In the meantime, after his narrow escape from prosecution, Captain Saris was back in favour. The London merchants had received many letters from the Englishmen in Hirado, pleading with them to send the silks that the Japanese craved rather than the colourful Indian cloth, baize and others that Saris had recommended, but they were ignored.

Sir Thomas Smythe became more supportive of Captain Saris. He even lent him a room in his house, to store his personal belongings. Then, just a few days before Christmas, Sir Thomas heard a rumour that Saris had collected on his voyages a large number of pornographic and erotic books and paintings and secreted them among his effects. One evening after work, he opened one of the boxes, not wanting to believe this of his favourite captain. He was horrified to find a vast amount of ‘lascivious books and pictures’. When he informed the senior merchants of the company, they felt physically sick, knowing that the disgraceful discovery would be ‘held to be a great scandal onto this (their) company’.

For Sir Thomas, it was doubly embarrassing that the lascivious things had been found in his house. He convinced his merchants that he had had no knowledge and would never have countenanced such trade, but the gossip spread with much mirth. ‘Derogatory speeches’were made about it in the London Exchange. Smythe decided he must destroy all the books and pictures in a public burning ceremony, with Saris present. On 10 January 1615, Saris’ precious international collection was piled up outside the offices of the company. Sir Thomas himself‘put them into the fire, where they continued till they were burnt and turned into smoke’. The black ashes blew away and with them went Captain Saris’ career.

Unknown to the London merchants, there was another scandal brewing. Richard Cocks was becoming increasingly anxious about a large deficit that Captain Saris and the other Englishmen in Hirado had run up on dancing girls or prostitutes, servants and extravagant building work. To hide these expenses in his profit, Cocks desperately needed to sell his cargo to, as he wrote, ‘turn all into ready money before any other ship come out of England’.