76 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



internal regulations ; we knew that it had, for centuries, isolated itself, as it were, fi-om the 

 world, and persisted in a system of excluding foreigners from intercourse ; that but one European 

 nation was allowed to approach for purposes of trade, and that repeated efforts made by others 

 for a similar privilege had uniformly failed of success. But we knew, too, that it possessed 

 valuable productions, and ought to be brought into communication with the rest of the world. 

 By some, indeed, the proposition was boldly avowed that Japan had no right thus to cut herself 

 off from the community of nations; and that what she would not yield to national comity should 

 be wrested from her by force. 



It was, perhaps, but natural that the minds of our naval officers should be drawn strongly to 

 a consideration of the subject of intercourse with Japan. Not simply to the desirableness or 

 probable advantages of such intercourse, for on those points all men's minds readily reached the 

 same conclusion ; but on the means by which the wished for end might be best attained. And 

 this part of the subject required some study and calm reflection, aided by such experience and 

 knowledge of men of all latitudes as a naval officer would be apt to acquire in many j'ears 

 of active service on shipboard. 



Commodore Perry, in common with other members of his profession and with the rest of his 

 countrymen, had his thoughts directed to the subject, with especial reference to the probabilities of 

 accomplishing the end in view. He knew that there miist be causes for a state of things 

 so singular as was presented in the complete voluntary isolation of a whole people ; and his first 

 object was, therefore, to obtain a correct history of the past career of Japan. For this purpose 

 he mastered all that he could derive from books, and found that the exclusive system of Japan 

 was not the result of any national idiosyncracy, but was caused by peculiar circumstances, long 

 since passed, and was^ in fact, in direct opposition to what history proved to be the natural 

 temperament and disjiosition of the Japanese people. He also found, in a careful examination of 

 the repeated efforts of other nations to break down the barrier that shut them out, what he 

 supposed to be the secret of their failures. Peculiar circumstances in the then political condition 

 of the power seeking admission ; the rivalry of different nations striving to thwart each other ; 

 the indiscretion, not to say arrogance, of some of those entrusted with the mis,sion, who sought 

 to bully a brave people into acquiescence with their wishes ; a misconcej^tion of the true char- 

 acter of the Japanese, who readily distinguish between obsequious servility and a manly spirit 

 of conciliation, founded on the principle of doing what is kind and just, but submitting, not for 

 an instant, to what is insulting or wrong ; all these seemed to him to be elements of failure 

 clearly to be traced, in a greater or less degree, in the efforts that had been made. Beside, a 

 disadvantage under which the European nations labored was that Japan had known something 

 concerning all of them for many years, and, indeed, had been more or less brought into contact 

 with them. Thus Portugal had given early and unpardonable offence in encouraging domestic 

 treason ; England (who once had foothold) had abandoned it ; one of her kings had married a 

 Portuguese princess ; one of her officers (Pellew) had committed what they deemed an insolent 

 outrage in her waters ; Russia had taken possession of some of lier islands, had excited sus- 

 picions of ulterior designs by fortifying on another "annexed" territory, at the mouth of the 

 Amour, and, as the Japanese Emperor said, "had an inclination for Japan ;" while Holland had 

 so quietly submitted to degradation, imprisonment and insult for two hundred years, tliat the 

 Japanese unquestionably formed their ojnnion of European foreigners, in some measure, from 

 the Dutch. 



