ell as of bad
management was that, ten years later (1623), the English factory at
Hirado had to be closed, the losses incurred there having aggregated
L2000--$10,000. It has to be noted that, a few months after the death
of Ieyasu, the above charter underwent a radical modification. The
original document threw open to the English every port in Japan; the
revised document limited them to Hirado. But this restriction may be
indirectly traced to the blunder of not accepting a settlement in
Yedo and a port at Uraga. For the foreign policy of the Tokugawa was
largely swayed by an apprehension that the Kyushu feudatories, many
of whom were not over-well disposed to the rule of the Bakufu, might
derive from the assistance of foreign trade such a fleet and such an
armament as would ultimately enable them to overthrow the Tokugawa.
Therefore, the precaution was adopted of confining the English and
the Dutch to Hirado, the domain of a feudatory too petty to become
formidable, and to Nagasaki, which was one of the four Imperial
cities, the other three being Yedo, Kyoto, and Osaka.

ENGRAVING: THE "ATAKA MARU" (Shogun's Barge)

It is easy to see that an English factory in Yedo and English ships
at Uraga would have strengthened the Tokugawa ruler's hand instead of
supplying engines of war to his political foes; and it must further
be noted that the question of locality had another injurious outcome.
For alike at Hirado and at Nagasaki, the foreign traders "were
exposed to a crippling competition at the hands of rich Osaka
monopolists, who, as representing an Imperial city and therefore
being pledged to the Tokugawa interests, enjoyed special indulgences
from the Bakufu. These shrewd traders who were then, as they are now,
the merchant-princes of Japan, not only drew a ring around Hirado,
but also sent vessels on their own account to Cochin China, Siam,
Tonkin, Cambodia, and other foreign lands with which the English and
the Dutch carried on trade." One can scarcely be surprised that
Cocks, the successor of Saris, wrote, in 1620, "which maketh me
altogether aweary of Japan."

It is, however, certain that the closure of the English factory at
Hirado was voluntary; from the beginning to the end no serious
friction had occurred between the English and the Japanese. When, the
former withdrew from the Japanese trade, their houses and stores at
Hirado were not sold, but were left in the safe-keeping of the local
feudatory, who promised