1841.
Notices of Japan, No. VII.
165
deemed important even at Yedo, as this is said to have been one of the very few occasions upon which the siogoun* consulted the mikado; probably wishing for his sanction of a refusal that might lead to war.
Towards the end of March, a commissioner, who appears to have been a spy of the higher grade, arrived from Yedo with the answer of the siogoun, and the Russian embassador was invited to an audience, at which he should hear it read. The governor requested Doeff to lend his own norimono for the conveyance of the embassador from his warehouse-lodging to the government-house. The other pre- parations made were directed solely towards preventing the European intruder from acquiring any knowledge of Nagasaki or its inhabitants. The shutters of the windows of all the houses in the streets through which he was to pass were ordered to be closed; the ends of all the streets abutting upon those streets to be boarded up, and every inhabitant, not called by official duty to the procession or the audience, was commanded to remain at home.
A pleasure-boat of the prince of Fizen's conveyed the Russian embassy across the bay to the landing-place, where the Dutch president's sedan awaited the embassador; a solitary acknowledgment of rank, as his whole suite followed on foot. The next day a second audience was granted, and in consequence of a heavy rain, cago were provided for the Russian officers. The answer was a decided refusal, and Doeff was requested to assist the interpreters in translating the Japanese official document into Dutch. He observed that the Russians pro- bably did not understand this language, and offered to make a French version of the paper. But the Japanese, knowing nothing of French, could not have judged whether a translation into that language was correct; a point far more important in their eyes, than such a trifle as the answer being intelligible or not to those to whom it was addressed.
But though the object of the negotiation was peremptorily rejected, the negotia tion itself was not yet over. The siogoun had rejected the presents offered him from the czar, whereupon count Resanoff naturally declined accepting the Japan- ese presents sent for himself. This was a point of vital importance to the go- vernor of Nagasaki individually; he had been ordered to make the embassador accept these presents, and a failure would have left him no alternative; he must have ripped himself up, imitated, most likely, by a reasonable proportion of his subordinate officers. By dint of intreaty, the interpreters, who had by this time picked up a little Russian, prevailed upon Resanoff to accept something; and in- deed if they, or Doeff by letter, explained to him the inevitable consequence of his pertinacious refusal, a man of common good-nature could not but yield.
The Japanese, according to custom upon occasion of rejecting overtures, defray- ed the expenses of the Russians at Nagasaki, and gratuitously supplied the ship with necessaries at her departure. The bitter reciprocal accusations between the baffled Russian diplomatist and the Dutch president are irrevelant to our object; the more so, perhaps, that Resanoff did not live to hear Doeff's charges against himself, or even to give an account of his mission. But short as was the remain- der of his life, it allowed him time to take measures for the gratification of his own anger at his treatment at Nagasaki, which must have determined for a long time, if not permanently, the exclusion of his countrymen from any intercourse with Japan.
* Fischer.