driven by distress or tempestuous weather into a
Japanese port, she might only remain so long as was necessary to meet
her wants, and must then depart. Laperouse knew of this jealous
Japanese antipathy to foreign visitors, and, as he explains in the
letter, meant to keep away from the country because of it. He wrote:--

"The part of our voyage between Manilla and Kamchatka will afford you,
I hope, complete satisfaction. It was the newest, the most interesting,
and certainly, from the everlasting fogs which enveloped the land in
the latitudes we traversed, the most difficult. These fogs are such
that it has taken one hundred and fifty days to explore a part of the
coast which Captain King, in the third volume of Cook's last voyage,
supposes might be examined in the course of two months. During this
period I rested only ten days, three in the Bay of Ternai, two in the
Bay de Langle, and five in the Bay de Castries. Thus I wasted no time;
I even forebore to circumnavigate the island of Chicha (Yezo) by
traversing the Strait of Sangaar (Tsugaru). I should have wished to
anchor, if possible, at the northern point of Japan, and would perhaps
have ventured to send a boat ashore, though such a proceeding would
have required the most serious deliberation, as the boat would probably
have been stopped. Where a merchant ship is concerned an event of this
kind might be considered as of little importance, but the seizure of a
boat belonging to a ship of war could scarcely be otherwise regarded
than as a national insult; and the taking and burning of a few sampans
would be a very sorry compensation as against the people who would not
exchange a single European of whom they were desirous of making an
example, for one hundred Japanese. I was, however, too far from the
coast to include such an intention, and it is impossible for me to
judge at present what I should have done had the contrary been the
case.

"It would be difficult for me to find words to express to you the
fatigue attending this part of my voyage, during which I did not once
undress myself, nor did a single night pass without my being obliged to
spend several hours upon deck. Imagine to yourself six days of fog with
only two or three hours of clear weather, in seas extremely confined,
absolutely unknown, and where fancy, in consequence of the information
we had received, pictured to us shoals and currents that did not always
exist. From the place where we made the land o