confiscated, and his son should normally have been executed as well. Date, however, gave him the opportunity to redeem his honour by placing him in charge of the Embassy to Europe, and soon gave him back his territories as well. Background: early contacts between Japan and Spain The Spanish started trans-Pacific voyages between New Spain (present-day Mexico and the U.S. state of California) and the Philippines in 1565. The famous Manila galleons carried silver from Mexican mines westward to the entrepôt of Manila in the Spanish possession of the Philippines. There, the silver was used to purchase spices and trade goods gathered from throughout Asia, including (until 1638) goods from Japan. The return route of the Manila galleons, first charted by the Spanish navigator Andrés de Urdaneta, took the ships northeast into the Kuroshio Current (also known as the Japan Current) off the coast of Japan, and then across the Pacific to the west coast of Mexico, landing eventually in Acapulco. Spanish ships were occasionally shipwrecked on the coasts of Japan due to bad weather, initiating contacts with the country. The Spanish wished to expand the Christian faith in Japan. Efforts to expand influence in Japan were met by stiff resistance from the Jesuits, who had started the evangelizing of the country in 1549, as well as by the opposition of the Portuguese and Dutch who did not wish to see Spain participate in Japanese trade. However, some Japanese, such as Christopher and Cosmas, are known to have crossed the Pacific onboard Spanish galleons as early as 1587. It is known that gifts were exchanged between the governor of the Philippines and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who thanks him in a 1597 letter, writing "The black elephant in particular I found most unusual." On 25 July, 1609, the Manila galleons San Francisco, Santa Ana, and the flagship (almiranta) San Antonio set sail from Cavite, then a major Philippine shipyard during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, towards Acapulco. The ships ran into storms on 10 August around the Islas de los Ladrones (present-day Northern Mariana Islands); only the San Antonio managed to successfully reach Acapulco, while the Santa Ana was almost entirely destroyed and had to land at Bungo Province (present-day Ōita Prefecture). The San Francisco was severely damaged, losing its mast and leaking water, and later struck a reef nearby the hamlet Yubanda (likely present-day Iwawada, in Onjuku, Chiba). Fifty-six sailors drowned;