CAPTAIN ADAMS AND JAPANESE OFFICIALS. 329 



courteous and friendly manner, and after the business was over, the Japanese partook of some 

 refreslimeuts and entered cheerfully into a general conversation. 



The Japanese now took their leave, and although they had been impressed with the resolute 

 bearing of the Americans, departed with their usual good humor and polite expressions of 

 friendly feeling. 



The next day the Japanese officials came off again to the Powhatan, and were received as 

 before by Captain Adams, under instructions from the Commodore. 



The Japanese reiterated their assurances of the friendly disposition of the Emperor, who had 

 given orders, as they said, that the Americans should be treated with the greatest consideration. 

 The commissioners, they declared, would be ready to receive the Commodore in a few days, and 

 upon being asked in what place, they answered at Kama-kura. As Uraga had been specified 

 on the previous day. Captain Adams, with some surprise, demanded how it was that the place 

 bad become so suddenly changed. The Japanese, with their usual imperturbable manner, 

 which is schooled to cunning and deceit, promptly answered, without the least mark of emotion 

 or evidence of discomposure, that the Emperor had named both places, so that if the Commodore 

 should not be satisfied with the one, he might perchance with the other. 



Kama-kura is a town situated in the outer Bay of Yedo, about twenty miles below Uraga, at 

 the place where the Macedonian had grounded. As the Commodore had had an opportunity 

 when anchored off Kama-kura, while engaged in the extrication of the Macedonian from her 

 perilous position, of seeing enough of that place to satisf}' him that it would be absurd to take 

 the ships there, and as he suspected some artful design on the part of the Japanese, when 

 informed that Kama-kura had been specified, he directed Captain Adams to say that it was 

 altogether unsuitable. Captain Adams then conveyed this information to the Japanese, with 

 the statement that neither Uraga nor Kama-kura were proper places, as they were so distant 

 and so insecure as harbors, and that some other locality must be selected. The Japanese then 

 proposed that Captain Adams should go down to Uraga and confer with the high officer there 

 about the place of meeting, when they were told that it would be necessary to receive the 

 instructions of the Commodore before a reply could be given on that point. 



The Commodore's secretary, who was present at the interview, was then dispatched to the 

 Susquehanna. The secretary soon returned with the answer that the Commodore would neither 

 go to Uraga, nor allow any of his officers to do so, but that Captain Adams would be permitted 

 to meet any of the high Japanese dignitaries on the shore, near the anchorage of the squadron, 

 to confer ujjon the subject of a proper place of meeting, but that it was an essential condition 

 of the Commodore's consent that the place should not be remote from his present position. 



The Japanese officials, notwithstanding the very ex^ilicit answer, which was duly conveyed in 

 Dutch by Mr. Portman to Tatsnoske, (who, as on the first visit, was one of the attendant inter- 

 preters,) and by him interpreted to his superiors, still pertinaciously clung to their original 

 proposition, and urged the necessity of making Uraga the place of meeting. As they still per- 

 sisted in their wearisome efforts to carry their point. Captain Adams cut the matter short by 

 telling them to put in writing their objections to holding the interview in the neighborhood of 

 the American anchorage, to which the Japanese assented, on the condition that Captain Adams 

 would answer a written question which they were about to ask. This being granted, Toksuro, 

 the second interpreter, having conferred for a moment with his superiors, wrote down in Dutch 

 the proposed question, which was translated by the American interpreter, Mr. Portman : "As 

 42 J 



