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 438  adhered to, in spite of a weak effort, in the reign of Charles II., and of several subsequent ones by England under the auspices of Sir Stamford Raffles, then Governor of Java, as well by the Russians, who as early as the year 1792 tried to obtain a footing in the country. But to all there was one reply. “Formerly our empire had communication with several nations, but experience has caused us to adopt the opposite course. It is not permitted unto Japanese to trade abroad, nor can foreigners enter our country.”

When the monopoly of the trade to China by the East India Company was abrogated, a wonderful expansion of commerce between that country and Europe, as well as America, immediately ensued. The ten years which elapsed between 1830 and 1840 did more to open up our knowledge of the countries lying beyond the Indian Ocean, than the previous century had done; and this progress was still further stimulated by the development of trade which followed the measures adopted by great Britain to resent the insults of Chinese officials, in 1840, 41-42. Our missionaries, and the merchants, labouring in China, found themselves at Shanghai, only a few hundred miles from another country, named Japan, once as famous for its profitable trade as they well knew China to be, and inhabited by a race reputed to have been once upon a time nigh all Christians. It was natural both should turn a longing eye to such a quarter, but the enterprise of either party was but lukewarm. We Protestants are but poor missionaries, and the Romanists had quite enough to do to meet the vast demand upon their missions in China; whilst our merchants soon found ample employment for all available capital in the silks and teas of the Central Land. The efforts, therefore, of those sections of the English and American communities in China were all ill-digested, feverish, and exhibited no perseverance or determination; whilst the British officials, though evidently hankering after a trade with Japan, did nothing effective towards the desired end.

Between 1840 and 1850, however, the attention of European nations was attracted to the shores and islands of both the North and Pacific Oceans, by the double insult Great Britain had supinely submitted to, in having her flag and subjects trampled on by Frenchmen in the Protestantised island of Otaheite; and being bullied and cajoled out of her indubitable territories in Oregon and on the banks of the Columbia River, by the cabinet of Washington. France and America then simultaneously discovered that that great South Sea, that hemisphere of water dotted with rich islands, and washing the shores of Asia and America, was likely to play before long an important part in the history of the world. France and America acted; England, represented by a set of old parties who thought that she was quite great enough, and, judging by their own feelings, had misgivings as to her present strength and future destiny, put on their spectacles, flourished their mops, and looked on.

In 1846, the American Republic, with