Japan and the Japanese

454 JAPAN. A. D. 17921817.
colors,* and was towed to the anchorage by an immense number of
boats. A Dutchman came on board, and advised them to haul
down their colors, as the Japanese were much displeased with
Russia. The Japanese declined to trade, and asked what the ship
wanted. Being told water and fresh provisions, they sent on board
a plentiful supply of fish, hogs, vegetables, and tubs of water, for
which they would take no pay. Finding that no trade was to be
had, on the third day the captain lifted his anchors, and was towed
to sea by near a hundred boats.
In October, 1808, about the time that the annual Dutch vessel
was expected, a ship appeared off Nagasaki, under Dutch colors,
and, without any suspicion, two Dutchmen of the factory, followed
by the usual Japanese officers in another boat, proceeded to board
her. The Dutchmen were met by a boat from the vessel, and were
requested in Dutch to come into it. Upon their proposal to wait
for the Japanese boat, the strangers boarded them with drawn cut-
lasses, and forced them on board the ship, which proved to be the
English frigate Phaeton, Captain Pellew. The Japanese row- d back
with the news of what had happened, by which Nagasaki and all
its officers were thrown into a state of the greatest agitation.
While the governor of Nagasaki was exchanging messages with
director Doeff, as to what could be the meaning of this occurrence,
Captain Pellew, who was in search of the animal Dutch ship, stood
directly into the harbor, without a pilot. The director, fearing to
be himself taken, fled, with the other Dutchmen, to the governor's
house.
" In the town," he "
says, everything was in
frightful
embarrassment and confusion. The governor was in a state of in-
describable wrath, which fell, in the first instance, upon the Japan-
ese officers, for having returned without the Dutchmen, or infor-
mation as to what nation the ship belonged to. Before I could
ask him a question, he said to me, with fury in his face,
' Be
quiet, director ; I shall take care that your people are restored.'
But the governor soon learned, to his consternation, that at the
harbor guard-house, where a thousand men ought to have been
* See " A Voyage Round the World," by Archibald Campbell, a Scotchman,
who served as a common saila
her arrival.
on board this ship. Doeif also mentions