oposed to such a Power,
it was necessary to settle the great preliminary that commerce would be
allowed at all. Again, if that preliminary was settled affirmatively, a
second point of great moment remained to be discussed, viz., to what
degree shall intercourse for trading be extended? Among nations
accustomed to the usages of Christendom, the principles and extent of
national comity in the interchanges of commercial transactions have been
so long and so well defined and understood that, as between them, the
term "commercial treaty" needs no explanation; its meaning is
comprehended alike by all, and in its stipulations it may cover the very
broad extent that includes everything involved in the operations of
commerce between two maritime nations. But in a kingdom which, in its
polity, expressly ignored commerce and repudiated it as an evil instead
of a good, it was necessary to lay the very foundation as well as to
adjust the terms.

Hence the instructions to Commodore Perry covered broad ground, and his
letters of credence conformed to his instructions. If he found the
Japanese disposed to abandon, at once and forever, their deliberately
adopted plan of non-intercourse with foreigners (an event most
unlikely), his powers were ample to make with them a commercial treaty
as wide and general as any we have with the nations of Europe. If they
were disposed to relax but in part their jealous and suspicious system,
formally to profess relations of friendship, and, opening some only of
their ports to our vessels, to allow a trade in those ports between
their people and ours, he was authorized to negotiate for this purpose,
and secure for his country such privileges as he could, not inconsistent
with the self-respect which, as a nation, we owed to ourselves. It must
not be forgotten, in the contemplation of what was accomplished, that
our representative went to a people who, at the time of his arrival
among them, had, both by positive law and usage of more than two hundred
years, allowed but one of their harbors, Nagasaki, to be opened to
foreigners at all; had permitted no trade with such foreigners when they
did come, except, under stringent regulations, with the Dutch and the
Chinese; were in the habit of communicating with the world outside of
them at second-hand only, through the medium of the Dutch who were
imprisoned at Dezima; and a people who, as far as we know, never made a
formal treaty with a civilized nation in the