PECULIARITIES OP THE MISSION TO JAPAN. 381 



neither desired nor sought communication with the rest of tlie world ; hut, on the contrary, 

 strove to the uttermost to prevent it. It was comparatively an easy task to propose to any power, 

 the ports of which were freelj' visited hy ships from every part of the world, the terms of a com- 

 mercial treaty. Such powers have recognized commerce itself as part of their national system, 

 and the principle of permitting it is freely avowed hy their nssage ; a treaty, therefore, had but to 

 define its privileges, and state the conditions on which they might be enjoyed in the case of any 

 nation seeking to make such a treaty. But not so, when, by any power, commerce itself was 

 interdicted and made contrary to law. Before general conditions of commerce could he proposed 

 to such a power, it was necessary to settle the great preliminary that commerce would be allowed 

 at all. Again, if that preliminary were settled affirmatively, a second point, of great moment, 

 remained to be discussed, viz., to tvhat degree shall intercourse for trading purposes be extended? 

 Among nations accustomed to the usages of Christendom, the principles and extent of national 

 comity in the interchanges of commercial transactions have been so long and so well defined 

 and understood, that, as between them, the term, " commercial treaty," needs no explanation; 

 its meaning is comprehended alike by all, and in its stipulations it may cover the very broad 

 extent that includes everything involved in the operations of commerce between two maritime 

 nations. All ports are open, all commodities may be imported or exported, subject only to such 

 regulations as may have been agreed upon between the contracting parties. The foundation for 

 the contract existed before its terras were adjusted. But in a kingdom which, in its polity, 

 expressly ignored commerce and repudiated it as an evil instead of a good, it was necessary, as 

 we have said, to lay the very foundation as well as adjust the terms. 



Hence the instructions to Commodore Perry covered broad ground, and his letters of credence 

 conformed to his instructions. If he found the Japanese disposed to abandon, at once and 

 forever, their deliberately adopted plan of non-intercourse with foreigners (an event most 

 unlikely) his powers were ample to make with them a commercial treaty as wide and general 

 as any we have with the nations of Europe. If they were disposed to relax but in part their 

 jealous and suspicious system, formally to profess relations of friendship, and opening some 

 only of their ports to our vessels to allow a trade in those ports between their peoj^le and ours, 

 he was authorized to negotiate for this purpose, and secure for his country such privileges as he 

 could, not inconsistent with the self respect which, as a nation, we owed to ourselves. It must 

 not be forgotten, in the contemplation of what was accomplished, that our rejiresentative went 

 to a people who, at the time of his arrival among them, had, both by positive law and an u.sage 

 of more than two hundred years, allowed but one of their harbors, Nagasaki, to be opened to 

 foreigners at all ; had permitted no trade with such foreigners when they did come, except, under 

 most stringent regulations, to the Dutch and Chinese ; were in the habit of communicating 

 ■with the world outside of them at second hand only, through the medium of the Dutch, who 

 were in prison at Dezima ; and a people who, as far as we know, never made a formal treaty 

 with a civilized nation in the whole course of their antecedent history. To expect such a people 

 to make a compact such as would be made between two great commercial nations, England and 

 ourselves, for instance, would have been simply ridiculous. There were, in fact, but two points 

 on which the Commodore's instructions did not allow him a large discretion, to be exercised 

 according to circumstances. These two were, first, that if, happily, any arrangements for trade, 

 either general or special, were made, it was to be distinctly stipulated that, under no circum- 

 stances, and in no degree, would the Americans submit to the humiliating treatment so long 



