Two decades of existence in the 16th century was but a short period in which to make known the conditions of this new Colony to its neighbouring States, when its only regular intercourse with them was through the Chinese who came to trade with Manila. Japanese mariners, therefore, appear to have continued to regard the north of Luzon as “no-man's-land”; for years after its nominal annexation by the Spaniards they assembled there, whether as merchants or buccaneers it is difficult to determine. Spanish authority had been asserted by Salcedo along the west coast about as far as lat. 18° N., but in 1591 the north coast was only known to Europeans geographically. So far, the natives there had not made the acquaintance of their new masters.

A large Spanish galley cruising in these waters met a Japanese vessel off Cape Bojeador (N.W. point), and fired a shot which carried away the stranger's mainmast, obliging him to heave-to. Then the galley-men, intending to board the stranger, made fast the sterns, whilst the Spaniards rushed to the bows; but the Japanese came first, boarded the galley, and drove the Spaniards aft, where they would have all perished had they not cut away the mizzenmast and let it fall with all sail set. Behind this barricade they had time to load their arquebuses and drive back the Japanese, over whom they gained a victory. The Spaniards then entered the Rio Grande de CagayÁn, where they met a Japanese fleet, between which they passed peacefully. On shore they formed trenches and mounted cannons on earthworks, but the Japanese scaled the fortifications and pulled down the cannons by the mouths.

These were recovered, and the Spanish captain had the cannon mouths greased, so that the Japanese tactics should not be repeated. A battle was fought and the defeated Japanese set sail, whilst the Spaniards remained to obtain the submission of the natives by force or by persuasion.

The Japanese had also come to Manila to trade, and were located in the neighbouring village of Dilao,1 where the Franciscan friars undertook their conversion to Christianity, whilst the Dominican Order considered the spiritual care of the Chinese their especial charge.

The Portuguese had been in possession of Macao since the year 1557, and traded with various Chinese ports, whilst in the Japanese town of Nagasaki there was a small colony of Portuguese merchants. These were the indirect sources whence the Emperor of Japan learnt that Europeans had founded a colony in Luzon Island; and in 1593 he sent a message to the Governor of the Philippines calling upon him to surrender and become his vassal, threatening invasion in the event of refusal. The Spanish colonies at that date were hardly in a position to treat with haughty scorn the menaces of the Japanese potentate, for they were simultaneously threatened with troubles with the Dutch in the Moluccas, for which they were preparing an armament (vide Chap. vi.). The want of men, ships, and war material obliged them to seek conciliation with dignity. The Japanese Ambassador, Farranda Kiemon, was received with great honours and treated with the utmost deference during his sojourn in Manila.

The Governor replied to the Emperor, that being but a lieger of the King of Spain—a mighty monarch of unlimited resources and power—he was unable to acknowledge the Emperor's suzerainty; for the most important duty imposed upon him by his Sovereign was the defence of his vast domains against foreign aggression; that, on the other hand, he was desirous of entering into amicable and mutually advantageous relations with the Emperor, and solicited his conformity to a treaty of commerce, the terms of which would be elucidated to him by an envoy.

A priest, Juan Cobo, and an infantry captain were thereupon accredited to the Japanese Court as Philippine Ambassadors. On their arrival they were, without delay, admitted in audience by the Emperor; the treaty of commerce was adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties; and the Ambassadors, with some Japanese nobles, set sail for Manila in Japanese ships, which foundered on the voyage, and all perished.

Neither the political nor the clerical party in Manila was, however, dismayed by this first disaster, and the prospect of penetrating Japan was followed up by a second expedition.

Between the friars an animated discussion arose when the Jesuits protested against members of any other Order being sent to Japan. Saint Francis Xavier had, years before, obtained a Papal Bull from Pope Gregory XIII., awarding Japan to his Order, which had been the first to establish missions in Nagasaki. Jesuits were still there in numbers, and the necessity of sending members of rival religious bodies is not made clear in the historical records. The jealous feud between those holy men was referred to the Governor, who naturally decided against the Jesuits, in support of the King's policy of grasping territory under the cloak of piety. A certain Fray Pedro Bautista was chosen as Ambassador, and in his suite were three other priests. These embarked in a Spanish frigate, whilst Farranda Kiemon, who had remained in Manila the honoured guest of the Government, took his leave, and went on board his own vessel. The authorities bade farewell to the two embassies with ostentatious ceremonies, and amidst public rejoicings the two ships started on their journey on May 26, 1593. After 30 days' navigation one ship arrived safely at Nagasaki, and the other at a port 35 miles further along the coast.

Pedro Bautista, introduced by Ferranda Kiemon, was presented to the Emperor Taycosama, who welcomed him as an Ambassador authorized to negotiate a treaty of commerce, and conclude an offensive and defensive alliance for mutual protection. The Protocol was agreed to and signed by both parties, and the relations between the Emperor and Pedro Bautista became more and more cordial. The latter solicited, and obtained, permission to reside indefinitely in the country and send the treaty on by messenger to the Governor of the Philippines; hence the ships in which the envoys had arrived remained about ten months in port. A concession was also granted to build a church at Meaco, near Osaka, and it was opened in 1594, when Mass was publicly celebrated.

In Nagasaki the Jesuits were allowed to reside unmolested and practise their religious rites amongst the Portuguese population of traders and others who might have voluntarily embraced Christianity. Bautista went there to consult with the chief of the Jesuit Mission, who energetically opposed what he held to be an encroachment upon the monopoly rights of his Order, conceded by Pope Gregory XIII. and confirmed by royal decrees. Bautista, however, showed a permission which he had received from the Jesuit General, by virtue of which he was suffered to continue his course pending that dignitary's arrival.

The Portuguese merchants in Nagasaki were not slow to comprehend that Bautista's coming with priests at his command was but a prelude to Spanish territorial conquest, which would naturally retard their hoped-for emancipation from the Spanish yoke.2 Therefore, in their own interests, they forewarned the Governor of Nagasaki, who prohibited Bautista from continuing his propaganda against the established religion of the country in contravention of the Emperor's commands; but as Bautista took no heed of this injunction, he was expelled from Nagasaki for contumacy.

It was now manifest to the Emperor that he had been basely deceived, and that under the pretext of concluding a commercial and political treaty, Bautista and his party had, in effect, introduced themselves into his realm with the clandestine object of seducing his subjects from their allegiance, of undermining their consciences, perverting them from the religion of their forefathers, and that all this would bring about the dismemberment of his Empire and the overthrow of his dynasty. Not only had Taycosama abstained from persecuting foreigners for the exercise of their religious rites, but he freely licensed the Jesuits to continue their mission in Nagasaki and wherever Catholics happened to congregate. He had permitted the construction of their temples, but he could not tolerate a deliberate propaganda which foreshadowed his own ruin.3

Pedro Bautista's designs being prematurely obstructed, he took his passage back to Manila from Nagasaki in a Japanese vessel, leaving behind him his interpreter, Fray Jerome, with the other Franciscan monks. An Imperial Decree was then issued to prohibit foreign priests from interfering with the religion of Japanese subjects; but this law having been set at naught by Bautista's colleagues, one was arrested and imprisoned, and warrants were issued against the others; meanwhile the Jesuits in Nagasaki were in no way restrained.

The Governor of Nagasaki caused the Franciscan propagandists to be conducted on board a Portuguese ship and handed over to the charge of the captain, under severe penalties if he aided or allowed their escape, but they were free to go wherever they chose outside the Japanese Empire. The captain, however, permitted one to return ashore, and for some time he wandered about the country in disguise.

Pedro Bautista had reached Manila, where the ecclesiastical dignitaries prevailed upon the Governor to sanction another expedition to Japan, and Bautista arrived in that country a second time with a number of Franciscan friars. The Emperor now lost all patience, and determined not only to repress these venturesome foreigners, but to stamp out the last vestige of their revolutionary machinations. Therefore, by Imperial Decree, the arrest was ordered of all the Franciscan friars, and all natives who persisted in their adhesion to these missionaries' teachings. Twenty-six of those taken were tried and condemned to ignominious exhibition and death—the Spaniards, because they had come into the country and had received royal favours under false pretences, representing themselves as political ambassadors and suite—the Japanese, because they had forsworn the religion of their ancestors and bid fair to become a constant danger and source of discord in the realm. Amongst these Spaniards was Pedro Bautista. After their ears and noses had been cut off, they were promenaded from town to town in a cart, finally entering Nagasaki on horseback, each bearing the sentence of death on a breast-board.

On a high ground, near the city and the port, in front of the Jesuits' church, these 26 persons were crucified and stabbed to death with lances, in expiation of their political offences. It was a sad fate for men who conscientiously believed that they were justified in violating rights and laws of nations for the propagation of their particular views; but can one complain? Would Buddhist missionaries in Spain have met with milder treatment at the hands of the Inquisitors?4

Each Catholic body was supposed to designate the same road to heaven—each professed to teach the same means of obtaining the grace of God; yet, strange to say, each bore the other an implacable hatred—an inextinguishable jealousy! If conversion to Christianity were for the glory of God only, what could it have mattered whether souls of Japanese were saved by Jesuits or by others? For King Philip it was the same whether his political tools were of one denomination or the other, but many of the Jesuits in Japan happened to be Portuguese.

The Jesuits in Manila probably felt that in view of their opposition to the Franciscan missions, public opinion might hold them morally responsible for indirectly contributing to the unfortunate events related; therefore, to justify their acts, they formally declared that Pedro Bautista and his followers died excommunicated, because they had disobeyed the Bull of Pope Gregory XIII.

The general public were much excited when the news spread through the city, and a special Mass was said, followed by a religious procession through the streets. The Governor sent a commission to Japan, under the control of Luis de Navarrete, to ask for the dead bodies and chattels of the executed priests. The Emperor showed no rancour whatsoever; on the contrary, his policy was already carried out; and to welcome the Spanish lay deputies, he gave a magnificent banquet and entertained them sumptuously. Luis de Navarrete having claimed the dead bodies of the priests, the Emperor at once ordered the guards on the execution ground to retire, and told Navarrete that he could dispose as he pleased of the mortal remains. Navarrete therefore hastened to Nagasaki, but before he could reach there, devout Catholics had cut up the bodies, one carrying away a head, another a leg, and so forth. It happened, too, that Navarrete died of disease a few days after his arrival in Nagasaki. His successor, Diego de Losa, recovered the pieces of the deceased priests, which he put into a box and shipped for Manila, but the vessel and box of relics were lost on the way.

Diego de Losa returned to Manila, the bearer of a polite letter and very acceptable presents from the Emperor to the Governor of the Philippines.

The letter fully expatiated on recent events, and set forth a well-reasoned justification of the Emperor's decrees against the priests, in terms which proved that he was neither a tyrant nor a wanton savage, but an astute politician. The letter stated, that under the pretext of being ambassadors, the priests in question had come into the country and had taught a diabolical law belonging to foreign countries, and which aimed at superseding the rites and laws of his own religion, confused his people, and destroyed his Government and kingdom; for which reason he had rigorously proscribed it. Against these prohibitions, the religious men of Luzon preached their law publicly to humble people, such as servants and slaves. Not being able to permit this persistence in law-breaking, he had ordered their death by placing them on crosses; for he was informed that in the kingdom where Spaniards dominated, this teaching of their religious doctrine was but an artifice and stratagem by means of which the civil power was deceitfully gained. He astutely asks the Gov.-General if he would consent to Japanese preaching their laws in his territory, perturbing public peace with such novelties amongst the lower classes?

Certainly it would be severely repressed, argued the Emperor, adding that in the exercise of his absolute power and for the good of his subjects, he had avoided the occurrence in his dominions of what had taken place in those regions where the Spaniards deposed the legitimate kings, and constituted themselves masters by religious fraud.

He explains that the seizure of the cargo of a Spanish ship was only a reprisal for the harm which he had suffered by the tumult raised when the edict was evaded. But as the Spanish Governor had thought fit to send another ambassador from so far, risking the perils of the sea, he was anxious for peace and mutual good-feeling, but only on the precise condition that no more individuals should be sent to teach a law foreign to his realm, and under these unalterable conditions the Governor's subjects were at liberty to trade freely with Japan; that by reason of his former friendship and royal clemency, he had refrained from killing all the Spaniards with the priests and their servants, and had allowed them to return to their country.

As to religion itself, Taycosama is said to have remarked that among so many professed, one more was of little consequence,—hence his toleration in the beginning, and his continued permission to the Jesuits to maintain their doctrines amongst their own sectarians. Moreover, it is said that a map was shown to Taycosama, marking the domains of the King of Spain and Portugal, and that in reply to his inquiry: “How could one man have conquered such vast territory?”—a certain Father Guzman (probably a Portuguese) answered: “By secretly sending religious men to teach their doctrine, and when a sufficient number of persons were so converted, the Spanish soldiery, with their aid, annexed their country and overthrew their kings.” Such an avowal naturally impressed Taycosama profoundly.5

In Seville there was quite a tumult when the details of the executions in Japan were published.

In the meantime, the lamentable end of the Franciscan missionaries did not deter others from making further attempts to follow their example. During the first 20 years of the 17th century, priests succeeded in entering Japan, under the pretence of trading, in spite of the extreme measures adopted to discover them and the precautions taken to uproot the new doctrine, which it was feared would become the forerunner of sedition. Indeed, many Japanese nobles professing Christianity had already taken up their residence in Manila, and were regarded by the Emperor as a constant danger to his realm, hence he was careful to avoid communication with the Philippines. During the short reigns of Dayfusama and his son Xogusama, new decrees were issued, not against foreign Christians, but against those who made apostates amongst the Japanese; and consequently two more Spanish priests were beheaded.

In September, 1622, a large number of Spanish missionaries and Christian Japanese men and children were executed in Nagasaki. Twenty-five of them were burnt and the rest beheaded, their remains being thrown into the sea to avoid the Christians following their odious custom of preserving parts of corpses as relics. Two days afterwards, four Franciscan and two Dominican friars with five Japanese were burnt in Omura. Then followed an edict stating the pains and penalties, civil deprivations, etc., against all who refused to abandon their apostasy and return to the faith of their forefathers. Another edict was issued imposing death upon those who should conduct priests to Japan, and forfeiture of the ships in which they should arrive and the merchandise with which they should come. To all informers against native apostates the culprits' estates and goods were transferred as a reward.

A Spanish deputation was sent to the Emperor of Japan in 1622, alleging a desire to renew commercial relations, but the Emperor was so exasperated at the recent defiance of his decrees that he refused to accept the deputies' presents from the Philippine Government, and sent them and the deputation away.

Still there were friars in Manila eager to seek martyrdom, but the Philippine traders, in view of the danger of confiscation of their ships and merchandise if they carried missionaries, resolved not to despatch vessels to Japan if ecclesiastics insisted on taking passage. The Government supported this resolution in the interests of trade, and formally prohibited the transport of priests. The Archbishop of Manila, on his part, imposed ecclesiastical penalties on those of his subordinates who should clandestinely violate this prohibition.

Supplicatory letters from Japan reached the religious communities in Manila, entreating them to send more priests to aid in the spread of Christianity; therefore the chiefs of the Orders consulted together, bought a ship, and paid high wages to its officers to carry four Franciscan, four Dominican and two Recoleto priests to Japan. When the Governor, Alonso Fajardo de Tua, heard of the intended expedition, he threatened to prohibit it, affirming that he would not consent to any more victims being sent to Japan. Thereupon representatives of the religious Orders waited upon him, to state that if he persisted in his prohibition, upon his conscience would fall the enormous charge of having lost the souls which they had hoped to save. The Governor therefore retired from the discussion, remitting the question to the Archbishop, who at once permitted the ship to leave, conveying the ten priests disguised as merchants. Several times the vessel was nearly wrecked, but at length arrived safely in a Japanese port. The ten priests landed, and were shortly afterwards burnt by Imperial order.

In Rome a very disputed inquiry had been made into the circumstances of the Franciscan mission; but, in spite of the severe ordeal of the diaboli advocatus, cononization was conceded to Pedro Bautista and his companions.

In 1629 the Papal Bull of Urban VIII., dated September 14, 1627, was published in Manila, amidst public feasts and popular rejoicing. The Bull declared the missionaries of Japan to be Saints and Martyrs and Patron Saints of the second class. Increased animation in favour of missions to Japan became general in consequence. Ten thousand pesos were collected to fit out a ship to carry 12 priests from Manila, besides 24 priests who came from PangasinÁn to embark privately. The ship, however, was wrecked off the Ilocos Province coast (Luzon Is.), but the crew and priests were saved.

A large junk was then secretly prepared at a distance from Manila for the purpose of conveying another party of friars to Japan; but, just as they were about to embark, the Governor sent a detachment of soldiers with orders to prevent them doing so, and he definitely prohibited further missionary expeditions.

In 1633 the final extinction of Christians was vigorously commenced by the Emperor To-Kogunsama; and in the following year 79 persons were executed. The same Emperor sent a ship to Manila with a present of 150 lepers, saying that, as he did not permit Christians in his country, and knowing that the priests had specially cared for these unfortunate beings, he remitted them to their care. The first impulse of the Spaniards was to sink the ship with cannon shots, but finally it was agreed to receive the lepers, who were conducted with great pomp through the city and lodged in a large shed at Dilao (now the suburb of Paco). This gave rise to the foundation of the Saint Lazarus' (Lepers') Hospital, existing at the present day.6 The Governor replied to the Emperor that if any more were sent he would kill them and their conductors.

The Emperor then convoked a great assembly of his vassal kings and nobles, and solemnly imposed upon them the strict obligation to fulfil all the edicts against the entry and permanence of Christians, under severe penalties, forfeiture of property, deprivation of dignities, or death. So intent was this Prince on effectually annihilating Christianity within his Empire, that he thenceforth interdicted all trade with Macao; and when in 1640 his decree was disregarded by four Portuguese traders, who, describing themselves as ambassadors, arrived with a suite of 46 Orientals, they were all executed.

In the same year the Governor of the Philippines called a Congress of local officials and ecclesiastics, amongst whom it was agreed that to send missionaries to Japan was to send them directly to death, and it was thenceforth resolved to abandon Catholic missions in that country.

Secret missions and consequent executions still continued until about the year 1642, when the Dutch took Tanchiu—in Formosa Island—from the Spaniards, and intercepted the passage to Japan of priests and merchants alike. The conquest of Japan was a feat which all the artifice of King Philip IV.'s favourites and their monastic agents could not compass.

In 1862, during the Pontificate of Pius IX., 620 missionaries who had met with martyrdom in Japan, in the 17th century, were canonized with great pomp and appropriate ceremony in Rome.