48 INTRODUCTION. 



unarmed and defenceless. The official visitors soon showed their contempt after making this 

 discovery, and early the next day the vessel was fired at with shotted guns. She immediately 

 weighed anchor and ran to Kagosima, the principal town of the island of Kiu-siu, where she 

 again came to anchor. After a while preparations were made here, also, to fire upon the vessel, 

 and hefore she could remove^ a battery opened upon her. The ship then returned to Macao with 

 the Japanese on board. 



In 184:6 an expedition was sent from the government of the United States to Japan ; its business 

 was, if possible, to open negotiations with the Empire. The ships consisted of the "Columbus," 

 of ninety guns, and the corvette " Vincennes." Commodore Biddle commanded the expedition. 

 In July the vessels reached the bay of Jeddo, and were, as usual, immediately surrounded by 

 the lines of guard boats. On this occasion they numbered about four hundred. Some of the' 

 Japanese went on board the " Vincennes," and one of them placed a stick with some sort of a 

 symbol carved on it at the head of the vessel and another of similar kind at the stern. The 

 act was not perfectly understood by the Americans, but they construed it to mean taking 

 possession of the ship, and ordered the sticks to be taken away. The Japanese complied 

 immediately without making any objection. The ships remained ten days, but no one belonging 

 to them landed, nor was anything accomplished. The answer of the Emperor to the application 

 for license to trade was very short : "No trade can be allowed with any foreign nation except 

 Holland." 



In February of the year 1849 the United States ship Preble, under Commander Glynn, formed 

 part of the American squadron in the China seas, when information was received, by way of 

 Batavia, of the detention and imprisonment, in Japan, of sixteen American seamen, who had 

 been shipwrecked on the coast of some of the Japanese islands. The Preble was immediately 

 dispatched to demand their release. As the ship neared the coast of Japan, signal guns were 

 fired from the prominent headlands to give warning of the approach of a strange vessel ; and 

 when she entered the harbor of Nagasaki, she was met by a number of large boats which ordered 

 her off, and indeed attempted to oppose further ingress. But the ship steadily standing on with 

 a firm breeze soon broke their ranks, and came to anchor in a desirable position. 



Fleets of boats, crowded with soldiers, shortly afterward began to arrive, and from that time 

 until the Preble's departure, they poured in, in one constant stream, day and night. The troops 

 they brought were encamped on the elevated shores surrounding the anchorage of the Preble. 

 From these heights also were unmasked, at intervals, batteries of heavy artillery, numbering in 

 all sixty guns, which were trained upon the Preble's decks. 



Commander Glynn forthwith commenced negotiations for the release of the American seamen, 

 who had been imprisoned for nearly seventeen months, and been treated with great cruelty and 

 inhumanity. When they were first confined, they were made to trample on the crucifix, and 

 were told that it was the "devil of Japan," and that if they refused to trample on it their 

 lives should be taken. When Commander Glynn first demanded the release of the prisoners, 

 the Japanese officials treated the demand with a well affected, haughty indifference ; finding, 

 however, that this would not answer, they resorted to evasive diplomacy ; when the captain of 

 the Preble, with the rough bluntness of a sailor, peremptorily told them, in most unmistakeable 

 language, that they must immediately give up the men, or means would be found to compel 

 them to do so, as the government to which they belonged had both the power and the will to 

 protect its citizens. This very soon changed their tone, and deprecating any angry feeling, a 



