INTERESTING HISTORICAL EVENTS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 326, 7 January 1911, Page 2

INTERESTING HISTORICAL EVENTS.

THi■] ANN 1\ XAT fO X OF THI?

TRANSY.V AL. As a result of tht» Uo.t \\ ar, another great addition io the British was made, the Transvaal bcin:.. annexed by a Royai Proclamation issvi'jtl on October 2,>. l'.'UO. The Transvaal, formerly known as the So'.th African Republic, was foundee in IS'.O by Boers, who, dissatisfied with British rule, had migrated from Cape Cob: n', and its independence was recognised by the British Crown in In 1R77, when the Boers had been defeated by the Kaffir chief Sekai 'i-i, it was feared that the whole of South Africa might become involved in a disastrous native war, so Sir Theophilus Sliepstone was despatch :d to the Transvaal. He found the public treasury empty, and the country in a state of anarchy ; so, to save it from further disaster, he proclaimed it British territory. However, on December 10, 1880, the Boeis rose in revolt at Heidelburg, and the flsg of the Republic was once more hoisted, a Provisional Government, or Triumvirate (Kruger, Joubert and Prctnrius), being formed. Aftei the battle of Majuha Hill (February 27, J.SSI) the United Kingdom once more recognised its practical independence in a Convention, which however, was modified in ISSI. When the deplorable rupture in ISO'.t occurred the country reverted to the status it held previous to the Convention of IXSI ; but it is now, with the Orange River Colony, incorporated in the Empire, so that nearly the whole of Africa, from the Zambesi to the Cane, now acknowledges British sovereignty.

| THE Fill ST ENGLISHMAN IN | /JAPAN. A i.rnrrr> and romantic talc of advcnl.uro was related by a letter dated OctoVer 23, H'dl. which was received by the East India Company of London. The writer, William Adams, told his "unknowne frinds and conn-tri-men" that, ho was a Kentish man, born at "Gillingam," a mile from Chatham, "where the King's ships doc lye," and had followed the sea from his youth' up. Hs had left the Texcl in 1V)8 as sailing master ahoard a Dutch craft bound for the East Indies, by way of Cape Horn, and after divers and manifold adventures, h:ul been driven by stress of weather to Japan—an island on I which no Englishman had yet set foot. The Portuguese, then allpowerful in t!:o:-c Eastern seas, had ' dune their best to compass his death, But the blunt English s:aman had favourably iniares: ed the Emperor—- ; the great. Iy-ynsu, who founded that ! mighty d> nasty of Slioguns, who ! ruled Japan fiom l->ilO till 1868, ; Ada'':s b ; .d built a ship for his ruler, ! who "li'-ed it well," and bestowed | many fftvourd u;-oii him. The sailing master was now a Dainiio (or feudal lord), wi;h a handsome income and domain, a hundred retainers, and a Japanese wife of th? bli'cst Samurai blood. His former letters had been intercepted by the "Hollanders," who were as jealous of newcomers as their predecessors the Portuguese ; but he I thought trade might be opened between Britain and Japan, and hoped this missive would fall into good hands. The Bast India Company, never lacking in enterprise, fitted out an expedition, and in IGI3 the 'Clove' was the first English ship to enter a Japanese harbour, bearing an official letter from King James to the ruler of Japan, and offering Adams a passage homo. But Adams never returned co his native land. Possibly the little detail that he had left a wife behind him at Gillingham had something to do with this decision. He | died in his feudal fief, and his tomb ; is still pointed out to tourists, on the hill overlooking Tokio Bay, beside that of his Japanese wife. A street in Yeddo bears his Japanese name, "Anjin Cho''—th* word "An-

no" (the "considcrcr of the needle," ar compass-mail) defining his profession of master pilot.