ABSTRACT
The years William Adams spent in Japan between the landfall of the stricken Liefde in 1600 and the arrival of Adams’ long-awaited fellow-countrymen aboard the Clove in 1613 are poorly documented, so far as the day-to-day details of Adams’ life are concerned. Precise dates are lacking; no record exists which states exactly when Adams was granted hatamoto status, married his Japanese wife or became prosperous. There was no secular chronicler who was the equivalent of the meticulous Jesuits, other than, after 1613, Richard Cocks, whose Diaries are incomplete as well as capricious.
