The quarrels between the Franciscans and Jesuits,[16] however, were
probably more harmful to Christianity than were the whispers of the
Protestant Englishmen or Hollanders. In 1610, the wrath of the
government was especially aroused against the _bateren_, as the people
called the _padres_, by their open and persistent violation of Japanese
law. In 1611, from Sado, to which island thousands of Christian exiles
had been sent to work the mines, Iyeyas[)u] believed he had obtained
documentary proof in the Japanese language, of what he had long
suspected--the existence of a plot on the part of the native converts
and the foreign emissaries to reduce Japan to the position of a subject
state.[17] Putting forth strenuous measures to root out utterly what he
believed to be a pestilential breeder of sedition and war, the Yedo
Sh[=o]gun advanced step by step to that great proclamation of January
27, 1614,[18] in which the foreign priests were branded as triple
enemies--of the country, of the Kami, and of the Buddhas. This
proclamation wound up with the charge that the Christian band had come
to Japan to change the government of the country, and to usurp
possession of it. Whether or not he really had sufficient written proof
of conspiracy against the nation's sovereignty, it is certain that in
this state paper, Iyeyas[)u] shrewdly touched the springs of Japanese
patriotism.
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