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AswellasbeingGovernoroftheEastIndiaCompany,ThomasSmythewasalso
Treasurer of the Virginia Company, which was setting up plantations in the New
World.Inaddition, adecade earlier hehadtravelled toRussia tonegotiate terms of
trade for the Muscovy Company. Each of these companies enjoyed the protection
of a royal charter, giving it a monopoly on English trade in and out of Asia, North
America and Russia respectively. Smythe had major stakes in all three corpora-
tions: there was no more powerful businessman in London. In the moral vacuum
of business, the appearance of 'gravitie' was everything. Smythe had to be seen to
do something. Whether or not he was actually offended, he was canny enough to
anticipate how accusations of immorality could hurt his business interests.
ThreeweekspassedbeforeSmythereportedbacktotheCourtofCommitteeson
the matter. As he told his directors, because of the 'greate speeches' made against
the Company and against him personally on the Exchange, he had confiscated Sar-
is's topics and pictures and 'shut them up ever since'. Perhaps he had hoped that
would be sufficient to still the little storm, but it hadn't been. The only course now
was to destroy the offending pictures in public view, so that anyone who had been
'honestlie affected', as he put it, would know that action had been taken. It would
be an unambiguous demonstration that 'such wicked spectacles are not fostered
and mayntayned by any of this Companie', he declared. 'And thereupon in open
presence [he] put them into the fire, where they continued till they were burnt and
turnd into smoke.'
Thus it was that the first Japanese erotic prints to find their way to England
were consigned to oblivion. Other tokens from this early moment of contact sur-
vived censure, although not all have withstood the wear and tear of time. The two
suits of Japanese armour that Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu sent to James I were sent
to the Tower and are still in the Royal Armouries, but the set of ten large fold-
ing screens have long since disappeared. Saris describes them as 'large pictures to
hang a chamber with', a turn of phrase from a culture in which pictures were hung
rather than stood on the floor, as they could be in Japan. Not only is the gift gone;
so is James's reaction. But we do know Thomas Smythe's, which is that they were
sub-standard. As the shogun never saw the screens he ordered, we have no way of
knowing his intentions. Presumably he meant to send good work, and his minions
tookacutanddeliveredsecond-rategoodstoSaris.Whateverwasthecase,Smythe
decidedtosubstituteseveraloftheCompany'sownscreensfortheonesTokugawa
sent. Everything must bedonetoensure that hispolitical master receive the best of
what the Company received, and thus the best impression of Tokugawa's regard.
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