CHAPTER XXVII.

AMERICAN ATTEMPTS TO OPEN TRADE WITH JAPAN.

WE propose here to summarize the various attempts by Americans to re-open Japan to intercourse with other nations. For two centuries, after Iyéyasŭ and his successors passed their decree of seclusion, Japan remained the new Paradise Lost to Europeans. Perry made it Paradise Regained.

In _The Japan Expedition_, the editor of Perry’s work has given, on page 62, in a tabulated list, the various attempts made by civilized nations to open commerce with Japan from 1543 down to 1852. In this, the Portuguese, Dutch, English, Russians, American, and French have taken part. This table, however, is incomplete, as we shall show.

The American flag was probably first carried around the world in 1784, by Major Robert Shaw, formerly an officer in the revolutionary army of the United States First Artillery. It was, therefore, seen in the eastern seas as early as 1784, and at Nagasaki as early as 1797. In 1803, Mr. Waardenaar, the Dutch superintendent at Déshima, not having heard that the peace of the Amiens, negotiated by Lord Cornwallis and signed March 27, 1802, had been broken, boarded a European vessel coming into port, and recognized an American, Captain Stewart, who during the war had made voyages for the Dutch East India Company. Captain Stewart explained that he had come with a cargo of wholly American goods, of which he was proprietor. The following dialogue ensued:—

_Q._ “Who is the King of America.”

_A._ “President Jefferson.”

_Q._ “Why do you come to Japan?”

_A._ “To demand liberty of commerce for me and my people.”

Waardenaar suspected that the real chief of the expedition was not Stewart, but “the doctor” on board, and that it was a British ship. Hence, on Waardenaar’s report to the governor of Nagasaki, the latter forbade Stewart the coasts of Japan, allowing, him, however, water and provisions.

The facts underlying this apparent attempt of the enterprising Yankee to open trade with the United States so early in the history of the country seemed to be these. Captain Stewart, an American in the service of the Dutch East India Company, having made his first voyage from Batavia to Nagasaki in 1797, was sent again the following year, 1798. An earthquake and tidal wave coming on, his ship dragged her anchors and the cargo, consisting chiefly of camphor, was thrown overboard. The vessel would have become a total wreck but for the ingenuity of a native. He “used helps undergirding the ship,” floating her. Then taking her in tow of a big junk, he drew her into a safe quarter. For this, the Japanese was made a two-sworded samurai. Stewart was sent back to Batavia. Thence he fled to Bengal, where he most probably persuaded the English merchants to send him in a ship to Japan with a cargo, to open trade for them under the name of Americans.

A few days after Stewart had left, Captain Torry, the accredited agent of the Calcutta Company, came to Nagasaki, to open trade if possible. Torry had sent Stewart before him, the Japanese not daring, he thought, to refuse Englishmen after allowing Americans to trade. Torry was, however, sent away as being in league with Stewart, and left after obtaining a supply of water.

In 1807, as Hildreth in his _Japan_, states, the American ship, _Eclipse_, of Boston, chartered at Canton, by the Russian American Company for Kamschatka and the north-west coast of America, entered the harbor of Nagasaki under Russian colors, but could obtain no trade and only provisions and water. The Dutch flag being driven from the ocean, the annual ships from Batavia to Nagasaki in 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, and at least one of the pair in 1806, 1807 and 1809, were American bottoms and under the American flag, so that the Japanese became familiar with the _seventeen_-starred flag of the United States of America.

The brilliant and successful foreign policy of President Andrew Jackson in Europe, has been already noted. Even Asia felt his influence. Mr. Edmund Roberts[21], a sea captain of Portsmouth, N. H., was named by President Jackson, his “agent” for the purpose of “examining in the Indian ocean the means of extending the commerce of the United States by commercial arrangements with the Powers whose dominions border on those seas.” He was ordered, January 27, 1832, to embark on the United States Sloop-of-war, _Peacock_, in which he was rated as captain’s clerk. On the 23rd of July, he was ordered “to be very careful in obtaining information respecting Japan, the means of opening a communication with it, and the value of its trade with the Dutch and Chinese.” Arriving at Canton, he might receive further instructions. He had with him blanks. On the 28th of October, 1832, Edward Livingstone, the United States Secretary of State, instructed him that the United States had it in contemplation to institute a separate mission to Japan. If, however, a favorable opportunity presented, he might fill up a letter and present it to the “Emperor” for the purpose of opening trade. Roberts was successful in inaugurating diplomatic and commercial relations with Muscat and Siam, but, on account of his premature death, nothing came of his mission to Japan. He died June 12, 1836, at Macao, where his tomb duly inscribed, is in the Protestant cemetery.

Commodore Kennedy in the _Peacock_, with the schooner _Enterprise_, visited the Bonin Islands in August 1837, an account of which was written by Doctor Ruschenberger,[22] the fleet surgeon.

The sight of the flowery flag of “Bé-koku” or the United States, became more and more familiar to the Japanese coasting and ship population, as the riches of the whaling waters became better known in America. The American whalers were so numerous in the Japan seas by the year 1850, that eighty-six of the “black ships” were counted as passing Matsumaé in twelve months. Perry found that no fewer than ten thousand of our people were engaged in this business. Furthermore, the Japanese waifs blown out to sea were drifted into the Black Current and to the Kurile and Aleutian islands, to Russian and British America, to Oregon and California, and even to Hawaii.

The necessity of visiting Japan on errands of mercy to return these waifs became a frequent one. Reciprocally, the Japanese sent the shipwrecked Americans by the Dutch vessels to Batavia whence they reached the United States. This was the cause of the “_Morrison’s_” visit to the bay of Yedo and to Kagoshima in 1837. This ship, fitly named after the first Protestant English missionary to China, whose grave lies near Roberts in the terraced cemetery at Macao, was despatched by an American mercantile firm. Included among the thirty-eight persons on board were seven Japanese waifs, Rev. Charles Gutzlaff, Dr. S. Wells Williams, Peter Parker, Mr. King, the owner, and Mrs. King. They sailed July 3d. The vessel reached Uraga, bay of Yedo, July 22d, and Kagoshima in Satsuma August 20, but was fired on and driven away. The name of “Morrison Bluff” on the map of Japan is an honor to American Christianity, as it is a shame to Old Japan.

The proposition to open commercial relations with the two secluded nations now came definitely before Congress. On February 15th 1845, General Zadoc Pratt, chairman of the select committee on statistics introduced the following resolution in Congress to treat for the opening of Japan and Corea. “Whereas it is important to the general interests of the United States that steady and persevering efforts should be made for the extension of American commerce, connected as that commerce is with the agriculture and manufactures of our country; be it therefore _resolved_, that in furtherance of this object, it is hereby recommended that immediate measures be taken for effecting commercial arrangements with the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Corea,[23] for the following among other reasons.” Then follows a memorandum concerning the proposed mission.

Captain Mercator Cooper, in the whale ship _Manhattan_, of Sag Harbor, returned twenty-two shipwrecked Japanese early in April 1845, from the island of St. Peters to Uraga in the bay of Yedo, where he lay at anchor four days obtaining books and charts. When the Japanese embassy of 1861 reached New York, one of the first questions asked by them was, “Where is Captain Cooper?”

Our government authorized Commodore Biddle, then in command of the East Indian squadron, to visit Japan in the hope of securing a convention. He left Chusan July 7th, and, on the 20th of July 1846, with the ship of the line, _Columbus_, 90 guns, and the sloop of war, _Vincennes_, he anchored off Uraga. Application for trade was made in due form, but the answer given July 28th by the Shō-gun’s deputy who came on board with a suite of eight persons, was a positive refusal. Commodore Biddle being instructed “not to do anything to excite a hostile feeling or distrust of the United States,” sailed away July 29, in obedience to orders.

At this very time, eight American sailors, or seven, as the Japanese account states, wrecked on the whale ship, _Lawrence_, June 6th, were imprisoned in Yezo; but the fact was not then known in Yedo. After seventeen months confinement, they were sent to Nagasaki and thence in October 1847, to Batavia. From one of these sailors, a Japanese samurai, or two-sworded retainer of a damiō, named Moriyama Yénosŭké, (Mr. Grove-mountain) learned to speak and read English with tolerable fluency. He acted as chief medium of communication between the Japanese and their next American visitor, Glynn; and afterwards served as interpreter in the treaty negotiations at Yokohama in 1854. At this time the Dutch trade with Japan barely paid the expenses of the factory at Déshima. The Dutch East India Company some years before had voluntarily turned over the monopoly to the Dutch government. Trade was now upon a purely sentimental basis, being kept up solely for the honor of the Dutch flag. The next step, which logically followed, was a letter from the King of Holland to the Shō-gun recommending that Japan open her ports to the trade of the world. Meanwhile, the Mikado commanded that the coasts should be strictly guarded “so as to prevent dishonor to the Divine Country.”

In September, 1848, fifteen foreign seamen, eight of them Americans, wrecked from the _Ladoga_, were sent in a junk from Matsumaé to Nagasaki. The Netherlands consul at Canton made notification January 27, 1849, to Captain Geisinger, a gallant officer on the _Wasp_ in 1814, in command of the _Peacock_ during Mr. Roberts’s first embassy, and now in command of the East India squadron, who sent Commander Glynn in the _Preble_, the brig once in Perry’s African squadron, and carrying fourteen guns, to their rescue. Stopping at Napa, Riu Kiu, on his way to Nagasaki, he learned from the Rev. Dr. J. Bettelheim the missionary there, of the rumors concerning “the Japanese victory over the American big ships.” The snowball of rumor in rolling to the provinces had become an avalanche of exaggeration, and Glynn at once determined to pursue “a stalwart policy.” On reaching Nagasaki, he dashed through the cordon of boats, and anchored within cannon shot of the city. He submitted to the usual red tape proceedings and evasive diplomacy for two days, and then threatened to open fire on the city unless the sailors were forthcoming. That the Japanese had already learned to respect American naval gunnery, having heard of it at Vera Cruz, the following conversation will show. The Japanese, through the Dutch, had been kept minutely informed as to the Mexican war and, in their first interview with Commander Glynn, remarked:—

“You have had a war with Mexico?”

“Yes.”

“You whipped her?”

“Yes.”

“You have taken a part of her territory?”

“Yes.”

“And you have discovered large quantities of gold in it?”

The imprisoned seamen were promptly delivered on the deck of the _Preble_. They stated that, when in Matsumaé, they had learned from the guards of their prison of every battle we had with the Mexicans and of every victory we had gained. The prestige of the American navy won at Vera Cruz and on the two coasts had doubtless a good influence upon the Japanese, making Glynn’s mission easier than it otherwise might have been. In his report, Commander Glynn suggested that the time for opening Japan was favorable and recommended the sending of a force to do it.

Commerce with China, the settlement of California, the growth of the American whale-fishery in the eastern seas, the expansion of steam traffic, with the corollary necessities of coal and ports for shelter, and the frequency of shipwrecks, were all compelling factors in the opening of Japan—which event could not long be delayed.

The shadows of the coming event were already descried in Japan. Numerous records of the landing or shipwreck of American and other seamen are found in the native chronicles of this period. The Dutch dropped broad hints of embassies or expeditions soon to come. In September, 1847, the rank of the governor of Uraga, the entrance-port to the Bay of Yedo, was raised. In October, the daimiōs or barons were ordered to maintain the coast defences, and encourage warlike studies and exercises. In November, the boy named Shichiro Marō, destined to be the last Tai-kun (“Tycoon”) and head of Japanese feudalism, came into public notice as heir of one of the princely families of the Succession. In December, a census of the number of newly cast cannon able to throw balls of one pound weight and over was ordered to be taken. The chronicler of the year 1848 notes that nineteen foreign vessels passed through the straits of Tsushima in April, and closes his notice of remarkable events by saying: “During this year, foreign ships visited our northern seas in such numbers as had not been seen in recent times!”

[21] Embassy to the Eastern Courts, New York, 1837.

[22] A Voyage Round the World, Philadelphia, 1838.

[23] Corea, the Hermit Nation, p. 390.