Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 176

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Notices of Japan, No. V11.

MARCH,

tale of shipwreck, of the loss of his own all, as well as of his whole Dutch cargo, ending with his having been kindly enabled by a friend at Manila to buy and freight the brig, in which he was now come for the purpose of discharging, by the sale of her cargo, his own property, his debt to the Dutch factory, incurred on account of the Eliza's repairs.

But in the interval, an able and energetic president had succeeded to a very inefficient one. Heer Wardenaar saw, in this visit of the American, an insidious attempt to gain a commercial footing, for himself individually, if not for his coun- try, at Nagasaki; and his suspicions of the veracity of Capt. Stewart's story were further awakened by the recognition in the Manila brig of some articles that had belonged to the Eliza, from the wreck of which it was averred that nothing what- ever had been saved. He took his measures accordingly. He caused captain Stewart's cargo to be sold in the usual manner, and his debts to be paid from the proceeds; but he procured no return cargo for the brig, and sent the captain in the Dutch ships of that year to Batavia, to be there tried for the loss of the Eliza's cargo.

Pending the investigation of his conduct at Batavia, Capt. Stewart made his escape from the Dutch settlement, and for a year or two was not heard of. But in 1803, he again appeared in Nagasaki bay, this time more openly declaring his purpose. He now presented himself under the American flag, brought a cargo, avowedly American property, from Bengal and Canton, and solicited permission to trade, as also to supply himself with fresh water and with oil. The first request was positively refused, the second granted; and when his wants were gratuitously supplied, he was compelled to depart. Captain Stewart now gave up his interloping scheme as hopeless; he returned no more, and the only American ship subsequent- ly mentioned is one in 1807, which professedly in distress between Canton and the western coast of America, prayed for wood and water, with which, at Doeff's solicitation, she was supplied, and, as Capt. Stewart had been, gratuitously. Whether she was really in distress, or was thus prevented from endeavoring to trade, the factory did not ascertain.

One very recent attempt of a mixed commercial and missionary character has, however, been made by American merchants from Macao. A vessel, with a mis- sionary at once clerical and medical, and that able oriental linguist, the Rev. C. Gutzlaff, sailed from Macao in July, 1837, professedly to carry home some ship- wrecked Japanese sailors. She steered for the bay of Yedo, and after a short inter- course with boats which the missionaries thought promising, the ship was fired upon. She made her escape to sea, and next anchored in the bay of Kagosima, in the principality of Satsuma, where she experienced a precisely similar repulse. And now, indignant at what the reverend physician, Dr. Parker in his Narrative, calls the treachery of the Japanese, the missionary adventurers determined to return to Macao, without visiting the only port-to wit, Nagasaki-where they had a chance of being permitted even to land their Japanese protegés. Whether this blunder or omission were the consequence of ignorance, or of their ascribing to Dutch intrigue the uniform repulse of all their predecessors, does not appear. The shipwrecked Japanese accompanied them back to Macao.

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The next foreign attempts to be noticed were made by the Russians; and it almost looks as if they had once a chance of success. But if it were so, the op- portunity was not seized by the forelock, and it never recurred.