DUTCH AND THE PORTUGUESE

While the above events were in progress, the disputes between the
Dutch, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards went on without cessation.
In 1636, the Dutch discovered in a captured Portuguese vessel a
report written by the governor of Macao, describing a festival which
had just been held there in honour of Vieyra, who had been martyred
in Japan. The Dutch transmitted this document to the Japanese "in
order that his Majesty may see more clearly what great honour the
Portuguese pay to those he had forbidden his realm as traitors to the
State and to his crown." It does not appear that this accusation
added much to the resentment and distrust against the Portuguese. At
any rate, the Bakufu in Yedo took no step distinctly hostile to
Portuguese laymen until the following year (1637), when an edict was
issued forbidding "any foreigners to travel in the empire lest
Portuguese with passports bearing Dutch names might enter."

THE SHIMABARA REVOLT

At the close of 1637, there occurred a rebellion, historically known
as the "Christian Revolt of Shimabara," which put an end to Japan's
foreign intercourse for over two hundred years. The Gulf of Nagasaki
is bounded on the west by the island of Amakusa and by the promontory
of Shimabara. In the early years of Jesuit propagandism in Japan,
Shimabara and Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly Christianized
regions, and in later days they were naturally the scene of the
severest persecutions. Nevertheless, the people might have suffered
in silence, as did their fellow believers elsewhere, had they not
been taxed beyond endurance to supply funds for an extravagant
feudatory. Japanese annalists, however, relegate the taxation
grievance to an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt
solely to the instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to
avoid persecution for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever
version be correct, it is certain that the outbreak attracted all the
Christians from the surrounding regions, and was officially regarded
as a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents passed over from that
island to Shimabara, and on the 27th of January, 1638, the whole
body--numbering, according to some authorities, twenty thousand
fighting men with thirteen thousand women and children; according to
others, little more than one-half of these figures--took possession
of the dilapidated castle of Kara, which stood on a plateau with
three sid