Page:American Diplomacy in the Orient - Foster (1903).djvu/168

 to the Secretary of State that the document which was handed to Commodore Biddle as the reply of the emperor had been prepared with an evidently studied and intentional disregard of the rules of courtesy that are usually observed in the written intercourse of nations; that it was addressed to no one, and was without signature or date; and that he considered it as an additional proof of the extreme reluctance of the Japanese to enter into commercial relations with foreigners. He further reported that Commodore Biddle did not seem to have opened the negotiations with discretion, and that he had placed the subject in a rather less favorable position than that in which it stood before.

Dr. Parker, in charge of the legation at Canton, transmitted to the Secretary of State in 1848 an account of the imprisonment and harsh treatment by the Japanese of the surviving members of the crew of the American whaler Lawrence, wrecked on the Japanese coast, and added that from previous instructions it was evident that the President was fully impressed with the expediency of negotiating a treaty with Japan to secure at least "humane treatment" to shipwrecked American sailors. This was followed the same year by information received at Canton through the Dutch consul that fifteen American sailors from another whaling vessel—the Lagoda—were held as prisoners by the Japanese. This led the commander of the American East India squadron to send a vessel to Japan to demand their surrender. Commander Glynn, with the Preble, went to Nagasaki in 1849, and, regardless of the rules which required foreign vessels to anchor down the bay, sailed