The voyage had been a catastrophe long before Japan.

Five ships left the Netherlands in 1598 carrying five hundred men, bound for Asia via the Strait of Magellan. Two years later, only one vessel had completed the crossing — De Liefde, the Love — and of its original crew of 110, only 24 men remained alive when it dragged itself into the bay of 豊後 (Bungo) on the southern island of 九州 (Kyūshū) on April 19, 1600. They were skeletal with scurvy, too weak to raise the sails. Six more would die within days of landing.

The survivors had no way of knowing that they had arrived at one of the most consequential moments in Japanese history. Just months earlier, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had died, leaving a five-year-old heir and a realm balanced on the edge of civil war. The man who would decide the outcome — 徳川家康 (Tokugawa Ieyasu) — was already maneuvering for dominance. In six months he would win the battle of 関ヶ原 (Sekigahara) and begin building the most durable government Japan had ever seen.

At the moment the broken Dutch ship arrived, none of that was settled. And the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries who met the survivors on the shore had no interest in letting any of it benefit Protestant competition. They labeled the De Liefde crew pirates and demanded their immediate execution.

Ieyasu jailed them at 大阪城 (Osaka-jō) — but he was too methodical a man to execute strangers on a rival's say-so. He sent for the ship's pilot.

William Adams, born September 24, 1564, in Gillingham, England, had spent his working life at sea. He was frank, numerically precise, and evidently not easily intimidated. The interrogations that followed — at least three separate audiences with the most powerful man in Japan — were unlike anything either man could have anticipated. Ieyasu wanted to know about ships. About navigation. About geometry. About the politics of Europe, the rivalries between Catholic Portugal and Protestant England and the Netherlands, and why these nations were fighting over Asian trade routes.

Adams answered honestly. He drew diagrams. He explained what he knew.

Ieyasu concluded two things: that the Jesuits had lied about the piracy charges, and that this English pilot was genuinely useful. He rejected the execution demand, took Adams into his service, and had the surviving crew nursed back to health.

Adams spent the rest of his life in Japan. In 1605, Ieyasu formally elevated him to 旗本 (hatamoto) — a direct retainer of the shogun, carrying stipends and privileges well above ordinary samurai. He received the name 三浦按針 (Miura Anjin), meaning Pilot of Miura, drawn from the peninsula where his estate at 逸見 (Hemi) was located, in what is now 横須賀 (Yokosuka). He was granted two swords, the physical symbol of samurai rank — the only Western-born person in Japanese history to receive it.

He also supervised the construction of two Western-style ocean-going ships for Ieyasu and helped teach the future shogun geometry. A neighborhood in 江戸 (Edo) — modern-day 日本橋 (Nihonbashi), Tokyo — was named 按針町 (Anjin-chō), Pilot Town, in his honor.

The De Liefde had arrived with 19 bronze cannon aboard. Those cannon were unloaded and delivered to Ieyasu's forces. They were used six months later, on October 21, 1600, at the Battle of 関ヶ原 (Sekigahara) — the decisive engagement that confirmed Tokugawa supremacy. The ship that had drifted helplessly into harbor in April arguably helped tilt the outcome of the battle that made the Tokugawa age possible.

Ieyasu forbade Adams from leaving Japan. Adams had a wife back in England — Mary Hyn — and eventually accepted that he would not see her again. He married 雪 (Oyuki), daughter of a samurai official of 江戸城 (Edo-jō), and had two children: Joseph and Susanna. He died at 平戸 (Hirado) on May 16, 1620.

The Jesuits who had demanded his execution fared worse. Adams' reports on Japan, and his role in opening trade relationships with Protestant nations, contributed to Ieyasu's growing suspicion of Catholic missionaries. The eventual 鎖国 (sakoku) — the closed-country edicts of the 1630s — drove them out entirely. The Dutch trading station at 出島 (Dejima) in 長崎 (Nagasaki), the only Western commercial window into Japan for two hundred years, was a direct descendant of the relationships Adams had helped forge.

The story of William Adams is, among other things, a story about what the samurai class actually valued. Ieyasu cared nothing for bloodline, religion, or the color of a man's skin. He cared about honesty, competence, and knowledge that was useful to him. The English sailor had all three. That was enough.