ABSTRACT
IN the year 1608 a junk belonging to Arima Harunobu, Lord of Arima in Hizen, which had made a voyage to Cambodia for aloes-wood, was forced by stress of weather to put into the port of Macau to winter there until the monsoon of 1609. The crew of this vessel seem to have found their enforced idleness rather irksome, as they began to indulge in brawls with the local sailors and inhabitants. At first the municipal authorities forebore to take repressive measures against them, in the hopes that this mildness would appease them. Not unnaturally it had exactly the opposite effect, and the Japanese, thinking to intimidate the citizens still further, proceeded to behave more riotously than ever, being supported by some amongst their compatriots of the numerous Japanese colony in the town. So far did they proceed that the authorities had grounds for suspecting that they had designs of seizing the place by a coup de main, and they resolved to take a firmer line at the first opportunity.
