Japan and the Japanese

504 JAPAN. A. D. 18171850.
ceding page) before it was thus mentioned to them by the Japanese.
McDonald, before his release, was requested by the Japanese to
describe the relative rank of the commander of the Preble, by count-
ing down in the order of succession from the highest
chief in the
United States. Like a true republican, he began with the people ;
but the Japanese, he says, could make nothing of that. He then
enumerated the grades of president, secretary of the navy, commo-
dore, post captain and commander, which latter rank, being that of
the officer in question, seemed so elevated as rather to excite the
surprise of his auditors.
Five weeks after the departure of the Preble, on the 29th of
May, Commander Matheson, in the British surveying ship Mariner,
anchored in the bay of Jedo, off the town of Uragawa, and three
miles higher up, according to his statement, than any other vessel
had been allowed to proceed. As he entered the bay, he was met
by ten boats. A paper was handed up, in Dutch and French, re-
questing him not to anchor, nor cruise in the bay ; but when the
Japanese found he was determined to proceed, they offered to tow
him. During the night he was watched by boats and from the
shore. Having a Japanese interpreter on board, he communicated
the object of his visit, and sent his card on shore to the governor
of the town, with a note in Chinese, proposing to wait upon him ;
to which the governor replied, that it was contrary to the law for
foreigners to land, and that he should lose his life if he allowed
Captain Matheson to come on shore, cr to proceed any higher up
the bay.
The survey of the anchorage having been completed, Matheson
proceeded, on the 31st, to the bay of Samoda. on the other side of
the promontory of Idsu, where he spent five days in surveying, and
was detained two days longer by the weather. After the second
day, he was visited by an interpreter, who understood Dutch, and
\>y two officers from Urawaga, apparently spies on each other, to
watch his proceedings ; and finally an officer of rank, from a town
thirteen miles off, came on board. There were three fishing villages
at the anchorage, and he landed for a short time, but the Japanese
officers followed, begging and entreating him to go on board again.