The pilot, Adams, having heard from Spex that certain English merchants had established themselves in the island of Java, he wrote to them, under date of October 22, 1611, giving an account of himself, and enclosing a letter to his wife, which he besought these unknown countrymen of his to convey to his friends at Limehouse or in Kent, so that his wife, “in a manner a widow,” and his fatherless children, might hear of him, and he of them, before his death. “You shall understand,” wrote Adams, “that the Hollanders have here an Indies of money, so that they need not to bring silver out of Holland to the East Indies, for in Japan there is much gold and silver to serve their turn in other places where need requireth.” He enumerated as vendible in Japan for ready money, raw silk, damask, black taffetas, black and red cloth of the best kinds, lead, etc. To a somewhat exaggerated, and otherwise not very correct account of the extent and the geography of the Japanese dominions, he added the following description of the inhabitants: “The people of this island of Japan are good of nature, courteous above measure, and valiant in war. Their justice is severely executed, and without partiality, upon transgressors. They are governed in great civility. I think no land in the world better governed by civil policy. The people are very superstitious in their religion, and are of diverse opinions. There are many Jesuit and Franciscan friars in this land, and they have converted many to be Christians, and have many churches in the island.” This letter, which was given in charge to the master’s mate of the Dutch vessel, must have reached the English East India Company’s factory at Bantam, in Java, previous to the first of June, 1612, for on that day an answer to it was despatched by the “Globe,” which had just arrived from England, and which, sailing from Bantam to Patania, met there the same master’s mate who had brought Adams’ letter, and who, being just about to return to Japan in a Dutch pinnace, promised to deliver the answer. Already, however, independently of Adams’ letter, a project had been started in England for opening a trade with Japan, founded upon a knowledge of Adams’ being there, derived from the crew of the Dutch ship, the “Red Lion.” The “Globe,” which left England January 5, 1611, carried letters to Adams to that effect, and she was followed in April by the “Clove,” the “Thomas,” and the “Hector,” under the command of Captain John Saris, an old adventurer in the East, and a former resident of Bantam, with letters from the king of England to the emperor of Japan[85].