“All persons who propagate the doctrine of the Christians, or bear this scandalous name, shall be imprisoned in the _Ombra_, or common jail of the town. “The whole race of the Portuguese, with their mothers, nurses, and whatever belongs to them, shall be banished to Macao. “Whoever presumes to bring a letter from abroad, or to return after he hath been banished, shall die with all his family; also whoever presumes to intercede for them shall be put to death. “No nobleman nor any soldier shall be suffered to purchase anything of a foreigner.” The Portuguese ships of 1639 were sent back with a copy of this edict, without being suffered to discharge their cargoes. The corporation of the city of Macao, greatly alarmed at the loss of a lucrative traffic, on which their prosperity mainly depended, sent deputies to solicit some modification of this edict. But the only reply made by the emperor was to cause these deputies themselves, with their attendants, to the number of sixty-one persons, to be seized and put to death, as violators of the very edict against which they had been sent to remonstrate. Thirteen only, of the lowest rank, were sent back to Macao, August, 1640, with this account of the fate of their company[115]. CHAPTER XXV _Policy of the Dutch—Affair of Nuyts—Haganaar’s Visits to Japan—Caron’s Account of Japan—Income of the Emperor and the Nobles—Military Force—Social and Political Position of the Nobles—Justice—Relation of the Dutch to the Persecution of the Catholics—The Dutch removed from Hirado and confined in Deshima—Attempts of the English, Portuguese, and French at Intercourse with Japan—Final Extinction of the Catholic Faith—A. D. 1620-1707._ Throughout the whole of the long and cruel persecution of the Catholics, the Dutch had striven by extreme subserviency to recommend themselves to the favor of the Japanese, in hopes of exclusively engrossing a trade which appears at this time to have been more extensive and more lucrative than at any former period. The Japanese, however, seem not to have been insensible to the advantages of competition; and, so long as the Portuguese commerce continued, they extended to the vessels of that nation a certain protection against the Dutch, and even preference over them. The danger from Dutch cruisers appears to have caused the substitution, for the single great carac of Macao, of a number of smaller vessels; nor were the Dutch, however urgent their solicitations, allowed to leave Hirado till such a number of days after the departure of the Portuguese from Nagasaki as would prevent all danger of collision.