nly once in four years when the
Resident, or chief agent, journeyed to Yeddo to offer gifts and most
humble obeisance to the Shogun, "creeping forward on his hands and feet,
and falling on his knees, bowed his head to the ground, and retired
again in absolute silence, crawling exactly like a crab," said one of
these pilgrims who added: "We may not keep Sundays or fast days, or
allow our spiritual hymns or prayers to be heard; never mention the name
of Christ. Besides these things, we have to submit to other insulting
imputations which are always painful to a noble heart. The reason which
impels the Dutch to bear all these sufferings so patiently is simply the
love of gain."

In return for these humiliations the Dutch East India Company was
permitted to send one or two ships a year from Batavia to Japan and to
export copper, silk, gold, camphor, porcelain, bronze, and rare woods.
The American ship Franklin arrived at Batavia in 1799 and Captain James
Devereux of Salem learned that a charter was offered for one of these
annual voyages. After a deal of Yankee dickering with the hard-headed
Dutchmen, a bargain was struck and the Franklin sailed for Nagasaki with
cloves, chintz, sugar, tin, black pepper, sapan wood, and elephants'
teeth. The instructions were elaborate and punctilious, salutes to be
fired right and left, nine guns for the Emperor's guard while passing
in, thirteen guns at the anchorage; all books on board to be sealed
up in a cask, Bibles in particular, and turned over to the Japanese
officials, all firearms sent ashore, ship dressed with colors whenever
the "Commissaries of the Chief" graciously came aboard, and a carpet on
deck for them to sit upon.

Two years later, the Margaret of Salem made the same sort of a voyage,
and in both instances the supercargoes, one of whom happened to be a
younger brother of Captain Richard Cleveland, wrote journals of the
extraordinary episode. For these mariners alone was the curtain lifted
which concealed the feudal Japan from the eyes of the civilized world.
Alert and curious, these Yankee traders explored the narrow streets of
Nagasaki, visited temples, were handsomely entertained by officers and
merchants, and exchanged their wares in the marketplace. They were as
much at home, no doubt, as when buying piculs of pepper from a rajah of
Qualah Battoo, or dining with an elderly mandarin of Cochin China. It
was not too much to say that "the profuse stores of knowledge bro