About this time a young assistant engineer of the Susquehanna died, and the boats that accompanied the body for burial ashore, had to row through the heavy sea. Pity but that he had been left at Macao, from which place he had written to his friends not to write him again as he would soon be home. Poor fellow, it was his long home he soon went to.
The boisterous weather continuing, the carpenters were unable to transfer a deck cabin from the Susquehanna to the Powhatan, to which vessel it was in contemplation to transfer the flag, or to discharge the coal from the Supply and land it.
The Mississippi having been as deep as usual with her coal, on leaving Hong Kong, and rolling heavily in her run from that place, was found, while laying at her anchors, to leak from twenty-two to twenty-four inches of water, in twenty-four hours, which was deemed sufficient by those on board, considering how flat a floor the ship had.
On the 31st of January, the weather having become more favorable, agreeably to order, the Macedonian, Vandalia, Southampton, and Lexington, got under way and stood handsomely out of the harbor, bound on their first visit to Japan. An exploration party by land, left, on the same morning, for the northern part of the island, where it had been said powder was manufactured, and that there was coal. The result of the exploration was the bringing back some of the “coal blossom,” from which some were sanguine, that there was coal on the island. It will be many a day before any steamer will cross the Pacific in the latitude of Loo-Choo; and Napa will never be the place selected for coaling.
During the night a poor devil of a Loo-Chooan paddled off to the Susquehanna, soliciting safety, from some on shore, whom he motioned, were going to kill him. Not having previously, “declared his intention in the United States,” it was not possible to get up another Koszta affair! His canoe was hoisted on board, and the man put under the sentry’s charge. The converted missionary at Napa—Dr. Bettelheim, expressed the belief, that the poor creature was a spy. This opinion was not at all surprising from the Dr., who never displayed amiability toward the population, and in answer to an inquiry about their history, or their upper classes, his response was “They are all liars—not a word of truth in them.” This feeling appeared to be entirely reciprocated by the Loo-Chooans, to whom his presence appeared most distasteful.
When other mediums than himself were adopted for the procurement of eatables, &c., we generally found, that we succeeded better. The Loo-Chooans are not in a condition to receive gospel-truth, and his efforts at proselyting were all well known in Japan, and any protection, that we might appear to extend to him, or the slightest, even apparent co-operation with him, were not at all calculated to advance the desires of our government with the Japanese. Besides this, it is said, that some, temporarily connected with the squadron, distributed “Yesoo” or religious tracts among the people, during our stay, which was not adventitious for our objects with a people, to whom in his letter, to allay their ever-active suspicions, in the first paragraph, the president had deemed it necessary to say, that the envoy he had sent them was “no missionary of religion.” Certain it is that no attempt at increasing the field of missionary labor, among the jealous, tenacious, and suspicious Niphon race, who chiefly inhabit the northwest islands of the Pacific, can ever go pari passu with efforts to establish treaty relations and commercial intercourse, unless like Mohammed preaching against the idols of the Kaaba, the cimetar gleams in one hand, while the Good Book is upheld by the other.
Dr. Bettelheim having received intelligence from England, of being superseded by another missionary, named Moreton, was with his family tendered a passage in the Supply to China. He left behind more patients than proselytes; poor patients, grateful for the physical assistance, which his Esculapian art had enabled him to extend to them, when afflicted with the noxious diseases of the island. This medicinal aid was, no doubt, often extended under difficulty—the want of faith in the remedy by the afflicted, and the sneers of the bystanding native Hippocrates. I remember on one occasion, being attracted by a group, who gathered around a white-headed old native, who had fallen apparently in a fit. As he lay stretched upon the ground, some held up his head at intervals, and attempted to give him chah or warm tea to drink, while a native Sangrado, was leopardizing him with mochsa burning. Dr. Bettelheim, who was by, thought the man should be bled, but he said, “If I bleed him, and he recovers, they will say, the mochsa cured him; if I bleed him and he dies, they will declare I killed him.”
It was understood that the commodore had purchased or procured from the authorities, the place on shore at Tumai, where our coal had been stored, and over which a shed had been erected. It was left in charge of an acting master’s mate, who had command of a number of invalid seamen, quartered in a building not far off. The American flag floated over the coal shed, for the first time, on the 5th of February.
During this visit the people appeared rather more friendly than usual. We took our walks as formerly to the castellated and beautiful Sheudi. The vernacular had been slightly acquired by the juveniles; a small boy in a school counted twelve for me in English quite plainly, while others desiring to display the activity peculiar to juvenility, when scrambling for coppers, would say as you passed, “American—how do you do?”
On the 3d of February, the commodore with a suite and military escort similar to the one of June 6th preceding, paid another official visit to the palace at Sheudi: a proceeding anything else than devoutly wished for by the prince-regent. The palace-gates were opened and we were ushered into the former hall of audience. On this occasion a number of American gold and silver coin were left with them, for which they were informed, that on the return of the squadron, they were to give an equivalent in similar metals of their currency. They would gladly have avoided this, but they felt themselves the victims of a gently-forcible suasion, that there was no getting around.