Japan and the Japanese

500 JAPAN. A. D. 18171850.
Japan, and gone to pieces. The director wished to send them to
Batavia in the annual Dutch vessel, then about to sail, but for this
a reference to Jedo was necessary, which would take forty dav s,
much beyond the time fixed by the Japanese rule for the departure
of the ship.
These facts having been communicated, under date of Jan. 27,
1849, by the Dutch consul at Canton to the American commissioner
there, Captain Geisenger, in command on that station, despatched
the sloop-of-war Preble, Commander Glyn, to Nagasaki, to bring
away these sailors.
Glyn touched at Lew Chew, where he learned from the Rev. B.
J. Bettelheim,* a missionary resident there, that very exaggerated
reports had reached these islands of chastisement inflicted upon an
American officer who had visited Jedo in a " big " ship. The mis-
sionary seemed even to think that these reports were not without
their influence upon the authorities of Lew Chew, as the cause of a
" "
want of accommodation exhibited in their conduct towards the
Preble, a piece of information which had its influence in lead-
ing Captain Glyn to assume a very decided tone in his subsequent
intercourse with the authorities of Nagasaki.
The Preble made the land off Nagasaki on the 17th of April.
Japanese boats, which soon came alongside, threw on board a bam-
boo, in the split of which were papers containing the customary
notifications to foreign vessels, as to their anchorage, and the con
duct they were to observe, and certain questions which they were
to answer. These papers (in English, with some Dutch variations)
were verbatim as follows :
* Dr. Bettelheim is at this moment in this country, anxious to be employed
as a missionary to Japan, for which his experience, derived from a nine
years' residence in Lew Chew, gives him peculiar qualifications. His treatment
there was characteristic. The authorities were anxious to get rid of
him, but afraid to send him away by force, while he was determined not to
go. The inhabitants were ordered to keep away from his house, to sell him
nothing beyond a supply of food, and to avoid him whenever he came near ;
while officers were appointed to watch and to follow him wherever he went.
See Glyn's Letter in Senate Documents, 1851 1852, vol. ix., No. 59. There
are also two curious pamphlets on the subject, written by Dr. Bettelheim,
and printed at Canton.