the choice also of the mercantile
community, the ambassadors could not well press their point--it went by
default. It is the misfortune of Orientals generally, that in all their
controversies with the English, the latter have been the
historiographers, and therefore, in almost every step of their
aggressive career, appear as disinterested champions of justice, seeking
the improvement of semi-civilized peoples, by inflicting upon them
wholesome and merited chastisement. Let it be conceded that the charges
against the Japanese which we find in the Blue Book and in Sir
Rutherford Alcock's 'Capital of the Tycoon,' are all well founded, and
the resort to strong measures on the part of the British will be
admitted to be justifiable.

These authorities narrate a series of murderous assaults, made upon
Russian, French, Dutch, American, and British subjects in quick
succession, indicative, we are assured, of a fixed determination of a
powerful party to restore the regime of Gongen Sama. A party of Russian
officers were insulted in the streets of Yedo, for which, in compliance
with the demands of Count Mouravieff, a responsible official was
degraded. To avenge this disgrace of a Japanese officer, some of his
friends set upon a Russian officer and his servant, hacking them to
pieces in one of the public streets. The next victim was a servant of
the French consul, who was hewn down and cut to pieces in the street.
This was soon followed by the murder of the linguist of the British
embassy, a Chinaman; the sword which was thrust through his body was
left in that position by the assassin. The same night there was an
attempt to fire the residence of the French consul general. Two Dutch
captains were next barbarously slaughtered in the streets of Yokuhama;
one of the unhappy men was over sixty years of age. The French legation
again suffered in the person of an Italian servant, who was cut down
while quietly standing at his master's gate. Mr. Heuskin, secretary of
the United States legation, was the first assailed of the diplomatic
body. He was a valuable public servant, highly esteemed by natives and
foreigners. A native of Holland, he was linguist as well as secretary,
the Dutch language being the medium of communication. Despite various
warnings against exposing himself by night, he, on returning home at a
late hour from the Prussian embassy, was waylaid and hewn down, dying
speedily of his wounds. Hitherto the English, personally,