Sailing from China - Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer - page 117

something to trade when it reached its destination of Siam, today's Bangkok. The
total value of the cargo was only 700 taels (ounces of silver), so he also stowed
5,000 taels in raw silver to buy commodities there that he could sell for a profit
back in Japan. He appointed Will Adams as captain, engaged Edmund Sayers and
an Italian named Damien Marin as pilots, and put Richard Wickham in charge of
the voyage's commercial operations. In his written instructions to Wickham he ad-
vised against selling the cargo too cheaply; better to just bring it back than sell it
at a loss. He listed what Wickham should buy in Siam: first aromatic wood, which
sold well on the Japan market; after that deer skins, Chinese textiles, dried fish
skins (used to cover scabbards and sword handles) and buffalo horns, which were
currentlyimportedfromthePhilippinesandcouldperhapsbeundersoldifacquired
elsewhere at a lower price. Cocks gave Wickham the going rates for these com-
modities in Siam as well as their prices in Japan so that he would know how much
to pay. Wickham should in any case not let filling the hold delay his departure
too much after the onset of the summer monsoon: better to come back only partly
laden rather 'than unadvisedly to adventure the rest'. To these commercial instruc-
tionsCocksaddedtwopiecesofpersonaladvice: don'tgetintoargumentswiththe
prickly Adams and avoid 'the feminin gender, although the liberty of these partes
of the world is overmuch in that kinde'.
Foul weather delayed departure of the Sea Adventure until 17 December. Ac-
cording to the Selden map, Adams would have set out on the reciprocal of genyin
(55°)(thatis, qianxu ,305°)andsailedstraightalongthecoastofChina.Threedays
out he found that the Sea Adventure leaked so badly that he changed to the east-
erly artery and headed on the reciprocal of guichou (25°) (that is, renhai , 335°)
and headed for the Ryukyu Islands, reaching Okinawa on 27 December. Four days
later he grounded the junk to perform the necessary repairs. This was a slow pro-
cess: laying the mast, emptying the ballast, washing the hull, then inspecting for
leaks. The only serious leaks were around the nail holes, so he had his crew re-
caulk the planks on the hull. The work was stalled, however, when he discovered
thatthelocallimehadbeenadulterated.MeanwhileAdamshadtoplacatethelocal
officials, who knew they could not offend the Japanese (whom the Ryukyuans un-
derstood to be the patrons of the English) but who could not risk offending China
(a Ming delegation was expected on Okinawa shortly and would certainly object
to Europeans in the islands). He also had to defuse conflicts between his Japanese
crew and the Japanese merchants and their servants, numbering over twenty, who
were travelling as paying passengers. Adams stepped in to prevent an armed battle
between the sailors and the merchants, but tensions grew to such a pitch through