broken up, the price of sugar is fixed, as are the duties and charges, and presents are no longer required. That an estimate of the commercial importance of Siam may be made, we state, that the population of the capital and Bang-kok, an adjacent city, is four hundred and fifty thousand souls.

We proceed with Mr. Roberts to Muscat; the sole object of his visit to that kingdom being to effect a commercial treaty with his highness the Sultan, and to obtain a reduction of the duties and port charges, so as to place American commerce on a footing with other nations. This was accomplished without delay. Previous to the conclusion of the treaty, American vessels paid generally seven and a half per cent. upon imports, and the same upon exports, with anchorage money and presents; government claiming the right of pre-emption in both cases, as in Siam. By the treaty, the commerce of our country is burdened with but a single charge, viz., five per cent. on all merchandise landed; and it is freed from the charge of pilotage.

The Sultan of Muscat is more powerful than any native prince from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan; possessing a more efficient naval force. His possessions in Africa stretch from Cape Delgardo to Cape Gardafui; and in Arabia, from Cape Adento to the entrance to the Persian Gulf; and the coast of the Persian Gulf is tributary to him. From his African ports are exported gum-copal, aloes, gum-arabic, colombo-root, and other drugs, ivory, tortoise-shell, hides, beeswax, cocoanut oil, rice, etc. The exports from Muscat are, wheat, dates, horses, raisins, salt, dried fish, and drugs.

We have thus accompanied Mr., Roberts through the objects of his mission, and presented to the reader the results of his investigations so far as they are included in the scope of our intended inquiries. They will be perused with interest, we doubt not, for the information they convey, and the prospects they advance.

ART. IV.-COMMERCE WITH JAPAN.

Notes of the Voyage of the Morrison from Canton to Japan. By C. W. KING. New York: 1839. E. French.

THE monopoly which the Dutch have enjoyed in commerce with Japan for more than two centuries, to the almost entire exclusion of all other European nations, has often arrested the attention and excited the wonder of commercial men, while but few have taken the trouble to ascertain how this important privilege was first obtained, or how it has been secured till the present time. To Mr. King, a member of the highly respectable house of Talbot, Olyphant, & Co, and the accomplished author of the volume before us, the public, and particularly the commercial public, are greatly indebted, for the new light which he has thrown upon an important portion of Eastern Asia, in prosecuting a voyage, mainly dictated by the most honorable feelings of humanity-prompted by a desire to return to their native land several wretched exiles, some of whom had been wrecked near the mouth of the Oregon upon our own coast. Not the least entertaining and important part of Mr. King's work, is the introduc ion, containing a clear and well digested account of the intercourse, at different periods, of Europeans with the Japanese empire; and before we proceed to detail an account of the voyage,

we call the readers' attention to a synopsis of this part of the book, compiled chiefly from Charlevoix, Kaempfer, Krusenstern, and other writers, to whose works, from their great scarcity, the public cannot easily obtain ac

cess.

Accident first brought the Portuguese in contact with the remote empire of Japan. In the year 1542, Fernando Mendez Pinto, taking passage in a junk from China to Loochoo, was driven by a gale to one of the western islands of the Japanese archipelago. In the same year, the celebrated Xavier arrived at Goa, and began in India his apostolical career, and at the same time a commercial intercourse began between the western ports of Japan and Macao. In 1549, Xavier landed with two companions and a Japanese convert at Kagòsima, where, by permission of the prince of Satsumà, he founded a church and preached the gospel, and obtained many followers. Xavier was soon cut off by death, but he had many successors, who had to contend with the constantly fluctuating friendships of the princes and rulers. About the year 1566, the Portuguese traders first pointed out to the prince of Omura, the advantages of the harbor of Nagasaki over the ports they had been used to frequent. "Their suggestions," says Mr. King, "led to the formation of a settlement, which, ere long, became an important city, and which retains an unhappy celebrity down to our own day. It may give some idea of the rapid extension of catholicism at this time, to add, that the successor of Xavier died in 1570, having founded fifty churches, and baptized more than 30,000 converts with his own hands. Yet, mingled with these successes, we have accounts of the apostacy of one of the princes, and the persecutions inflicted by order of another."

In 1582, when Fide Yosi, the famous Taico, began his reign, he found himself under the necessity of favoring the Jesuits, many of his best officers being their friends. It is said that the monarch's refusal to give up his Harem, was at this time the only reason that he was not himself baptized. But Taico was ambitious and unprincipled, and soon came to an open rupture with the missionaries, assigning as one reason for this unfortunate change, the refusal of the ladies of Christian families to share the royal bed. In 1587 he issued his first edict for the banishment of the Catholics; they were required to retire to Firando within twenty days, and to depart from the country within six months, on pain of death.

"The crosses they had erected," says Mr. King, "were ordered to be thrown down, and the churches razed. The Portuguese trade was permitted to go on as before, but the merchants were forbidden to bring any more missionaries, or to speak on religious subjects with the Japanese. A hundred and twenty missionaries left their stations, in submission to this edict, and retired to Firando. An order then came for them all to embark in a ship about to sail for India. This was the test. A few obeyed, but the greater number refused to abandon their flocks, and once more scattered themselves through the principalities of Omura, Arima, Bungo, &c."

Under all the persecutions of various princes, the Jesuits retained a strong foothold in Japan, and the Portuguese continued to carry on a profitable commerce till the reign of Yeye Mitson. By his orders, the prison of Desima, off Nagasaki, was constructed, and in 1635 the Portuguese were there confined, and the Dutch taken into partial favor. The patience of the native Catholics became exhausted, and those of Arima and Simábara flew to arms. "Thirty-eight thousand of them," we quote from Mr. King, "fortified themselves in the latter place. The besieging army, eight thousand

strong, could not reduce the fortress; and the Dutch director, Kockebecker, was summoned to its aid. The walls of Simábara were battered by the Dutch cannon, and its brave defenders perished to a man, fighting to the last. Some apology might again be made for this co-operation at the siege of Simábara, had its defenders been the countrymen of Alva, or Requesens, or John of Austria, or Alexander Farnese. But truth requires that the measures of Kockebecker should be regarded as the alternative, which he deliberately preferred to the interruption of the Dutch trade."

Many false charges were preferred against the Portuguese; their ships, when they arrived, were ordered away. On the receipt of this information at Macao, great consternation prevailed, and four distinguished citizens were sent to soften the rigorous proceedings of the government of Japan. They arrived at Nagasaki in 1640, and were immediately put under arrest, and sentenced to death for entering the country in violation of the edict. The following impious inscription was placed on their common grave:-"So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let no Christians be so bold as to come to Japan; and let all know, that the king of Spain himself, or the Christian's God, or the great Saca, if he violate this command, shall pay for it with his head."

Thus ended the valuable commerce of the Portuguese with Japan, which at various times they vainly sought to renew. We now come to the history of the DUTCH INTERCOURSE.

Our preceding remarks have chiefly related, necessarily to a full understanding of the subject, to ecclesiastical matters; the history of the Dutch intercourse is strictly commercial in its details. The first ship belonging to the Dutch that visited Japan, was one of the five vessels that left the Texel, under command of Admiral Mahu, in 1588. Permission was obtained to trade with Japan, but some years passed away before use was made of it. On the arrival of Dutch ships in 1611, a formal edict in favor of their trade was obtained. A decided preference was shown to the Dutch nation by the reception of their envoy; while the Corean and Portuguese ambassadors were turned away. About the year 1627, an embassy from Batavia arrived in Japan, headed by the unfortunate Nuits. Mr. King observes,

"This envoy gave himself out as an accredited minister of the king of Holland, and was received as such; but when the imposition was detected, when his credentials were found to date from Batavia, the royal reply was withheld, and he was sent home. Appointed soon after governor of the Dutch settlements on Formosa, and not having forgotten his unceremonious dismissal, he seized two Japanese junks by way of revenge. After being detained on different pretexts for more than a year, the exasperated crews armed themselves, surrounded the house of Nuits, and made him prisoner, killing his guard. They then demanded their sails and anchors, indemnification for all their expenses, and twenty-five thousand pounds of silk, which they said they had advanced the money for in China, and which was now lost in consequence of their having been so long detained. The garrison, seeing their governor in danger, and fearing to commit a violence which might be revenged on all the Dutch at Firando, complied with these dermands. The Japanese were dismissed, and reported all to their government on their return home in 1631. When their story reached the Kubo, he ordered the ships of the Dutch Company, nine in number, to be seized, and the trade to be stopped. No explanation was given, and all the efforts of the director to obtain any, or to adjust the difficulty, were in vain. The utmost influence of

the director could only effect that their merchandise in Firando, amounting to a million of crowns, should be sold, and the proceeds retained.

"The Dutch relations remained in this anomalous situation three years. The non-arrival of vessels, and indirect reports, alarmed the authorities at Batavia, and a private vessel was sent to actam the true state of affairs. This vessel was permitted to discharge and receive a cargo, with which she returned to Batavia; but her voyage threw no light on the cause of these strange events. Meanwhile Nuits had been recalled to Batavia from Formosa, and kept under arrest. The impression became general that his detention of the Japanese junks was the outrage now so severely visited on the Dutch. In vain the poor man begged that he might be tried for his offence, and, if justice required, be put to death. It was determined to sacrifice him as a sin-offering to the offended Kubo, and in 1636 he was sent prisoner to Japan. On his landing, he was given up to the authorities as the author of the outrage at Formosa, and the mercy of the government besought on his behalf. The expiation was now made, the trade was re-opened, but Nuits was still held in suspense. An embassy came with rich presents the following year, the emperor was again entreated in favor of the humbled prisoner, and he was then released and permitted to return home. There are few instances in history of a more perfect execution of the lex talionis, of a more humiliating recoil of private revenge."

"The Dutch were now left in sole possession of the trade with Japan, and since that time, it is well known, their monopoly has never been disturbed. Their subsequent political intercourse has been limited to an occasional mission from Batavia, and the visits of the Dutch chief of the factory to Yeddo, formerly made annually, but now once in four years. Charlevoix mentions embassies in 1644, 1656, and 1659. It was while the second of these missions was at Yeddo, that two thirds of that city, and one hundred thousand of its population, were destroyed by fire. It remains to trace briefly the use the Dutch have made of the monopoly to which they had so long aspired.

"Of the assortment and value of their import cargoes, in the 17th century, we have little or no account. Their returns had been in silver chiefly, until 1641, when the directors of the company suggested returns in gold. Japanese copper was at this time in little estimation in Europe, because little known; but afterward, on a rise in value, it became an important return. The first order, for twenty thousand piculs, was sent out in 1655."

As early as 1571, the drain of their gold, silver, and copper, began to excite the fears of the Japanese; the export of silver was prohibited, but copper and gold still remained free. The amount of the latter exported by the Dutch in one year was one hundred thousand kobangs, and yielded a profit of one million florins. The government becoming more and more interested in the drain of their metals, at last laid heavy restrictions upon their commerce, and limited the value both of exports and imports. In 1700, the limitation already laid upon the imports was extended to the ships of the company, which were restricted to four per year; and as a further trial of patience, the export of copper was limited, in 1714, to fifteen thousand piculs, and the number of annual vessels to two or three, according to the quantity of copper in store. "Under these circumstances," says our author, "the trade, which had yielded an annual profit of five or six hundred thousand florins for the thirty years previous, would no longer pay the charges."

Relative to the reductions of the currency, Mr. King makes the following remarks:

"The successive reductions of the currency, and restrictions on metallic exports, were regarded by the Dutch as aimed entirely at them. But on this point we agree with Sir T. S. Raffles, that the Japanese government probably had higher aims. In fact, it seems clear that the enormous export of gold and silver coin was felt as a great evil in a country where paper money was not known. This drain is variously estimated at from thirty to sixty million pounds sterling, in the sixty years when the export was free. Now, if the influx of specie from the American mines in the sixteenth century, at the rate of six million pounds per annum, speedily reduced the value of gold and silver in Europe to one third what it was before, how probable it is that the circulating medium of a country so small as Japan would be seriously diminished by so great a drain. In fact, with the views which the Japan ministers possessed, we can only wonder that the export was permitted so long. The subject is not one beyond the range of Asiatics. A comparatively trifling export of silver, resulting from the opium trade, is at this moment engaging the cabinet of Pekin, and has elicited very able memorials from Chinese statesmen within the last twelve months. The love of gold and silver, and the reluctance to part with them, are no doubt indigenous every where, even in China and Japan. The restrictions on the export of copper seem to have arisen from similar fears of exhausting the mines. Many years later, we find a pretended friend of the Dutch counselling that so much only should be exported annually as the country would for ever afford; because trade is the basis of the friendship of the Hollanders, and copper is the support of the trade.''

In 1811, when Holland fell under the French occupation, Great Britain took possession of the Javan Islands, and the Dutch residents at Nagasaki were more than three years without communication with Europe.

It is not to be supposed that the Dutch monopolists will permit any tempting disclosures to be made relative to their profits; but, from their own mismanagement, they have probably not been great at any period since 1740.

It is hardly necessary to give a detailed account of the frequent attempts made by England to open a commercial intercourse with Japan; it will be sufficient to mention the last effort, which terminated in a failure.

In June, 1819, Captain Gordon touched at the bay of Yeddo, on his way to Ochotsk, in a small brig; he forwarded to Yeddo, through some government officers, a request to trade. The petition was rejected, and thirty junks sent to tow the brig out of the bay.

In 1803, the Russians, desirous of opening an intercourse between Kamtschatka and China, dispatched an expedition under the direction of M. Resanoff. Long negotiations followed the arrival of the ambassador at Nagasaki, and the result of six months' conferences was, that the letters and presents of the emperor were rejected, and an edict issued, that in future no Russian ship should approach the coasts of Japan. It is worthy of being mentioned, that some shipwrecked Japanese, carried home by the Russians, were immediately sentenced to imprisonment for life, it being a law in Japan that no person shall leave the country and return to it without death or imprisonment.

When that famous and extraordinary man, Colbert, took charge of the deranged finances of France, he with wonderful foresight projected an expedition to Japan, which, however, from causes that do not appear, was never carried into execution.

The voyage of the Morrison commenced on the 3d July, 1836. We have