3
-
D
注
1841.
Notices of Japan, No. VIL
171
part, thought it well to conceal their own knowledge of English. If this were so, they might thus discover the missionary scheme, and hence the virulence of the hostile attack, without the vessel having been first ordered away-the usual course.*
·
Dr. Siebold speaks of squabbles in his time with English whalers, which neces- sarily or unnecessarily violated the Japanese harbors. Yet as it appears that some of these very offending whalers have since been supplied with wood and water, it may be hoped that the bitterness of animosity to England has subsided, unless revived by Dr. Parker's missionary views, as it must still and ever be difficult for the Japanese to distinguish between English and Americans.t
* [The account already given of this voyage in a previous volume (see vol. VI., page 353) obviates the need of any further remarks here as to its objects and doings, but when that article and Dr. Parker's Narrative were both before the writer of this paper, we think the character and intentions of the voyage might have been more fairly stated. It was not a missionary, but a commercial, voyage; and the medical services of the physician with the aid of interpreters, and the bringing back of shipwrecked natives, were made use of to obtain, if possible, an interview with the Japanese authorities, and learn their present feelings regarding a trade. It is indeed something singular, that if the interpreters mentioned by Siebold are stationed along the coast none came on board the Morrison, and the difficulty is most easily removed by concluding that there are none; for how are they to obtain the knowledge of Russian and English, two most difficult languages for foreigners to learn to speak, even with living teachers, while shut up in their own land and having never seen an Englishman, and very seldom a Russian? Even if there are such interpreters, they would have found great difficulty in discovering a 'missionary scheme' which had no existence. In the bay of Yedo, the vessel was fired upon before she came to anchor, or even her national flag could be seen or known; and at Kagosima, she was told that at Nagasaki, there were proper au thorities with whom she could treat; and the probable reason of her being fired at was from misunderstanding her intentions in laying at anchor after the officers had declined to receive the men. These very officers expressed the most lively sympathy for their unfortunate countrymen, and regretted that they were for. bidden to receive them.]
[If the Japanese government so sedulously guard their coasts from the ap proach of foreign ships, and forbid their people from going abroad, the winds which prevail on their coasts are constantly driving their vessels out to sea, and scattering the natives over the face of the earth, thus bringing them in contact with other nations. Last month we had occasion to mention the arrival in Ma- cao of three tempest-tost mariners picked up in the Pacific; and a ship from the Sandwich Islands this month brings an account of the arrival there of seven taken off a wreck in lat. 34° N., and long. 174° E., on the 6th of June, 1840, by captain Cathcart of the whale ship James Loper; this happened only three days before the rescue of the three men by captain Codman, the two junks being about 200 miles from each other. The seven men were sent to Kamtschatka. In Decem- ber, 1832, a Japanese junk anchored in the harbor of Waialua in Oahu, which had drifted about in the Pacific almost a year; it had on board only three men, who, after remaining at Honolulu for eighteen months were also sent to Kam tschatka. Besides these two instances, there are the two mentioned in vol. VI. of the Repository, page 209. In 1836, six Japanese were brought to Canton, by the Chinese authorities, who had been wrecked on the island of Hainan; and in 1838, four more were brought to Canton, who were supposed to be Lewchewans. The case mentioned by Siebold in No I. of this series of papers (see vol. IX, page 121,) is another that had like to have proved fatal. The men brought in the Argyle say that two junks left their village last year, which were never heard of after- wards. K'aproth, too, derived much of his knowledge of Japan from shipwrecked men, whom the Russians took up; and we cannot doubt that many more vessels are driven off from the coast which founder, or are never more heard of.]