76
Letter from B. J. Bottelheim.
FEB.
poverished. If, therefore, the small-pox was to spread among us at this juncture, we certainly could not escape the calamity of death ; and it was on this account that I sent an officer to beg to decline the offer, and I also request you to accede to it.
“There is one thing more, which is rather observable. Though the New Method says that the small-pox will not spread among the peo- ple, still the natives of different countries are unlike, and I am very fearful that the effluence or virus may get abroad. If you wish to vaccinate your daughter,* I beg you will wait until you return to your own country, when it can be done. For these reasons, I return here- with the copy of the New Method of Vaccination.
'I would have earlier replied to these several points, but I was con- fined to my bed by illness, and write these few words even before I am at all well, which I send as a respectful answer, begging at the same time you will excuse me, and wishing you the highest peace.
""
Reply of the Regent Sháng Tingchú. May 18th, 1849.”
A greater tissue of the most palpable misstatements and pretexts, betrayed too by the very enforcement and stress laid on points where they felt their error to be unmistakable, and a better proof of their ob- stinate and ever increasing opposition to even the most advantageous and philanthropic offer to do good to the nation, can not be given. The document is also remarkable for its discussion on the religion of Jesus, a name, which formerly they could not bear, and on account of which they returned several of my dispatches. This, notwithstanding the language they still dare use against the King of kings and Lord of lords, I consider as a point gained, and proof that persevering effort has a softening effect, even on Japanese hatred to Christianity. That which deserves prominent consideration, too, is, that this dispatch clearly demonstrates that the rulers perfectly know I am a missionary and nothing else, and that whatever they do say, or may have said, on the political nature of my mission, is mere hypocritical foppery, as they themselves are convinced that a messenger at all authorized by a European government would not have been left four years in such destitution, at the mercy of the populace.
Weary as I am of writing, I must not omit all mention of a visit from the Nancy Dawson, a Thames yacht, on a trip round the world, which
put in here, May 22d. Imagine the delight of my wife to be
This is to give the paper an air of sincerity, for the writers knew at the time, that my babe had been vaccinated, though I am sorry to say it did not take