f cloves, with a handsome present of European linen and
stuff for themselves, as a recompense for what we had taken from them;
so we sent them away exceedingly well satisfied.

Here it was that William gave me an account, that while he was on board
the Japanese vessel, he met with a kind of religious, or Japan priest,
who spoke some words of English to him; and, being very inquisitive to
know how he came to learn any of those words, he told him that there
was in his country thirteen Englishmen; he called them Englishmen very
articulately and distinctly, for he had conversed with them very
frequently and freely. He said that they were all that were left of
two-and-thirty men, who came on shore on the north side of Japan, being
driven upon a great rock in a stormy night, where they lost their ship,
and the rest of their men were drowned; that he had persuaded the king
of his country to send boats off to the rock or island where the ship
was lost, to save the rest of the men, and to bring them on shore,
which was done, and they were used very kindly, and had houses {49}
built for them, and land given them to plant for provision; and that
they lived by themselves.

He said he went frequently among them, to persuade them to worship
their god (an idol, I suppose, of their own making), which, he said,
they ungratefully refused; and that therefore the king had once or
twice ordered them all to be put to death; but that, as he said, he had
prevailed upon the king to spare them, and let them live their own way,
as long as they were quiet and peaceable, and did not go about to
withdraw others from the worship of the country.

I asked William why he did not inquire from whence they came. "I did,"
said William; "for how could I but think it strange," said he, "to hear
him talk of Englishmen on the north side of Japan?" "Well," said I,
"what account did he give of it?" "An account," said William, "that
will surprise thee, and all the world after thee, that shall hear of
it, and which makes me wish thou wouldst go up to Japan and find them
out." "What do you mean?" said I. "Whence could they come?" "Why,"
says William, "he pulled out a little book, and in it a piece of paper,
where it was written, in an Englishman's hand, and in plain English
words, thus; and," says William, "I read it myself:--'We come from
Greenland, and from the North Pole.'" This indeed, was amazing to us
all, and more so to those seamen among us who kne