CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE PROFESSOR AND THE SAILOR MAKE A TREATY.

THE morning of March 8th, 1854, dawned clear and beautiful. The bay was alive with gorgeous state barges, swift punts, and junks with tasseled prows. On land, in the foreground were a few hundred feudal retainers in gay costumes, while on the bluffs beyond stood dense masses of spectators. These were kept back with rope-barriers, and by petty officials of prodigious self-importance. The sunbeams glittered on the bare heads and freshly-pomatumed top-knots of country folk, and was reflected dazzlingly from lacquered hats and burnished weapons. In the variegated paraphernalia of feudalism,—then of such vast importance, but now as cast off trumpery transmigrating through the parlors and museums to dusty nirvana in the garrets of christendom,—could be distinguished the insignia of the commissioners and feudal lords, whose troops darkened the hill tops as spectators. The striped oval figure of Hayashi; the five disks surrounding a smaller central dot like satellites about Jupiter, belonging to Ito; the feminine millinery, three curved women’s hats, of Isawa; the revolving disks suggesting a wind-mill, of Tsudzuki; the three Euclid-recalling cubes of Udono; the ring-enclosed goggle-spectacles of Takénouchi; appeared and reappeared on banner, umbrella, hat, coat, and cover of dignitaries and retainers. Many and various were the explanations offered by the Americans as to the cabalistic meaning of these crests of Japanese heraldry. One in particular, which looked like three commas in perpetual revolution, but prevented from flying off into a nebular hypothesis by a tire, attracted special attention.

Only the stern discipline to which they were accustomed, and the suspicion of possible need for powder and ball, in case of treachery, kept grim the faces of marines and sailors. The whole tableau seemed to the officers a well-sustained joke from the pages of Gulliver’s Travels. To Jack Tar, it looked as if a pack of euchre-cards had come to enlarged life. The gay-costumed figures and bronze visages moved before him like the flesh-and-blood originals of the kings, jacks, and knaves on his favorite pasteboards. Can we doubt but that more than one Japanese now saw himself in a new light?

With five hundred men landed in twenty-seven boats, each one, including musicians, thoroughly well-armed, the marines forming a hollow square, the three bands discoursing music, the Paixhans on the _Macedonian_, and the howitzers in the boats, making fire, flame, thunder, and echoes; with all possible fuss, parade, shine and glitter, the sailor-diplomatist made disembarkation at noon, in his white gig from the _Powhatan_. With due deliberation and stately march, he entered the treaty-house, where negotiations began. The Commodore knew as he confesses, “the importance and moral influence of such show upon so ceremonious and artificial a people as the Japanese.” Without being at all anxious to imitate or copy them, he yet impressed them amazingly. How he came to know so much about etiquette and propriety, without having lived in Kiōto, or studied Confucius or Ogasawara (the Chesterfield of Japan) strained their wits to discover. Perhaps they noticed that while “the emperor,” that is the chief daimiō of Yedo, and the Mikado’s lieutenant styled “Tycoon,” (as _Koku-O_, king of a country) received a salute of twenty-one guns, and his hatamoto Hayashi, officer of the sixth rank seventeen guns, the first salute was from the heavy ordnance on the _Macedonian_, while the others were from boat-howitzers. The _Powhatan_ hoisted at the masthead the striped pennant, which the Americans innocently supposed was the national emblem.

The tedious business of diplomacy began by interchange of notes and answers. Then Hayashi remarked that attention would be given to the supply of wood, coal, and water for needy ships, and to the care of shipwrecked sailors, but that no proposition for trade could be allowed. To this Perry made no reply, but spoke up suddenly upon the question of burial. A marine on the _Mississippi_ named Williams, had died two days previously, and it was proposed to bury him on Matsu-shima (Pine Isle) or Webster’s Island. After private conferences by the Japanese in another room, exchange of much sentiment on both sides, and an exposition of Japanese law and custom by Hayashi—during which Perry intimated his readiness to stay in the bay a year or two if necessary—permission was granted to bury in one of the temple-grounds at Yokohama. Thus began with Christian ceremonies, under the very shadow of the edicts promulgated centuries before, denouncing “the Christian criminal God,” with offer of gold to informers against the “outlawed sect,” that God’s acre now so beautiful. Its slope was to fatten with many a victim by the assassin’s sword before Japan should become a Land of Great Peace either to the alien or the Christian.

The native scribe adds in a note to his _Record_, “This subject was brought up suddenly, as if the American wished to find out how quickly we were in the habit of deciding questions. Hence the commissioners made their decision promptly. Thereupon Perry seemed to be very glad and almost to shed tears.” In response to the Commodore’s assertion that to esteem human life as very precious was the first principle of the United States government, while the contrary was the case with that of Japan, Hayashi answered, warmly defending his countrymen and superiors against intentional cruelty, but denouncing the lawless character of many of the foreign sailors. Like all Japanese of his school and age, he wound up with a panegyric of the pre-eminence of Japan above all nations in virtue and humanity, and the glory and goodness of the great Tokugawa family which had given peace to the land during two centuries or more.

“The frog in the well knows not the great ocean,” say his countrymen of to-day.

In the further negotiations, the Japanese official account of which agrees with the details given in Perry’s own narrative, the Commodore made wholesome use of the fears of the islanders. The reputation of American ships, ordnance, and armies had preceded him. The invaders of Mexico were believed fully when the wealth, power, and rapidity of movement possessed by the United States were dilated upon. Perry threatened to make use of “the resources of civilization,” if the plain demands of humanity were ignored. It is more than probable that cold statistics would not have justified his glowing vision of fifty or a hundred war steamers, full of soldiers, coming from California to make war on Japan, in case her government refused to help shipwrecked Americans. Yet, of his patience, persistency, and resolve neither to provoke nor to take an insult, there can be no question. Perry, in person, impressed the Japanese commissioners as much as by the fleet itself. They noted, as the _Record_ declares, that Captains Adams, Abbot, and Buchanan, as shown by their uniform and epaulettes, were of the same rank, “so that if Perry were killed, either of the others could command,” and continue the matter in hand.

The _Record_ also reflects the character of Perry as a man of kindly consideration. His friendly regard for and sympathy with a people of high and sensitive spirit, which had been weakened by centuries of enforced isolation, is also witnessed to. In one sense the Japanese feel, to this day, proud to have been put under pressure by so true a soldier, and so genuine a friend.

Between ship and shore, during the blustery March weather, the Commodore made many trips in his barge, accompanied by chosen officers. One day, with Pay-director J. G. Harris, who relates the incident, Perry and his companions entered the treaty-house. Their boat-cloaks, which they had worn to protect the “bright-work” of epaulettes, buttons and belts from the salt spray, were still over their shoulders. One of the first questions asked the Japanese commissioners was, whether they had favorably considered the proposition of the day before, that certain ports should be opened.

Hayashi replied that they had pondered the matter, and had concluded that Shimoda and Hakodaté should be opened; provided that Americans would not travel into the interior further than they could go and return the same day; and provided, further, _that no American women should be brought to Japan_.

When the translation of Hayashi’s reply was announced, the Commodore straightened up, threw back his boat-cloak, and excitedly exclaimed: “Great Heavens, if I were to permit any such stipulation as that in the treaty, when I got home _the women would pull out all the hair out of my head_.”

The Japanese fairly trembled at the Commodore’s apparent excitement, supposing they had grossly offended him. When, however, explanation was made by the interpreters, they all laughed right heartily, and the business continued.

The Ninth Article, or the “favored nation” clause was introduced at the suggestion of Dr. S. Wells Williams.[34]

Unknown to any of the Americans, Nakahama Manjiro, who had received a good common school education in the United States, sat in an adjoining room, unseen but active, as the American interpreter for the Japanese. All the documents in English and Chinese were submitted to him for correction and approval.[35] He was afterwards made curator of the scientific and mechanical apparatus brought by Perry and presented by the United States government, and in 1860, he navigated the first Japanese steamer, commanded by Katsŭ Awa, to Hawaii and California. Katsŭ Awa was one of the captains commanding the troops detailed to watch carefully “the American barbarians, lest they should proceed to acts of violence.”

While the negotiations were progressing, the other ships arrived, making ten in all. Presents and bouquets were exchanged, and guests and hosts amused each other. American palates were tickled with _castira_ (Castile) or sponge-cake, rice beer, candied walnuts, Suruga tea, pickled plums, sugared fruits, sea-weed jelly, luscious crabs and prawns, dried persimmons, boiled eggs, fish soups, broiled _tai_, _koi_ and _karei_ fresh from the nets of the Yokohama fisherman. They essayed or avoided the impossible dishes of cuttle and sliced raw fish. All was served in the baby-house china and lacquered ware of the country. Some of the officers were vividly reminded of their infantile days.

The Japanese were regaled with viands that were master-pieces of American cookery. To the intense amusement of the “children of the gods,” the lords of the kitchen were kurumbō (blacks), a color and a creature such they had seen only in their own theatres when candle-holders with lamp-blacked faces illuminated the facial performances of actors. Save the dignified professor, Hayashi, they became over-flowingly merry over champagne and the national mixed drinks of the Great Republic. They learned the mysteries of mint-juleps and brandy-smashes. They lost their center of gravity over puddings and potations, and then laughed themselves sober at the sailors’ exhibition of negro minstrelsy. They were shown the discipline and drill of the ships, and the evolution of the marines. They were delighted with presents which revealed the secrets of the foreigners’ power. Rifles and gunpowder, the electric telegraph, the steam locomotive and train, life-boats, stoves, clocks, sewing-machines, agricultural implements and machinery, standard scales, weights, measures, maps and charts, the works of Audubon and other American authors were presented, most improperly labeled or engraved “To the Emperor of Japan.” The Mikado, Japan’s only emperor, never saw them, though the writer did in the storerooms of the exiled Tycoon at Shidzŭoka in 1872. The American may proudly note how very large a share his countrymen have had in inventions and in applications of the great natural forces that have revolutionized modern society. That one mile of telegraph wire has now become thousands; and that tiny railway, with toy locomotive and one car able to hold only a child, was the germ of the railway system in the Mikado’s empire. Historic truth compels us to add that among the presents there were one hundred barrels of whiskey, a good supply of cherry cordial, and champagne. Thus did the new civilization with its good and evil confront the old. New Japan was to be born in the age of steam, electricity, the photograph, the newspaper and the printing-press; yet in the train of the culture of the West was to follow its curses and enemies. With the sons of God came Satan also.

In return, the Japanese presented the delicate specialties of the artisans of their country, in bronze, lacquer, porcelain, bamboo, ivory, silk and paper; with coins, match-locks and swords, which now rest in the Smithsonian Institute. For the squadron, one hundred kokŭ (five hundred bushels) of rice and three hundred chickens were provided. They entertained their guests with wrestling matches between the prize bipeds whose diet includes the entire fauna of Japan. Strangely enough, they did not play _dakiu_ or polo, their national game on horseback, in which so many of their riders excel. All the presents were duly wrapped in paper, with a symbolic folded paper and dried fish skin.

During the two months and more of the presence of the ships in the bay, the Japanese cruisers and spy-boats kept watch and ward in cordon, though at a distance from the Americans. This was to prevent political enemies and too eager students from getting aboard in order to leave Japan. Again and again did Yoshida Shoin and his companion attempt to break the blockade, but in vain. The pair then set off overland to Shimoda.

When the telegraph poles and rails for the locomotive had been made ready, the news of the exhibition about to be given fired the _samurai_ of Yedo with consuming curiosity to see. All sorts of pretexts were made to obtain permission to be on the spot. Egawa, a noted flag-supporter whose _yashiki_ or feudal palace lay near Shiba in Yedo, insisted on coming to Yokohama on the pretext of guarding the treaty building. He was ordered back, and it was hinted that Sanada’s men at arms could perform worthily the coveted duty. If the Americans made war and proceeded to Yedo, Egawa’s picked men could die more nobly “under the Shō-gun’s knee.” As the Japanese narrator learned afterwards, Egawa’s real purpose was to learn telegraphy and the secrets of steam engineering. It is not at all improbable that among his band of well-dressed gentlemen were expert mechanics as well as students who had from the Dutch at Nagasaki obtained their first knowledge of western inventions.

The treaty was signed March 31st, 1854. Its provisions are thus given by a Japanese author[36]:—

“The Bakafu promised to accord kind treatment to shipwrecked sailors, permission to obtain wood, water, coal, provisions and other stores needed by ships at sea, with leave also to anchor in the ports of Shimoda in Idzu and Hakodaté in Matsumaé.” Trade or residence was not yet secured. “The hermit” was as yet unwilling to enter “the market-place.” The gains by treaty did not seem great, but Perry knew then, as we know more fully now, that the thin end of a great wedge had been inserted in the right place. He had made a beginning which was half the end, as we shall see farther on.

The sleeping princess had received her first kiss, and the gates of Thornrose castle would soon fly open. They were now ajar. More than one native of this “Princess Country” recalled the hiding of the Sun-goddess in the cave, and how with music and dance, feast and frolic, and show of cunning inventions exciting her curiosity, she was lured to peep out, so that the strong-handed god could open the door fully and all faces become light with joy.[37]

Moving his steamers up the bay to within sight of Yedo, the Commodore left on the 18th of April for Shimoda, having sent the sailing ships ahead for survey. For nine weeks he had held in leash his two thousand or more ship’s people, and had impressed the Japanese with the decency and dignity of the American sailor’s behavior. Grand as was the triumph he accomplished in diplomacy, his victory in discipline seems equally praiseworthy and remarkable.

At Shimoda (now noted chiefly for the quarries which furnish stone for the modern government buildings in Tōkiō) the squadron remained until the end of the first week in May. One day late in April as Dr. S. Wells Williams and clerk J. W. Spalding were botanizing on land, Yoshida Shoin and his devoted companion, Ichiji Koda met them, and pressed into the clerk’s bosom a letter.[38] On the appearance of Japanese officers, they disappeared. Somewhat after midnight of the 25th the watch-officer on the _Mississippi_ heard the cry of “American, American!” With their delicate and blistered hands they implored in the language of gesture to be taken on board, that their boats be cast adrift, and they be secreted aboard. Their clothing was stuffed full of writing-paper and materials, on which they expected to note down what they saw in foreign countries. They were sent to the flag ship, and Perry, as he felt in honor and in conscience bound, despite his own sympathies and desires and their piteous appeals, sent them ashore. Further than this, he was unable to get at the real motive of the suppliants. “It might have been a stratagem to test American honor, and some believed it so to be,” yet Perry wrote in addition, with the prophecy of hope, “In this disposition of the people in Japan, what a field of speculation, and it may be added, what a prospect full of hope opens for the future of that interesting country.”

The prisoners sent to Chôshiu, were kept incarcerated within the limits of their own clan for five years. Sakuma was punished as an accomplice, because his stanza of poetry was discovered in Yoshida’s baggage. Active in those events leading to the revolution of 1868, Yoshida (who altered the name to Toraijiro) suffered decapitation and political martyrdom in Yedo January 31st, 1859. He died thinking it

“Better to be a crystal, though shattered, Than lie as a tile unbroken on the housetop.”

His indomitable spirit possessed others, and his pupils rose to high office and power in the wave of revolution that floated the boy-mikado to supreme power and placed the national capitol in Yedo in 1868.

The Commodore arrived at Hakodaté May 17 and remained in the waters of Yezo until June 28th, 1854. He little knew then that the beautiful harbor would fourteen years later be made famous by a naval battle between the Shō-gun’s force of Dutch and American-built wooden war steamers, and the Mikado’s iron-clad ram Adzuma Kan (Stonewall).

Sailing for Riu Kiu, he entered Napa harbor, July 1st. On the 12th, the regent presented him with a large bronze bell of fine workmanship, cast in 1168 A. D., by two Japanese artizans, and inscribed with flowery sentences. One, which declared that “the barbarians would never invade the land,” had a striking significance, though its composer had proved a false prophet. It now hangs, tongueless but useful, in the grounds of the Annapolis Naval Academy. As from China and Formosa, so from Japan at Shimoda and in Riu Kiu, blocks of native stone duly engraved were accepted as contributions to the obelisk on the banks of the Potomac, in perpetuation of the memory of Washington. On the 17th, the other vessels of the squadron having been despatched on various missions, the Commodore in the _Mississippi_ left Napa for Hong Kong.

The glory of Commodore Perry’s success is not that he “invented,” or “first thought of” or was the “sole author, originator, and father of the Japan expedition.” Such language is nonsense, for the thought was in many minds, both of naval men and civilians, from Roberts to Glynn and Aulick; but it was Perry’s persistency that first conquered for himself a fleet, his thorough-going method of procedure in every detail, and his powerful personality and invincible tenacity in dealing with the Japanese, that won a quick and permanent success without a drop of blood. A thorough man of war he was from his youth up; yet he proved himself a nobler hero, in that he restrained himself and his lieutenants from the use of force, while yet not giving place for a moment to the frivolities of Japanese yakunin of the Tokugawa period.

[34] Autograph letter to the writer. February 8th, 1883.

[35] _The Friend_, Honolulu. October, 1884—“An unpublished chapter in the History of Japan.” Rev. S. C. Damon’s interview with Manjiro in Tokio, summer of 1884.

[36] Kinsé Shiriaku, p. 3.

[37] Japanese Fairy World, p. 300.

[38] Perry’s Narrative, pp. 484-489. Spalding’s Japan Expedition, pp. 276-286. R. L. Stevenson’s Familiar Studies of Men and Books.