CHAPTER XXIX.

PREPARATIONS FOR JAPAN. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

THE charts used in the Japan expedition came mostly from Holland, and cost our government thirty thousand dollars. Perry does not seem to have been aware that Captain Mercator Cooper of Sag Harbor, Long Island, had brought home fairly good Japanese charts of the Bay of Yedo, more accurate probably than any which he was able to purchase. Captain Beechey of the B. M. S. _Blossom_, had surveyed carefully the seas around Riu Kiu. The large coast-line map of Japan, in four sheets, made on modern scientific principles by a wealthy Japanese who had expended his fortune and suffered imprisonment for his work, which was published posthumously, was not then accessible.

Intelligent Japanese have been eager to know, and more than one has asked the writer: “How did Perry get his knowledge of our country and people?” We answer that he made diligent study of books and men. He had asked for permission to purchase all necessary books at a reasonable price. Von Siebold’s colossal work was a mine of information from which European book-makers were beginning to quarry, as they had long done from Engelbert Kaempfer, but the importer’s price of Von Siebold’s _Archiv_ was $503. The interest excited in England by the expedition caused the publication in London of a cheap reprint of Kaempfer.

By setting in motion the machinery of the librarians and book-collectors in New York and London, Perry was able to secure a library on the subject. He speedily and thoroughly mastered their contents.

So far from Japan being a _terra incognita_ in literature, it had been even then more written about than Turkey. Few far Eastern Asiatic nations have reason to be proud of so voluminous and polyglot a European library concerning themselves as the Japanese. On the subject about which information was as defective as it was most needed, was the political situation of modern Japan and the true relation of the “Tycoon” to the Mikado.

Earnestly desirous of impressing the Japanese with American resources and inventions, the Commodore on March 27th, 1851, had notified the Department of his intention to obtain specimens of every sort of mechanical products, arms and machinery, with statistical and other volumes illustrating the advance of the useful arts. In addition to this, he notified manufacturers of his wish to obtain samples of every description. Armed with letters from his friends, the Appletons of New York, he visited Albany, Boston, New Bedford and Providence to obtain what he desired, and to inquire into personal details and statistics of the American whalers engaged in Japanese and Chinese waters. An unexpectedly great interest was arising from all quarters concerning Japan and the expedition thither. All with whom he had interviews were enthusiastic and liberal in aiding him. At New Bedford he learned that American capital to the amount of seventeen millions was invested in the whaling industry in the seas of Japan and China. Thousands of our sailors manned the ships thus employed.

This was before the days of petroleum and the electric light. It explained also why American shipwrecked sailors were so often found in Japan. There were reciprocal additions to the populations on both sides of the Pacific. While the Kuro Shiwo, or Black Current, was sweeping Japanese junks out to sea and lining the west coast of North America with wrecks and waifs, the rocky shores of the Sunrise Kingdom were liberally strewn with castaways, to whom the American flag was the sign of home.

The cause of this remarkable development of American enterprise in distant seas lay in the liberal policy of Russia toward our people. Our first treaty of 1824 declared the navigation and fisheries of the Pacific free to both nations. The second convention of 1838, signed by James Buchanan and Count Nesselrode, guaranteed to citizens of the United States freedom to enter all ports, places and rivers on the Alaskan coast under Russian protection. Already the northern Pacific was virtually an American possession.

There was great eagerness on the part of scientific men and learned societies to be represented in the proposed expedition. Much pressure was brought to bear upon the Commodore to organize a corps of experts in the sciences, or to allow favored individual civilians to enter the fleet. Perry firmly declined all such offers.

He proposed to duplicate none of his predecessor’s blunders, nor to imperil his personal reputation or the success of a costly expedition by the presence of landsmen of any sort on board. He sent his son to China at his own private expense. The expedition was saved the previous tribulations of Aulick, or the later afflictions of De Long in the _Jeannette_.

As illustrating the variety of subordinate matters to be looked into, he was instructed to inquire concerning the product of sulphur, and about weights and measures. The Norris Brothers of Philadelphia furnished the little locomotive and rails to be laid down in Japan. These, with a thousand other details were carefully studied by the Commodore.

Indeed it may be truly said that Perry’s thorough grasp of details before he left the United States made him already master of the situation. He knew just what to do, and how to do it. The Japanese did not. He appreciated the advantage of having sailor, engineer, diplomatist and captain in one man, and that man himself. Not so with Rodgers in Corea, in 1871.

If Perry, after his appointment as special envoy of the United States to Japan, had trusted entirely to his official superiors, he would probably never have obtained his fleet or won a treaty. Four months after receiving his appointment, the Whig convention met in Baltimore, June the 16th. When it adjourned, on June 22nd, the ticket nominated was “Scott and Graham.” Thenceforth, Secretary Graham took little or no practical interest in Japan or Perry. The Commodore’s first and hardest task was to conquer lethargy at home. One instance of his foresight is seen in his care for a sure supply of coal, without which side-wheel steamers, almost the only ones then in the navy, were worse than useless. He directed Messrs. Howland and Aspinwall to send out two coal ships, one to the Cape of Good Hope and the other to Mauritius. These floating depots were afterwards of the greatest service to the advance and following steamers, _Mississippi_, _Powhatan_ and _Alleghany_.

A lively episode in international politics occurred in July, 1852, which Perry was called upon to settle. New England was convulsed over the seizure of American fishing vessels by British cruisers. Congress being still in session, the opposition were not slow to denounce the Administration.

Mr. Fillmore invited Mr. John P. Kennedy of “Swallow Barn” literary fame to succeed Mr. Graham as Secretary of the Navy. Mr. Kennedy took his seat in the cabinet July 24th. The excitement over the fishery question was then at fever heat. Mutterings of war were already heard in the newspapers. Employment for the Mexican veterans seemed promising.

The cabinet decided that the new secretary should give the law, and that Perry should execute it. Mr. Kennedy, who wisely saw Perry first, proceeded to draft the letter. On the night of July 28th his studies resulted in a brilliant state paper, which occupies seven folio pages in the Book of Confidential Letters, and he then retired to rest. Naturally his maiden effort in diplomacy tried his nerves. His broken sleep was disturbed with dreams of codfish and the shades of Lord Aberdeen till morning.

Once more summoning to his aid his old sea-racer the _Mississippi_, Captain McCluney, Perry left New York July 31st, 1852, stopping at Eastport, Maine, to get fresh information. There was much irritation felt by British residents at the alleged depredations of American fishermen, who, instead of buying their ice, bait, fuel and other supplies, were sometimes tempted to make raids on the shores of the islands. One excited person wrote to the admiral of the fleet:

“For God’s sake send a man-of-war here, for the Americans are masters of the place—one hundred sail are now lying in the harbor. They have stolen my fire-wood and burnt it on the beach.” They had also set fire to the woods and committed other spoliations. Collisions with the British cruisers were imminent, and acts easily leading to war were feared by the cabinet.

Perry proceeded to Halifax. He traversed the coast of Cape Breton Island, around Magdalen, and along the north shore of Prince Edward’s Island, visiting the resorts of the Yankee fishermen, and passing large fleets of our vessels. He found by experience, and was satisfied, that there had been repeated infractions of treaty, for which seven seizures had been made by British cruisers then in command of Admiral Seymour. The question, at this issue, concerning the rights of Americans fishing in Canadian waters, was one of geographical science rather than of diplomacy. It rested upon the answer given to this, “What are bays?” The last convention between the two countries had been made in 1818, when the United States renounced her right to fish within three miles of any of the coasts, bays and harbors of Canada. Only after a number of American vessels had been seized and prosecuted in the court at Halifax, was this treaty made. Including those captured for violating the convention of 1818, the number was sixty in all. The British said to Perry that the Americans had no right to take fish within three marine miles of the shore of a British province, or within three miles of a line drawn from headland to headland across bays. Canadians in American bottoms were especially expert in evading this law.

Perry found the American fishermen were intelligent and understood the treaty, but he thought that the Canadian government was too severe upon them. About 2500 vessels and 27,500 men from our ports took part in the hazardous occupation, “thus furnishing,” said the Commodore, “a nursery for seamen, of inestimable advantage to the maritime interests of the nation.” Added to the force employed in whaling in the North Atlantic, there were thirty thousand men, mostly native Americans, whose business was with salt-water fish and mammals. At one point he saw a fleet of five hundred sail of mackerel fishers.

This diplomatic voyage revealed both the dangers and pathos of the sailor-fisherman’s life. No class of men engaged in any industry are subjected to such sufferings, privations and perils. Their own name for the fishing grounds is “The Graveyard.”

The commercial and naval success of this country is largely the result of the enterprise and seamanship shown in the whaling fisheries. These nurseries of the American navy had enabled the United States in two wars to achieve on the seas so many triumphs over Great Britain. By the same agencies, Perry hoped to see his country become the greatest commercial rival of Great Britain. This could be done by looking to the quality of the common sailor, and maintaining the standard of 1812. For such reasons, if for no others, the fisheries should be encouraged.

Perry came to adjust amicably the respective rights of both British and American seamen. He warned his countrymen against encroaching upon the limits prescribed by the convention of 1818, but at the same time he would protect American vessels from visitation or interference at points left in doubt. His mission had a happy consummation. The wholesome effect of the _Mississippi’s_ visit paved the way for the reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States, negotiated at Washington soon after by Sir Ambrose Shea, and signed June 5th, 1854. The entrance of Mr. Kennedy in the cabinet was thus made both successful and brilliant by Commodore Perry. The “hiatus secretary” bridged the gulf of war with the firm arch of peace. The reciprocity treaty lasted twelve years, when the irrepressible root of bitterness again sprouted. Despite diplomacy, correspondence, treaties, and Joint High Commissions, still, at this writing, in 1887, it vexes the peace of two nations. The axe is not yet laid at the root of the trouble.

John P. Kennedy, another of the able literary men who have filled the chair of secretary of the navy, was an ardent advocate of exploration and peaceful diplomacy. He was heartily in favor of the Japan expedition. Perry trusted in him so fully that, at last, tired of innumerable delays, having made profound study of the problem and elaborated details of preparation, he determined on his return from Newfoundland, September 15th, to sail in a few weeks in the _Mississippi_, relying upon the Secretary’s word that other vessels would be hurried forward with despatch.

Repairing to Washington, the Commodore had long and earnest interviews with the Secretaries of the State and Navy. Things were now beginning to assume an air of readiness, yet his instructions, from the State department, had not yet been prepared. Mr. Webster at this time was only nominally holding office in the vain hope of recovery to health after a fall from his horse. Perry, seeing his condition, and fearing further delays, asked of Mr. Webster, through General James Watson Webb, permission to write his own instructions.

We must tell the story in General Webb’s own words as found in _The New York Courier and Inquirer_, and as we heard them reiterated by him in a personal interview shortly before his death:—

“In the last of those interviews when we were desired by Perry to urge certain matters which he thought should be embraced in his instructions, Mr. Webster, with that wisdom and foresight and knowledge, for which he was so eminently the superior of ordinary men, remarked as follows:

‘The success of this expedition depends solely upon whether it is in the hands of the right man. It originated with him, and he of all others knows best how it is to be successfully carried into effect. And if this be so, he is the proper person to draft his instructions. Let him go to work, therefore, and prepare instructions for himself, let them be very brief, and if they do not contain some very exceptionable matter, he may rest assured they will not be changed. It is so important that if the expedition sail it should be successful, and to ensure success its commander should not be trammeled with superfluous or minute instructions.’ We reported accordingly, and thereupon Commodore Perry, as we can vouch, for we were present, prepared the original draft of his instructions under which he sailed for Japan.”

Mr. Webster’s successor and intimate personal friend, Edward Everett, simply carried out the wishes of his predecessor and made no alteration in the instructions to Perry. He, however, indited a new letter to the “Emperor,” which is only an expansion of the Websterian original. Everett’s “effort” differed from Daniel Webster’s letter, very much as the orator’s elaboration on a certain battle-field differed from Lincoln’s simple speech. At Gettysburg the one had the lamp, the other had immortality in it.

The Japan document was superbly engrossed and enclosed in a gold box which cost one thousand dollars.

The _Princeton_, a new screw sloop-of-war had been promised to him many months before, but the autumn was well advanced before her hull, empty of machinery and towed to New York, was visible. Captain Sydney Smith Lee was to command her. In the _Mississippi_, Perry towed her to Baltimore. Then began another of those exasperating stages of suspense and delay to which naval men are called, and to endure which seems to be the special cross of the profession. Waiting until November, as eagerly as a blockader waits for an expected prize from port, he wrote to his old comrade, Joshua R. Sands:—

“I am desirous of having you again under my command, and always have been, but until now no good opportunity has occurred consistently with promises I had made to Buchanan, Lee, and Adams.

“The _Macedonian_ and _Alleghany_ will soon have commanders appointed to them. For myself I would prefer the _Alleghany_, as from her being a steamer she will have a better chance for distinction, and I want a dasher like yourself in her.

“Rather than have inconvenient delay on account of men, I would prefer that you take an over-proportion of young American landsmen who would in a very short time become more effective men in a steamer than middle-aged seamen of questionable constitutions.”

Commander Sands was eventually unable to go with Perry to Japan; but afterwards, in his eighty-ninth year the Rear-Admiral, then the oldest living officer of the navy, in a long letter to the writer gleefully calls attention to Perry’s trust in young American landsmen. The _Princeton_ was finally extricated, and with the _Mississippi_ moved down the Chesapeake. Before leaving Annapolis, a grand farewell reception was held on the flag-ship’s spacious deck. The President, Mr. Fillmore, Secretary Kennedy, and a brilliant throng of people bade the Commodore and officers farewell.

The _Mississippi_ and the _Princeton_ then steamed down the bay together, when the discovery was made of the entire unfitness of the screw steamer to make the voyage. Her machinery failed utterly, and at Norfolk, the _Powhatan_, which had just arrived from the West Indies, was substituted in her place. The precedent of building only the best steamers, on the best models, and of the best materials, set by Perry in the _Mississippi_ and _Missouri_, had not been followed, and disappointment was the result. The _Princeton_ never did get to sea. She was a miserable failure in every respect, and was finally sent to Philadelphia to end her days as a receiving-ship.

On the evening before the day the Commodore left to go on board his ship then lying at Hampton Roads, a banquet was tendered him by a club of gentlemen who then occupied a house on G street, west of the War Department, now much modernized and used as the office of the Signal corps.

There were present at this banquet, as invited guests, Commodore M. C. Perry, Lieutenant John Contee, and a few other officers of the Commodore’s staff, Edward Everett, Hon. John P. Kennedy—“Horseshoe Robinson,” the “hiatus Secretary” of the navy—Col. W. W. Seaton, the Hon. Alexander H. H. Stuart, Mr. Badger, senator from North Carolina, John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, Jefferson Davis, the Honorables Beverly Tucker, Phillip T. Ellicot, Theodore Kane, Johnson, Addison, and Horace Capron afterwards general of cavalry, and Commissioner of Agriculture at Washington, and in the service of the Mikado’s government from 1871 to 1874, making in all a party of about twenty-four. The dinner was served by Wormley, the famous colored caterer.

General Capron says in a letter dated September 13th, 1883:

“I can only state the impressions made upon my mind by that gathering, and the clear and well-defined plans of the Commodore’s proposed operations which were brought out in response to the various queries. It was apparent that all present were well convinced that the Commodore fully comprehended the difficulties and the delicate character of the work before him. . . . I am bound to say that to my mind it is clear that no power but that of the Almighty Disposer of all things could have guided our rulers in the selection of a man for this most important work.”

Perry’s written instructions were to fulfil the unexecuted orders given to Commodore Aulick, to assist as far as possible the American minister in China in prosecuting the claims of Americans upon the government of Pekin, to explore the coasts, make pictures and obtain all possible hydrographic and other information concerning the countries to be visited. No letters were to be written from the ships of the squadron to the newspapers, and all journals kept by officers or men were to be the property of the navy Department. The Secretary, in his final letter, said:—

“In prosecuting the objects of your mission to Japan you are invested with large discretionary powers, and you are authorized to employ dispatch vessels, interpreters, Kroomen, or natives, and all other means which you may deem necessary to enable you to bring about the desired results.

“Tendering you my best wishes for a successful cruise, and a safe return to your country and friends for yourself, officers and companies of your ships,

“I am, etc., “JOHN P. KENNEDY.”

From its origin, the nature of the mission was “essentially executive,” and therefore pacific, as the President had no power to declare war. Yet the show of force was relied on as more likely, than anything else, to weigh with the Japanese. Perry believed in the policy of Commodore Patterson at Naples in 1832, where the pockets of recalcitrant debtors were influenced through sight and the imagination.

The British felt a keen and jealous interest in the expedition. _The Times_, which usually reflects the average Briton’s opinion as faithfully as a burnished mirror the charms of a Japanese damsel, said:—“It was to be doubted whether the Emperor of Japan would receive Commodore Perry with most indignation or most contempt.” Japanese treachery was feared, and while one editorial oracle most seriously declared that “the Americans must not leave their wooden walls,” Punch insisted that “Perry must open the Japanese ports, even if he has to open his own.” Sydney Smith had said, “I am for bombarding all the exclusive Asiatics, who shut up the earth and will not let me walk civilly through it, doing no harm and paying for all I want.” The ideal of a wooer of the Japanese Thornrose, according to another, was that no blustering bully or roaring Commodore would succeed. “Our embassador should be one who, with the winning manner of a Jesuit, unites the simplicity of soul and straightforwardness of a Stoic.”

Providence timed the sailing of the American Expedition and the advent of the ruler of New Japan so that they should occur well nigh simultaneously. The first circumnavigation of the globe by a steam war vessel of the United States began when Matthew Perry left Norfolk, November 24th, 1852 three weeks after the birth in Kiōto of Mutsŭhito, the 123d, and now reigning Mikado of “Everlasting Great Japan.”

Perry had remained long enough to learn the result of the national election, and the choice of his old friend Franklin Pierce to the Presidency. Tired of delay, he sailed with the _Mississippi_ alone. At Funchal the Commodore made official calls in the fashionable conveyance of the place, a sled drawn by oxen, and laid in supplies of beef and coal. The incidents on the way out, and of the stops made at Madeira, St. Helena, Cape Town, Mauritius, Ceylon and Singapore, have been described by himself, in his official narrative, and by his critic J. W. Spalding,[25] a clerk on the flag-ship. Anchor was cast off Hong Kong on the 6th of April, where the _Plymouth_, _Saratoga_, and _Supply_, were met. The next day was devoted to the burning of powder in salutes, and to the exchange of courtesies. Shanghai was reached May 4th. Here, Bayard Taylor, the “landscape painter in words,” joined the expedition as master’s mate. The Commodore’s flag was transferred to the _Susquehanna_ on the 17th.

The low, level and monotonous and uninteresting shores of China were left behind on the 23d, and on the 26th, the bold, variegated and rocky outlines of Riu Kiu rose into view. An impressive reception, with full military and musical honors, was given on the third, to the regent and his staff on the _Susquehanna_. The climax of all was the interview in the cabin. In lone dignity, the Commodore gave the Japanese the first taste of the mystery-play in which they had thus far so excelled, and in which they were now to be outdone. Perry could equal in pomp and dignity either Mikado or Shō-gun when he chose. He notified the grand old gentleman that, during the following week, he would pay a visit to the palace at Shuri. Despite all objections and excuses, the Commodore persisted, as his whole diplomatic policy was to be firm, take no steps backward, and stick to the truth in everything. His open frankness helped by its first blows to shatter down that system of lying, deception, and espionage, under which the national character had decayed during the rule of the Tokugawas.

On the 9th of June, with the _Susquehanna_ having the _Saratoga_ in tow, the Commodore set out northwards for a visit to the Ogasawara or Bonin islands, first explored by the Japanese in 1675, and variously visited and named by European navigators. Captain Reuben Coffin of Nantucket, in the ship _Transit_, from Bristol, owned by Fisher, Kidd and Fisher, landed on the southern or “mother” island September 12th, in 1824, fixing also its position and giving it his name. British and Russian captains followed his example, and also nailed inscribed sheets of copper sheathing to trees in token of claims made. “Under the auspices of the Union Jack” a motley colony of twenty persons of five nationalities settled Peel island, one of the group, in 1830. Perry found eight whites, cultivating nearly one hundred acres of land, who sold fresh supplies to whalers. The head of the community was Nathanael Savory of Massachusetts. Perry left cattle, sheep, and goods, seeds and supplies and an American flag. He arrived at Napa again June 23d, and the 2d of July, 1853, the expedition left for the Bay of Yedo. Many and unforeseen delays had hindered the Commodore, and now that he was at the doors of the empire, how different was fulfilment from promise! Over and over again “an imposing squadron” of twelve vessels had been promised him, and now he had but two steamers and two sloops. Uncertain when the other vessels might appear, he determined to begin with the force in hand. The _Supply_ left behind, and the _Caprice_ sent back to Shanghai, he had but the _Mississippi_, _Susquehanna_, _Plymouth_ and _Saratoga_.

The promontory of Idzu loomed into view on the hazy morning of the 7th, and Rock island—now crowned by a lighthouse, and connected by telephone with the shore and with Yokohama, but then bare—was passed. Cape Sagami was reached at noon, and at 3 o’clock the ships had begun to get within range of the forts that crowned or ridged the headlands of the promontory. The weather cleared and the cone of Fuji, in a blaze of glory, rose peerless to the skies.

Cautiously the ships rounded the cape, when from one of the forts there rose in the air a rocket-signal. “Japanese day fire-works” are now common enough at Coney Island. Made of gunpowder and wolf dung, they are fired out of upright bamboo-bound howitzers made of stout tree trunks. The “shell” exploded high in air forming a cloud of floating dust. The black picture stained the sky for several minutes. It was a signal to the army lying in the ravines, and a notice, repeated at intervals, to the court at Yedo. The expected Perry had “sailed into the Sea of Sagami and into Japanese history.”

In the afternoon, the first steamers ever seen in Japanese waters, dropped anchor off Uraga. As previously ordered, by diagram of the Commodore, the ships formed a line broadside to the shore. The ports were opened, and the loaded guns run out. Every precaution was taken to guard against surprise from boats, by fire-junks, or whatever native ingenuity should devise against the big “black ships.”

The first signal made from the flag-ship was this, “Have no communication with the shore, have none from the shore.” The night passed quietly and without alarms. Only the boom of the temple bells, the glare of the camp-fires, and the dancing of lantern lights told of life on the near land. This is the view from the American decks. Let us now picture the scene from the shore, as native eyes saw it.

[25] The Japan Expedition, New York, 1855