The British ship Clove, under the command of Captain John Saris, is the first British ship to call on Japan.

Saris is the chief factor of the EIC's trading post in Java, and with the assistance of William Adams, a British sailor who had arrived in Japan in 1600, is able to gain permission from the ruler to establish a commercial house in Hirado on the Japanese island of Kyushu.

However, unable to obtain Japanese raw silk for import to China and with their trading area reduced to Hirado and Nagasaki from 1616 onward, in 1623 the company closes their factory