WE GET THE BETTER IN AN ARGUMENT. 
249 
Austria, as far as her police-department is concerned. 
There the friend spies upon the friend, the relative upon 
the relative. The word confidence is not known among 
them: every tiling is caution and suspicion. 
So much for Japanese Laths and morals; and now let 
us pay a visit to the secluded port of Tley-da, to which the 
Russians had retired to avoid discovery by the French 
and English cruisers, When the Japanese found that the 
“old John’* was about to go there, they objected vio- 
lently, throwing themselves back upon Commodoi’e 
Perry’s treaty, with great apparent regard for its every 
feature, and giving us to understand that if w'e went to 
Iley-da it would be clearly a piece of bad faith on our 
part, as the treaty expressly provided that Americans 
were to visit no Japanese ports save those of i^'an-ga-sa-ki, 
Ila-ko-da-di, and Si-mo-da. 
To this, Commander John Rodgers replied, with equal 
force and Avariness of regard for the provisions of the 
treaty, that, among other things, that instrument permitted 
American vessels in distress to Jiy for refuge into any 
■port of JapaRj and that that liberty would be worse than 
useless if we were not to be allowed to make charts of 
all such ports for the benefit of all such distressed 
vessels. 
While running in for refuge, without a charts he said, 
the vessels might strike upon a sunken rock, or reef, in 
which case they would have done much better to have 
remained outside in the storm. This would be a poor 
kina of protection to extend to American vessels in 
distress. 
Still the Japanese refused : they always refused every 
