[7] who
went to Rome as procurator and took a number of our men for Japon,
left part of them in India; while ten who went with him to Macan have
been detained there.

Father Nicolas Trigaucio [8] went to China as procurator, and returned
this year with some of Ours. Some of them, for reasons unknown to me,
he left in India, and seven he took with him to Macan.

Of the members who came with these two father procurators, five died
during the trip over, after leaving Lisboa. But if the persecution
continues in Japon as it is at present, they will not be missed. Indeed
there will be too many of Ours, for even now there is so great a
number in Macan that it is often said that there is not standing-room
in our college.

Of the Kingdoms of Japon

I will begin my account of the affairs of this kingdom with the cruel
and bloody persecution against Christianity which is now at such a
height, and in which they put so many to death for the faith that,
to me, it seems a picture of what happened in the primitive church
during the early persecutions by the emperors. What I have said may
be realized from part of a letter dated in Nangasaqui October 14,
1619, from Father Matheo de Couros, [9] provincial of Japon, to
Father Valerio de Ledesma, provincial of these islands. Translated
from Portuguese into Spanish it is as follows: "In regard to news
from Japon I will not write you at length, since I understand that
the father visitor has done so. In temporal affairs everything is
quiet. Persecution of Christians has been and is very severe in Meaco,
where almost sixty are prisoners for the faith. Five or six of these
Christians died in prison there, thoroughly resigned to the divine
will. In this city of Nangasaqui there are twenty-eight imprisoned
for Christ, in three prisons. In Omura seven religious are imprisoned,
four of the Order of St. Dominic, one of the Order of St. Francis, and
two of our Society. With them are imprisoned ten other Christians. Of
the inhabitants of the same city of Omura three were martyred--Lino,
Pedro, and Thome--the first, because when he was guarding the prison
in which the religious I have mentioned were confined, he allowed too
much food to be given to the holy prisoners, as he was a Christian
at heart himself; the second, because from time to time he sent food
to them; and the third, because he carried the food. All three were
promised their lives if they would renounce our holy law; but they
cho