“Prowd, Humorous, Dreamying Fellos”

The English East India Company established a trading outpost (called "factories") at Hirado, Japan, in 1613, thirteen years after the Company's creation. At the head of the factory was an eccentric, "blabbering, " wildly emotional man named Richard Cocks. His ineptitude as a head merchant was certainly a factor in the factory's eventual dissolution at Hirado in 1623. But why did the English trade ultimately fail in Japan, aside from Cocks' obvious incompetence? To what extent was the Company itself responsible for the failure of its factory? Was anything learned from the Hirado factory’s failure? This paper argues that the Hirado factory failed mainly due to overwhelming competition from the Dutch and Iberians, both militarily and economically. Second, this paper argues that the English did not enjoy stable, mutually beneficial relations with the Shogunate or the Matsuura daimyo of Hirado. Third, the English were unable to procure enough stores of silk from the other Company factories for Japanese markets, and were thus unable to procure silver from Japanese merchants, a metal that was incredibly valuable in Southeast Asian economies. Furthermore, the Hirado factory also was failed by the Company itself, as the Hirado venture was created out of a Joint-Stock voyage, whose investors discouraged long-term investments and expected quick profit returns. The lack of a strong country trade, that is, a port-to-port trade between the Company’s factories, also contributed to the Hirado factory’s demise. The final section of this paper will discuss what exactly was learned from the failure at Hirado, and how that failure manifested itself in policy and structural changes within the Company and within its factory system in the East Indies both before and after the factory’s closure in 1623. For the full text, please visit https: //scholar. colorado. edu/concern/undergraduateₕonorsₜheses/tb09j715k.