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Was there ever a more compositely polyglot cosmopolitan than poor young de Liefde half Dutchman, half German by birth, an Englishman by adoption, a Frenchman in temperament, speaking with equal fluency the language of all four countries, and an unconsidered trifle of some half-dozen European languages besides?
Then de Liefde the polyglot gave the health of the happy couple in a felicitous but composite speech, in which half a dozen languages were impartially intermixed so that all might understand at least a portion.
The Restauration Kueche on the other side was in flames, so was the stable of the hotel to the left rear. In this pleasing situation of affairs George produced a pack of cards and coolly proposed a game of whist. Kuester, de Liefde, and Hyndman joined him; and the game proceeded amidst the crashing of the projectiles.
In this he was disappointed. The first Hollanders that set foot in Japan were eighteen survivors of the crew of the wrecked Liefde.
Towed into the harbour of Funai, she was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate. On board the Liefde, serving in the capacity of pilot major was an Englishman, Will Adams, of Gillingham in Kent.
At about this time a Dutch merchant ship named the Liefde arrived in Japan. In 1598, a squadron of five ships sailed from Holland to exploit the sources of Portuguese commerce in the Orient, and of the five vessels only one, the Liefde, was ever heard of again. She reached Japan in the spring of 1600, with only four and twenty survivors of her original crew, numbering 110.
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