The Making of Modern Japan / An Account of the Progress of Japan from Pre-feudal Days to Constitutional Government & the Position of a Great Power, With Chapters on Religion, the Complex Family System, Education, &c.

by John Harington Gubbins

Three reasons inspired these visits of foreign vessels: the need of provisions, looking for shipwrecked crews, or repatriating shipwrecked Japanese, and a desire to engage in trade, or to establish friendly relations which would lead to that result. In no case was the reception accorded encouraging, though a clear discrimination was exercised between merchant vessels and warships. To the former scant mercy was shown; but warships were treated with more respect. They were towed into and out of harbour free of charge, and were supplied with provisions for which no money was accepted.

America was the country most interested at that time in the opening of Japan to foreign intercourse on account of the operations of her whalers in the Pacific and her trade route to China. The United States Government, therefore, decided to take the initiative in endeavouring to put an end to the Japanese policy of isolation. Accordingly, in the year 1845, Commodore Biddle arrived in Yedo with two men-of-war for the purpose of establishing trade relations between the two countries. He failed, however, to induce the Japanese Government to enter into any negotiations on the subject. Seven years later the matter was again taken up by the Government at Washington, Commodore Perry receiving orders to proceed to Japan on a mission to arrange for the more humane treatment of American sailors shipwrecked on the coasts of Japan; to obtain the opening of one or more harbours as ports of call for American vessels and the establishment of a coal depôt; and to secure permission for trade at such ports as might be opened. No secrecy surrounded the intentions of the United States. They were known in Europe as well as in America, as Macfarlane, writing in 1852, mentions, and the Dutch promptly told the Japanese.

On July 8th, 1853, Perry arrived in the harbour of Uraga, a small cove in the Bay of Yedo, some thirty miles from the present capital. His instructions were to obtain the facilities desired by persuasion, if possible, but, if necessary, by force. He succeeded after some difficulty in prevailing upon the Japanese authorities to receive the President’s letter at a formal interview on shore. At the same time he presented a letter from himself demanding more humane treatment for shipwrecked sailors, and pointed out the folly of persistence in the policy of seclusion. He would return next spring, he added, with more ships to receive the answer to the President’s letter.

With Perry’s arrival the Shōgun figures under a new title, that of Tycoon (Taikun), or Great Lord, a term first used in correspondence with Korea in order to conceal the fact that the Shōgun was not the sovereign of Japan. This was the word chosen to designate the Shōgun in the earlier treaties concluded with foreign Powers, and is the name by which he was commonly known to foreigners until the Restoration put an end to the government he represented.

On Perry’s return in the following year, 1854, he insisted on anchoring further up the Bay of Yedo, off what was then the post town and afterwards the open port of Kanagawa. It was at a village close to this spot, now known as the town of Yokohama, that on the 31st March he signed the Treaty opening the ports of Shimoda (in Cape Idzu) and Hakodaté (in Yezo) to American vessels—the former at once, the latter at the end of a year. This Treaty, which was ratified in the following year, was the first step in the reopening of Japan to foreign intercourse.

Perry’s Treaty was succeeded by similar arrangements with other Powers—with the British in October of the same year (1854), and in the year following with the Russians and Dutch.

The Dutch benefited greatly by the new direction given to foreign relations. By the provisional arrangement made in 1855 most of the humiliating restrictions accompanying the privilege of trade were removed; and two years later they were allowed “to practise their own or the Christian religion,” a provision which seems to suggest that the Japanese idea as to their not being Christians was inspired by the Dutch. The orders, moreover, with regard to trampling on Christian emblems were also at the same time rescinded. There was still some difference between their position and that of other foreigners. This, however, only lasted a year or two. With the operation of the later more elaborate treaties the nation which had prided itself on its exclusive trading privileges with Japan was glad to come in on the same footing as other Western Powers.

None of the arrangements above described were regular commercial treaties. The first, concluded with America, was simply an agreement for the granting of certain limited facilities for navigation and trade, the latter being a secondary consideration. The object of the British Treaty, made by Admiral Stirling during the Crimean war, was to assist operations against Russia in Siberian waters. The Russians, for their part, merely wished for political reasons to gain a footing in Japan; while the Dutch were chiefly anxious to escape from the undignified position they occupied.

It was not until 1858 that regular commercial treaties were concluded. Perry’s Treaty had stipulated for the appointment of an American Consul-General to reside at Shimoda. Mr. Townsend Harris was selected for the post. His arrival was unwelcome to the Japanese, who had not expected the enforcement of the stipulation. They accordingly boycotted him. He could get no trustworthy information. If he asked for anything, it was withheld as being “contrary to the honourable country’s law”; and his letters were not answered because “it was not customary to reply to the letters of foreigners.” Harris, nevertheless, persevered in spite of Japanese obstruction with his task of developing American relations with Japan. In June, 1857, he was able to report the signature of a convention which extended considerably the facilities conceded to Perry; in the autumn of the same year he was received in audience by the Shōgun as the first duly accredited representative of a Western Power; by the following February negotiations for the new Treaty were practically completed; and in July of that year (1858) the Treaty was signed in Yedo Bay on board an American man-of-war.

The delay of five months was caused by the Shōgunate’s decision to refer the Treaty before signature to Kiōto for the approval of the Throne. This reference was not necessary. The right of the Shōgun to act independently in such matters had been recorded in the “Hundred Articles,” and long custom had confirmed the rule thus recorded. But in the embarrassment and trepidation caused by Perry’s unexpected visit, and still less expected demands, the Shōgunate had departed from this rule, and revived the obsolete formality of Imperial sanction, extending at the same time its application. The Court refused its consent to the proposed Treaty, but in spite of this refusal the Japanese negotiators signed it; the Shōgun’s ministers being influenced by the news of the termination of the war in China, and the impending arrival of British and French ambassadors, as well as by the representations of the American negotiator.