A True and Complete Account of the Life of William Adams - The English Samurai -

Act One: His Early Years - 1564-1598 -

By: Richard Irving

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In December, 2020, forensic scientists at the University of Tokyo confirmed that bones recently excavated by archaeologists in Hirado, Japan, were those of the English adventurer William Adams. The mystery of where, exactly, this man had been buried was finally solved. Now, the final chapter of the life and death of a sailor and samurai who, in so many ways, exemplified the age of Elizabethan exploration can be told.

The character John Blackthorne in James Clavell's novel Shogun was based on Adams, but there is much more to the real story. Leaving England in 1598 with a small group of friends, Adams joined a Dutch expedition seeking new trade routes to the Far East. After a disastrous passage through the Strait of Magellan the Liefde, with Adams as pilot, eventually voyaged across the Pacific to Japan, a country in the grip of civil war. Only Adams and a handful of other survivors were left standing.

Accused of piracy and threatened with brutal execution, Adams had to plead innocence to his interrogator - the war-lord Tokugawa Ieyasu. Within a few years Adams had gained sufficient trust of the Shogun to become a senior diplomatic adviser and he was given samurai status and made lord of a manorial estate.

The oft-told story of Adams has been influenced by many errors of historical interpretation over the last few decades, and his tale has now become more myth than reality. This detailed retelling of his story is delivered in five acts - in deference to William Shakespeare, who was born in the same year as Adams, in 1564. Each act retraces an array of original source materials to tell the real story of Adams early years, of his voyage to Japan, of his elevation to the rank of samurai, and of his death in Japan. Act Five concludes with the story of the search for his burial place, and of the discovery of his remains; a search in which the author was directly involved.

Act One, for the first time ever, tells the full story of Adams' early years in which young William learns to navigate the high seas; he fights the Spanish armada; and he trades on the Barbary coast of northern Africa, before setting off in search of the shores of Japan.

Great story

These short books are superb. It's such a shame that they're read by a machine, Nevertheless, the words hold true.