William Adams: Why the English Samurai Never Went Home

An English ship arrived in Japan in 1613. William Adams finally had permission to return home. Why did he stay? The real navigator who inspired Shōgun's John Blackthorne had survived a disastrous Dutch expedition, entered Tokugawa Ieyasu's service, and built a life far from England. But his story changes when the prohibition on leaving becomes permission to go. His own letters and a company agreement reveal money, work and a dispute with a captain—and an ending that reaches toward families in two countries. This episode follows the voyage on a moving globe, reads the surviving words in historical printed editions, and traces the change from refusal to permission. Shōgun is fiction; its characters and scenes are not used as historical evidence. CHAPTERS 00:00 The ship he did not take 00:31 One ship reaches Japan 02:05 What the ruler wanted 04:18 Favour had a price 05:50 Permission changes everything 08:27 Two households 10:21 Two shores SOURCES William Adams, letters and the 1613 employment agreement, in Thomas Rundall, Memorials of the Empire of Japon (1850), pp.18–32,67–76: https://archive.org/details/memorials... John Saris, The Voyage to Japan, 1613, ed. Ernest Satow (1900): https://archive.org/details/captainjv... Richard Cocks, Diary, vol.II (1883), especially correspondence p.321: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48012 Derek Massarella and Anthony Farrington, William Adams and Early English Enterprise in Japan (2000): https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/is/IS39... British Library, William Adams: from Gillingham to Japan: https://www.bl.uk/stories/blogs/posts... Yokosuka City, Miura Anjin historic site: https://www.city.yokosuka.kanagawa.jp... VISUAL SOURCES Dutch fleet at Praia in 1598, engraving made 1617–1619, Rijksmuseum (public domain): https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200488794 Kanō Tan’yū, portrait of Tokugawa Ieyasu; Kanō Naizen, Nanban screen, c.1600 (public domain). The screen depicts Portuguese trade, not Adams's vessel. Luís Teixeira / Abraham Ortelius, map of Japan (1595), University of Amsterdam collection (public domain). Hirado today: Bryanmackinnon, 2025, CC BY 4.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Other credited photographs and maps (crops and color treatment): Erasmus stern ornament: Ihimutefu, CC BY-SA 3.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Hemi view: Bryanmackinnon, CC BY 4.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Hirado memorial: kobakou, CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Ortelius Pacific map: National Museum of Australia, CC BY 3.0 AU: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Creative Commons licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Printed source-page images are public-domain editions, not facsimiles of Adams's original handwriting. Maps use Natural Earth public-domain geography; the ocean route is schematic. No authenticated contemporary likeness of Adams is presented. MUSIC “Floating Cities”, “Comfortable Mystery”, “Clean Soul”, and “Meditation Impromptu 01” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: https://incompetech.com/music/royalty... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Narration uses an AI-generated voice. Historical images and original diagrams are identified in the film. Subscribe to Old Japan Decoded for stories from Japan's history and culture.