Since his arrival in Japan in August 1611, the Dutch mining engineer Van Andreezen, under Adams’ supervision, had been daily hard at work teaching Japanese engineers the amalgam technique. Adams had more of an affinity with this skilled professional than with merchants. So in the evening after work, he often took Andreezen to a hot spring bath in a valley very similar to his favourite bathing place in Itō. One evening, they were casually chatting as usual, soaking in the steaming bath, when Andreezen mentioned something unexpected. He said that in 1602 the English East India Company had established a permanent base in the Java Port of Bantam and English ships had been sailing there for nearly a decade. Initially Adams wondered what Andreezen was talking about. Andreezen explained that the English East India Company had been formed in London in December 1600 and the first branch for trading with the East set up in India. They had now increased the number of branches, including one in Bantam.

Adams was stunned and felt as if the steam all around him was more like a suffocating fog. The year 1600 was when De Liefde first drifted into Usuki Bay. Adams understood that nobody might have heard about him in England for some time after, but wasn't it odd that in 1609 when the Dutch vessel Roode Leeuw met Pylen arrived from Bantam, neither Cornelis Matelieff nor Jacques Specx nor any of the other Dutchmen had ever mentioned the English East India Company there?

Gradually and cruelly the fog lifted. He had been betrayed and on an unspeakable, massive scale for more than a decade. He realized that none of his letters to his wife and friends in England, which were entrusted to Captain Quackernaeck in 1605, would ever have reached England. Adams was on fire with fury, but he managed to control his emotion, so Andreezen, unaware, continued to talk. Looking at him, Adams for a moment saw a clone of his betrayers and came very close to striking him dead.

On the way home, Adams managed to look detached and dignified, but as soon as he entered his private room he exploded with fury.