fan (1973) portrays Adams as sexually frustrated in England and freed by living in Japan, where he has numerous encounters. The work is considered light pornography.
• In 2002, Giles Milton's historical biography Samurai William (2002) is based on historical sources, especially Richard Cocks' diary.
• The 2002 alternate history novel Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove features a brief appearance by Adams, piloting cargo and passengers between England and Ostend, both of which are puppet states of the Habsburg Empire in this timeline.
• In the second season of Heroes, a story set in samurai-era Japan features an Englishman who seems to be based on Adams.
• A book series called Young Samurai is about a young English boy who is ship wrecked in Japan, and is trained as a samurai.
• Adams also serves as the template for the protagonist in the PlayStation 4 and PC video game series Nioh (2017) and non-playable character in its prequel/sequel hybrid game (2020), but with supernatural and historical fiction elements. Unlike the historical William Adams, the game portrays him as an Irishman. As of the end of the second game, some time after managing to arrest the Spaniard Maria, he married Okatsu and had an English-Japanese son named Joseph who inherited his mother's guardian spirit.
  • This version also appeared in the Warriors series' crossover game, Warriors All-Stars.

Origins of Western mythology

Imaginary depiction of Adams from the 1934 dedication booklet for a memorial clock in Gillingham

According to Professor Derek Massarella of Chuo University in Tokyo, Adams was largely forgotten in England until the 1872 discovery of his alleged tomb in Japan led to a proliferation of myths and hyperbolic stories. Soon the public in England became embarrassed by the lack of their own monument or memorial to Adams in England; after years of lobbying, a memorial clock in Adams' honor was erected in Gillingham in 1934. The dedication pamphlet for this event includes an artist's depiction of Adams which Massarella dismisses as a complete fabrication. As for the tomb that sparked the frenzy, Massarella, writing two decades before the forensic mtDNA study, concludes that it likely has nothing to do with Adams.

Depiction

Beyond speculative imagery (§ Origins of Western mythology), there is one authenticated contemporaneous drawing of Adams: "It is a derivative drawing of William Adams, which appears to be based in a sketch attributed to Dorothy Burmingham, from a description given by Melchior von Santvoort. The original drawing is to be found at the Rotterdam Maritime Museum, whose specialist Marcel Kroon considers it to be from Adams' time. A copy is preserved at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford."

Gallery

• 
  William Adams with a daimyo (feudal lord) and their attendants
• 
  William Adams meets Tokugawa Ieyasu, in an idealised depiction of 1707.
• 
  Right: "Monument at the site of William Adams's (written as Miura Anjin) residence," Chuo Ward, Tokyo.

See also

• Anglo-Japanese relations
• Hasekura Tsunenaga
• Ernest Mason Satow
• List of foreign-born samurai in Japan
• List of Westerners who visited Japan before 1868
• Yasuke

Appendix

Bibliography

• England's Earliest Intercourse with Japan, by C. W. Hillary (1905)
• Letters written by the English Residents in Japan, ed. by N. Murakami (1900, containing Adams' Letters reprinted from Memorials of the Empire of Japan, ed. by T. Rundall, Hakluyt Society, 1850)
• Diary of Richard Cocks, with preface by N. Murakami (1899, reprinted from the Hakluyt Society ed. 1883)
• Hildreth, Richard, Japan as it was and is (1855)
• John Harris, Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca (1764), i. 856
• Voyage of John Saris, edited by Sir Ernest M. Satow (Hakluyt Society, 1900)
• Asiatic Society of Japan Transactions, xxvi. (sec. 1898) pp. I and 194, where four formerly unpublished letters of Adams are printed;
• Collection of State Papers; East Indies, China and Japan. The MS. of his logs written during his voyages to Siam and China is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
• William Adams and Early English Enterprise in Japan, by Anthony Farrington and Derek Massarella [2]
• Milton, Giles (2011). Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan. Hachette UK. ISBN 978-1-4447-3177-4.
• Henry Smith (1980). Shogun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy (PDF). Asian Studies University of California. p. 7–13. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
• Adams the Pilot: The Life and Times of Captain William Adams: 1564–1620, by William Corr, Curzon Press, 1995 ISBN 1-873410-44-1
• The English Factory in Japan 1613–1623, ed. by Anthony Farrington, British Library, 1991. (Includes all of William Adams' extant letters, as well as his will.)
• A World Elsewhere. Europe's Encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by Derek Massarella, Yale University Press, 1990.
• Recollections of Japan, Hendrik Doeff, ISBN 1-55395-849-7

Hardcopy

• The Needle-Watcher: The Will Adams Story, British Samurai by Richard Blaker
• Servant of the Shogun by Richard Tames. Paul Norbury Publications, Tenterden, Kent, England.ISBN 0 904404 39 0.
• Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan, by Giles Milton; ISBN 978-0-14-200378-7; December 2003

External links

• Williams Adams- Blue Eyed Samurai, Meeting Anjin
• "Learning from Shogun. Japanese history and Western fantasy"
• William Adams and Early English enterprise in Japan
• William Adams – The First Englishman In Japan, full text online, Internet Archive
• Will Adams Memorial
• "Adams, William" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
• "Adams, William (pioneer)" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
• Hutchinson, John (1892). "William Adams" . Men of Kent and Kentishmen (Subscription ed.). Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. pp. 2–3.
• https://williamadamsclub.org/