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Will Adams had always been fascinated by shipyards. The idea of setting sail and journeying to the far corners of the Earth was one he had cherished for as long as he could remember. Whenever possible, he had slipped away to the nearest quay to watch provisions being loaded or listen to snatches of tavern talk; and all the time he waited patiently for the day when he, too, could be a part of this strange and exciting world.
Now he was twelve years old and the time had come. The yard at Wapping in London was a riot of colour and noise and confusion on this, his first day at work, and the shipwright who came forward had to shout to make himself heard.
“Where are you from, boy?”
“Gillingham in Kent, sir. Only one mile from Chatham, where the king’s ships do lie.”
The shipwright grunted. “You’ll see plenty of his ships before you serve your time. You are bound apprentice to Master Nicholas Diggins, then? ‘Tis a small beginning, but welcome. We shall talk later, but now you have work to do.”
Dinner that night was a simple affair with broth and oatmeal and a penny piece of beef between four people. But Will remembered it more for the shipwright’s talk of voyages to the Baltic and the Barbary Coast. He promised himself that the journeys he made would be equally famous. It was a promise he more than fulfilled.
He became known as “the English Marco Polo” and travelled in lands that had previously been vague, little known areas on the map. The first day at the shipyard was, indeed, a small beginning, but the results lived on.
The years that Will Adams spent learning his trade as a shipwright and a navigator were exciting ones and England’s Elizabethan sailors were beginning to show their mastery of the seas. At the age of 24, Will entered the Royal Navy as a master pilot and he soon saw action with Sir Francis Drake in the running battle with the great Spanish Armada.
But he was more interested in travel than in fighting and, after a time spent with the Barbary merchants, he decided that he longed for wider horizons than Africa. The mysterious and unexplored splendour of the Far East attracted him most of all, and when the Dutch started to trade with India he decided his chance had come.
In 1598, he found himself a job as pilot-major with a fleet of five ships which were to sail from Rotterdam. The ships were tiny and overloaded with men and stores (Will’s own ship, the “Charity” was 160 tons and had over a hundred men), but his mind was made up and his hopes were high.
Will needed all his optimism in the months ahead, for the voyage turned into a series of disasters that seemed, at times, like one long nightmare. So many of the crew fell sick that the fleet had to rest for three weeks in the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa. When they started again, matters become worse. The commander died; they were driven by storms to the coast of Guinea; fever broke out again and they eventually had to mount a desperate attack on a native village to plunder supplies in order to be able to continue.
It was determined that they should alter course for Brazil and it then took five, long months, tossed around in the south Atlantic, before they entered the Strait of Magellan. By then it was too late. The winter storms made the passage impossible and they had to wait until September 24th, 1599 before they could finally reach the Pacific.
At this stage, two ships in the little flotilla turned back for Holland, and soon afterwards one was captured by the Spanish. The two surviving ships met on the coast of Chile. But then came the most cruel blow of all. The crews had welcomed the chance to camp on shore while the ships were being cleaned and repaired. Despite the need to fill water barrels and hunt for animals and fruit, there was a holiday spirit in the little settlement.
None of the crew noticed the approach of the Indians as groups of five or six silently took up their positions throughout the night. Their attack came at dawn and, as confusion and shock followed the initial surprise, many men, including Will Adams’ own brother, were killed. The survivors could hardly have faced a worse future. They were weak, badly equipped, 8,000 miles from home and their cargo of woollen goods seemed valueless. Only Will had the stubborn determination to go on. At length he had his way. They would set sail for Japan.
No Englishman had ever reached this remote land and they were literally setting off into the unknown. After a month, the “Hope”, their sister ship, disappeared in a typhoon which threatened to engulf them all and from that time only the “Charity”, commanded by Will Adams, continued its lonely course through the Pacific.
The real race was against death when food and water supplies dwindled. Men grew weaker, chewing leather in the vain hope of finding some goodness in it and croaking hoarsely at each other through parched lips. Will, hollow cheeked and grim, never gave up even when only a handful of the crew could stand. They half-sailed, half-drifted until at last, on 19th April 1600, Japan was sighted and the “Charity” ran aground off the island of Kyushu.
The first great voyage was over, but their troubles had hardly begun. For a Westerner to set foot in Japan was not only very unusual, but was also dangerous. In some ways, it was all very familiar. Japan was a land ruled by fierce military men and divided into huge baronies which kept them in almost perpetual warfare.
But in others, it was as strange and unpredictable as being on the moon, and the grisly shambles of the execution grounds on the outskirts of the town were a shocking and frightening sight.
For six long weeks they were kept in prison, in almost constant fear of death until Will Adams, in an audience with the emperor, was able to use all his determination to good effect.
It was an unforgettable scene. The brightly coloured and richly decorated robes of the courtiers made Will’s homespun cloth look even more threadbare than it was. The stately, polite courtiers were astonished at his brisk, direct approach but the emperor was impressed by his shrewdness, his skill and above all the prospect of help in the war he was waging.
Through the Jesuit missionary who acted as interpreter, Will pointed out that the guns from the “Charity” could be used to good effect in a siege. They soon were, and even before the emperor had taken Osaka Castle with their help, Will Adams’ future was assured.
The crew of the “Charity” took what they could, joined ships bound for China and started the long, uncertain journey home. Only Will Adams was refused permission to leave, for by now he was far too useful to be released. He learned Japanese and was soon teaching the emperor geometry and mathematics. He designed ships of the western type for the emperor’s navy and was finally rewarded for all his faithful work with the title and estates of a lordship.
He now lived in great style, with eighty husbandmen or slaves and a vast tract of land which included almost a hundred small farms. The emperor had come to rely on him as a friend as well as an adviser, and he travelled throughout Japan to an extent no other European was able to achieve.
But Will Adams had a wife and two children in England whom he longed to see and, when a Dutch ship appeared in 1611, he wrote a sad letter “to my unknown friends and countrymen” asking for help. When the English did arrive two years later, however, they came to trade.
By the time Will was granted permission to travel, his desire to see new areas had grown stronger than his wish to return to England. So he embarked on a series of journeys to Siam and Cochin-China and throughout South East Asia.
Just as Marco Polo had earned fame and high office in the service of a great eastern empire, so Will Adams found an unexpected reward for the great journey he made. He died in 1620, and was buried on a hill overlooking the harbour of Yokosuka. Two hundred years later he was still remembered, with special ceremonies held in honour of the one Englishman who “was in such favour with two emperors of Japan as never was any other Christian in this part of the world.” In an age full of explorers, his own contribution was unique.