Upper Reporter. (Seal.)[110]
Under Reporter. (Seal.)
The ship was soon after boarded by a Japanese interpreter with seven men, who gave directions in English as to her anchorage; but, as the captain persisted in selecting his own ground, the officer yielded. To another officer, who came on board to learn what he wanted, he stated his object, which led to many inquiries. The vessel was surrounded by guard-boats, and the usual offer was made of supplies, which were refused unless payment would be accepted. To an officer who came on board the next day, Captain Glyn complained of these guard-boats; and he gave him also a letter to the governor of Nagasaki, stating his object. The same officer having returned on the 22d, but only with promises of a speedy answer, Captain Glyn remonstrated with warmth. Finally, on the 26th, through the intervention of the Dutch director, who, being sick himself, sent one of his subordinates on board, the sailors were delivered up without waiting to send to Yedo, as had been proposed. The day before, a curious memorandum in Japanese Dutch, a sort of journal or history of the prisoners since their capture, was handed to the captain, who was very hard-pressed to say whether he would sail as soon as he received them. Another memorandum in Dutch was also handed to him, to the effect that, as all shipwrecked mariners were sent home by the Chinese or Dutch, this special sending for them was not to be allowed.
It appears, from the statements of the men, that they were, in fact, deserters, having left the Ladoga near the Straits of Sangar. At a village on the coast of Yezo, where they landed, they were supplied with rice and firewood, but while they stayed were guarded by soldiers, and surrounded by a cloth screen, as if to keep them from seeing the country. Landing two days after at another village, they were detained as prisoners, and were confined in a house guarded by soldiers; but for some time were amused by promises that they should be released and furnished with a boat. Disappointed in this expectation, two of them escaped, but were speedily recaptured. A quarrel taking place between them, one of them was shut up in a cage, and two others, having made a second escape, after being retaken were shut up with him. A new quarrel happening in the cage, one of the prisoners was taken out and severely whipped. Two months after their capture, the whole number were put in a junk, the three close prisoners in one cage, the twelve others in another, and forwarded to Nagasaki. They were lodged at first in a palisaded and guarded house, and were subjected to several interrogations, being flattered with hopes of being sent home in the Dutch vessel then in the harbor. In order to get on board her, McCoy (who described himself as twenty-three years old, and born in Philadelphia, and who appears to have been the most intelligent of the party) made a third escape. Japanese jails, he observed, might do well enough for Japanese, but could not hold Americans. Being retaken, he was tied,—much as described in Golownin’s narrative,—put into a sort of stocks, and repeatedly examined under suspicion of being a spy. Thence he was taken to the common prison and confined by himself for three weeks; but, on threatening to starve himself, and refusing to eat for three days, he was restored to his companions, it would seem, through the intercession of the Dutch director, who endeavored to persuade the men to wait patiently, and not to quarrel among themselves.
After a month’s longer detention, a new escape was planned, but only McCoy and two others succeeded in getting out. Being retaken they were tied, put in the stocks, and finally all were sent to the common prison, where they had very hard usage. It was stated, and no doubt truly enough, in the Dutch memorandum, respecting their treatment, handed in by the Japanese, that they gave so much trouble that the authorities hardly knew what to do with them. One of the Americans died, and one of the Sandwich-Islanders hung himself. McCoy, who had learned considerable Japanese, was secretly informed of the arrival of the “Preble” by one of the guards with whom he had established an intimacy.
At the same time with these men another seaman from an American whaler was delivered up, who had landed a month or two later on some still more northerly Japanese island. As this man, named McDonald, and who described himself as twenty-four years old, and born at Astoria, in Oregon, had made no attempt at escaping, he had no occasion to complain of severity. In fact, he lived in clover, the Japanese having put him to use as a teacher of English. The very interpreter who boarded the “Preble” had been one of his scholars. All these men stated that they had been required to trample on the crucifix as a proof that they were not Portuguese, that reason being suggested to them when they showed some reluctance to do it.
McCoy mentioned, and others confirmed it, that when he threatened the Japanese guards with vengeance from some American ship of war, they told him that they had no fears of that, as the year before, at the city of Yedo, a common soldier had knocked down an American commander, and no notice had been taken of it. McCoy and the others strenuously denied having ever heard this story (evidently referring to the occurrence described in a preceding page) before it was thus mentioned to them by the Japanese.
McDonald, before his release, was requested by the Japanese to describe the relative rank of the commander of the “Preble,” by counting down in the order of succession from the highest chief in the United States. Like a true republican, he began with the people; but the Japanese, he says, could make nothing of that. He then enumerated the grades of president, secretary of the navy, commodore, post captain, and commander, which latter rank, being that of the officer in question, seemed so elevated as rather to excite the surprise of his auditors.
Five weeks after the departure of the “Preble,” on the 29th of May, Commander Matheson, in the British surveying ship “Mariner,” anchored in the bay of Yedo, off the town of Uraga, and three miles higher up, according to his statement, than any other vessel had been allowed to proceed. As he entered the bay, he was met by ten boats. A paper was handed up, in Dutch and French, requesting him not to anchor, nor cruise in the bay; but when the Japanese found he was determined to proceed, they offered to tow him. During the night he was watched by boats and from the shore. Having a Japanese interpreter on board, he communicated the object of his visit, and sent his card on shore to the governor of the town, with a note in Chinese, proposing to wait upon him; to which the governor replied that it was contrary to the law for foreigners to land, and that he should lose his life if he allowed Captain Matheson to come on shore, or to proceed any higher up the bay.
