Nine days after the De Liefde crew were imprisoned, four large junks arrived at the Usuki harbour. An envoy from the Council of Regents had instructions to bring the captain of De Liefde to Osaka for questioning. However, Captain Quaeckernaeck was still critically ill, so Adams, as the next most senior officer, represented him. He was allowed to attend with one other and chose the ship’s merchant, Jan Joosten van Lodenstey. Both men departed the next morning. Adams wrote, ‘The great king of the land sent for me to come unto him.’ He did not know where Osaka was, nor how long it would take to reach there, but he had heard from the Jesuits about this great king, so he was aware that this voyage would decide his and his crew's fate.

The fleet of five boats spent several days on the Inland Sea, which separates the main island of Honshu from Shikoku. They sailed its full two-hundred-mile length before they arrived at the seaport of Sakai. During the voyage Adams was untied and given good food and drink. He would have found it strange to receive this hospitality and must have assumed it was like the last meal of a condemned man. He was pleased at being released from the dreadful prison, even if it proved temporary. Spring had come. The ocean was calm and sparkling like purple crystal. Salty scents were borne on soft breezes. Adams was no longer afraid of whatever might happen to him. He would accept God's will.

On the voyage, Adams and Jan Joosten met a friendly Japanese officer who could speak some Portuguese. He asked both men where they came from and introduced himself as a Catholic, born in Manila in the Philippines. When he learned their nationalities, he said that that must make them enemies of the King of Spain. Adams countered, ‘Japan is an enemy to the King, too.’ The officer nodded and said that some of his friends who had ceased to be Catholic had told him the same thing. It was his mother who had persuaded him to be Catholic, but he had doubts about the religion.