40
Letter from B. J. Bettelheim-
JAN.
ed for. Perhaps the very different treatment we received from govern- inent may be further explained also by the circumstance that at the time of our arrival, we found a king in the land—at least we were told there was one. Though a mere cypher, yet the very name of King, a lofty conception, second only to divinity in Confucian states, exerts a secret magic, manifesting itself in various ways. It is quite likely that to spare the king any possibility of trouble, the ministers spared us many troubles, deeming it a high merit not only to keep the monarch at ease, but to keep him asleep; it appears to have been their anxious effort, perhaps it was a duty imposed from Yedo, to keep him out of the government altogether. Owing perhaps to this forced state of public deadness, rather than rest, which the ministry plumed themselves in maintaining while they had a king, we were comparitively left to our- selves—the surest means they well knew of keeping us at rest.
We did not want much more than access to the people; nay, we were satisfied with less, and contented ourselves as long as they were permitted to assemble, or rather were not driven from the spot when we addressed them on the welfare of their souls. However, this was too much to be granted by a Japanese cabinet. For none know better than despots how dangerous a weapon the tongue is; none know bet- ter than liars how great the power of truth is; and none the value of light more than they who shut it out, convinced that each ray must lay open to every eye, what they have so much reason to bury in dark- ness. It is not improbable, that the sudden demise of the king was a theatrical exit, contrived in order to make possible the changes au ac- tive foreign family had rendered necessary; though young, and never even said to be indisposed, he had to die at the shortest possible notice. No sooner was he dead, than all things around us at once assumed an- other aspect toward us; yea, on the very day which we supposed to be that of his burial, we were assaulted with stones and sticks in the open road, and thankful to come off with bruises and sores when we might justly have despaired of life.
Dishonored thus in the eye of the nation, it was to be expected that a change would be felt in all our movements. The charm attending the appellation Englishmen, already weakened by the overdone patriot- ism of an English Admiral, was now quite broken under Lewchewan sticks; and subjects of the two first nations of Europe-for during this scuffle, I was in company with the French missionaries, who had in- vited us to this unfortunate trip-were pelted off a highway open to every peasant, without any one taking thought of the matter. My remonstrances to government only produced an official denial of the