Richard Cocks

Richard Cocks (1566–1624) was the head of the British East India Company trading post in Hirado, Japan, between 1613 and 1623, from its creation, and lasting to its closure due to bankruptcy. During his time in Japan, he wrote a very detailed diary, relating the history of the trading post, the situation of Japan at the time, and the activities of English merchants in Japan, among whom was also the English pilot and samurai, retainer to Tokugawa Ieyasu, William Adams, with whom he wrote he had visited the residence of the Imperial Fleet Admiral, under orders from the Shogun, to discuss the possibility, required logistics, and outcome of an invasion of the Philippines in 1616.. The surviving documents of the trading post (letters, accounts and journals) are a unique source of first-hand accounts of Early Modern Japan through secular Western eyes. After the trading post was closed in 1623, Cocks sailed for England, but died at sea and was buried in the Indian Ocean.