professed to attach so much
importance to religious ministrations, were the same men whose
flagrant outrages the fathers declared themselves powerless to check.
If any further evidence were needed of Hideyoshi's discrimination
between trade and religion, it is furnished by his despatches to the
viceroy of the Indies written in 1591:--

The fathers of the Company, as they are called, have come to these
islands to teach another religion here; but as that of the Kami is
too surely founded to be abolished, this new law can serve only to
introduce into Japan a diversity of cults prejudicial to the welfare
of the State. It is for this reason that, by Imperial edict, I have
forbidden these foreign doctors to continue to preach their doctrine.
I have even ordered them to quit Japan, and I am resolved no longer
to allow any one of them to come here to spread new opinions. I
nevertheless desire that trade between you and us should always be on
the same footing [as before]. I shall have every care that the ways
are free by sea and land: I have freed them from all pirates and
brigands. The Portuguese will be able to traffic with my subjects,
and I will in no wise suffer any one to do them the least wrong.

The statistics of 1595 showed that there were then in Japan 137
Jesuit fathers with 300,000 native converts, including seventeen
feudal chiefs and not a few bonzes.

HIDEYOSHI'S FINAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY

For ten years after the issue of his anti-Christian decree at Hakata,
Hideyoshi maintained a tolerant demeanour. But in 1597, his
forbearance was changed to a mood of uncompromising severity. Various
explanations have been given of this change, but the reasons are
obscure. "Up to 1593 the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly of
religious propagandism and oversea commerce in Japan. The privilege
was secured to them by agreement between Spain and Portugal and by a
papal bull. But the Spaniards in Manila had long looked with somewhat
jealous eyes on this Jesuit reservation, and when news of the
anti-Christian decree of 1587 reached the Philippines, the Dominicans
and Franciscans residing there were fired with zeal to enter an arena
where the crown of martyrdom seemed to be the least reward within
reach. The papal bull, however, demanded obedience, and to overcome
that difficulty a ruse was necessary: the governor of Manila agreed
to send a party of Franciscans as ambassadors to Hideyoshi. In that
guise, the friars, be