ABSTRACT
A figurehead of deep historic interest is now on show in the Imperial Museum in Ueno Park. It now belongs to a Buddhist temple in Shimotsuke province, but inquiries of a group of Japanese historians have made it clear beyond doubt that it originally belonged to the Liefde, the first Dutch ship to touch our shores and the one which brought to this country the first Englishman in Japan, William Adams. Thus the figurehead forms an interesting relic of the triangle of international relations at the dawn of the seventeenth century.
