250 DUBOIS— JAPANESE EMBASSY OF i860. [April 21, 



the orientals brought bulked immensely, too, for it consisted of 

 Mexican silver and United States half-dollars. 



Under command of Dupont the Philadelphia proceeded at once 

 to Old Point Comfort, where for the first time Fort Monroe sub- 

 mitted to an almond-eyed inspection. There were no snap-shot 

 cameras in those days, but the foresighted orientals had brought 

 with them alert and skilled artists who immediately busied them- 

 selves making sketches of our boasted stronghold. And indeed 

 these deft wielders of the brush were thus busy throughout the 

 entire sojourn of the embassy among us. Who shall say that the 

 many cartoons of things American which were thus officially carried 

 back to Japan are not to be counted among the germs of a later 

 expansion? Who knows but that these pictures helped to leaven 

 the motif, eight years later, of the Emperor's edict at his crowning — 

 " The bad customs of past ages shall be abolished and our govern- 

 ment shall tread in the paths of civilization and enlightenment. We 

 shall endeavor to raise the prestige and honor of our country by 

 seeking knozvledge throughout the world." 



On the same day. May 14, the embassy was received at the 

 Washington Navy Yard by the commandant, Capt. Franklin 

 Buchanan — the man who, less than two years later, commanded the 

 Merrimac in her destructive work, in which she was finally van- 

 quished by the little Monitor. 



The landing of the embassy at the Washington Navy Yard was 

 a brilliant and imposing spectacle. From the navy yard the 

 orientals were driven under military and civic escort to Willard's 

 Hotel — then the center of Washington's social gravitation. It is not 

 necessary to the argument to enlarge upon diplomatic details. 

 Suffice it to note that the ambassadors and attaches, eight in all, on 

 May 16, were driven to the Department of State, where letters were 

 presented to Secretary Cass in Japanese, Dutch and English. All 

 communication was done through two interpreters — Namoura- 

 Gohajsiro, the Japanese who spoke Dutch, and Mr. Portman, the 

 Hollander who spoke English. 



The next day. May 17, the ambassadors presented the Tycoon's 

 greeting to the President, of which the following was the published 

 translation : 



