William Adams (samurai)

William Adams (ウィリアム・アダムス), better known in Japan as Miura Anjin (三浦按針), was an English navigator who, in 1600, became the first Englishman to reach Japan. He did so on a trading ship called De Liefde (ship) under the leadership of Jacob Quaeckernaeck; it was the only vessel reaching Japan from a five-ship expedition launched by a company of Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, or predecessor of the Dutch East India Company). Adams was among the few survivors of the expedition who reached Japan. For more than a decade after, the authorities did not allow Adams and his second mate Jan Joosten to leave the country. Earlier, they did permit Quaeckernaeck and Melchior van Santvoort to return to the Dutch Republic to establish formal trade relations. Adams and Joosten settled in Japan, where each of them was appointed as hatamoto.

Soon after his arrival in Japan, Adams became advisor to the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Under his authority, Adams directed the construction of Western-style ships. He was later part of the envoy that gave permission to the Netherlands to build factories in Japan. He became highly involved in Japan's red seal trade, chartering and serving as captain of four expeditions to Southeast Asia.

He was recognized as one of the most influential foreigners in Japan during the early 17th century. Adams promoted a policy of religious intolerance, aimed particularly at Catholics, which would later become a centuries-long policy of religious persecution primarily against Europeans and Christians of any denomination, as well as against Japanese converts. He also influenced Japan's isolationist policy, which barred the entry and exit of people from the nation and blocked trade with foreign countries.

Although eventually given permission to return home to England, he ultimately decided to stay in Japan where he died at the age of 55. His children Joseph and Susanna were expelled to Batavia and disappear from historical records at that time.

Early life
Adams was born in Gillingham, Kent, England. His father died when he was twelve, and he was apprenticed to shipyard owner Master Nicholas Diggins at Limehouse for the seafaring life. He spent the next twelve years learning shipbuilding, astronomy, and navigation before entering the Royal Navy.

With England at war with Spain, Adams served in the Royal Navy under Sir Francis Drake. He saw naval service against the Spanish Armada in 1588 as master of the Richarde Dyffylde, a resupply ship carrying ammunition and victuals for the English fleet. Adams became a pilot for the Barbary Company. During this service, Jesuit sources claim he took part in an expedition to the Arctic that lasted about two years, in search of a Northeast Passage along the coast of Siberia to the Far East.



"I am a Kentish-man, borne in a Towne called Gillingham, two English miles from Rochester, one mile from Chattam, where the Kings ships lye : and that from the age of twelve yeares, I was brought up in Lime-house neere London, being Prentise twelve yeares to one Master Nicholas Diggines, and have served in the place of Master and Pilot in her Majesties ships, and about eleven or twelve yeares served the Worshipfull Company of the Barbarie Marchants, untill [sic] the Indian Trafficke from Holland began, in which Indian Trafficke I was desirous to make a little experience of the small knowledge which God had given me. So, in the yeare of our Lord God, 1598. I was hired for chiefe Pilot of a Fleete of five sayle, which was made readie by the chiefe of the Indian Company Peter Vanderhag, and Hance Vanderueke..."

In 1598, Adams, who at that time was 34 years old, joined a Dutch East India Company fleet of 5 ships as pilot major, and sailed from the isle of Texel to the Far East. Adams was accompanied by Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, predecessor of the Dutch East India Company), and his brother Thomas Adams. William Adams and his brother set sail from Texel on the Hoope ship, where they joined with the rest of their company fleet on 24 June. The fleet consisted of:
 * Hoope ("Hope"), ledy by Admiral Jacques Mahu (d. 1598), who was succeeded by Simon de Cordes (d. 1599) and Simon de Cordes Jr; this ship was lost near the Hawaiian Islands;
 * Liefde ("Love" or "Charity"), led by Simon de Cordes, second in command, succeeded by Gerrit van Beuningen, and finally under Jacob Quaeckernaeck; this was the only ship to reach Japan;
 * Geloof ("Faith"), led by Gerrit van Beuningen and in the end, Sebald de Weert; this was the only ship that returned to Rotterdam;
 * Trouw ("Loyalty"), led by Jurriaan van Boekhout (d. 1599) and finally, Baltazar de Cordes; this ship was captured in Tidore;
 * Blijde Boodschap ("Good Tiding" or "The Gospel"), led by Sebald de Weert, and later, Dirck Gerritz, was seized in Valparaiso.

Jacques Mahu and Simon de Cordes were the leaders of an expedition with the goal to reach Chile, Peru and other kingdoms in New Spain such as Nueva Galicia, the Captaincy General of Guatemala, Nueva Vizcaya the New Kingdom of León and Santa Fe de Nuevo México. The fleet's original mission was to go to the South America's western coast and trading their cargo for silver, then head to Japan only if the original mission failed. As for the condition which forced them to sail into Japan, the crews were supposed to obtain silver in Japan and spices in Moluccas, before returning home. Their goal was to sail through the Strait of Magellan to get to their destination, which scared many sailors because of the harsh weather conditions.

The first major expedition around South America was organized by a voorcompagnie, the Rotterdam or Magelhaen Company. It organized two fleets of five and four ships with 750 sailors and soldiers, including 30 English musicians.



After leaving Goeree on 27 June 1598, the ships sailed to the Channel, but anchored in the Downs until mid July. When the ships approached the shores of North Africa, Simon de Cordes realized he had been far too generous in the early weeks of the voyage and instituted a 'bread policy'. At the end of August, they landed at Santiago, Cape Verde and Mayo off the coast of Africa because of a lack of water and need for fresh fruit. They stayed around three weeks in the hope of buying some goats. Near Praia they succeeded in occupying a Portuguese castle on the top of a hill, but came back without anything substantial. At Brava, Cape Verde, half of the crew of the Hoope caught fever and most of the men were sick, among them Admiral Jacques Mahu. After his death the leadership of the expedition was taken over by Simon de Cordes, with Van Beuningen as vice admiral. Because of contrary wind, the fleet was blown off course (northeast in the opposite direction) and arrived at Cape Lopez, Gabon, Central Africa. An outbreak of scurvy forced a landing on Annobón on 9 December. Several men became sick because of dysentery. They stormed the island only to find that the Portuguese and their native allies had set fire to their houses and fled into the hills. The Dutch put all their sick men ashore to recover and left in early January. Because of starvation, the men fell into great weakness; some tried to eat leather. On 10 March 1599 they reached the Rio de la Plata, in what is now Argentina.

By early April, they arrived at the Strait, 570 km long, 2 km wide at its narrowest point, with an inaccurate chart of the seabed. The wind turned out to be unfavorable and this remained so for the next four months. Under freezing temperatures and poor visibility, they caught penguins, seals, mussels, duck and fish. About two hundred crew members died. On 23 August, the weather improved.

Voyage to Pacific


When the expedition finally reached the Pacific Ocean on 3 September 1599, the ships were caught in a storm and lost sight of each other. The Trouw and the Geloof were driven back in the strait. After more than a year, each ship went its own way. The Geloof returned to Rotterdam in July 1600 with 36 survivors of the original 109 crew.

De Cordes ordered his small fleet to wait four weeks for each other on Santa María Island, Chile, but some ships missed the island. Adams wrote "they brought us sheep and potatoes". From here the story becomes less reliable because of a lack of sources and changes in command. In early November, the Hoope arrived at Mocha Island where 27 people, including Simon de Cordes, were killed by people from Araucania. (In the account given to Olivier van Noort, it was said that Simon de Cordes was slain at the Punta de Lavapie, but Adams gives Mocha Island as the scene of his death. ) The Liefde hit the island, but went on to Punta Lavapié near Concepción, Chile. A Spanish captain supplied the Trouw and Hoope with food; the Dutch helped him against the Araucans, who had killed 23 Dutch, including Thomas Adams (according to his brother in his second letter) and Gerrit van Beuningen. He was replaced by Jacob Quaeckernaeck.



In 1598 before December, Adams entered the Liefde ship (originally named Erasmus and adorned with a wooden carving of Erasmus on her stern). The Trouw reached Tidore (Eastern Indonesia). The crew were killed by Portuguese there in January 1601. In fear of the hostile spaniards, the remaining crews determined to leave Floreana Island and sail across the Pacific. On 27 November 1599, when both ships sailed to Japan, the fleet was stranded into an isles which believed to be Hawaii or the Line Islands of Kiribati. During this time 8 of their sailors abandoned the fleet. Later during the voyage, a typhoon struck the Hoope on late February 1600..

Arrival in Japan
In 1600, On April 19, When the 9 surviving crew members gained their strength to stand, they arrived on 19 April at Bungo (modern day Usuki, Ōita, Ōita Prefecture), where they met with local peoples. The former daimyo of the region formerly controlled by Ōtomo Yoshimune made the initial decision to look after Adams's crew so that they could be questioned by the Council of Five Elders. The crew spent their first five days in Japan in comfortable accommodations, but then Portuguese Jesuit missionary priests came to serve as interpreters, and claimed that Adams's ship was a pirate vessel and that the crew should be executed as pirates. Thereafter, Ota Shigemasa, the lord of Usuki Castle, decided to seize the ship and imprison the crew in a filthy prison. After 9 days in Japan, Adams and Jan Joosten were sent to Osaka Castle by the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the daimyo of Edo. They arrived in Osaka on May 12 where Adams met Ieyasu in Osaka 3 times between May and June, and was interrogated about a broad scope of European knowledge with the help of interpreter named Suminokura Ryoi. In a letter to his wife, Adams refers Ieyasu as a king of Japan. Adams writes that Ieyasu had taken an interest in him, that there are Portuguese speaking people in the court of Ieyasu, and that Ieyasu is interested in trading with the East India Company. Ieyasu also asked Adams which countries were enemies of England, and he responded that England was at war with Portugal and Spain. Finally, Adams writes that Ieyasu had rejected the Jesuits' request that Ieyasu execute him; their conversation continued until midnight.

Service under Tokugawa shogunate


In 1600, on August, Ieyasu offered to free Adams and his crew in exchange for support in the upcoming civil war through his envoy who named Suminokura. Adams and Joosten were released from Osaka Castle after six weeks and were sent back to their ship. Ieyasu ordered the crew to sail the Liefde from Bungo to Edo, and the ship arrived at Uraga. Adams thereafter lodged with Honda Masazumi in Edo, while his crew resided with Mukai Shogen in Uraga. In Edo, Adams trained Tokugawa's army in firing the cannon that had been removed from the ship. In late August, Adams joined Tokugawa's army in a battle in Aizu, and in October he again joined the army in its march westward, culminating in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara that effectively secured Ieyasu's control over Japan. Following the victory at Sekigahara, Ieyasu awarded Adams 10,000 Portuguese reals, although he did not allow the Liefde crew to leave Japan.

Service under Ieyasu
In 1601, he decided to give each of them a regular rice allowance in exchange for serving as teachers and advisors to the shogunate.

In 1603, Adams successfully piloted the first Spanish merchant ship into Edo Bay in the autumn, after which Edo became a trading port. In May 1603, Ieyasu further granted Adams a mansion in Edo with housekeepers, a monthly allowance of 50 Ryō, and a daily allowance of a kilogram of rice, as well as an expanded allowance for his crew members.

In 1604, he built the first shipbuilding dock in Japan in Ito.

In 1605 Ieyasu further granted Adams the status of samurai, Adams had a wife Mary Hyn and two children back in England, and the name Miura Anjin to Addams. Ieyasu also appoint Adams as jikatatori hatamoto, or a direct vassal in the court of shogun. In the same year, Adams secured authorization letter from Ieyasu to invite the Dutch East Indies company to trade with Japan. At this time, Adams also attempted to send letters to his family and friends in England through the Dutch, but Quaeckerneck and Santvoort did not deliver the letters in order to avoid making Adams's fate known to the English East India Company, which was becoming a trading rival to the Dutch.

In 1607, in response to Adams's achievements, Ieyasu selected him for the high-prestige position as a direct retainer in the Shogun's court, entrusting him with Miura-gun (now a part of Yokosuka City) territories and swords. After Tokugawa Hidetada coronated as the second shogun and Ieyasu became Ōgosho (retired shogun), they formed a dual governments, where Hidetada controlled the official court with the government central located in Edo city, Ieyasu controlled his own informal shadow government which called "Sunpu government" with its center at Sunpu Castle. the membership of the Sunpu government's cabinet was consisted of trusted vassals of Ieyasu which was not included in Hidetada's cabinet, including Adams and Lodensteijn, which Ieyasu entrusted with foreign affairs and diplomacy. Adams also given generous revenues from his service under Ieyasu, and was granted a domain fief in Hemi (ja:逸見) within the frontier of present-day Yokosuka City, 80-90 slaves / servants. His domain estate was estimated at 250 koku and was located next to the Uraga, Kanagawa harbor, the traditional point of entrance to Edo Bay. During this year, Ieyasu gave order to Adams and his companions to assist Mukai Shōgen, a chief commander of Uraga naval forces, to build the first shogunate's Western-style vessel. The sailing ship was built at the harbor of Itō on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula. Carpenters from the harbor supplied the manpower to built an 80-ton ship which would be used to patrol the coast of Japan. The following year, the shōgun ordered a larger ship of 120 tons to be built. According to Adams, Ieyasu was satisfied with his works.

Until 1609, the Dutch were not able to send ships to Japan due to the conflicts with the Portuguese and limited resources in Asia.

Diplomacy with Europe and New Spain


In 1609, On July 2, a couple of Dutch ships named De Griffioen ( lit.the "Griffin") which armed with 19 cannons and Roode Leeuw met Pijlen (lit. "Red lion with arrows") which weigted 400 tons and armed with 26 cannons; led by Jacques Specx, has reached Japan. The men of this Dutch expeditionary fleet established a trading base on Hirado Island. Two Dutch envoys, Puyck and van den Broek, were the official bearers of a letter from Prince Maurice of Nassau to the court of Edo. Adams then negotiated and helped these Dutch emissaries to obtain trading rights throughout Japan and the right to establish a trading factory:

"The Hollandes be now settled (in Japan) and I have got them that privilege as the Spaniards and Portingals could never get in this 50 or 60 years in Japan."

After obtaining the edict of Tokugawa Ieyasu on 24 August, the Dutch erected their factory at Hirado, Nagasaki, on 20 September. They preserved the "trade pass" (Dutch: handelspas) in Hirado and then Dejima for next two hundred years. In the same year, Ieyasu sent Adams to Onjuku, where the Spanish galleon San Francisco was wrecked while carrying the interim governor of the Philippines, Rodrigo de Vivero y Aberrucia. Adams managed to secure friendly relationship between Japan with New Spain through exchange of letters with Rodrigo de Vivero.



In 1610, after the Nossa Senhora da Graça incident, Ieyasu replaced Jesuit translator João Rodrigues Tçuzu with William Adams as his counselor of affairs with the europeans. In the same year, the 120-ton Japanese warship San Buena Ventura, was lent to the Spanish. They sailed it to New Spain, accompanied by a mission of twenty-two Japanese led by Tanaka Shōsuke. Following the construction, Tokugawa ordered Adams to visit his palace anytime he call.

In 1611 on June, The Spanish sent Sebastián Vizcaíno to Japan to negotiate terms for a shogunate-sponsored mining expedition in New Spain. Adams attempted to persuade Tokugawa Ieyasu and his successor Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada that the Spanish parlays were a precursor to a colonization attempt. In an effort to counter this, Adams arranged for a Dutch mining engineer to visit Japan in late 1611 to assist in developing the Toi gold mine in western Izu. Adams and Mukai Shogen oversaw the construction of the new ship for Vizcaíno's expedition, San Sebastian, which sank shortly after being loaded and sailed off in October. The Jesuits and other Catholic religious orders considered Adams, as a Protestant who hated their religion, to be a very serious threat to the future survival of the Catholic Church in Japan. In the same yearm Adams learned of an English East India Company settlement in Old Banten of Banten Sultanate (present-day Indonesia). At this point, he became aware that the Dutch had not delivered his letters to England. He wrote a letter to the settlement in to invite his family and friends in England to trade with Japan which "the Hollanders have here an Indies of money." Adams entrusted this 5,960-word letter to English sailor Thomas Hill, who had come to Hirado on a Dutch ship.



in 1613 January, Hill then delivered a reply to Adams from Company factor Augustine Spalding. In June, John Saris, captain of Clove, ship, arrived at Hirado in a mission to establish a trading factory for the Company. Adams traveled from Hemi to Hirado to meet Saris on July 27, the first meeting of Englishmen on Japanese soil. Adams traveled with Saris to Sumpu Castle in Suruga to meet Ieyasu and seek permission to return to England. They continued to Kamakura where they visited Kamakura Great Buddha, and Edo, where they met the acting shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, who gave them Japanese armour set as a gift for King James I. Thereafter, they returned to Sumpu on 29 September, where Ieyasu giving them a "Red Seal", a license of permission for foreign tradings in Japan. The English party returned to Hirado on 6 November 1613. Instead of returning to England, Adams started his new job at Hirado trading factory on 24November, under the contract with the East India Company for the annual salary of 100 Pounds, which was double of regular salary of 40 pounds earned by the other workers at Hirado. During this time, Adams worked under Richard Cocks six of his friends (Tempest Peacock, Richard Wickham, William Eaton, Walter Carwarden, Edmund Sayers and William Nealson), in constructing settlement for English peoples in Hirado. Adams advised the Company to cancel their original plan to erect the settlement in Hirado, which he deemed as too small and far from in Osaka and Edo markets; Adams instead recommended selection of Uraga near Edo for a post. However, Saris wanted to keep an eye on the Dutch activities, and also distrusted Adams.

In 1614, Father Carvalho complained about the threat posed by Adams and other Protestant merchants in his annual report to Pope Paul V, stating that William Adams and his companions has influenced Ieyasu to be hostile to the Catholics. Tokugawa Ieyasu, influenced by Adams's anti-Catholic counsels, and the increase of samurai and daimyos who were Catholic converts (for example, the Okamoto Daihachi incident), banished all Portuguese Jesuits from Japan in 1614. He also demanded that all Japanese Catholics abandon their new faith, and launched what would become a centuries-long policy of religious persecution aimed at those who refused. In the same year, Adams received permission from both Japan and British empire to return to England. Although Adams had intended to give up his status and property in Japan to return to England on the Clove, he changed his mind after returning to Hirado with Saris. After 13 years in Japan, Adams became at odds with another englishmans. At first, he closed the company of English sailors develop a bad terms with Saris. Saris did not like Adams, who insisted on doing things the Japanese way, while Adams disliked Saris for his perceived rude attitude of Saris. After the group left, Adams helped out at the British trading post in his home country, although he was paid less than he had been working at the Dutch trading post. However, Richard Cocks, the head of the Hirado factory, praised Adams's attitude and his calm temperament which Cocks remarked as Japanese characteristic. In a letter to the East India Company, Cocks wrote that he found Adams to be easy to approach and closed his letter with Cocks willingness to cooperate with Adams for the next 7 years. On the eve of Siege of Osaka, Tokugawa Ieyasu prepared for the war effort by stockpiling ammunition. In May, a company of British merchants tried to sell lead in Hirado. However, they failed to find a buyer. With the help of Adams, the shogunate bought all lead the British had brought. In the same month, the shogunate bought lead from a Dutch trading company. Later in June, Tokugawa Ieyasu purchased a large amount of cannons, gunpowder, and bullets from British merchants, with Adams acting as middleman. The prices agreed upon were 1 kan for cannons, 2.3 bun for gunpowder, and 1.6 bun for bullets. Later in the same year, Adams wanted to organize a trade expedition to Siam to bolster the profit and helped company's situation. Adams then bought and upgraded a 200-ton Japanese junk ship and renaming it as Sea Adventure, then he hired around 120 Japanese sailors and merchants, along with several Chinese traders, an Italian, a Spanish trader and Richard Wickham and Edmund Sayers of the English factory's staff. They sailed from Hirado on November. The enterprise was aimed to purchase raw silk, Chinese goods, Biancaea sappan, deer skins and ray skins (for the hilts of katana swords).

In 1615, on January 27, The ships under Adams which carried £1,250 in silver and £175 worth of Indian cottons, Japanese weapons and lacquerware, has encountered a storm near the Ryukyu Islands and had to stay at Naha. However, the Ryukyu ruler Shō Nei refused to cooperate for repairing the ships, The crew went on strike, and the ship was forced to gave away its anchorage in February. Later, the fleet returned to Hirado in June after purchasing goods from Ryukyu islands, including sweet potatoes, which were initially cultivated by the EIC in Hirado and then the seeds planted in Satsuma province. on 7 December, after a trip to Edo to meet with the ambassador from New Spain on Shogun Ieyasu's orders, Adams left Hirado for Ayutthaya in Siam on the refitted Sea Adventure, intent on obtaining sappan wood for resale in Japan. His cargo was chiefly silver (£600) and the Japanese and Indian goods unsold from the previous voyage. In Bangkok, Adams met with the King of Siam and obtained a trading license for the English, and then sailed the Sea Adventure to Japan with 143 tonnes of sappan wood and 3,700 deer skins, returning to Hirado in 47 days. (The return trip took from 5 June to 22 July 1616).

Service under Hidetada and Death
In 1616, Less than a week before Adams's return, Ieyasu died, giving his son Shogun Hidetada practical control over the country. Hidetada was less interested in foreign affairs than Ieyasu, and excluded Adams from his next audience with the Company, in part due to distrust stemming from Adams's wife's conversion to Christianity. However, three weeks later, Hidetada met with Adams, and in September he agreed to maintain the English trading privileges and also issued a new red seal permit (shuinjō) to Adams, which allowed Adams to continue trade activities overseas under the shogun's protection. While Hidetada confined English trading activities to Hirado and Nagasaki, and barred Japanese merchants from purchasing goods from foreigners in Osaka and Kyoto, Adams retained his hatamoto status and was exempt from these restrictions. Later on December, Adams declined to join an English expedition from Hirado; there is evidence that he was suffering from a mental breakdown around this time due to the death of Ieyasu and political aftershocks, as well as physical injuries Adams sustained on the way back from Edo after meeting Hidetada.



In 1617, on March, Adams set sail to Cochinchina, and purchased a junk ship which brought from Siam and renamed it the Gift of God. He intended to find two English sailors named Tempest Peacock and Walter Carwarden. However, in Cochinchina in Adams learned that Peacock drank, and commited murder. Then Adams killed Peacock, and then chased Carwarden, who was waiting at downstream with a boat. Realized that Adams has killed his companion, the panicked Carwarden had capsized his boat and drowned. Adams then sell the rest of small cargo for £351 before returning to Japan. As Adams reached Osaka with his ship Gift of God, he was met with Hidetada at Fushimi Castle in September 1617, and obtained new red seal licenses. He agreed to sell both the ship and the licenses to the English factory in Hirado.

in 1618, on July, Adams joined a Dutch mission from Hirado to Edo. Shortly thereafter, the Dutch brought the captured English ship Attendance to Hirado, sparking hostilities between the previously friendly English and Dutch merchants there. Adams refused to help the English appeal to the Shogun about the issue, arguing that Hidetada would not be interested. Adams later changed his mind and met with Hidetada in October, but due to Adams's prior sale of his Red Seal license to the English, and disturbances that occurred on the resulting voyage, Hidetada refused to grant further licenses to the factory. Adams returned to Hirado in December after spending months attempting to save the English factory.

From March until August 1619, Adams undertook a final voyage to Cochinchina and Tonkin, using a personal Red Seal license rather than working for the English. During this voyage, England and the Netherlands went to war in Asia, and Adams contracted a tropical disease which caused his health to deteriorate. However, after returning to Hirado, Adams managed to rescue three English prisoners who were imprisoned on a Dutch ship. In the final months of his life, Adams assisted the English factory by acting as a broker for trade with the governor of Nagasaki.

Adams died at Hirado, north of Nagasaki, on 16 May 1620, at the age of 55. In his will, he left his residence in Edo, domain fief in Hemi (in Yokosuka ), and 500 English pounds to be distributed evenly among his family in England and Japan. The English family's portion of the inheritance did not reach London until 1622, at which point Mary Hyn was already dead.

Cocks wrote: "I cannot but be sorrowful for the loss of such a man as Capt William Adams, he having been in such favour with two Emperors of Japan as never any Christian in these part of the world." Cocks records that Hidetada transferred the lordship from William Adams to his son Joseph Adams with the attendant rights to the estate at Hemi. Cocks continued to remain in contact with Adams's Japanese family, sending gifts. On the Christmas after Adams's death, Cocks gave Joseph his father's sword and dagger. In March 1622, he offered silks to Joseph and Susanna. Cocks also administered Adams's trading rights (the shuinjō) for the benefit of Adams's children, Joseph and Susanna. He carried this out conscientiously.

Adams was buried in Hirado in 1620. His gravesite is next to a memorial to Saint Francis Xavier. However, a few years later foreign cemeteries were destroyed and there was persecution of Christians by the Tokugawa shogunate.

Personal info
During his stay in Japan, Adams had a high esteem for Japanese society under the Tokugawa shogunate. He viewed the Japanese as courteous, valiant, impartial in justice, and having civil governance.

According to American author and literature expert Susan Wise Bauer, William Adams was a fervent Protestant who detested Catholics.

Family
Adams was recorded to have married Mary Hyn in the parish church of St Dunstan's, Stepney on 20 August 1589. They had two children together: a son John and a daughter Deliverance. After Adams's voyage to Japan, Mary Hyn was forced to leave Limehouse and became destitute for some time, although she received a portion of Adams's wages from the East India Company in 1615. Mary died in 1620 at Gillingham in Kent. Deliverance married Ratcliff mariner Raph Goodchild at St Dunstan's, Stepney on 30 September 1618. They had two daughters, Abigail in October 1619 who died in the same month, and Jane in April 1621. Deliverance would later marry for a second time, to John Wright at St Alfege Church, Greenwich on 13 October 1624.

After settling in Japan, Adams married a Japanese woman, although there is no clear evidence of her name and background in either Japanese or European historical records. A common account is that his wife was named Oyuki (お雪) and was the adopted daughter of Magome Kageyu, a official who was responsible for a pack-horse exchange on one of the imperial roads that led out of Edo. Although Magome was important, Oyuki was not of noble birth, nor high social standing. The family link to Magome is shown in Japanese historical accounts written in the 1800s, while the first known reference to the name "Oyuki" is from a fictional work in 1973, and earlier fictional accounts refer to Adams's wife by names such as Mary, Tsu, Bikuni, Tae, and Chrysanthemum.

Adams and his Japanese wife had a son Joseph and a daughter Susanna. Some accounts describe Adams having other children with concubines or mistresses, but no such children were named in his will. Richard Cocks wrote that Adams's interpreter, "Coshuro", claimed support for Adams's son "Cowjohns" in 1621, after Adams's death, and that he also made similar support payments for another alleged child of Adams.

In 1623, the unprofitable English trading factory in Hirado was dissolved by the East India Company and Cocks departed for England, the Dutch traded on Adams' children's behalf via the red seal ships. Joseph Adams inherited the title of Miura Anjin, became a trader, and made five voyages to Cochinchina and Siam between 1624 and 1635.

By 1629, only two of Adams's shipmates from 1600 survived in Japan: Melchior van Santvoort and Vincent Romeyn lived quietly in Nagasaki.

In 1635, Hidetada's successor Tokugawa Iemitsu enforced the Sakoku Edict for Japan to be closed against foreign trading; both Joseph and Susanna disappear from historical records at that time. All Japanese of mixed race were expelled to the Dutch colony of Batavia (modern day Jakarta, Indonesia), and it is presumed that Adams's children were among them.

Historical legacy and evaluations


The bones of Anjin were taken for safekeeping and reburied. In 1931, skeletal remains were first discovered there and assumed to be of Anjin, but this could not be confirmed due to technological limitations at the time. The remains were later placed in a Showa period ceramic funerary urn and reburied where they were discovered.

In July 2017, the excavation of the skeletal remains began at the William Adams Memorial Park on Sakigata Hill, Hirado. In 2019, Japanese archaeologists announced the discovery of bones at the site believed to be those of Adams. These remains match the 1931 description. The subsequent biomolecular anthropological investigation of the genetic background showed the mtDNA analysis indicates Anjin's mitochondrial DNA likely belongs to haplogroup H. The analysis also showed aspects such as the dietary habits and burial style matched with Anjin. In April 2020, the University of Tokyo conducted conclusive forensic tests on the bones and confirmed it was William Adams' grave.

Modern french history and literary critic Michel Foucault retold Adams' tale in The Discourse on Language. According to Foucault, the story embodies one of the "great myths of European culture," and the idea that a mere sailor could teach mathematics to the Japanese shogun shows the difference between the open exchange of knowledge in Europe, as opposed to the secretive control of knowledge under "oriental tyranny". In fact, however, Adams was not a mere sailor but the chief navigator of the fleet, and his value to the Shogun was along the practical lines of shipbuilding.

Posthumous honours

 * A town in Edo (modern Tokyo), Anjin-chō (in modern-day Nihonbashi) was named after Adams, who had a house there. Anjin-chō no longer exists in Nihonbashi and is now known as Nihonbashi Muromachi 1-Chōme. However within Muromachi 1-Chōme a street, Anjin-dori, remains named after Adams.
 * A village and a railroad station in his fiefdom, Hemi, in modern Yokosuka, were named for him.
 * In the city of Itō, Shizuoka, the Miura Anjin Festival is held annually on 10 August. On the seafront at Itō is a monument to Adams. Next to it is a plaque inscribed with Edmund Blunden's poem, "To the Citizens of Ito", which commemorates Adams' achievement.
 * Adams's birth town, Gillingham, has held a Will Adams Festival every September since 2000. Since the late 20th century, both Itō and Yokosuka have become sister cities of Gillingham.
 * A monument to Adams was installed in Watling Street, Gillingham, Kent, opposite Darland Avenue. The monument was unveiled 11 May 1934 by Tsuneo Matsudaira GCVO, Japanese ambassador to the Court of St James's.
 * A roundabout named Will Adams Roundabout with a Japanese theme, just along from the Gillingham monument to Adams, with two roads named after the Gillingham sister cities "Ito Way" and "Yokosuka Way".
 * The townhouse of Will Adams still exists in Hirado. It is currently a sweet shop called Tsutaya at 431 Kihikidacho. It is known as Anjin no Yakata (Anjin's House).
 * Adams has a second memorial monument at the location of his residence in Hemi. Consisting of a pair of hōkyōintō, the tuff memorial on the right is that of Adams, and the andesite one of the left is for his wife. The monuments were erected by his family in accordance with his will, and the site was designated as a National Historic Site in 1923.

Popular culture

 * James Clavell based his best-selling novel Shōgun (1975) on Adams' life and changed the name of his protagonist to "John Blackthorne". It has been adapted in various forms:
 * 1980, as the NBC miniseries, Shōgun
 * 1989, as a video game James Clavell's Shōgun
 * 1990, as a Broadway production, Shōgun: The Musical
 * 2024, as the FX series, Shōgun
 * Murasame Tatsumasa, or more known for his birth name Jakob Sebastian Björk, a Swedish actor with Japanese citizenship, played the role of William Adams in the 2023 Jidaigeki historical television drama What Will You Do, Ieyasu?.

There were numerous earlier works of fiction and non-fiction based on Adams.


 * William Dalton wrote Will Adams, The First Englishman in Japan: A Romantic Biography (London, 1861).
 * Richard Blaker's The Needlewatcher (London, 1932) is the least romantic of the novels; he consciously attempted to de-mythologize Adams and write a careful historical work of fiction.
 * James Scherer's Pilot and Shōgun (1935) dramatises a series of incidents based on Adams' life.
 * American Robert Lund wrote Daishi-san (New York, 1960).
 * Christopher Nicole's Lord of the Golden Fan (1973) portrays Adams as sexually frustrated in England and freed by living in Japan, where he has numerous encounters. The work is considered light pornography.
 * In 2002, Giles Milton's historical biography Samurai William (2002) is based on historical sources, especially Richard Cocks' diary.
 * The 2002 alternate history novel Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove features a brief appearance by Adams, piloting cargo and passengers between England and Ostend, both of which are puppet states of the Habsburg Empire in this timeline.
 * In the second season of Heroes, a story set in samurai-era Japan features an Englishman who seems to be based on Adams.
 * A book series called Young Samurai is about a young English boy who is ship wrecked in Japan, and is trained as a samurai.
 * Adams also serves as the template for the protagonist in the PlayStation 4 and PC video game series Nioh (2017) and non-playable character in its prequel/sequel hybrid game (2020), but with supernatural and historical fiction elements. Unlike the historical William Adams, the game portrays him as an Irishman. As of the end of the second game, some time after managing to arrest the Spaniard Maria, he married Okatsu and had an English-Japanese son named Joseph who inherited his mother's guardian spirit.
 * This version also appeared in the Warriors series' crossover game, Warriors All-Stars.

Origins of Western mythology
According to Professor Derek Massarella of Chuo University in Tokyo, Adams was largely forgotten in England until the 1872 discovery of his alleged tomb in Japan led to a proliferation of myths and hyperbolic stories. Soon the public in England became embarrassed by the lack of their own monument or memorial to Adams in England; after years of lobbying, a memorial clock in Adams' honor was erected in Gillingham in 1934. The dedication pamphlet for this event includes an artist's depiction of Adams which Massarella dismisses as a complete fabrication. As for the tomb that sparked the frenzy, Massarella, writing two decades before the forensic mtDNA study, concludes that it likely has nothing to do with Adams.

Depiction
Beyond speculative imagery, there is one authenticated contemporaneous drawing of Adams: "It is a derivative drawing of William Adams, which appears to be based in a sketch attributed to Dorothy Burmingham, from a description given by Melchior von Santvoort. The original drawing is to be found at the Rotterdam Maritime Museum, whose specialist Marcel Kroon considers it to be from Adams' time. A copy is preserved at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford."

Hardcopy

 * The Needle-Watcher: The Will Adams Story, British Samurai by Richard Blaker
 * Servant of the Shogun by Richard Tames. Paul Norbury Publications, Tenterden, Kent, England.ISBN 0 904404 39 0.
 * Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan, by Giles Milton; ISBN 978-0-14-200378-7; December 2003