I9I0.] DUBOIS— JAPANESE EAIBASSY OF i860. 245 



passed almost into oblivion. The president of the American Asiatic 

 Association in an article (1907, The Outlook) speaks of it as "one 

 of several missions which about that time were sent by the Shogu- 

 nate to other countries." In a general sense this is true, but more 

 strictly the truth is that in Townsend Harris's negotiation of the 

 commercial treaty in 1858 the Americans insisted that the first 

 embassy to go out from Japan to any country should visit the 

 United States first of all. 



An English authority, Mr. J. Morris, in his able book, " Makers 

 of Japan," — to which I make acknowledgment — admits that 

 " Modern Japan dates from the advent ... of the American 

 squadron under Commodore Perry in 1853 ;" and that the Perry 

 compact was " the thin edge of the wedge." And yet he gives no 

 indication of any knowledge of the embassy of i860 for in noting 

 the mission of the Marquis Ito abroad in 1871, he says that his was 

 not the first embassage, " for a mission of two feudal barons had 

 been sent to Europe in the early 'sixties." 



Even admitting that this embassy was one " of courtesy " merely,, 

 as Dr. Grifiis and others say, we shall see that something more 

 vitalizing and lasting than courtesy grew out of it. 



That the embassy of i860 should have dropped so completely 

 out of sight as an international event will doubtless lead many to 

 conclude that at best it was but a spectacular fizzle entirely wanting 

 in constructive elements or continuing effects. Others will remind 

 us that from the invasion of Perry up to and after the first foreign 

 embassage all intercourse was through the Shogun or '* Tycoon " 

 whose rule was becoming rapidly challenged and his authority in a 

 large part of Japan denied. But the embassy was neither a mere 

 courtesy, a spectacular fizzle nor was it of temporary import. Nor 

 does the subsequent overthrow of the Shogun in any degree z'itiate 

 the contention that specific visible lines of Japanese progress emerge 

 from the personal presence of the "princes" and their retinue in the 

 United States in i860. 



On the part of Japan all international adjustments at this period 

 were made by authority of the Shogun — better known at that time 

 in the West as the " Tycoon." And who was the Shogun, or what 



