THE FIRST VISIT OF AN AMERICAN SHIP TO 

 JAPAN AND ITS RESULTS. 



By George R. Howell. 



[Read before the Albany Institute, May 21, 1872.] 



Thirty years a^^o tliirty millions of people were living in 

 the empire of Japan almost as much isolated from the rest 

 of the world as if they had been denizens of the planet 

 Jupiter. A solitary Dutch ship freighted with the pro- 

 ducts of the industry or soil of Europe and the large islands 

 of the Pacific, semi-annually sailed from Batavia for traffic 

 with this sea-girt empire bound, however, not for the 

 harbor of their metropolis, but for the inferior city of 

 Nagasaki on the outposts of their realm ; and this com- 

 prised their commerce with the western world. They had 

 attained a high degree of civilization. They had a com- 

 plicated form of government, and their country was di- 

 vided into grand divisions, provinces, districts, cities and 

 towns. They tolerated systems of religion not intolerant 

 themselves. Printing had been in use for six hundred 

 years. Japan was full of books, often profusely illustrated 

 and no branch of literature was neglected. Poets, novel- 

 ists and historians had no lack of readers. Public schools 

 free and accessible to all are said to have existed, main- 

 tained at the expense of the state. Such was the country 

 whose barriers the advent of an American sea-captain, on 

 a mission of mercy, was to smite down for the introduction 

 of western civilization and commerce and of Christianity. 



The first American vessel to visit the coast of Japan was 

 the Morrison fitted out by an American mercantile house 

 at Macao in 1837. The object of this voyage was to re- 

 turn seven Japanese rescued from ship wreck and brought 

 into Macao, and at the same time to lay a foundation for 



