Japan and the Japanese

502 JAPAN. A. D. 18171850.
Glyn complained of these guard-boats ; and he gave him also a
letter to the governor of Nagasaki, stating his object. The same
officer having returned on the 22d, but only with promises of a
speedy answer. Captain Glyn remonstrated with warmth. Finally,
on the '26th, through the intervention of the Dutch director, who,
being sick himself, sent one of his subordinates on board, the
sailors were delivered up without waiting to send to Jedo, as
had been proposed. The day before, a curious memorandum in
Japanese Dutch, a sort of journal or history of the prisoners since
their capture, was handed to the captain, who was very hard-pressed
to say whether he would sail as soon as he received them. Another
memorandum in Dutch was also handed to him, to the effect, that as
all shipwrecked mariners were sent home by the Chinese or Dutch,
this special sending for them was not to be allowed.
It appears, from the statements of the men, that they were, ia
fact, deserters, having left the Ladoga near the Straits of Sangar.
At a village on the coast of Jeso, where they landed, they were
supplied with rice and firewood, but while they staid were guarded
by soldiers, and surrounded by a cloth screen, as if to keep them
from seeing the country. Landing two days after at another vil-
lage, they were detained as prisoners, and were confined in a house
guarded by soldiers ; but for some time were amused by promises
that they should be released and furnished with a boat. Disap-
pointed in this expectation, two of them escaped, but were speedily
recaptured. A quarrel taking place between them, one of them
was shut up in a cage, and two others, having made a second escape,
after being retaken were shut up with him. A new quarrel happen-
ing in the cage, one of the prisoners was taken out and severely
whipped. Two months after their capture, the whole number were
put in a junk, the three close prisoners in one cage, the twelve
others in another, and forwarded to Nagasaki. They were lodged
at first in a palisaded and guarded house, and were subjected to
several interrogations, being flattered with hopes of being sent home
in the Dutch vessel then in the harbor. In order to get on board
her, McCoy (who described himself as twenty-three years old, and
born in Philadelphia, and who appears to have been the most intel-
ligent of the party) made a third escape. Japanese jails, he ob
served, might do well rnough for Japanese, but could not hold