英学史研究
Online ISSN : 1883-9282
Print ISSN : 0386-9490
ISSN-L : 0386-9490
17世紀東インド, 日本行英国船員の遺書
皆川 三郎
著者情報
ジャーナル フリー

1979 年 1980 巻 12 号 p. 87-110

詳細
抄録

Those captains and admirals like Haw kins, Drake, Raleigh, Lancaster, Frobisher, Michaelborne, brothers Middleton who did much for their country are recorded in the annals of history with words of high praises for their courage and daring exploits, but the common sailors of low rank are ignored even by historians. The latter were, in a sense, human resources, or rather the articles of consumption on which the British empire was built up. No matter what were their motives of going to sea, they were doomed to oblivion soon after their death. Such consideration of them awakened my interest in and sympathy with them.
Thanks chiefly to the good offices of Mr. A. J. Farrington of the India Office Library and Records, who is a British member of our Society, I was able to get as many as forty-seven wills of the sailors including two officers, one of whom being Sir James Lancaster. As I follow these wills according to the chronological order, I feel like being brought into direct and living contact with them, and I learn at first hand how they looked at life, what were their religious ideas and human relations, what hardships they suffered, what were the things in which they were most interested, what were their physical and economic conditions.
I have translatd into Japanese these wills that I have in hand, and put some comments on them for information of readers who may care to know about the sailors who, ninety out of one hundred, were “sicke of bodie” on the very eve of going “down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky.”

著者関連情報
© 日本英学史学会
前の記事 次の記事
feedback
Top