Japan and the Japanese

550 JAPAV. A. D. 1864 I860.
With the signing of these treaties the Japanese authorities
may be considered as having yielded the point of the reestablishment
of foreign intercourse. But a great difference
of opinion, a,s to this policy, is understood still to exist among
the nobles and princes of the empire; and it is not impossible
that these concessions to foreigners may lead to internal com-
motions.
By one of the articles of this new treaty, negotiated by Mr.
Harris, the Japanese agreed to send an embassy to Washington,
as bearers of the Emperor's ratification. The fulfilment of this
promise was for some time delayed, partly, perhaps, by reason
of the caution and slowness characteristic of Japanese policy,
but principally, it is supposed, on account of the strong opposition
of a large party of the princes and nobles to the new
scheme of foreign intercourse. At length, however, on the
27th of February, I860, the ambassadors, three in number,
with a suite of seventy-three persons, embarked on board the
United States steamer, the Powhattan, the American government
having undertaken to convey them to the United States,
and to carry them back again. The Candinamarrah, a war
steamer of two hundred and fifty tons, built for the Japanese
by the Dutcb, and manned with a Japanese crew of seventy
men, arrived at San P'rancisco on the 14th of March, after a
passage of forty days from the Bay of Jedo, to give notice of
the approach of the ambassadors. The Powhattan, after touch-
ing at the Sandwich Islands, reached Panama on the 25th of
April. The ambassadors, with their attendants, -were imme-
diately conveyed on the railroad to Aspinwall, where, the next
day, they embarked on board the
lying there to receive them. The
U. S. steamer Roanoke.
Roanoke sailed for New
York, but on arriving at Sandy Hook she was ordered to Nor-
should be
folk, it having been determined that the embassy
first received at Washington. At Norfolk the Japanese were
transferred to the steamer Philadelphia. They reached Wash-
ington on the 14th of May, disembarked at the Navy Yard,
and were then conveyed to quarters which had been provided