Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 175

1841.

Notices of Japan, No. VII.

161

the last English sailor who thus benefited by unsuspicious Japanese hospitality.* Since that period, attempts have been made and accidents have happened, the effects of which are represented by the Dutch to have been the revival of their alienation from foreigners in all its original inveteracy. Siebold, however, rather questions this resuscitation; and thinks, that if it did take place, the feeling has again died away.

The first aggression upon the Japanese prohibitory code was made by the Americans, and originated in the war between England and Holland, during the subjection of the latter to France. It has already been intimated,† that the Dutch authorities at Batavia, when they durst not expose their own merchantmen to capture by British cruizers in the Indian seas, engaged neutrals to carry on their trade with Japan. The first North-American ship thus hired was the Eliza of New York, captain Stewart, in 1797; and her appearance at once aroused Japan- ese suspicion.‡

A vessel, bearing the Dutch flag, but of which the crew spoke English, not Dutch, was an anomaly that struck the Nagasaki authorities with consternation. It cost the president of the factory some trouble to convince the governor of Nagasaki that these English were not the real English, but English living in a dis. tant country, and governed by a different king. All this, however, even when believ- ed, was of no avail; the main point was, to prove that the Americans had nothing to do with the trade, being only employed by the Dutch as carriers, on account of the war. The governor was at length satisfied that the American was no inter- loper, the employment of neutrals being, under existing circumstances, unavoida ble; and he consented to consider the Eliza as a Dutch ship.

Upon his second voyage, the following year, captain Stewart met with the ac- cident mentioned in the last paper; and it seems not unlikely that his increased intercourse with the Japanese, during the attempts to raise his ship and her repairs, gave birth to his project of establishing a connection with them, independent of his employers, the Dutch. His scheme and his measures do not, however, very distinctly appear in Doeff's narrative, either because the Dutch factory president is perplexed by his eagerness to identify them with English incroachment, or because the successful foiling of captain Stewart's hopes prevented the clear development of his intended proceedings.

When repaired and reloaded, the Eliza sailed, but was dismasted in a storm, and returned again to refit. All this occasioned such delay, that the American substitute for the Dutchman of 1799 arrived, and had nearly completed her load- ing for Batavia, when captain Stewart was at length ready to prosecute the voyage that should have been completed in the preceding year, 1798. For his consort he obstinately refused to wait, and sailed early in November, 1799. The follow- ing year capt. Stewart again made his appearance, but in a different vessel and under a different character. He had still not reached Batavia, and told a piteous

* [So far as merely supplying the necessary wants of distressed mariners who may be wrecked on their shores, we are inclined to think the Japanese are as kind now as they have ever been; that is, they would feed and clothe such persons, and get them sent out of the country as soon as possible. When the Morrison was at Satsuma, the Japanese on board were told that three sailors from a foreign ship had some years before been sent to Nagasaki. Capt. Gordon in the Brothers (sco Chi. Rep., Vol. VII., page 589) was not treated at all inhospitably.]

# Docff.

+ No. VI. page 82.

VOL. X. NO. 11.

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