John Saris and the China Captain - Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer - page 71

The alleged lossisprobably offbyanorderoften. Inthe end,though,the Com-
pany settled Cocks's estate on his brother. The amount was small enough to mean
nothing to them. Acceding to the petition, albeit after some chastising words, was
better publicity for the Company. What catches the eye in the minutes is the accus-
ation that Cocks was 'debauched'. Whatever vicarious pleasure Saris was getting
from his collection of erotic topics and prints, Cocks was managing to get in real
time, or so the directors of the EIC thought. Cocks is extremely discreet about per-
sonal matters in his diary, although the occasional reference slips past his censor-
ship. For example, he mentions attending a dinner at a merchant's house in Hirado
on 8 September 1616 that ends with the host sending each guest one of the women
whohadsunganddancedforthemthatevening.Littleelseofsuchexploitsappears
in the diary. We really have no idea what he got up to, and no way of confirming
the Company's suspicions.
Read the diary often enough, though, and the name of a woman begins to recur.
Cocks mentions Matinga for the first time on 2 August 1615, one month into the
surviving portion of his diary. He notes on that occasion that he gave her 6 taels of
silvertobuyrice.On25Septemberhegivesher2taelsthatsomeonerepaidhimas
adebt.On29Decemberhegivesherapieceofsatinthatcost5taelsandapieceof
taffeta that cost 1, so that she could make kimonos for herself and her two maids,
Otto and Fuco. Four days later, he notes that 'Matinga went into her new howse
this day.' Towards the end of January he gives her 6 taels of silver 'to provide
things against the new yeare' in her new house, as Spring Festival was approach-
ing. These sorts of reference reappear every few months. It all seems rather ano-
dyne until 22 April 1617, when Cocks notes that the lord of Hirado 'above a yeare
past, sent me word he would geve me a howse rent free, which Matinga dwelled
in,itbeingamatter ofsome10shillingor2 taels peranno,butnowgoethfromhis
wordanddeniethit'.SoMatingahadbeenlivinginthehousethatCockswasgiven
for his personal use for over a year; only now did he have to start paying rent. Oth-
er hints pop up in his diary, usually of a similar book-keeping nature. Thus, when
he records paying the shoemaker, it is for two pairs of shoes for him - and a pair
of wooden sandals for her. Not all references to her are actuarial. When he is away
from Hirado, the only two people to whom he writes in Japanese while he is away
are Li Dan and Matinga.
Cocks declines to name her as such in the diary, but glimmering through these
casual references emerges the fact that Matinga was his Japanese wife. The rela-
tionship may have begun before 1615 and was still intact on 9 January 1619. That