for the purpose of preventing severe measures threatened by the United States against the king and the sovereignty and the territory of the islands in case of the non-payment of a debt of $45,000" which, under the existing state of affairs in the islands," he would not be able to collect within the brief time stated in the contract.

In 1867, by the acquisition of Alaska, the United States became the owner of the Aleutian Islands, extending almost to the Asiatic coasts. On August 28 of the same year, Captain Reynolds, by order of the United States Navy, occupied the Midway Islands [28° 12′ north lat., 177° 22' west long.] which had been discovered by Captain N. C. Brooks on July 5, 1859, and first occupied by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company in July, 1867." The Senate Committee, in January, 1869, for both political and commercial reasons, favored making a naval station there, stating that the United States should have at least one harbor of refuge on the route to China, and should prevent the possibility of European occupation of any island which, under their control, might become another Nassau. The Secretary of the Navy, in his report of the previous December, had

assume the protectorate. In 1869, Lord Granville considered that there would be more disadvantage in Great Britain taking the responsibility of the government of Fiji than in the risk of the United States assuming the Protectorate." [Parl. Papers, 1875.] But the Australian colonies at the Conference of 1870 called for British annexation, and Lord Kimberly decided to send a commission to report. The report of Commander Goodenough and Mr. Layard was strongly in favor of annexation. The cession was accepted in October, 1874, and the islands were organized as a crown colony with Sir Arthur Gordon as Governor.

[Egerton: History of English Colonial Policy, p. 396.]

22

28

Quarterly Review, July, 1859, p. 203.

The Fijis, which had become the resort of the European trader, "threatened to become an anarchic Hell." [Egerton: History of English Colonial Policy, p. 396.]

The natives, however, were not such ferocious cannibals as they had formerly been. [Quarterly Review, July, 1859, p. 203.]

24

Senate Rp. 194, 40-3, Jan. 28, 1869. Sen. Exec. Doc. 79, 40-2. Report of Secy. of the Navy, 1870, p. 8, and 1871, pp. 6, 7 and 8.

said the rapid increase of Pacific commerce and of American interests springing up in connection with our recent extensive acquisitions, our rising States on the Pacific, everincreasing intimacy with the islands of the ocean, made the United States interested beyond any other power in giving security to mariners in the Pacific. On March 1, 1869, the sum of $50,000 was appropriated for opening a harbor at Midway; but, after spending that amount, it was seen that $400,000 would be required, and the plan was abandoned. The United States, however, still owns the island.

CHAPTER VII.

UNLOCKING THE GATES OF THE ORIENT.

Until a comparatively recent date, the Orient remained a sealed mystery to the nations of Western civilization and progress. It was only by the persistent and increasingly determined efforts of foreigners that Japan was finally induced to open her doors and windows. China, assuming an arrogant supremacy, though she had permitted a limited trade, endeavored to erect barriers of exclusiveness, but was finally forced to be more liberal in commercial relations, and slowly extended her intercourse with the younger and more progressive nations of the West.

2

Japan. The Japanese policy from 1637 to 1854 was one of exclusion and inclusion-to keep the world out and the Japanese at home-and the Dutch factory at Deshema of Nagasaki was the only window or loophole of observation. during that time. All attempts by foreigners to secure trading advantages were successfully resisted. The strict isolation of Japan, closing her eyes to keep out the light of the universe, and refusing to open her arms to the West,

1

Humboldt once said that the isthmus of Panama had been the China and Japan."

narrow neck of land forming the
“bulwark of the independence of

2 Between 1542 and 1600 Christian missionaries exerted considerable influence in Japan. By 1581 there were 200 churches and 150,000 converts. A few years later the rivalry of the opposing orders, the Spanish Jesuits and the Portuguese Franciscans, created animosities, and resulted in persecution by the Japanese. At the battle of Sekigahara, in 1600, in which 10,000 lives were lost, the Christian army (of Southern Japan) was defeated. A reactionary policy of the conservatives followed, and an edict of 1606 prohibited Christianity. The last Christian uprising was defeated in 1636.

&

provoked American enterprise which elsewhere had been mastering opposition. As early as 1815 Commodore Porter proposed an expedition to open trade, and Monroe intended to send him, but the plans were never matured.

In 1832 (as previously stated), just after the plunder of the American ship Friendship at Quallah Battoo, Captain Edmund Roberts, who had been well acquainted with the commerce of the Far East, was sent as United States confidential agent to negotiate for treaties. He was instructed to proceed to Japan to open trade, in case he found prospects favorable, but he was directed not to enter the country until he should receive assurance that nothing unbecoming the dignity of the United States would be required. Though he succedeed in securing a treaty with Siam" and the Sultan

'De Bow's, Dec., 1852. In 1797, the Eliza of New York, carrying the American flag with seventeen stars, sailed to Nagasaki, under the command of Capt. Steward, but did not open trade. Capt. John Derby, of Salem, Mass., soon made an unsuccessful attempt to open trade. In 1803, Capt. Steward returned to Nagasaki, but found that the Japanese desired no American products except ginseng. The discovery of valuable whale fisheries near the Kurile Islands, and southward, increased the importance of friendly relations with Japan. Soon there began a long story of shipwrecked seamen who were imprisoned by the Japanese. J. Q. Adams denied the right of Japan to remain a hermit nation, but his was 66 the voice of one crying in the wilderness." * See pp. 48 and 68.

5

Sen. Exec. Doc. 34, 33-2, Jan. 31, 1855. Sen. Exec. Doc. 59, 32-1, vol. ix, Apr. 8, 1852.

"In Siam, with her old and venerable code of crude and incomplete laws, where the creditor still had absolute power over the life and property of the debtor, American commerce had been subject to any pecuniary extortions or other impositions which avarice might inflict. At Bankok, on March 30, 1833, Roberts, secured a treaty of amity and commerce, nine feet and seven inches long, removing the imposition on imports, releasing debtors from pains and penalties in case they delivered all their property, fixing port charges, allowing American citizens to trade directly with private individuals instead of through the king who had hitherto fixed prices and delayed trade, and obviating the necessity of enormous presents to officials. [Edmund Roberts: Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin China, Siam and Muscat in the Sloop Peacock, 1832-34. N. Y., 1837.] A new treaty was

of Muscat, and began negotiations with Cochin China, he did not proceed to Borneo' nor to Japan.

In 1837 C. W. King, a merchant, went to Japan in the unarmed Morrison to return some shipwrecked Japanese, who had been saved from a junk which had gone ashore near the mouth of the Columbia river in 1831, but his vessel being fired upon at Yedo, he returned without succeeding in his mission. The Japanese probably understood that his principal motive was to open commercial intercourse. In 1845 the Manhattan, of Sag Harbor, attempting to return several castaways, met with a similar reception. In the same year Zadoc Pratt, of New York, laid before the House a report advising hostility and proposing to send an embassy to Japan and Corea.

The successful negotiation of a treaty with China in 1844 increased the efforts to secure communication with Japan. In 1846 Commodore Biddle, by instructions of May 22,

negotiated by Mr. Harris in May, 1856, and was ratified by the United States the next year. It was modified in 1867. Relations with Siam have remained undisturbed, the United States enjoying the rights and immunities extended to the most favored nation. In 1884 an agreement regulating the liquor traffic in Siam was concluded.

Roberts had also endeavored to secure a treaty with Cochin China, but after engaging in a protracted correspondence and enduring much Eastern prevarication he failed on account of disagreement as to conventionalities and excessive formalities. But he made a treaty with the Sultan of Muscat, who wrote Andrew Jackson an extravagantly figurative and loving letter. After the Siam treaty had been ratified by the United States Senate in June, 1834, Roberts was sent to exchange ratifications, and renewed negotiations with Cochin China, whose etiquette as to titles he met by a ruse diplomatique, but whose consent to a treaty he was unable to obtain. [W. S. Ruschenberger: A Voyage Around the World, including an Embassy to Muscat and Siam, 1836-37. Phila., 1838.] He died at Macao, June 12, 1836.

'On June 23, 1850, at Bruni, Joseph Balestier concluded with the Sultan of Borneo a convention of amity, commerce and navigation, securing liberty of residence and trade, protection of United States citizens and shipwrecked seamen, the privilege of extraditionality, and the use of ports for war vessels.

'Perry: U. S. Japan Expedition, vol. i, pp. 47-49.