ploy of the Dutch
factory and his wife. They had two little boys whom the factor offered to
take and have brought up by the Dutch. But the parents declined, saying
that they preferred to have the boys die with them. A plan was devised by
which the heads of households were required to certify that none of their
families were Christians, and that no priests or converts were harbored by
them.

All this terrible exercise of power and the constantly recurring scenes of
suffering were more than the governor could endure, and so we find him at
last complaining that he could not sleep and that his health was impaired.
At his earnest petition he was relieved and a new governor appointed in
1626. He signalized his entrance upon his duties by condemning thirteen
Christians to be burnt, viz.: Bishop Franciscus Parquerus, a Portuguese,
seventy years old; Balthazar de Tores, a Dominican, fifty-seven years old,
together with five Portuguese and five Japanese laymen. When it came to
the crisis the five Portuguese renounced their faith and escaped death. On
the twelfth of July nine more were executed, five by burning and four by
beheading. On the twenty-ninth of July a priest was caught and executed
who had concealed himself in a camp of lepers, and who had hoped in that
way to escape detection.

The governor exerted himself to bring about recantations on the part of
those who had professed themselves Christians. He promised special favors
to such as would renounce their faith, and in many cases went far beyond
promises to secure the result. He set a day when all the apostates dressed
in their best clothes should present themselves at his office. Fifteen
hundred appeared on this occasion, and were treated with the greatest
kindness and consideration. But the officers began to see that putting
Christians to death would not prevent others from embracing the same
doctrine. There grew up such an enthusiasm among the faithful that they
sought rather than avoided the crown of martyrdom. As Guysbert points out,
the knowledge of the Christian religion possessed by these converts must
have been exceedingly small; they knew the Lord's prayer and the _Ave
Maria_, and a few other prayers of the Church, but they had not the
Scriptures to read, and many of them could not have read them even if they
had been translated into their own language. And yet these humble and
ignorant people withstood death, and tortures far worse than death, with a
heroism