1910.] DUBOIS— JAPANESE EMBASSY OF i860. 249 



British Rear-Admiral Sir Alexander Milne to come on board the 

 Roanoke when the embassy should arrive. The invitation was de- 

 clined, the rear-admiral subsequently remarking (so reported) that 

 it was " a great farce, foolish and nonsensical." Nor would he 

 raise his flag, though every other vessel did. His attitude gave the 

 Japanese an unfavorable impression of the English nation — so re- 

 ported later by one of the retinue. 



Under command of Captain S. F. Dupont the ship PhiladclpJiia 

 left Washington, May 11, for Hampton Roads where the embassy 

 was to be officially received. On May 12, at 9.30 p. m., the 

 Roanoke arrived in the roadstead. She was boarded by Capt. Du- 

 pont ; Capt. Taylor of the Marine Corps ; Mr. Ledyard, son-in-law 

 of the Secretary of State; Mr. Portman, the Dutch interpreter; 

 Commander Lee (brother of Robert E. Lee and father of the late 

 Fitzhugh Lee) ; Lieut. David D. Porter (later, commanded the 

 expedition against Fort Fisher, later, Admiral) ; Mr. McDonald,, 

 invited guests, and reporters. After the formalities of presentation 

 in the cabin of the Roanoke the treaty itself was exposed to view. 

 Up to the present time it had been kept wrapped in a case of red 

 cloth and sacredly secured in a superb lacquered chest about three 

 feet long, eighteen inches wide, and twenty-six inches deep, never 

 out of sight of a guard, and transported by poles resting on the 

 shoulders of four men. 



Two days later, May 14, the transfer of the entire company, 

 box, bag and baggage, from the Roanoke to the Philadelphia was 

 completed. The envoys and retinue of all grades numbered no less 

 than seventy-six persons — the upper ranks gorgeously arrayed and 

 plentifully begirt with swords. The luggage filled four cars on 

 the Panama railroad. There were fifteen boxes of presents for 

 President Buchanan and others. There was a beautiful " Sharpe's 

 rifle " made by the Japanese as an improvement on the real Ameri- 

 can Sharpe presented to the Japanese by Commodore Perry six 

 years earlier. The Japanese improvement consisted in an arrange- 

 ment for cocking, priming and cutting off the cartridge, all at once. 

 This has gone by now, but it was a forecast of Japanese aptitudes 

 which we have seen illustrated in the late war. The money which 



