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Chapter 2 Ganji Garame This time, the first to visit the ship was Kanzaemon. He was planning to set a trap and catch himself some Dutchmen, but first he needed to go and scout out the enemy. Afterwards he wrote a report: In the 6th month, on the 13th day, at the 4th hour, a Big Ship sailed into the Bay of Yamada of Hei district. It anchored about one and a half ri* over the water away from Yamada. While I was thinking of a way to bring the foreigners ashore, it was clear that this could not be done without first observing the situation on board. Shichinohe Hayato and I agreed to board a fishing boat to go over to the Big Ship. When we had come alongside, they threw a net down from the ship and invited us up. Grabbing the net, we climbed aboard the Big Ship and then we were led by the hands and pulled into what seemed to be the captain’s dwelling, which was about the size of five or six tatami mats.1 We have a description of Kanzaemon and Lord Naotoki (here called Shichinohe Hayato) from the Dutch side as well, but for reasons that will become clear below, this report starts one day later. For information on what happened on 28 July, therefore, we mainly have Japanese sources aside from those fragments of information we can distill from the debriefing report later written by the Dutch side. Kanzaemon was “a nobleman” to the Dutch, by which they must have meant a sword-carrying samurai, a member of Japan’s warrior class.2 Although Kanzaemon reports that Lord Naotoki came along *One ri = 654.5 meters. Ganji Garame 35 on this first visit to the ship, the Dutch report written by Junior Merchant Wilhem Bijlvelt (with some additions by Captain Schaep) implies that Kanzaemon was alone on this occasion. This would seem logical, and Kanzaemon’s inclusion of Lord Naotoki in his bravura was no more than the after-the-fact omote (i.e., surface) obligation of a subaltern toward his superior. This is a peculiarity of Japanese sources one has to watch out for. Other Japanese sources (including the venerable Tokugawa jikki, or Veritable Record of the Tokugawa) have the two domain officials donning the disguise of fishermen to board the Dutch ship. However, the fact that Kanzaemon was recognized as “a nobleman” by the Dutch sailors indicates that it is very unlikely that he disguised himself on this occasion.3 We have seen in the case of the Castricom that some officials along the coast probably did dress up as fishermen in order to avoid arousing suspicion among the Dutch sailors. As always with Japanese sources, then, there may be a kernel of truth in these reports about the disguise. It may also be indicative of the way those in Edo who compiled such reports thought a visit to a foreign ship should be handled. For Kanzaemon this was probably the first time he had ever seen a well-armed European ship up close, and to climb aboard from his fishing dinghy, a height of about eight or nine feet, required a considerable amount of courage for a man of his intentions. After climbing over the railing, he was led to the captain’s cabin in the aft castle. Kanzaemon ’s report continues: “They brought out liquor etc. and offered us drinks. After that Hayato went back [to shore] and I remained behind on the ship by myself. While somehow communicating with the foreigners, I thought I should go ashore together with them. When I had spun them some good yarns, they said they would come to shore with me, so five or six foreigners as well as myself got into the Big Ship’s boat. Just at the moment that the boat was going to be [lowered] beside the ship, her guns boomed once.”4 Unavoidably, perhaps, Kanzaemon not only edited but also somewhat abbreviated this account of his first visit to the Dutch ship. It seems, according to the Dutch report, that he saw some pistols lying on Captain Schaep’s desk and was curious to see how they worked.5 When shown, he asked if he could try and shoot one of them, which was permitted. He may have shot out of one of the cabin windows into the sea. What Kanzaemon also forgets to mention here is how he was given a tour of...

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