The volume includes documents, including a description of Japan in the sixteenth century from Harleian mss. 6249, and the letters of William Adams, 1611-17, edited and annotated, and a summary of a narrative by His Excellancy Don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco of his residence in the empire, 1608-1610. The supplementary material includes the 1849 annual report. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1850.