Apropos of the Rowan coin exhibited by Dr. Macgowan at the recent meeting of the Asiatic Society, it is interesting to recall the incidents of a Japanese ion to Rome which was despatched by a Prince of Sendai some 260 years ago, before the policy of Iyemitan 30 systematically out off the country from intercourse with outside nations.
The circumstances of the Mission are not unknown to students of Oriental history, though they are probably not familiar to the general reader; but fresh light has been recently thrown upon them, by the presentation to the Mikado, during his recent tour through the northern provinces, of a number of relics of the Mission, for particulars of which we are indebted to our new contemporary the Tokio Times, The Mission seems to have originated with a Franciscan Friar named Louis Sotelo, who comes into prominence in connexion with one Rodrigo de Vivero, a former Governor of Manila, who was wrecked on the shores. of Japan in the year 1608, and, aided by the counsels of the Franciscan who seems to have been already settled as a missionary in the country, sought to establish an alliance between Spain and Japan. He was not successful at the Court of Iyeyasu with whom he first had relations, and appears to have quitted the country. -But Sotelo maintained the design, in pursuit of which he afterwards retook himself to the reigning Prince of the house known variously as Sendai, Mutsa and Osbiu, and whom be persuaded to enter warmly. into the scheme. This Prince ap-, pointed one of his named Hashjknra Rokuyemon to represent bim at Spain and Rome, and supplied ship in which the Envoy, accompanied by Sotelo, was transported to Acapulco towards the end of 1613! We have;
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.