t the spirit
of the edict of Gongen Sama, which expelled Europeans forever from the
country, and enjoined natives to slay foreigners, still actuates the
ruling classes in the insular empire of the Pacific. Hence the
exclamation of the daring and potent prince of Kago, who, in 1853, when
the American treaty was before the Daimios, in council, placing his hand
upon the hilts of his swords, said: 'Rather than admit foreigners into
the country, let us die fighting.' He was overruled--a decade has
elapsed, and his forebodings of evil have been realized. One of the
results of the concession to Americans has been a despatch from Earl
Russell to the British minister at Yedo, which says: 'It would be better
that the Tycoon's palace should be destroyed than that our rightful
position by treaty should be weakened or impaired.' When a British
minister threatens to burn a palace, Eastern Asiatics know full well
that the torch will be preceded by a bombardment and followed by
_looting_, which in Anglo-Indian parlance means plundering. Thirteen
ships of war, two of them French, are at Yokahama, within a few hours'
sail of the palace which adorns Yedo, the proud metropolis of the 'Land
of the Rising Sun,' awaiting an answer to a British ultimatum.

As the Japanese are neighbors of our countrymen whose homes are on our
Pacific coast, we should not be so absorbed in the struggle to maintain
our nationality as to be unmindful of the perils by which they are
surrounded. While the subjugation of Mexico, by one of the Allied
Powers, which aims at a general protectorate of the East, causes us
anxiety, the prospective invasion of Japan by the other power cannot but
be regarded by us with solicitude, for in its results it promises to
open another 'neutral' port to facilitate the operations of other
_Nashvilles_ and _Alabamas_ against our commerce. Assuming that we shall
speedily avert the impending danger of foreign domination involved in
the present contest, the various questions affecting American interests
in Eastern Asia become fitting subjects for discussion, and at this
moment the foreign relations of Japan particularly demand consideration.

At one period of their history, the foreign relations of the Japanese
were of the most amicable character. In their treatment of the Europeans
who first visited them, they were courteous and liberal. For a period of
ninety years the Portuguese carried on a highly lucrative commerce, by
which they bu