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                           WORKS ISSUED BY

                         The Hakluyt Society.


                                 DIARY

                                  OF

                            RICHARD COCKS.

                  FIRST SERIES. NO. LXVI-MDCCCLXXXIII




                                DIARY

                                  OF

                            RICHARD COCKS

            CAPE-MERCHANT IN THE ENGLISH FACTORY IN JAPAN

                              1615-1622

                        _WITH CORRESPONDENCE_

                              EDITED BY

                        EDWARD MAUNDE THOMPSON

                                VOL. I

                       BURT FRANKLIN, PUBLISHER
                          NEW YORK, NEW YORK




                             Published by
                            BURT FRANKLIN
                        514 West 113th Street
                          New York 25, N. Y.

             ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY

                       REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

                        PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.




                               COUNCIL

                                  OF

                         THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.

  COLONEL H. YULE, C.B., PRESIDENT.
  ADMIRAL C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B.     } VICE-PRESIDENTS.
  MAJOR-GENERAL SIR HENRY RAWLINSON, K.C.B.  }
  W. A. TYSSEN AMHERST, ESQ., M.P.
  REV. DR. G. P. BADGER, D.C.L.
  J. BARROW, ESQ., F.R.S.
  WALTER DE GRAY BIRCH, ESQ., F.S.A.
  CAPTAIN LINDESAY BRINE, R.N.
  E. H. BUNBURY, ESQ.
  THE EARL OF DUCIE, F.R.S.
  CAPTAIN HANKEY, R.N.
  LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR J. HENRY LEFROY, C.B., K.C.M.G.
  R. H. MAJOR, ESQ., F.S.A.
  REAR-ADMIRAL MAYNE, C.B.
  E. DELMAR MORGAN, ESQ.
  ADMIRAL SIR ERASMUS OMMANNEY, C.B., F.R.S.
  LORD ARTHUR RUSSELL, M.P.
  THE LORD STANLEY, OF ALDERLEY.
  B. F. STEVENS, ESQ.
  EDWARD THOMAS, ESQ., F.R.S.
  LIEUT.-GEN. SIR HENRY THUILLIER, C.S.I., F.R.S.
  T. WISE, ESQ., M.D.

  CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S., HONORARY SECRETARY.




                               PREFACE.


The history of the English trading settlement in Japan in the first
quarter of the seventeenth century is the history of a failure; and the
causes of the failure are not far to seek. Choosing for their depôt
an insignificant island in the extreme west of the kingdom, without
even good anchorage to recommend it, and at a far distance from the
capital cities of Miako and Yedo, with the Dutch for their neighbours
and, as it proved, their rivals, the English may be said to have
courted disaster. It is true that Firando was a ready port for shipping
coming from Europe; its ruler was friendly; and it lay in a convenient
position from whence to open the much-desired trade with China. And
the policy of making common cause with the Protestant Hollanders
against the Spaniards and Portuguese, who had first secured a footing
in Japan and were powerful in the neighbouring town of Nagasaki, would
have been a sound one, had the latter remained supreme. But, when the
English landed, the Dutch had already obtained privileges and had
established their trade in the country; and what ought to have been
foreseen inevitably came to pass. The Dutch were not allies; they were
rivals, who undersold the English in the market and in the end starved
them out of the country. Possibly, if our countrymen had been allowed
to maintain the branch factories which they started in some of the
principal towns, they might have held their own against their rivals,
in spite of the limited trade which Japan afforded; but when their
privileges were curtailed and they were restricted to Firando, their
case became desperate.

Purchas, in his _Pilgrimes_,[1] has told us the story of the first
landing of the English and its causes. The present volumes