There was a native scholar in Yedo, a typical progressive Japanese of this period, a student, through the medium of the Dutch language, of European literature. Hearing of the order for a man-of-war and books from Holland, he petitioned the government rather to send Japanese to Europe to study the most important arts, and to assist in building and working the ship. They would thus learn the art of navigation on the voyage, and see the foreign countries. The authorities did not favor his proposition. Yoshida Shoin, one of his former pupils, heard of his old master’s plan, and resolved himself to make a sea-voyage.
When Admiral Pontiatine with the Russian ships put in at Nagasaki in September “to discuss the question of the northern boundary of the two nations in Saghalin,” Yoshida bade his master good-bye, merely saying that he was going on a visit to Nagasaki, but secretly intending to go abroad.
Sakuma, who divined his plan, gave him money for his expenses; and, according to the custom of polite farewells, composed a stanza of Chinese poetry in which he wished him a safe and pleasant journey. On his arrival at Nagasaki, the ship had gone. He then returned to Yedo, and Sakuma secretly told him how to set about getting passage on the American vessels. We shall hear of Yoshida again. He and Sakuma were typical men in a small, but soon to be triumphant, majority.
As the time for Perry’s return was near at hand, the Bakafu chose Hayashi, the chief Professor of the Chinese language and literature in the Dai Gakkō (Great School, or University) to treat with Perry. As the American interpreters were Chinese scholars, the documents, besides those in the Dutch and English language for the benefit of Americans, would be in the Chinese character for the benefit of the Japanese. Hayashi was a man profoundly versed in Chinese learning, a pedant, and a stickler for exact terms. He was also a most devotedly loyal retainer of the house of Tokugawa. His rank was that of a Hatamoto (flag-bearer), and his title Dai Gaku no Kami, or Regent of the University, (not “Prince” of Dai Gaku.) He was of benevolent countenance, and courtly manners, dignified presence. He had lived the life of a scholar, expounding the classics of Confucius and Mencius, and was highly respected at court for his vast learning. In brief, he was a typical product, and one of the best specimens of Yedo culture in the later days of the Tokugawas. The Hayashi family was noted for the many scholars in Chinese literature that adorned the country and the name. He was carefully instructed by his superior officers as how he should deal with Perry. He made his preparations so as to leave the academic groves of Séido for the treaty-house at Uraga; for there, it was decreed in Yedo that the treaty was to be made.
Fortunately for the Japanese, they had a first-rate interpreter of English, though Perry knew it not. His name was Nakahama Manjiro. With his two companions, he had been picked up at sea in 1841, by an American captain, J. H. Whitfield, and brought by way of Honolulu to the United States, where he obtained a good school education. Returning to Hawaii in 1850, he resolved with his two companions to return to Japan. Furnished with a duly attested certificate of his American citizenship by the United States consul, Elisha Allen, afterwards minister to Washington, he built a whale-boat named The Adventurer, sailed to Riu Kiu in the Sarah Boyd, Captain Whitmore, and in January, 1851, landed. The three men proved their nationality to the natives of Riu Kiu not by their language, which they had forgotten, but by their deft manipulation of chopsticks, the use of which a Japanese baby learns before he can talk.
After six months in Riu Kiu and thirty months in Nagasaki, the waifs reached their homes. On being brought to Yedo with his boat, Manjiro was made a samurai or wearer of two swords. As an official translator, he wrestled with Bowditch and logarithms, even to the partial bleaching of his hair. After several years of severe work, twenty manuscript copies of his book were made. His boat, now come to honor, was used as a model for others. The original was placed in a fire-proof storehouse as an honorable relic.
On Saturday, the 11th of February, 1854 three days after the Russians had left Nagasaki, and on the ninth day of the Japanese New Year, the watchers on the hills of Idzu descried the American squadron approaching. The Macedonian had grounded on the rocks a few miles from Kamakura, the medieval capital of the Minamoto Shō-guns, and near the spot over which Nitta Yoshisada, three hundred and twenty years before, had led his victorious hosts to overthrow the Hōjō usurpers. The powerful Mississippi, which had extricated and saved from utter loss during the Mexican war, the fine old frigate Germantown from a similar peril, easily drew off the Macedonian on Sunday, the 12th. On Monday, the 13th, amid all the lavish splendors of nature, for which the scenery of Adzuma, as poets call eastern Japan, is noted, the stately line of ships, the sailers towed by the steamers, moved up the bay,
“With all their spars uplifted,
Like crosses of some peaceful crusade.”
The superb panorama that unfolded before the eyes from the decks charmed all eyes. Significant and portentous seemed the position of the lights of heaven on that eventful day. To the west of the peerless mountain Fuji, “the moon was setting sharply defining one side with its chill cold rays.”[[29]] In the orient, the sun arising in cloudless radiance burnished with brilliant glory the lordly cone as it swelled to the sky. Did the natives recall their poet’s comparison and contrast of “the old sage, grown sad and slow,” and “the youth” who “new systems, laws and fashions frames?” The moon typified Old Japan ready to pass away, the the sun heralded the New Japan that was to be. Matthew Perry was set for the rising and fall of many in the then hermit land.