Seeing No
Hope Of Any Profitable Trade At This Place, They Now Left It, Intending
For Bantam, Not Much Pleased Either With The Country Or The People.
The
day after leaving Borneo, they met a junk from Japan bound for Manilla,
which informed them of a great Dutch ship being forced by tempests into
Japan, all her company having died by sickness and famine except
fourteen.
They came first to Bongo, in lat. 34 deg. 40' N. [Bungo in about
lat. 33 deg. N.] whence the emperor of Japan ordered them to remove to
Atonza, in lat. 36 deg. 30' N. [Osaka in lat. 34' 55' N.] They alleged
that they were allowed to trade, and to build a new ship, with liberty
to dispose of themselves afterwards as they pleased. From this account,
it was not doubted that this was the admiral of Verhagen's fleet;[80]
and dismissing the Japanese vessel, they passed the line a third time,
and proceeded for Bantam, in no little fear and danger, for want of an
experienced pilot and good charts.
[Footnote 80: This was the ship in which William Adams sailed as pilot,
as related on a former occasion, being the Hope, commanded by James
Mahu, one of five ships from Rotterdam. We have already had occasion to
meet with two of these in the Straits of Magellan. - E.]
The 16th they took a junk belonging to Jor or Johor, in which they
procured an experienced and skilful pilot, who came in good time to
save them from shipwreck, which they had otherwise most probably
suffered in these dangerous seas, so thick set with shoals and islands
on every side, with which they were entirely unacquainted; and besides,
they were now reduced to one anchor, and one solitary cable almost worn
out.
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