Japan and the Japanese

430 JAPAX. A. D. 17791791.
taviu, to instruct the Japanese in
building vessels, especially for the
transport of copper from Osaka to Nagasaki, in which service many
Japanese vessels luul been lost, with their cargoes; but this Titsingh
knew to be impossible, as skilful carpenters were too rare at Bata-
via to be spared. He therefore proposed to take with him, on his
return to Batuvia, a number of Japanese to be instructed there;
but the prohibition against any native leaving the country proved
an insurmountable obstacle. He then promised to have a model
ship built at Batavia, and conveyed to Nagasaki, which was done
by himself, on his last visit to Japan; but the assassination of
Tonoma, above mentioned, which had happened during his absence
at Batavia, put an end to all hopes that had been formed of a mod-
ification in the exclusive policy of the Japanese.
This Tonoma (son of Tonomo, ordinary councillor, and uncle of
the
Siogun) was, according to Titsingh's account, a young man of
uncommon merit and liberal ideas, and the anti-frog-in-a-well
party flattered themselves that when he should succeed his father,
he would, as they expressed it, "widen the road." After his ap-
pointment as extraordinary councillor, he and his father incurred,
as Titsingh states, the hatred of the grandees of the court, by intro-
ducing various innovations, which the " Frogs in a well " censured
as detrimental to the empire. It was to this feeling that his assas-
sination was ascribed, a crime which put an end to the hopes which
had begun to be entertained, of seeing Japan opened to foreigners,
and of its inhabitants being allowed to visit other countries.
The appetite fir foreign knowledge which Thunberg had noticed,
was also observed by Titsingh.
"
During my residence in Japan,"
so he writes in the above quoted Introduction, " several persons of
quality, at Jedo, Miako, and Osaka, applied themselves assiduously
to the acquisition of the Dutch language, and the reading of our
books. The prince of Satsuma, father-in-law of the present Djogonn,
used our alphabet to express in his letters what he wished a
third person not to understand. The surprising progress made by
the prince of Tamba, by Katsagawa Hozun, physician to the Djogoun,
and Nakawa Siinnau, physician to the prince of Wakassa,*
* These two were the very pupils of Thunberg, though
names somewhat differently.
he writes theU