es descending one hundred feet perpendicularly to the sea
and with a swamp on the fourth side.

The insurgents fought under flags inscribed with red crosses and
their battle cries were "Jesus," "Maria," and "St. Iago." They
defended the castle successfully against repeated assaults until the
12th of April, when, their provisions and their ammunition alike
being exhausted, they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the
exception of 105 prisoners. During this siege the Dutch gave
practical proof of their enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards
and Portuguese. For, the guns in the possession of the besiegers
being too light to accomplish anything effective, application was
made to Koeckebacker, the Dutch factor at Hirado, to lend ships
carrying heavier metal. He complied by despatching the De Ryp, and
her twenty guns threw 426 shots into the castle in fifteen days.
There has been handed down a letter carried by an arrow from the
castle to the besiegers. It was not an appeal for mercy but a simple
enumeration of reasons:--

"For the sake of our people we have now resorted to this castle. You
will no doubt think that we have done this with the hope of taking
lands and houses. Such is by no means the case. It is simply because
Christianity is not tolerated as a distinct sect, which is well known
to you. Frequent prohibitions have been published by the shogun, to
our great distress. Some among us there are who consider the hope of
future life as of the highest importance. For these there is no
escape. Because they will not change their religion they incur
various kinds of severe punishments, being inhumanly subjected to
shame and extensive suffering, till at last for their devotion to the
Lord of Heaven, they are tortured to death. Others, even men of
resolution, solicitous for the sensitive body and dreading the
torture, have, while hiding their grief, obeyed the royal will and
recanted. Things continuing in this state, all the people have united
in an uprising in an unaccountable and miraculous manner. Should we
continue to live as heretofore and the above laws not be repealed, we
must incur all sorts of punishments hard to be endured; we must, our
bodies being weak and sensitive, sin against the infinite Lord of
Heaven and from solicitude for our brief lives incur the loss of what
we highly esteem. These things fill us with grief beyond endurance.
Hence we are in our present condition. It is not the result of a