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Liefde and William Adams Anatol.Thu Feb 03.02.2011 Japan has issued two stamps in 2000, devoted to 400 anniversary of the Sino-Dutch trade relations 1600 2000. William Adams (September 24, 1564 – May 16, 1620), also known in Japanese as Anjin-sama (anjin, "pilot"; sama, a Japanese honorific, corresponding to Lord/Excellency) and Miura Anjin (三浦按針: "the pilot of Miura"), was an English navigator who travelled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach that country. He was the inspiration for the character of John Blackthorne in James Clavell's bestselling novel Shōgun. Adams was later the key player in the establishment of trading factories by the Netherlands and England. He was also highly involved in Japan's Red Seal Asian trade, chartering and captaining several ships to Southeast Asia. Attracted by the Dutch trade with India, Adams, then 34 years old, shipped as pilot major with a five ship fleet dispatched from the isle of Texel to the Far East in 1598 by a company of Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, anterior to the Dutch East India Company).
Originally, the fleet's mission was to sail for the west coast of South America, where they would sell their cargo for silver, and to head for Japan only if the first mission failed. In that case, they were supposed to obtain silver in Japan to buy spices in the Moluccas, before heading back to Europe. During the voyage, Adams had changed ships to the Liefde ("Love" or "Charity") (originally named Erasmus and adorned by a wooden statue of Erasmus on her stern. The Liefde waited for the other ships at Floreana Island off the Ecuadorean coast. However, only the Hoop had arrived by the spring of 1599 and the captains of both vessels, together with Adams's brother Thomas and twenty other men, lost their lives in an encounter with the natives. The Trouw later turned up in Tidore (Indonesia) where the crew was eliminated by the Portuguese in January 1601). In fear of the Spaniards, the remaining crews determined to sail across the Pacific. It was late November 1599 when the two ships sailed westwardly for Japan. On their way, the two ships made landfall in "certain islands" (possibly the islands of Hawaii) where eight sailors deserted the ships. Later during the voyage, a typhoon claimed the Hoop with all hands, in late February 1600. In April 1600, after more than nineteen months at sea, the Liefde with a crew of about twenty sick and dying men (out of an initial crew of about 100) was brought to anchor off the island of Kyūshū, Japan. Its cargo consisted of eleven chests of coarse woolen cloth, glass beads, mirrors, spectacles, nails, iron, hammers, nineteen bronze cannons, 5,000 cannonballs, 500 muskets, 300 chain-shot and three chests filled with coats of mail. The ship was seized and the sickly crew were imprisoned at Osaka Castle on orders by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the daimyo of Mikawa and future Shogun. The nineteen bronze cannons of the Liefde were unloaded and according to Spanish accounts later employed at the decisive Battle of Sekigahara on October 21, 1600. Adams met Ieyasu in Osaka three times between May and June 1600. He was questioned by Ieyasu, then a guardian of the young son of the Taikō, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the ruler who had just died. Adams' knowledge of ships, shipbuilding and nautical smattering of mathematics appealed to Ieyasu. Leyasu ordered the crew to sail the Liefde from Bungo to Edo where, rotten and beyond repair, she sank. Soon after Adams' arrival in Japan, he became a key advisor to the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and built for him Japan's first Western-style ships. The shogun took a liking to Adams and made him a revered diplomatic and trade advisor and bestowed great privileges upon him. Ultimately, Adams became his personal advisor on all things related to Western powers and civilization. Adams was later the key player in the establishment of trading factories by the Netherlands and England. In 1605, Adams obtained a letter from Ieyasu formally inviting the Dutch to trade with Japan.The Hollandes be now settled (in Japan) and I have got them that privilege as the Spaniards and Portingals could never get in this 50 or 60 years in Japan. After obtaining this trading right through an edict of Tokugawa Ieyasu on August 24, 1609, the Dutch inaugurated a trading factory in Hirado on September 20, 1609. The "trade pass" (Dutch: Handelspas) was kept preciously by the Dutch in Hirado and then Dejima as a guarantee of their trading rights, during the following two centuries of their presence in Japan. He accepted employment with the newly founded Hirado trading factory, signing a contract on November 24, 1613, becoming an employee of the East India Company for the yearly salary of 100 English Pounds, more than double the regular salary of 40 Pounds earned by the other factors at Hirado. Adams later engaged in various exploratory and commercial ventures. The latter part of his life was spent in the service of the English trading company. He undertook a number of voyages to Siam in 1616 and Cochin China in 1617 and 1618, sometimes for the English East India Company, sometimes for his own account. Adams died at Hirado, north of Nagasaki, on May 16, 1620, aged 55 and was buried in Nagasaki-ken where his grave marker may still be seen to this day.

Ship of the East India Company, sent from England to trade with China, visited Japan in 1616, thanks to the "first Englishman in Japan"-William Adams.On way to the East 3 February 1615, "Thomas", apparently, was the first vessel met the island , later named as "Christmas. "
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Submitted by Маклаков Анатолий Макарович Japon 80,0;80,0 2000 SG?

1. The journey of the De Liefde and the other ships as given http://www.habri.co.uk/erasmus-de-liefde

The known history of the De Liefde begins in 1598, four years before the establishment of the V.O.C., the Dutch East Indies Company, in 1602. Two entrepreneurs in Rotterdam, a merchant and a banker, commissioned and dispatched a fleet of five ships in the direction of “Asia” – probable destination: the Moluccan Islands – to conduct trade. They carried a cargo of woven textiles, mirrors, spectacles, glass beads, iron and muskets. But the main goal was to bring back spices such as nutmeg, cinnamon, and especially pepper, for which there was a constant high demand, for use as flavorings and to preserve food. Spices were also believed to offer protection against the plague, which had been raging in Europe since the Middle Ages.

The ships’ names represented Christian concepts: Hoop, Geloof (Faith, or Belief), Trouw (Faithfulness, or Loyalty), De Blijde Boodschap (Good News, or the Gospel), and De Liefde (Charity). The fleet set sail from Rotterdam on June 27, 1598. The planned route – known to the senior officers but kept secret from the crew – was not the customary one around the Cape of Good Hope but through the Strait of Magellan, around the southern tip of Chile, notorious for its many shipwrecks.

De Liefde’s was originally called the Erasmus. The name was apparently changed so that it would fit in with the biblical theme of the fleet. Of the five ships, only De Liefde would make it to Japan. The Hoop was the flagship, with Admiral Jacques Mahu as commander and William Adams as first officer or “pilot”. After 3 months, as the fleet passed the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa, Admiral Manu died and a reshuffle of command took place, resulting in Adams being transferred to De Liefde. That would prove his good fortune. It was only then that the crew was informed of the ship’s further route.

Even before the fleet reached the Strait of Magellan, most of the original combined crew of 507 had died from scurvy, fevers and hunger. The passage through Magellan was unimaginably rough, taking from April to August 1599! One of the ships, Geloof, gave up and returned to Holland. Another, Blijde Boodschap, was captured by the Spaniards (against whom the Dutch were fighting for their independence) and most of the crew slain. Trouw set off on its own and reached the Moluccan Islands, but it was captured there by the Portuguese and its crew murdered.

Halfway up the coast of Chile, De Liefde and Hope caught up with each other. They both had managed to restock their provisions and were ready to make the Pacific crossing. But because De Liefde’s cargo consisted mostly of woollen goods it was decided to head for Japan where the cooler climate might help them sell their wintry merchandise, and obtain Japanese silver, porcelain and lacquerware.

Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific a heavy storm hit the ships, and the Hoop went down with all souls. De Liefde now continued the journey alone, which took another five months. At last, with only 24 of its crew of 110 still alive, and only 6 or 8 of them able to stand, the ship dropped anchor off the coast of Bungo in Kyushu, the present-day Usuki in Oita Prefecture, on April 19, 1600. Among them, besides Adams, was Jan Joosten, later to be given a tract of land. Yaesu, near Tokyo Station, is a corruption of his name.

Portuguese Jesuits accompanied Japanese officials taking custody of the surviving crew members (six of whom soon died) and urged their execution as they were ‘pirates’. But Ieyasu Tokugawa – the Lord of Mikawa who was in Osaka at the time to exert his power over the Toyotomi clan, weakened after the death of their great leader Hideyoshi two years earlier – ignored their demand and ordered the sailors’ imprisonment at Osaka Castle. There he met three times with William Adams, who apparently impressed him, especially after Adams arranged to release the ship’s 19 bronze cannon and accompanying ammunition to Ieyasu. It is believed that these weapons helped Ieyasu win the decisive battle of Sekigahara later that year, which established him as de facto ruler of all Japan.

http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DAS/search has one entry for the LIEFDE.
She was a flute type ship of 300 ton. Sailed from Goeree, Netherlands on 27 June 1598 under command of skipper Jakob Jansz Kwakernaak.

Van Beuningen vice-admiral since 24 September 1598 aboard the LIEFDE was killed in S. Maria, Cape Verde with 22 men and he was succeeded by Kwakernaak.

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