possession of money, are prohibited. Even the sale of the Dutch imported merchandize and purchase of the return cargoes are transacted neither by means of hard cash, nor yet by the factory established in Japan, it might be supposed, for that especial purpose. Formerly indeed the commercial operations appear to have been effected at a sort of public sale or fair held in the Dezima factory. But now, the cargoes of the Dutch ships, when landed, are delivered to Japanese authorities, who sell the imported merchandize, employ the price in paying for the goods to be exported, and give in their unchecked accounts to the Dutch president. Even the private adventures allowed to the members of the factory, in compensation for their inadequate salaries, are thus disposed of, and their returns thus procured. The remaining accounts of the purveyors and comprador, against every individual member, are settled out of the proceeds of these annual sales.

The purveyors, the comprador, a Japanese physician (appointed provisionally to act in case of the Dutch physician's illness, death, or absence), a professor of the Japanese remedy of acupuncture, and the known servants, even the porters employed in unloading and loading the annual ships, are respectively furnished with seals, or tickets, by way of passport, that authorize their ingress and egress to and from Dezima, at the

+

lawful hours. But all these persons are obliged, prior to entering upon their offices, to sign, with their blood, an oath binding them to contract no friendship with any of the Dutch; to afford them no information respecting the language, laws, manners, religion, or history of Japan; in short, to hold no communication with them, except in their several recognized functions. No individual save those above-mentioned, and the officers and interpreters employed by government, can enter Dezima without an express permission from the Governor of Nagasaki: but it is said, that any Japanese visitor, who wishes to obtain admittance without this formality, can usually succeed by bribery, passing as the servant of some one of the sanctioned or official visitors.

The due observance of all these regulations and restrictions is enforced and watched over by the municipal officers and police of Nagasaki; a certain number of whom, with a proportionate allowance of interpreters, are always upon the island. Houses are there assigned them, but there appears to be little occasion for more than a station-house or guard-room, the whole set being relieved every twenty-four hours.

The interpreters constitute one of the regular corporations, or guilds, of Nagasaki, and receive salaries from the ziogoon, or emperor, as he is usually called by Europeans. From sixty to

seventy of the body, reckoning superior and inferior, are formally appointed Dutch interpreters; and a yet larger number are assigned to the Chinese factory, which, like the Dutch, is confined to a spot adjoining Nagasaki. But even these appointed Dutch interpreters are forbidden to communicate freely with the factory; they must not visit the president, or any of his inferior countrymen, unless accompanied by a municipal officer, or, according to Fischer, by a spy. But although the whole administration of Japan seems to be a system of espionage, as will appear hereafter, it is hardly to be supposed that the spies, upon whose relations this cautious government depends for information, can be so publicly known as to be in official attendance. It is far more likely, that some of the menial servants of the factory act in the secondary capacity of spies, reporting the conduct of municipal officers and interpreters, perhaps also of the other spies, as well as of their masters. This conjecture is confirmed by the information, that all these servants understand Dutch, which does not seem to be the case with the police or municipal officers.

Whilst the Dutch vessels remain in the bay, and the business of unloading, procuring a cargo, reloading, and all thereunto appertinent, is going on, a good deal of consequent negotiation and intercourse takes place betwixt the president and

the governor and his subordinates; and some diversity of opinion exists between the Dutch and the German writers, as to the degree of politeness which, upon this and other formal occasions, marks the behaviour of the Japanese. Dr. von Siebold avers, that the Dutch opperhoofd still submits to very degrading insults and contemptuous treatment; attributing such submission, however, to a patriotic anxiety for the preservation to Holland of a highly profitable trade, not to any individual lucre of gain; whilst most of the Dutchmen, on the other hand, affirm, that they receive every mark of consideration and respect that could reasonably be expected or desired, and hold the trade to be of little value. The accounts given by the Dutch presidents of their intercourse with, and treatment by, the different Japanese placemen with whom they come in contact, will enable the reader to judge between these opposite views. One preliminary observation may, however, afford a key to the conduct of this haughty, but not conceited, nation.

The Japanese nobles and placemen, even of secondary rank, entertain a sovereign contempt for traffic; whence it may be inferred, that the head or director of a commercial establishment cannot expect to be treated by them as their equal. And that this is the light in which they, not unjustly, regard the Dutch opperhoofd, is proved by

the adaptation to that gentleman of their sumptuary laws respecting swords. This mark of dignity is strictly prohibited to all Japanese traders; and the wealthiest merchant can no otherwise free himself from the degradation, imposed by these sumptuary laws, of appearing unarmed, than by prevailing upon some indigent noble, whose necessities his purse has relieved, to enter his (the merchant's) name, upon the list of his (the nobleman's) servants; when the titular domestic is permitted, in his menial capacity, to wear a single sword. Now of the whole Dutch factory, the president alone is permitted ever to wear a sword, and even he is allowed but one, and that one to be worn only upon state occasions; all of which, be it remembered, has no reference either to nation or to person, but is absolutely and solely the test and mark of station, or rather perhaps of class: can the man who may only wear a sword at all upon particular specified occasions, expect to be placed on a footing of equality with him who wears two, or even with him who wears one at his own pleasure, that is to say, always?

There is, however, one very important point of the treatment of the Dutch in Japan, respecting which all the late writers agree in correcting the mistaken impression prevalent throughout Europe. This point is their religion, which, if they are not allowed openly to profess by practising its rites