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The comment in the title of this article was made by James I after having been shown a 'long scrole of fyne paper', probably a Japanese almanac, and an account of the estates and revenues of the daimyo 'most of them equally or exceeding the revenues of the greatest princes of Christendom', and a letter, all of which had been sent by Richard Cocks, head of the English East India Company's factory at Hirado during its entire existence from 1613 to 1623. Cocks's letter and the two enclosures had been sent to his patron, the then Keeper of the Records, Sir Thomas Wilson, who had shown the letter to James with a covering note stating that he had received it 'from the most remote part of the world'. The letter describes, in considerable and acutely observed detail, the new capital of the Tokugawa shogunate, Edo, the shogun's magnificent retinue as he led a falcon-hunting party (hunting was a pastime he had in common with the British monarch), the greatdaibutsuof Kamakura, the sights of Kyoto, includingSanjusangendo, and recent political developments relating to the banishment of the Jesuits and friars. Wilson, rather obsequiously, felt that the letters, written in January 1617, 'were a good recreation for Your Majesty (if you had any idle hours)' and declared that 'neither our cosmographers nor other writers have given us true relation of the greatness of the princes of those parts'. But James could 'not be induced to believe' what was written, and dismissed the letter as 'the loudest lies that ever [he] heard of.

Contents: Preface; A note on currency; Romanization of Japanese and Chinese names; Introduction: Background to De Missione; Objectives of the Embassy and the individuals chosen; Publication of De Missione; Authorship of De Missione; Sources of De Missione; Contextualizing De Missione; Evaluating De Missione and the Tensho embassy; The boys after their return to Japan; Conclusion. Text: A Dialogue Concerning the Mission of the Japanese Ambassadors to the Roman Curia: Imprimatur; Nihil obstat; Alessandro Valignan of the Society of Jesus to the pupils of the Japanese seminaries; Duarte de Sande to Claudio Aquaviva, Superior General of the Society of Jesus; Contents of these Colloquia; Colloquium I-XXXIV; Bibliography; Index.

In 1582 Alessandro Valignano, the Visitor to the Jesuit mission in the East Indies, sent four Japanese boys to Europe. Until the arrival of the embassy in Europe, the Euro-Japanese encounter had been almost exclusively one way: Europeans going to Japan. This book is an account of their travels, their long journeys out and back, and the 20 months in Europe being received by popes and kings. It was published in Macao in 1590 with the title De Missione Legatorvm Iaponensium ad Romanum curiam. The present edition is the first complete version of this rich, complex and impressive work to appear in.