In 1611 an astonishing letter arrived at the the East India Trading Company in London after a tortuous seven-year journey. Englishman William Adams was one of only twenty-four survivors of a fleet of ships bound for Asia & he had washed up in the forbidden land of Japan. The traders were even more amazed to learn that rather than be horrified by this strange country Adams had fallen in love with the barbaric splendour of Japan
- & decided to settle. He had forged a close friendship with the ruthless Shogun taken a Japanese wife & sired a new mixed-race family. Adams letter fired up the London merchants to plan a new expedition to the Far East with designs to trade with the Japanese & use Adams contacts there to forge new commercial links. SAMURAI WILLIAM brilliantly illuminates a world whose horizons were rapidly expanding eastwards.