William Adams

William Adams was an English navigator who reached Japan in 1600 aboard the Dutch ship Liefde. He became an adviser to Tokugawa Ieyasu, received samurai status and an estate, and helped develop Japanese contacts with Dutch and English merchants.

Adams's knowledge of ships, navigation and European politics made him useful to Tokugawa Ieyasu after the Liefde reached Japan. He received an estate and status within the shogun's service, became known as Miura Anjin and advised on shipbuilding and foreign trade. He helped English and Dutch merchants establish contacts in Japan but was not permitted to return permanently to his family in England, and he died at Hirado in 1620.

Giles Milton’s Samurai William follows William Adams from the wrecked Liefde to an extraordinary position within Tokugawa Ieyasu’s Japan. Adams’s knowledge of navigation and shipbuilding wins him land, rank and a role as intermediary with European merchants, even as the shogunate prevents his permanent return to England. The book then uses his divided loyalties and the failure of the English factory at Hirado to examine the limits of early English ambitions in Tokugawa Japan.