“Article XI.—It is hereby agreed that five Japanese ri, or miles, be the limit allowed to Americans at Hakodate, and the requirements contained in Article I. of these Regulations are hereby made also applicable to that port within that distance.
“Article XII.—His Majesty the Emperor of Japan is at liberty to appoint whoever he pleases to receive the ratification of the treaty of Kanagawa, and give an acknowledgment on his part.
“It is agreed that nothing herein contained shall in any way affect or modify the stipulations of the treaty of Kanagawa, should that be found to be contrary to these regulations.”
Another important matter, in which the Japanese seem entirely to have carried the day, was the settlement of the value of the American coins to be received in payment for goods and supplies—a subject referred to a commission composed of two United States pursers and nine Japanese.
The Japanese circulating medium was found to consist of old kas, round, with a square hole in the middle, like the Chinese cash, but thinner, and containing more iron; of four-kas pieces, in weight equal to less than two of the others, probably, Kämpfer’s double zeni; but principally of a new coin rated at one hundred kas,—apparently a substitute for the strings of kas mentioned by Kämpfer and others. These are oval-shaped pieces of copper, about the size and shape of a longitudinal section of an egg, introduced within a recent period, and weighing only as much as seven of the old kas (or, compared with our cents, a little less than two of them). This over-valuation has, of course, driven the old kas out of circulation, and made this depreciated coin the integer of the currency. At the same time, it has raised the nominal value of everything, as is evident in the case of silver and gold. Instead of one thousand kas to the tael of silver, the rate in former times, the government, which appears to have the monopoly of the mines, sells silver bullion for manufacturing use at two thousand two hundred and fifty kas for the tael,—a rate fixed probably under some less depreciated state of the currency. But when coined, a tael’s weight of silver is reckoned in currency at six thousand four hundred kas, that is, at six tael and four mas, or precisely the valuation, in Kämpfer’s time, of the gold koban; and as the ichibu of his day, that is, one fourth part, as the word signifies in Japanese, represented sixteen hundred kas in real weight of silver, so the ichibu of the present day, of which there is both a silver and a gold one, represents sixteen hundred kas of currency. The bullion price of gold in Japan is only eight and a half times that of silver instead of sixteen times, as with us; while in currency the difference in value is only about as one to three and a half, the price in silver, or copper hundred-kas pieces, of a tael’s weight of gold bullion being nineteen taels, and the same when coined passing as twenty-three taels, seven mas and five kanderin. Besides the gold ichibu, the Japanese are represented as having three other gold coins, thin, oval pieces, of the currency value respectively of one, ten, and twenty taels;[126] also a coin, made of gold and silver, worth half an ichibu, or eight hundred-kas pieces, and a small silver piece, worth a quarter of an ichibu, or four hundred-kas pieces.
The Japanese commissioners insisted that our coin was but bullion to them, the effect of which is to put our silver dollar, so far as payments in Japan are concerned, precisely on a level with their silver ichibu, which weighs only one third as much. Our gold coins, compared with their gold coins, stand better, the relative weight of our gold dollar and their gold ichibu being as 65.33 to 52.25; but as the copper hundred-kas piece is their standard, and as its value in relation to gold is rated so much higher than with us, our gold dollar, estimated in this way, becomes worth only eight hundred and thirty-six kas, or little more than eight and a third hundred-kas pieces, or not much more than half an ichibu; the effect of all which is to give the Japanese government, through whose hands all payments are made, a profit, after recoinage, of sixty-six per cent, upon all payments in American coin. As the Japanese commissioners would not depart from this scheme, the commission dissolved without coming to any agreement on this point. But the supplies furnished to the squadron were paid for at the rate insisted upon by the Japanese; nor can private traders, as matters stand, expect any better terms.
The rates of pilotage at Shimoda were fixed at fifteen dollars for vessels drawing over eighteen feet, five dollars for vessels drawing less than thirteen feet, and ten dollars for those of intermediate size; only half of these rates to be paid in case of anchorage in the outer harbor. Water was to be furnished at fourteen hundred kas the boat-load, the ship finding casks. Wood was to be delivered on board at seven thousand two hundred kas per cube of five American feet.
The price put by the Japanese upon a few tons of inferior coal, brought to Shimoda, amounted, at their rate of exchange, to twenty-eight dollars the ton. It did not appear that coal was anywhere else mined except at the spot visited by Kämpfer and Siebold near Kokura, and another mine in the province of Awa, in the island Shikoku.
The business thus completed, a parting entertainment was given on board the “Mississippi”; and, after an interchange of presents, the vessels on the 26th of June took their departure. Stopping at Lew Chew, Commodore Perry negotiated a compact with the authorities of that island, which, from all the information he could obtain, he concluded to be a nearly independent sovereignty.
Within fifteen days after Commodore Perry’s departure from Shimoda, the clipper ship “Lady Pierce,” from San Francisco, fitted out for the express purpose of being the first American ship to arrive in Japan after the opening of commercial relations, entered the bay of Yedo, with the owner, Silas E. Burrows, on board.