In the winter of 1611, a mysterious letter was received by the London merchants of the East India Company. The fact that it came from Japan, a forbidden and unknown land, was a cause of wonder, but even more remarkable was that the writer was an Englishman by the name of William Adams.

Adams had sailed to the East in 1598, but most of his company had died by the time their ship was washed up unexpectedly in Japan. He fell in love with the barbaric splendour of the country and decided to settle. He soon forged a close friendship with the ruthless Shogun Ieyasu, took a Japanese wife and sired a new, mixed-blood family.

However his homesick letter to London inspired the merchants to plan an expedition to the Far East, wishing to trade with the Japanese through Adams' good offices.

SAMURAI WILLIAM illuminates a Jacobean world whose horizons were rapidly expanding, and a Japan that was still unknown to the world.