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324 that the Fathers were devoting most of their efforts to the conversion of men of noble birth; and, believing that their pretext of saving souls was merely a device for the conquest of Japan, he had done his best to rouse Hideyoshi's suspicions." The latter "had at first merely laughed at him;" but "when he arrived in Kyūshū against the King of Satsuma, and noted that many lords with their vassals had become Christians, and that the same were bound to each other in great concord and exceedingly devoted to the Fathers, he began to recall what Toquun had already filled his ears with, and to understand (although in this he was auguring falsely) that the propagation of the faith would be prejudicial to the safety of the Empire. And this is the true cause of the aversion he now declares." Nevertheless, the persecution foreshadowed by this change of sentiment on the ruler's part was delayed ten years. Despite his suspicions of the missionaries ulterior aims, Hideyoshi clung to the present advantages which accrued to his realm from the Portuguese trade, and he temporarily shut his eyes to the presence of 130 or 140 Jesuits on Japanese soil.

Meantime, mischief had been brewing in another quarter. A Papal Bull, promulgated in 1585, had given the Jesuits a monopoly of missionary work in Japan, and the terms of the Concordat entered into between Spain and Portugal in 1580 on the occasion of the union of the two crowns confined the Japan trade to members of the latter nation. However, in the year 1593, the intrigues of a Japanese adventurer anxious for trade with the Philippine Islands, then a Spanish possession, led to the despatch from Manila of four Spanish Franciscan monks, not indeed as missionaries but as ambassadors. They were permitted to proceed to Kyōto, on the express condition of engaging in no proselytising work; but this pledge they violated in the most flagrant manner. Hideyoshi's attention was called to their doings in October, 1596, by an incident which has remained famous. A Spanish galleon, called the "San Felipe," had been stranded on the Japanese coast, and her cargo, including 600,000 crowns in silver,