Japan and the Japanese

RUSSIAN MISSION THITHER. 445
In 1791, the Argonaut, an English ship employed in the fur
trade on the north-west coast of America, made the western coast
of Japan, and attempted to trade ;
but she was immediately sur-
rounded by lines of boats ; all intercourse with the shore was prevented,
and she was dismissed with a gratuitous supply of wood
and water. In 1795-7, Captain Broughton, in an English explor-
ing vessel, coasted the southern and eastern shore of Jeso, sailed
among the southern Kuriles, and touched at several places on the
southern part of Sagaleen. Besides the natives, he found a few
Japanese, who treated him with much attention, but were very
anxious for his speedy departure. Japanese officers came from
Jeso, expressly to look after him, to restrict his communications
and to send him off, with all
civility indeed, but as speedily as
possible.
Previous to Broughton's voyage, Russia had already made a first
attempt at a commercial and diplomatic intercourse with Japan.
The crew of a Japanese vessel, shipwrecked in the Sea of Okhotsk,
had been saved by the Russians, about 1782, and taken to Irkutsk,
in Siberia, where they lived for ten years. At length the governor
of Siberia was directed, by the empress Catherine II., to send home
these Japanese, and with them an envoy, not as from her, but from
himself. Lieutenant Laxman, selected for this purpose, sailed from
Okhotsk in the autumn of 1792, landed on the northern coast of
Jeso, and passed the winter there. The next summer he entered
the harbor of Hakodade, on the northern coast of the Strait of
Sangar. From that town he travelled by land to the city of Mats-
niai, three days' journey to the west, and the chief Japanese settle-
ment on the island, the authorities of which, after communicating
" That
with Jedo, delivered to him a paper to the following effect :
although it was ordained by the laws of Japan, that any foreigners
should be seized
landing anywhere on the coast, except at Nagasaki,
and condemned to perpetual imprisonment ; yet, considering the
ignorance of the Russians, and their having brought back the shipwrecked
Japanese, they might be permitted to depart, on condition
of never approaching, under any pretence, anj part of the coast
except Nagasaki. As to the Japanese brought back, the government
was much obliged to the Russians ; who, however, were at
liberty to leave them or take them away again, as they pleased, it
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