B. N. M., or (X.)
I hope you will answer my letter, I go on board of the ships in the boats that take the water. I can not go on any other boat, and am always in the hope that the boat will be sent to the ship where you are.
I shall go to Yedo and be back in Simoda on the return of the ships from Hakodade, and hope to see you then in good health.
Query. The great Mexico empire, which belongs to the powerful United States, where is that situated?
The authorities have notified me, that I was not allowed to receive Americans at the house and converse with them.
I therefore write this letter and shall be on board your ship to-morrow and speak with you.
The following day he was on board, according to promise, in the suite of some Japanese officers. There was no opportunity to answer his questions that day, and on the return of the ships from Hakodade he did not make his appearance, retained by illness or otherwise at Yedo, that is all. The officers heard from him, but never saw him again after that day, and his questions remained unanswered. “Give me a recipe to make percussion-caps.”
We noticed the number of matchlocks, that the Japanese were armed with, when we landed first in Japan—at Gorihama. The Dutch writers say, that they are aware of the superiority of the musket, but that a deficiency of flints in the geological formation of their country, and their determined aversion to dependence upon foreigners for anything essential to their military equipment, prevents their adoption. Their curiosity about the mode of making percussion-caps, and the “wafers” for the howitzers, was very great at all times.
It was well enough with the Japanese, as long as they remained secluded, but when the visit of the American ships gave their military men an opportunity of seeing what great improvements had been made in
“——— the mortal engines,