Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan by Milton Giles

Author:Milton, Giles [Milton, Giles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2004-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

AT HOME WITH RICHARD COCKS

THE MEN LEFT behind in Hirado watched the Clove’s departure with heavy hearts. Although they were excited at starting an adventurous new life in Japan, they also feared that it would be many years until the next English vessel reached these distant shores. Loneliness was the scourge of factors in the East, and petty jealousies and rivalries quickly soured relationships. It would require great strength of character if they were to avoid clashing with each other.

Captain Saris had prepared a long list of instructions—his “remembrance”—which set out in considerable detail the day-to-day running of the factory. It also assigned specific duties to each of the men and suggested a hierarchical chain of command. The obvious choice as leader was William Adams. He had by now lived in Japan for more than thirteen years and had all the necessary contacts at court. He was also on good terms with many of the country’s richest merchants and knew which commodities fetched the highest prices in Japan. But Captain Saris could not bring himself to appoint Adams to such a lofty position. Disdainful of Adams’s humble origins and jealous of his knowledge of Japanese, he chose instead to give the position to the merchant Richard Cocks.

Cocks was a cheerful, happy-go-lucky fellow whose easygoing charm enabled him to make friends wherever he went. Known to his men as “honest Mr. Cocks,” his passion in life was growing his own fruit and vegetables, and he was already looking forward to nurturing new and exotic plants. He described himself as “unlettered,” but spent many an hour poring over his favorite book, a “Turkish History,” and devoted his evenings to compiling a colorful, rambling diary. He was happiest when planting seedlings, examining his carrier pigeons, and tending to his collection of prize goldfish.

Like Captain Saris, he was a younger son with little prospect of inheriting the family fortune. This had forced him to set his gaze on horizons that lay far beyond his native Staffordshire. He had traveled to London at an early age to become an apprentice to a wealthy cloth worker, then moved on to Bayonne in southwest France. In 1605, he was recruited as a spy by his patron, Sir Thomas Wilson, and instructed to monitor the movements of English Roman Catholic exiles passing through Bayonne on their way to Spain.

Cocks was described as “one of the better sort,” but he had a weakness of character that more forward-sighted merchants might have considered a major drawback for the position of chief factor. He had an endearing belief in the goodness of mankind and, although he claimed to have a sharp eye for “trix” and sleights of hand, his honesty had almost ruined him during his time in Bayonne. He had been conned by a Portuguese trickster and lost so much money that he was unable to pay his English creditors. He returned home in disgrace and found his name so blackened that he was shunned by friends and womenfolk.

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