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Among the merchants who were granted red seal licenses and permission to engage in overseas trade, there were those who came to be known as the seven Great Red Seal Ship Families, who the shogunate remembered and appreciated. In [[Kyoto]], these families included the [[Sueyoshi family|Sueyoshi]] and [[Fushimi family|Fushimi families]], the house of [[Chaya Shirojiro|Chaya Shirôjirô]], and the house of [[Suminokura Ryoi|Suminokura Ryôi]]. The son of [[William Adams]] also continued to enjoy "red seal" trading privileges, adopting his father's sobriquet, Miura Anjin.<ref name=jansen/> Merchants frequently made offerings of ''[[ema]]'' (votive tablets) at [[Kiyomizu-dera]] before departing for Southeast Asia, in order to pray for a safe journey. Unlike the ''ema'' sold today at [[Shinto shrines]], which are about the size of a postcard (though a good half-inch thick), these ''ema'' could be as large as several meters on a side.

Among the merchants who were granted red seal licenses and permission to engage in overseas trade, there were those who came to be known as the seven Great Red Seal Ship Families, who the shogunate remembered and appreciated. In [[Kyoto]], these families included the [[Sueyoshi family|Sueyoshi]] and [[Fushimi family|Fushimi families]], the house of [[Chaya Shirojiro|Chaya Shirôjirô]], and the house of [[Suminokura Ryoi|Suminokura Ryôi]]. The son of [[William Adams]] also continued to enjoy "red seal" trading privileges, adopting his father's sobriquet, Miura Anjin.<ref name=jansen/> Merchants frequently made offerings of ''[[ema]]'' (votive tablets) at [[Kiyomizu-dera]] before departing for Southeast Asia, in order to pray for a safe journey. Unlike the ''ema'' sold today at [[Shinto shrines]], which are about the size of a postcard (though a good half-inch thick), these ''ema'' could be as large as several meters on a side.

The ''shuinsen'' (red seal ships) system ended, however, with the implementation of [[kaikin|maritime restrictions]] in the 1630s-[[1640]]. By that time, roughly 350 licenses had been issued, including 43 to Chinese merchants and 38 to Europeans,<ref name=jansen/> though for at least part of this period it was required that license-holders had to have at least partially Japanese crews.<ref>Kang, David C. “Hierarchy in Asian International Relations: 1300-1900.” ''Asian Security'' 1, no. 1 (2005), 69.</ref>

The ''shuinsen'' (red seal ships) system ended, however, with the implementation of [[kaikin|maritime restrictions]] in the 1630s-[[1640]]. By that time, roughly 350 licenses had been issued, including 43 to Chinese merchants and 38 to Europeans,<ref name=jansen/> though for at least part of this period it was required that license-holders had to have at least partially Japanese crews.<ref>Kang, David C. “Hierarchy in Asian International Relations: 1300-1900.” ''Asian Security'' 1, no. 1 (2005), 69.</ref> Many of the ships were constructed according to a fusion of European and East Asian forms, e.g. combining European rigging with an East Asian junk's hull. Portuguese piloted many of these ships, and there are numerous records of European sailors coming across red seal ships and describing them as possessing a decidedly strange appearance, because of their mixed crews and mixed construction. Red seal ships traveled to a number of ports in Southeast Asia; in [[1624]], for example, 35 ships traveled to Siam, 26 to Vietnam, two to Brunei, 30 to the Philippines, 23 to Cambodia, and one to Melaka.<ref>Geoffrey Gunn, ''History Without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000-1800'', Hong Kong University Press (2011), 215-216.</ref>

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