On June 9, 1615, the castle was captured and the citadel burned. After
thousands of Hidéyori's followers had committed _hara-kiri_, and his own
body had been burned into ashes, the Christian cause was irretrievably
ruined.

Hidétada, the successor of Iyéyas[)u] in Yedo, who ruled from 1605 to
1622, seeing that his father's peaceful methods had failed in
extirpating the alien politico-religious doctrine, now pronounced
sentence of death on every foreigner, priest, or catechist found in the
country. The story of the persecutions and horrible sufferings that
ensued is told in the voluminous literature which may be gathered from
every country in Europe;[20] though from the Japanese side "The Catholic
martyrology of Japan is still an untouched field for a [native]
historian."[21] All the church edifices which the last storm had left
standing were demolished, and temples and pagodas were erected upon
their ruins. In 1617, foreign commerce was restricted to Hirado and
Nagasaki. In 1621, Japanese were forbidden ever to leave the country. In
1624, all ships having a capacity of over twenty-five hundred bushels
were burned, and no craft, except those of the size of ordinary junks,
were allowed to be built.


The Books of the Inferno Opened.


For years, at intervals and in places, the books of the Inferno were
opened, and the tortures devised by the native pagans and Buddhists
equalled in their horror those which Dante imagines, until finally, in
1636, even Japanese human nature, accustomed for ages to subordination
and submission, could stand it no longer. Then a man named Nirado Shiro