riests of idolatry, and the persecutions with
which they occasionally visited the members of our faith, the converts
to our holy religion increased greatly in the Japanese islands. The
religion spread fast, and many thousands worshipped the true God.

"After a time, the Dutch formed a settlement at Japan, and when they
found that the Japanese Christians around the factories would deal only
with the Portuguese, in whom they had confidence, they became our
enemies; and the man of whom we have spoken, and who at that period was
the head of the Dutch Factory, determined, in his lust for gold, to make
the Christian religion a source of suspicion to the emperor of the
country, and thus to ruin the Portuguese and their adherents. Such, my
son, was the conduct of one who professed to have embraced the reformed
religion as being of greater purity than our own.

"There was a Japanese lord of great wealth and influence, who lived near
us, and who, with two of his sons, had embraced Christianity, and had
been baptised. He had two other sons, who lived at the emperor's court.
This lord had made us a present of a house for a college and school of
instruction: on his death, however, his two sons at court, who were
idolaters, insisted upon our quitting this property. We refused, and
thus afforded the Dutch principal an opportunity of inflaming these
young noblemen against us: by this means he persuaded the Japanese
emperor that the Portuguese and Christians had formed a conspiracy
against his life and throne for, be it observed, that when a Dutchman
was asked if he was a Christian, he would reply, `No; I am a Hollander.'

"The emperor, believing in this conspiracy, gave an immediate order for
the extirpation of the Portuguese, and then of all the Japanese who had
embraced the Christian faith: he raised an army for this purpose and
gave the command of it to the young nobleman I have mentioned, the sons
of the lord who had given us the college. The Christians, aware that
resistance was their only chance, flew to arms, and chose as their
generals the other two sons of the Japanese lord, who, with their
father, had embraced Christianity. Thus were the two armies commanded
by four brothers, two on the one side and two on the other.

"The Christian army amounted to more than 40,000 men, but of this the
emperor was not aware, and he sent a force, of about 25,000 to conquer
and exterminate them. The armies met, and after an obstinate