DISPERSION OF THE JAPANESE GUARD-BOATS. 235 



warn them away by gestures, and at the same time to show their arms ; this had the desired 

 efi'ect, as all of them disappeared, and nothing more was seen of them near the ships during the 

 stay of the squadron. This, as says the Commodore, was the first important point gained. 

 The vice-governor shortly afterward took his leave, saying, as he departed, that he had no 

 authority to promise any thing respecting the reception of the President's letter, but in the 

 morning an officer of higher rank would come from the city, who might probably furnish some 

 further information. 



The policy of the Commodore, it will be seen, was to assume a resolute attitude toward the 

 Japanese government. He had determined, before reaching the coast, to carry out strictly this 

 course in all his official relations, as he believed it the best to ensure a successful issue to the 

 delicate mission with which he had been charged. He was resolved to adopt a course entirely 

 contrary to that of all others who had hitherto visited Japan on a similar errand — to demand 

 as a right, and not to solicit as a favor, those acts of courtesy which are due from one civilized 

 nation to another ; to allow of none of those petty annoyances which had been unsparingly 

 visited upon those who had preceded him, and to disregard the acts as well as the threats of the 

 authorities, if they in the least conflicted with his own sense of what was due to the dignity of 

 the American flag. 



The question of landing by force was left to be decided by the development of succeeding 

 events ; it was, of course, the very last measure to be resorted to, and the last that was desired ; 

 but in order to be prepared for the worst, the Commodore caused the ships constantly to be kept 

 in perfect readiness^ and the crews to be drilled as thoroughly as they are in time of active war. 

 He was prepared, also, to meet the Japanese on their own ground, and exhibit toward them a 

 little of their own exclusive policy; if they stood on their dignity and assumed superiority, that 

 was a game at which he could play as well as they. It was well to let them know that other 

 people had dignity also, which they knew how to protect, and that they did not acknowledge 

 the Japanese to be their superiors. Hence he forbade the admission of a single Jajjanese on 

 board any of the ships, except those officers who might have business with him; and the visits 

 even of such were to be confined to the flag-ship, to which they were admitted only on the 

 declaration of their rank and business. The Commodore, also, was well aware that the more 

 exclusive he should make himself, and the more unyielding he might be in adhering to his 

 declared intentions, the more respect these people of forms and ceremonies would be disposed to 

 award him ; therefore it was that he deliberately resolved to confer personally with no one but 

 a functionary of tlie highest rank in the empire. He would have been ashamed, in the indul- 

 gence of a contemptible pride founded on mere official rank, to assume a superiority, and afiect 

 a dignity, too lofty to stoop to the level of men below him in station. As a man, he did not 

 deem himself too elevated to hold communication with any of his brethren in the common 

 heritage of humanity ; but in Japan, as the representative of his country, and the accredited 

 guardian of the honor of that flag which floated over him, he felt that it was well to teach the 

 Japanese, in the mode most intelligible to them, by stately and dignified reserve, joined to 

 perfect equity in all he asked or did, to respect the country from which he came, and to suspend 

 for a time their accustomed arrogance and incivility toward strangers. The Japanese so well 

 understood him that they learned the lesson at once. It was this feeling, and this only, which 

 prompted him to refuse to see the vice-governor of Uraga, and to refer him to his aid for 

 conference. He saw him often enough afterward, when matters had been arranged between the 

 governments, on terms of friendship and equality. And we have been thus particular, not for 



