Letters: considering the rapid occurrence of events of moment now-a-days, and the lightning transmission of intelligence, it was with joy we got letters on our arrival at Hong Kong, having been for over half a year, so far as news was concerned, inhumed in a remote country. The official news was, that we were ordered home by way of California and South America, at which all were overjoyed; and the commodore was granted permission to return to the United States via Europe, at government expense. Many a poor fellow got letters that had been waiting for him in Hong Kong a long time, and at the same time letters from others of later date, that told that the writers of the former ones could never write again.

We found in the harbor the ships of the surveying squadron under Commodore Ringgold, among which was the since ill-fated Porpoise.

There had been no improvement in the intestine troubles. An American captain had been murdered by the Chinese; and the dearly-beloved occupants of the hongs of Canton, feeling insecure in the possession of their “filthy lucre”—for if the “chop dollar” of China is not filthy lucre, I know not what it is—the Mississippi proceeded to her old anchorage at Whampoa, and sent men and howitzers, as before, up to the city. The captain of the American ship Amity, having been murdered by two of his foreign crew, the next morning after our arrival through the intervention of “Judge Lynch,” their bodies were seen suspended from either yard-arm of their vessel.

The state of affairs in Canton being deemed imminent, the little jolly-boat English steamer, called the Queen, which the commodore had hired and left off the hongs, previous to our leaving for Japan in January, ran down and took up another force to the city. A body of rebels had captured the wealthy and populous city Fuhshan, about twenty miles from Canton, and the mandarins were doing nothing to arrest their progress. One morning, for this purpose, a detachment of a thousand men under a brigadier, were quietly taking up their ground, when they were surprised by a party of rebels, and before they could seize their arms, some hundreds of them and their camp-followers were killed, and the rest escaped pell-mell into the city. The tents, matchlocks, and ammunition, were all carried off, and the brigadier was among the missing.

I had an opportunity during this visit of seeing the largest fleet of the emperor, which had an immense number of streamers flying: and also at an early hour of making a visit to the tea-packing establishments at Honan, whose inmates appeared ready to decamp at short notice.

Vessels going down the Pekiang were crowded with Chinese flying from the place, and the river steamers were chartered at enormous rates; so that the total emigration to Macao and Hong Kong was not much under five thousand, including several men of distinction, such as the brothers of Heu Chang-kwang, the provincial treasurer, and their families, and of Puntingqua and his family, to Macao; and Howqua and Eesing with their families to Hong Kong.

On the 29th of July we were at Hong Kong, and the 11th of August saw us again at Whampoa, together with that noble steam-frigate the Susquehanna, that had not long been back from a very interesting trip to Nanking.

On the 15th of August, when taking our final departure from Whampoa, we saw a Dutch ship fired upon from a rebel battery; also one of the mandarin boats, running up powder, but the fleetness of their sailing, and the bad gunnery of the Chinese, enabled them to go by unharmed.

Having to wait the return of the Macedonian with Captain Abbott, to whom the command of the three remaining ships was to be transferred, the commodore fixed September 11th for the day of his departure by the oriental steamer. In the meantime the Susquehanna, which with the Mississippi, was to make the long stretch across the Pacific, departed for Simoda, Japan—on her first and only visit to that place—towing the Southampton, laden with coal, intended for the use of the two steamers in their run from Japan of over three thousand miles to Honolulu. The storeships Supply and Lexington were also despatched homeward by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. It is scarcely necessary to give the state of affairs in China at the time of the departure of these ships. The fighting of the Chinese—if fighting it might be called—continued, and we had reports one day how the city of Sling-Gin had been captured by the insurgents, and another day, that the imperialists still held the city of Gin-Sling.

The Chinese government insists upon its officers, saying, when required to perform anything for it, what the Frenchman told the lady: “Madam, if possible, it is done already; if impossible, it shall be done”—though placing no means at their disposal for accomplishing the desired result.

The following being so very Chinese, I insert it. T’sing-ling nor Tae-yung could not prevent the capture of Woo-chang. On reading the report of its downfall, the emperor said: “It is impossible to repress my grief and indignation. That Tae-yung, though charged with two provinces, seems not to have had a single plan for their defence. Formerly we deprived him of official rank, with the hope that he would exert himself and make amends for previous errors; but lo! he follows his old habits, and has thus brought disaster on a large portion of the empire; this is most detestable and abominable. Let Tae-yung be instantly deprived of office, and handed over to the direction of Yang-pae. We also order Yang-pae to hasten to his new appointment, and place himself at the head of all the troops in those provinces, in order immediately to exterminate these rebels, and recover the provincial capital out of their hands; afterward let him sweep away this pestilence, in order to fulfil the object for which we have intrusted him with this great command. Let him also endeavor to ascertain what has become of all the officers both civil and military who were formerly stationed at Woo-chang, and report. Respect this.”

But the Macedonian having gotten back from Manilla, the time had arrived when Opperbevelhebber Perry was to leave in the mail-steamer. This interesting event took place on the 11th of September, one day after the date of the great naval-battle of his Hyperion brother on Lake Erie, and one before the battle of North Point, and three before the allied armies landed in the Crimea. Previous to this important epoch, the American (!) merchants at Canton addressed him an epistle as characteristic as the speech of the

This bijou of toadyism had this for a superscription:—

His Excellency Commodore Matthew C. Perry,
Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces U.S., in the East India, China,
and Japan Seas, and late Envoy to Japan, &c., &c., &c.

They first acknowledged the promptitude with which he extended protection to their interests, so much needed, during his command in those seas.

“Protection.” Commodore Perry arrived in the waters in the vicinity of Canton, on the 7th of April, 1853, and on the 27th of the same month he ran up to Shanghae, and after a short stay there, he bundled off with all the ships he could to the island of Loo-Choo, where he lay inert from the 26th of May to the 2d day of July; and did not return to China until August. The gentlemen who much do congregate on the rialto of Canton, address “His Excellency,” concerning the magnitude of the interests, which requires protection, and the storeship Supply, like the other ships, not being required until the next visit to Japan, she is sent up to lay off the hongs. This tub to the mercantile whale, satisfied for a time, but when the period arrived for the return to Japan, luckily for “His Excellency,” the merchants suggested the charter of a miserable little English steamer, and he not regarding it his duty to inform the opium gentry, that the carronades of the Supply would afford more protection than the penny-whistle battery of the jolly-boat steamer, gladly withdrew the needed storeship, and chartered the Queen. The puny craft when started in Hong Kong harbor, was amusing. A Chinaman on one wheel-house with a bamboo-pole, prized the wheel over the “centre,” and four or five men being required at her “starting-bar,” when they got her going they did not like to stop her, and she spun about the harbor like a chicken, minus his head. The arms of her wheels being wood, before getting over to Macao she broke off several. Her pop-guns, only two of which were aside, had perhaps never been “scaled,”

As Hon. Humphrey Marshall said, in speaking of the protection afforded by the American opperbevelhebber:—

“What are the means? A British steamer of one hundred and fifty tons, manned by twenty sailors and ten Chinese, and carrying an armament of four guns of four-pound calibre each. In the event of a disturbance, the Queen may suffice to transport the women and children of American citizens from the city, provided they reach her decks without molestation; but to defend the lives or property of American citizens here in the presence of an invading mob or a band of robbers, the provision made is not equal to any exigency whatever.”

After some vernacular of the shop—he went to Japan with their “best wishes freighted,”—they indulge in wonderful erudition about Columbus, De Gama, Cook, La Perouse, and Magellan, and they wind up with the pleasant tangible, of requesting his acceptance of a durable memorial of his visit to China, as a testimony of the estimation in which they held his public services and private character.

The “durable memorial” was understood to be a service of silver, since made in the United States, and perhaps none the less brilliant because opium syce may have paid for it; and, as a change must have come over the commodore’s dream, for on the 9th of October, 1853, he writes to the secretary of the navy: “The most profitable branch of trade carried on by many of the Americans, English, and other foreigners, is of a clandestine character, in violation of the laws of China and the stipulations of the Cushing treaty; and it is difficult for a naval commander, in extending the protection of his ship, to distinguish between the property engaged in the legal or illegal trade.” And in concluding the same despatch, he says: “In my business with Japan, where as yet there are no American merchants, or diplomatic agents, I have the assurance of not being interfered with, and shall be able to act with energy and promptitude, and without embarrassment, and whether successful or otherwise, the responsibility will all rest upon myself.”

Then comes an epistle from four little Malwa and Patna “tuft-hunters” of Hong Kong, who also like to make Judy Fitzsimmons of themselves. After giving “His Excellency” much that is fulsome and adulatory, they speak of his having opened the “commerce” of Japan, “not only to us, but to the world.” What nonsense.

We have no commercial treaty with Japan, but only one “of peace and amity,” and strange that the newspapers will persist in saying so. Mischief may come of it in inducing some Yankee trader to go there with an assorted cargo, who will be very apt to have his labor for his pains.

But for the seriousness of speech that marked the presentation to “His Excellency,” by the governor of Rhode Island, on behalf of its general assembly, of a splendid salver, having on it “in testimony of their appreciation of his services to his country in negotiating a treaty of amity and commerce with Japan,” together with the commodore’s teaching the heathen the observance of the Sabbath, that worthy functionary would be deemed waggish.

On the morning of the 11th of September, being the ninth day, of the ninth moon, of the fourth year of the reign of Hien-fung, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry left in the English mail-steamer Ganges for home; the Mississippi and the Macedonian firing the parting salute, and the men in the rigging giving three cheers.

We were to have taken our final leave of the grand, celestial, central, middle, flowery kingdom, on the same day, but it stormed, and we did not leave until the next morning, and few, if any, saw the naked hills of Hong Kong fade in the distance with regret. A few hours before us, the poor Porpoise got under way and left the port—that port to which her sail

“Should never stretch again.”

This was the last that was seen of her, and she no doubt foundered in the typhoon of the 7th of October, encountered by the Mississippi, which noble old ship struggled and maintained her existence for mortal hours under the force of a hurricane, and received the terrific blows of the infuriated sea more bravely than did the black knight under the pounding of the stalwart friar—if “aught inanimate” can have bravery, all honor to thee, old ship! and with more fervency than blesses the bridge that carries us over, honor to thee, old ship, again!

We stood up the Formosa channel, and in nine days were entering again the harbor of Simoda. We found here the Susquehanna and the Southampton. The former vessel left for the Sandwich Islands on the 24th of September. The stormy season having commenced in that latitude, it was too rough for us to commence coaling for several days, from the storeship. We ascertained that the Susquehanna had buried Surgeon Hamilton at Simoda, making the third interment in the contracted American burial-place. The shafts over the tombs were well proportioned, the letters of the inscriptions, with the imitative art of the Mongolian race, cut with exactness, and gilded, and the cap-stones, an original ornament, seeming to blend an urn and an acorn.

Captain Lee, of the Mississippi, with a suite of officers, made an official call on the lieutenant-governor of the now imperial city of Simoda, and was received with marked courtesy, and entertained in the Japanese style. The little strips resembling fried eel were as attractive as fried snake, but the crystallized grapes, with indifferent sugar, were rather palatable. There was handed around a small berry, not unpleasant to the taste, resembling the haw cultivated. The old Rip Van Winkle—Yemanese Koso—plied his guests with the little thimbles of imperial saki, that he might unite with them.

Captain Lee returned these civilities with a collation on board of his ship, and treated the Japanese to the music of the Mississippi’s fine band, of which they are unaffectedly fond. He had a correspondence with the authorities relative to the absence of the spar-buoys which had been placed to mark dangerous rocks in the harbor. They replied that they had been washed away by the severe gales preceding our arrival, but that they would replace them, which they did.

During this visit the Japanese displayed much willingness to trade with us—that is, if trading means to sell everything you can for Spanish dollars and takes nothing else in return. There was one instance only to the contrary. An intelligent engineer of the ship had a revolver; a Japanese officer wished it very much. He was told that he could have it for so many its-evoos, which the penalty for permitting to pass out of the country was very great. He offered a large amount in silver dollars. No; at last his cupidity for the pistol overcame his fear for the consequences, and he paid for it in the its-evoos, and disappeared over the side. These were about the only Japanese coins that were procured during our stay in the country. Were you to offer one of the barbers of the country, “whose name is legion,” a piece of silver for one of their cash—the twelfth of a cent—he would be glad to have it, but the inexorable law is ever before his eyes.

At Simoda we found a junk bound to Yedo with a large mortar aboard, purchased from the Dutch; also the model of an English boat.

We ascertained, that Kyama Yezimon, under the permission of the emperor, had built a three-masted ship on the model of the Southampton, they alleging, that she was our fastest sailing ship, or made the shortest trips. Her trial-trip had given them much satisfaction, up the bay from Uraga. They painted her red, with black stripes, and called her the Ho-o-maro, meaning “sea-ship.”

Captain Lee distributed among the imperial officers of the place, and suite, a number of cotton-cloths of various kinds from New England. They took them, because it was the part of politeness to take them, rather than because they had any use for them. The upper class would not use them, the scanty wardrobe of the poorer class does not need them, unless they could be educated to breeches, nor could they purchase them. There are times when they can not get enough to eat; indeed it is said, that there was a famine in the land at the time of the visit of the Morrison, in 1836. The fact is the Japanese are a people of few wants, and no luxuries, and the great trade prophesied with that country, should we ever get a commercial treaty, is a mere myth and exists in the brain of visionaries alone. I deliberately believe, that any clipper-ship, that would go there with the hopes of a profitable venture, would rot at her anchors, before she disposed of her cargo, or got anything profitable in return.

The Mississippi took her final departure from Japan on the 1st of October, towing the Southampton as far as Volcanic Oho Sima, where the ships parted company. Foogee was hid.

In February last, Commander H.A. Adams, visited Simoda in the Powhatan and exchanged the ratification of our treaty with the Japanese, but not without some delay and difficulty. The Japanese affected to be much surprised at his early return, and contended, that the treaty said, that the exchange of ratifications was to be in eighteen months. Captain Adams contended, that our copy said within eighteen months, and that we had a right to send it back as soon as we liked. After some delay in getting the originals from Yedo and examining them, this matter was settled.

When they were asked for the signature of the emperor to accompany that of the president, they said that was impossible: that he never put his name to any document whatever. The captain then resorted to a little bullying—the thing which had been so successfully practised upon them by the opperbevelhebber—and told them, he would not like to carry back such an answer to his country—that if we could have imagined such a thing, our secretary of state only would have signed the ratification, and not the president. They came down and gave the signature of the emperor—that is a lot of snakes’ tails, flies’ legs, and triangles, which for all we know, were but there by Tatsnoski, or any other functionary.

The appearance of Simoda after the frightful earthquake there in December, was sad in the extreme. The town was piled in ruins, and junks had been carried a distance of two miles into neighboring fields.

The Russian admiral Pontiatine was at Simoda, during the terrible convulsion, and seeing nothing desirable about the port, had been insisting upon Oassacca, the seaport of the city of Meaco, as one of the places to be granted his country, but the wrecking of his ship, the Diana, by the earthquake, left him in no condition to insist upon his point with force, so he was compelled to consent to Simoda.

The implicit obedience to their laws, under whatever circumstances, by the Japanese, was shown at the wrecking and sinking of a junk, that drifted afoul of the Diana and was stove. Two of her crew only clung to the Diana, the rest stolidly sunk with the junk. Those saved were asked the cause of this strange conduct on the part of their late comrades. They said it was, that their laws forbid them going on board of a foreign vessel; nor did they know what would be done with themselves for it.

If it be the best government, which governs least, that is not the government of Japan; like the law of gravitation it is always in action: its Briarian arms are everywhere, and its subjects are a community of Arguses. When storm is on the deep and its mariners are clinging to their long tillers and shuddering at the yawning sea, each lightning flash of heaven shows them an etiolating hand, that will crush them, if they dare leave their craft, until half engulfed.

The English and French squadrons visited Nangasaki, and negotiated their treaty there; though their freedom of movement was greatly restricted. Their masters were only allowed to land on a small barren island to rate their chronometers; during the conferences some of their officers were taken to task by the Japanese for spitting on their matting.

The cruise of the United States steam-frigate Mississippi under the command of a fine officer and estimable gentleman—Sydney Smith Lee, during the years 1852, ’53, ’54, and ’55, was one full of interest. She is the third war-steamer, that ever circumnavigated the globe, and during her cruise sailed a distance more than twice its circumference. She visited places, too, unusual.

The writer wishes that the time had been afforded him to give an outline of the terrible typhoon, which she encountered in the North Pacific ocean on the 7th of October, 1854—how we saw two Mondays, or two 16ths of October, come together in the same week—Honolulu—California—Taboga—stay at Valparaiso—the brilliant dash of the old ship, with a chasing gale, into the straits of Magellan: of her subsequent run through them “amid snow and glacier”—the firing of the “22d of February” salute, which was heard by the Patagonian—Rio Janeiro, &c., but this would make our narrative of undue length.