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idols of grotesque shapes, by which they represent certain famous wicked
ancestors: the chiefest are Amida and Xacha. Their priests are called
Bonzas, and all obey the Jaco, or high-priest. St. Francis Xavier
arrived in Japan in 1549, baptized great numbers, and whole provinces
received the faith. The great kings of Arima, Bungo, and Omura, sent a
solemn embassy of obedience to pope Gregory XIII. in 1582: and in 1587
there were in Japan above two hundred thousand Christians, and among
these several kings, princes, and bonzas, but in 1588, Cambacundono, the
haughty emperor, having usurped the honors of a deity, commanded all the
Jesuits to leave his dominions within six months: however, many remained
there disguised. In 1593, the persecution was renewed, and several
Japanese converts received the crown of martyrdom. The emperor
Tagcosama, one of the proudest and most vicious of men, was worked up
into rage and jealousy by a suspicion suggested by certain European
merchants desirous of the monopoly of this trade, that the view of the
missionaries in preaching the Christian faith was to facilitate the
conquest of their country by the Portuguese or Spaniards. Three Jesuits
and six Franciscans were crucified on {360}a hill near Nangasaqui in
1597. The latter were partly Spaniards and partly Indians, and had at
their head F. Peter Baptist, commissary of his Order, a native of Avila,
in Spain. As to the Jesuits, one was Paul Michi, a noble Japanese and an
eminent preacher, at that time thirty-three years old. The other two,
John Gotto and James Kisai, were admitted into the Society in prison a
little before they suffered. Several Japanese converts suffered with
them. The martyrs were twenty-six in number, and among them were three
boys who used to serve the friars at mass; two of them were fifteen
years of age, and the third only twelve, yet each showed great joy and
constancy in their sufferings. Of these martyrs, twenty-four had been
brought to Meaco, where only a part of their left ears was cut off, by a
mitigation of the sentence which had commanded the amputation of their
noses and both ears. They were conducted through many towns and public
places, their cheeks stained with blood, for a terror to others. When
the twenty-six soldiers of Christ were arrived at the place of execution
near Nangasaqui, they were allowed to make their confession to two
Jesuits of the convent, in that town, and being fastened to crosses by
cor