Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/202

RV 176 and dangerous matter where the Dutch were concerned. In spite of the risks, however, and in spite of the fact that detection invariably meant death, such large profits accrued that constant evasions of the law took place down to comparatively modern times. There are recorded in connection with these infractions five cases of capital punishment, and one instance of expiatory suicide on the part of several officials.

The great chiefs of feudal days had an effective method of treating tradesmen: they regarded them in a certain sense as chattels to be moved from place to place according to the convenience of the Administration. The Taikō, when he built his Castle in Ōsaka, ordered a number of the Sakai merchants to transfer their stores to new streets laid out by him there. Subsequently, when Ōsaka's prosperity began to decline, owing to the growth of Yedo, Matsushita Tadaaki, governor of the former city, caused all the Fushimi merchants to migrate from the two hundred streets occupied by them and to take up their abode in Ōsaka. Similarly, when Iyeyasu wanted a commercial population for Yedo in 1603, he summoned thither the leading tradesmen of Kyōtō and Ōsaka. But these arbitrary acts entailed little hardship. Merchants found their account in obeying such orders, especially in the case of Yedo; for since the Tokugawa system compelled the feudal chiefs to have residences there, each of the provincial magnates provided himself with at