William Adams (sailor)

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William Adams (sailor) : biography

24 September 1564 – 16 May 1620

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; Published December 2003

External links

Category:Samurai Category:1564 births Category:1620 deaths Category:16th-century English people Category:17th-century English people Category:16th-century Japanese people Category:17th-century Japanese people Category:Advisors to Tokugawa shoguns Category:British emigrants to Japan Category:English Anglicans Category:English sailors Category:Hatamoto Category:Japan–United Kingdom relations Category:People from Gillingham, Kent Category:People of the Tudor period Category:Royal Navy officers

Early life

Adams was born in Gillingham, Kent, England. After losing his father at the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to shipyard owner Master Nicholas Diggins at Limehouse for the seafaring life.William Dalton, Will Adams, The First Englishman in Japan, (1861) preface, He spent the next twelve years learning shipbuilding,Giles Milton, Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan, publ. 2011, Hachette UK, ISBN 1-4447-3177-7, ISBN 978-1-4447-3177-4, astronomy, and navigation before entering the Royal Navy.

Adams served in the Royal Navy under Sir Francis Drake and saw naval service against the Spanish Armada in 1588 as master of the Richarde Dyffylde, a resupply ship. Adams then became a pilot for the Barbary Company. During this service, according to Jesuit sources, 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, born in a town called Gillingham, two English miles from Rochester, one mile from Chatham, where the King’s ships do lie: from the age of twelve years old, I was brought up in Limehouse near London, being Apprentice twelve years to Master Nicholas Diggins; and myself have served for Master and Pilot in her Majesty’s ships; and about eleven or twelve years have served the Worshipfull Company of the Barbary Merchants, until the Indish traffic from Holland began, in which Indish traffic I was desirous to make a little experience of the small knowledge which God had given me. So, in the year of our Lord 1598, I was hired for Pilot Major of a fleet of five sails, which was made ready by the Dutch Indish Company…. (1611 Letter, William Adams)

Japan’s first western-style sailing ships

Hirado Island – sculptural relief on the monument to Jan Joosten, in the Yaesu district, Nihonbashi, Tokyo.]] In 1604, Tokugawa ordered Adams and his companions to help Mukai Shogen, who was commander in chief of the navy of Uraga, build Japan’s first Western-style ship. The sailing ship was built at the harbour of Ito on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula, with carpenters from the harbour supplying the manpower for the construction of an 80 ton vessel which was employed to survey the Japanese coast. The Shogun then ordered a larger ship of 120 tons to be built the following year; (both were slightly smaller than the Liefde, which was 150 tons). According to Adams, Tokugawa "came aboard to see it, and the sight whereof gave him great content". In 1610, the 120-ton ship (later named San Buena Ventura) was lent to shipwrecked Spanish sailors, who sailed back to Mexico with it, accompanied by a mission of twenty-two Japanese led by Tanaka Shōsuke.

Following the construction, Tokugawa invited Adams to visit his palace whenever he liked and "that always I must come in his presence" (Letters).

Other survivors of the Liefde were also rewarded with favours and even allowed to pursue foreign trade. Most of the original crew were able to leave Japan in 1605 with the help of the daimyo of Hirado. Although Adams did not himself receive permission to leave Japan until 1613, Melchior van Santvoort, together with another crewman, Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn, engaged in trade between Japan and Southeast Asia and reportedly made a fortune. Both of them were reported by Dutch traders in Ayutthaya, onboard richly cargoed junks, in early 1613.