The Logbook of the Captain's Clerk: Adventures in the China Seas
John S. Sewall, The Logbook of the Captain's Clerk: Adventures in the China Seas, edited by Arthur Powell Dudden (Chicago , IL: The Lakeside Press, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 1995). Originally published as John S. Sewall, The Logbook of the Captain's Clerk: Adventures in the China Seas (Bangor, ME: printed for the author by Charles H. Glass & Co., 1905).
John Sewall, author of The Invincible Armada to Japan, also kept a journal while acting as Captain's clerk on the Japan Expedition. This version of the journal was clearly written some time after his return, as Sewall added commentary and other facts that occurred after the Expedition ended. The following are excerpts from the version of Sewall's journal originally published in 1905.
Chapter IX: The Expedition Again and the Opening of Japan
Page 243
In February 1854, the American fleet again met in Yedo Bay. It went the first time with four ships, the second time with nine. The Western barbarian had come to get his answer. Instead of stopping at Uraga as he had done the year before, Commodore Perry moved up to Kanagawa, where the city of Yokohama now stands, some twenty-five miles above Uraga and within ten or fifteen miles of Yedo. So powerful a force within an hour's sail of their great metropolis must have expedited the negotiations. And though the American demands were contested inch by inch, yet it was done with good nature and the commissioners almost invariably yielded.
Here enters another actor. As in all historical movements, and certainly in all novels, other influences were at work behind the scenes. It was only another part of the mystery brooding over this strange land that forces unknown and unsuspected should be working for us in the dark. Not until years after did it transpire what a friend we had in Nakahama Manjiro, a Japanese waif, whose story reads like a romance. In 1838, he was out fishing with two other boys where their boat was caught in the current, carried out to sea, and wrecked on a desolate island. There for half a year, they lived a Robinson Crusoe life until picked off the island by an American whaling ship and brought to Honolulu where Nakahama learned the language of his new friends. Finally coming to the United States, he received an education. Another whaling voyage, a visit to the California mines, and he was back in Honolulu anxious to revisit his native land. Nothing could deter him. The dissuasions of his friends, the distance and perils of the way, the likelihood of being beheaded for his pains if he should succeed - no argument or obstacle could stand for a moment before his unutterable longing for home.
In due time, therefore, Nakahama and his two comrades, now grown from lads to young men of twenty-five, were equipped with a whaleboat, a sack of ship's biscuit, a Bowditch's Navigator and a compass, and were put on board an American merchantman bound to Shanghai. A few miles from Lew Chew, they and their whaleboat were launched and committed to the waves. After a hard day's pull, they reached the shore, only to be arrested and imprisoned; six months later they were forwarded in a trading junk to Japan, to be imprisoned again, this time for three years. It would seem that for three whole years, the officials wrestled with the problem before they could decide whether getting blown off the coast in boyhood and being brought back in manhood constituted a capital crime. The year 1853 came round. The Perry expedition had come and gone, and was to come again. Here was a captive in their dungeons who had actually lived in the country of these Western barbarians, spoke their uncouth language, and knew their crafty ways. Why behead an expert just when he was needed? Instead they brought him to court and made him open his budget of information. From a prisoner he was transformed into a noble and decorated with two swords. By order of government he was provided with a crew of carpenters and required to build a whole fleet of whaleboats like his own; and then, with a corps of scribes, he was directed to translate his Bowditch's Navigator and make a score of copies for the use of the Japanese marine. One of these copies Nakahama afterwards gave to his friend Chaplain Damon in Honolulu, and it was on exhibition at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Dr. Damon had often inquired after the three adventurers but had never learned their fate.
One morning, years after the treaty had been signed, a Japanese ship anchored off Honolulu and her commander came on shore to call on our Dr. Damon. It was no other than long-lost Nakahama, who has now an officer in the Japanese navy. The mutual explanations can be imagined. "Where were you at the time of the expedition?" asked the chaplain. "I was in a room adjoining that in which the negotiations were going on, " said Nakahama. "I was not allowed to see or communicate with any of the Americans. But each document from Commodore Perry I translated before it was handed to the commissioners, and the replies also I translated into English before they went to the commodore." Which explains what so mystified our diplomats at the time- that the papers from the "party of the second part" came to them not alone in Dutch and Japanese but in English also. Nakahama was more than interpreter. He knew the American people, the magnitude of their country, their wealth and commerce, their prestige and power. He believed in them. He was the channel through which by a kind of preordination American ideas filtered into Japan. It is easy to recognize the divine preparation of the man, and overruling plan and purpose in his whole training from the hour when the three castaways drifted to sea in an open boat until the day when the Sunrise Kingdom faced the demands of the American fleet.
Meanwhile the stern public sentiment of this isolated nation was rapidly melting away before our neighborly advances. The people seemed to be glad of our coming. They flocked on board and were received as friends. They admired our ships. They liked our dinners. As an impartial historian I must admit that they took kindly, sometimes convivially, to our brandies and wines. And on shore these courtesies were duly reciprocated. The negotiations took time. Many meetings were held; on most of these occasions, an entertainment was served by the Japanese in native style. Sidney Smith once said of his countrymen that "an Englishman is like an oyster - you must get into him with a knife and fork." That was one of the ways we got into the country of Japan; many a treat went into the treaty.
At one of these dainty banquets, it was my good fortune to be one of the guests. It was the day when the Mikado's gifts to our government were exhibited. They were samples of both fine arts and the mechanical arts of the country; some of them exquisitely graceful, some showing rather the ingenuity and skill of plain handicraft. The cabinet lacquer-work especially surpassed in artistic design and beauty of finish anything of the kind we had seen. The other presents were silks, crapes, silverware, bronzes, porcelains, furniture, and samples of household utensils and artisans' tools. For some years after the return of the fleet, these gifts could be seen in the Patent Office. I believe they are now exhibited in the National Museum at Washington.
When we had sufficiently admired all the pretty things, our genial hosts led us to the banquet room, and dinner was set on. This was, of course, composed of native viands, served in native style, and to be eaten with native chopsticks. To eat in that method requires either long practice or that the applicant be to the manner born. If you are a Western barbarian and have not had the advantage of oriental training, do not attempt it, at least when you are hungry; the results are apt to be disappointing. The dinner was most abundant. To our Saxon sea appetites, it was toothsome; and what with chopsticks and our own fingers and penknives, we wrestled with it in masterly fashion. First they seated us on benches in long rows around the hall and then ranged similar benches before us spread with scarlet tea-cloths. Upon these in front of each guest was set a small wooden lacquered stand six or eight inches high and twelve or fifteen square, protected by a rim that kept the dainty dishes from crowding each other off. Mine was filled with the most delicate porcelains, and albeit somewhat hungry, I longed to appropriate the ceramics instead of the provender. The menu had its unique points; there were soups, vegetables, oysters, crabs, boiled eggs, pickled fish, seaweed jelly, and other compounds that we did not quite recognize and, therefore, felt toward them that hesitating awe experienced by the elder Mr. Weller in the presence of "weal pie." The drinks were tea, served as always in the East without alloy of sugar or cream, and saki, a strong colorless alcohol distilled from rice, somewhat like the samshu or "white wine" of China. To these edibles and potables we applied ourselves with courage, and considering our disabilities with the chopsticks, they proved remarkably evanescent. More saki and tea prepared us for various genera and species, sugared fruit, and confectionery. When all was done, our hosts brought us each a sheet of bamboo paper to wrap up and carry away what we had not consumed. Some of mine were still extant when I reached home seven months later.
This was a small point of etiquette they observed themselves, and it led sometimes to interesting results. One day at a dinner party on board the flag-ship, a Japanese functionary fell in love with a frosted cake and a bottle of hock. According to custom, he desired to take them home. But it was late and his potations having made him too unsteady to be the bearer of any other freight, the commodore promised to send them by a special messenger in the morning. Morning came, but not the cake. During the night that had absconded; some unregenerate tar had stowed it away for safekeeping. Here was a terrible dilemma. What if the negotiations should be imperiled for lack of that cake! A sort of coroner's inquest was hastily summoned to sit on the missing loaf. The verdict was, "Send the hock, but tell him that, in America, we present cake in the evening." The guest was entirely satisfied, and, by sunset, another frosted cake like the stolen was concocted at the galley and then duly sent on shore.
After the dinner our hosts conducted us to the beach. Among the presents was a large supply of rice for the fleet. It was put up in straw sacks or bales containing about 125 pounds each. By the pile stood a company of athletes and gymnasts chosen from the peasantry for their strength and size and trained for the service and entertainment of the court. At a signal from their leader, who was himself a giant of muscle and fat, a sort of human Jumbo, they began transporting the rice to the boats. It was more frolic than work. Some of them bore a bale on each hand above their heads, some would carry two laid crosswise on the shoulders and head, while others performed dexterous feats of tossing, catching, balancing them, or turning somersaults with them. I saw one nimble Titan fasten his talons in a sack, throw it down on the sand still keeping his hold, turn a somersault over it, throw it over him as he revolved, and come down sitting on the beach with the sack in his lap. Beat that who can. If you imagine it "as easy as preaching," try it the next time in a gymnasium. But let me advise you, first make your will.
Later in the afternoon, the same athletes entertained us with a wrestling match. A ring had been prepared in the area of the council house and the ground softened by the spade. Enter twenty-five performers in a slow and dignified procession, stripped to the loincloth, and equipped with satin aprons gorgeously embroidered and fringed. Ranging themselves in a circle around the ring, with grave pomp they enacted a series of incantations and passes. Then they filed off to the rear and laid aside their satin millinery for business. As their names were called by the master of ceremonies, a pair of them would advance, take their stand at opposite points of the ring, crouch on their heels, and repeat the mysterious passes. Then, entering the circle and warily approaching each other, they again crouched, again gesticulated, and finally, with a demoniac yell, sprang at each other like two monstrous billygoats. They used the head, not the fist. They plunged into each other, capered wildly about, and dove into each other headlong, butted each other on the breast and shoulders with frantic violence. Some of them, I noticed, had raised large welts on their foreheads by frequent indulgence in this frisky pastime, and some of them were dripping with blood that oozed from the fat creases of their necks. An hour sufficed for these huge calisthenics. When it was all over and the puffing giants had collapsed, the ring smoked with the dust of battle and looked as if it had been trampled and torn by a herd of gamboling elephants.
Another spectacle that afternoon, more prophetic of the new future just opening on the empire, was the first railroading in Japan. Among the presents to the Mikado, we carried a railroad; not, to be sure, a fully equipped road, well weighted with mortgage bonds and watered stock, tied up in a merger or run by a receiver; but so much of the genuine article as is represented by the rails, the engine, and a car. In the rear of the council house, the mechanics of the squadron had laid the circular track, and thither our gentle hosts now led us. There stood the locomotive and car, exquisite specimens of American workmanship, the engine already hissing and fuming, impatient to show itself off, the car as sumptuous as the richest woods and the finest art could make it. The whole was constructed on a scale of one-quarter size, and so nothing larger than a St. Bernard dog or a French doll could enter the dainty rosewood door. The engineer sat on the tender and bestowed his legs along the engine. And when a timid Japanese was finally induced to take a John Gilpin ride, he had to sit on the roof of the car and stow his feet on the tender. You can imagine with what a death grip he clung to the eaves of the car, and how his teeth chattered and his robes fluttered as he flashed around the circle. He thought he was a deadhead; and so indeed he was. This miniature railroad was for some years kept as a sort of imperial toy. A storehouse was built for its safekeeping; every little while, they would relay the track and gay parties of princes and courtiers would go flying around on a sort of circular picnic. The empire has long since outgrown the toy and is laying its own railroads in all directions. Every year witnesses substantial additions to the mileage, the travel, and the traffic.
The telegraph seemed to be more of a puzzle to them than the steam engine. We carried them a line fifteen miles long and set up a short stretch of it as a sample. The would go to one end, deliver a message, and then trot mystified to the other end, only to find their message safely arrived, written out and waiting for them. It was just Yankee magic, necromancy, witchcraft! But they have long since become adept in the same magic, and their picturesque land is interlacing itself all over with an ever expanding web of wires.
Another of our presents was a brass Dahlgren howitzer. Not long after, a thousand pieces like it had been cast at their foundries and were mounted in their forts. It was from these guns that their salutes on Washington's birthday and the Fourth of July were appropriately fired. Washington's name and fame had reached the empire long before the expedition had been dreamed of; "a very great man," they said, "we know him very well in Japan."
After many meetings, the negotiations finally were completed and the treaty signed on Friday, the thirty-first day of March 1854. Our ship had been longest in commission of the whole squadron and was, therefore, selected to bring the precious documents away; and having received the bearer of dispatches, Captain H.A. Adams, on the fourth of April, the Saratoga spread her white wings for home. It was inspiring and to us who were at last homeward bound, it was thrilling to hear the rousing cheers from each ship as we passed down the line, and, from the commodore's band, the strains of "Home, Sweet Home." We were soon out on the Pacific again, and that was our good-bye to the fleet and to Japan. At Honolulu, Captain Adams left us for Panama and reached Washington with the treaty sometime in June. The Saratoga, wishing in vain for a Panama Canal to give her a short cut home, had yet to plough through boundless latitudes and longitudes. Calling at Tahiti, we lay for a week within the dreamy shadows of the verdure-clad hill that look down on the harbor of Papiete; then tolled and pitched and foamed along through the darkness and tempests and cold of Cape Horn, which we passed on the middle day of winter, July fifteenth; and after calling at Pernambuco, a port in Brazil, we finally dropped anchor at Charlestown Navy Yard in September, more than five months from Japan, and absent from America for four years… (page 264)