382 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



borne by tlie Dutcb in carrying on their trade. The citizens of our country would he dealt 

 with as freemen, or there should be no dealings at all. The second point was, that in the event 

 of any of our countrymen being cast, in God's providence, as shipwrecked men on the coast of 

 Japan, they should not be treated as prisoners, confined in cages, or subjected to inhuman 

 treatment, but should be received with kindness and hospitably cared for until they could leave 

 the country. 



It will easily be seen, therefore, that, from the circumstances of the case, there was novelty 

 in the features of the mission on which Commodore Perry was sent. Little or no guidance was 

 to be derived from our past diplomatic experience or action. The nearest approach to such 

 guidance was to be found in our treaty with China, made in 1844. This, therefore, was care- 

 fully studied by the Commodore. It purports to be "a treaty or general convention of peace, 

 amity, and commerce," and to settle the rules to "be mutually observed in the intercourse of 

 the respective countries." So far as "commerce" is concerned, it permits "the citizens of the 

 United States to frequent" five ports in China, " and to reside with their families and trade there, 

 and to proceed at pleasure with their vessels and merchandise to or from any foreign port, and 

 from either of the said five ports to any other of them." As to duties on articles imported, 

 they are to pay according to a tariff' which is made part of the treaty, and in no case are to be 

 subjected to higher duties than those paid, under similar circumstances, by the people of other 

 nations. Consuls are provided for, to reside at the five open ports ; and those trading there are 

 " permitted to import from their own or any other ports into China, and sell there, and pur- 

 chase therein, and export to their own or any other ports all manner of merchandise, of which 

 the importation or exportation is not prohibited by" the treaty. In short, so far as the five 

 ports are concerned, there exists between us and China a general treaty of commerce ; and 

 accordingly the twenty-second article expressly declares that "relations of peace and amity 

 between the United States and China" are " established by this treaty, and the vessels of the 

 United States" are " admitted to trade freely to and from the five ports of China open to foreign 

 commerce." 



It certainly was very desirable to obtain, if possible, similar privileges from Japan, and the 

 Commodore resolved that, if the Japanese would negotiate at all, his first efforts should be 

 directed to that end. Accordingly he caused to be prepared, in the Chinese character, a tran- 

 script of the treaty, with such verbal alterations as would make it applicable to Japan, with 

 the view of exhibiting it to the Imperial commissioners of that country should he be so 

 successful as to open negotiations. He was not sanguine enough to hope that he could procure 

 an entire adoption of the Chinese treaty by the Japanese. He was not ignorant of the differ- 

 ence in national characteristics between the inhabitants of China and the more independent, 

 self-reliant, and sturdy natives of the Japanese islands. He knew that the latter held the 

 former in some degree of contempt, and treated them, in the matter of trade, very much as 

 they did the Dutch. He was also aware that the Chinese, when they made their treaty, did 

 know something of the advantages that might result from an intercourse with the rest of the 

 world; while as to the Japanese, in their long-continued isolation, either they neither knew 

 nor desired such advantages ; or, if they knew them, feared they might be purchased at too 

 high a price in the introduction of foreigners who, as in the case of the Portuguese, centuries 

 before, might seek to overturn the empire. It was too much therefore to expect that the 

 Japanese would in all the particulars of a treaty imitate the Chinese. Still, they might be 



