According to a number of well documented being published over the years, this honour belongs to one - Robert Jansen - who hailed from county Waterford in Ireland. It is reported that in 1704 Jansen along with 5 other fellow sailors escaped from the Dutch East India Company who had a presence in the Asian country of the Philippines. The party had set sail for Canton but were unfortunately captured and taken prisioners by a local clan who lived on one of the small islands of the Japanese mainland. The sailors were suspected by their captors as being Portugese Missionaries - who around this time did not take kindly to outsiders visting their shores. Jansen and his fellow sailors were finally allowed to leave Japanese territory some 5 months later whereby they reached their destination – Jakata, which was at the time part of the Dutch East Indies – nowdays called Indonesia.