at intercourse with the Japanese till 1837, when an exedition was organized at Macao, China, having a three-fold aspect—humanity, religion, and commerce. The strong currents about the coasts of Japan and adverse winds not infrequently carried the natives in their small vessels out upon the ocean and sometimes as far as the American continent. This fact gives color to the claim sometimes advanced that the civilization of the Mexican Indians had its origin in Japan. A party of seven shipwrecked Japanese had been picked up on the coast of British Columbia, and sent by the Hudson's Bay Company across the American continent and the Atlantic Ocean to London, and by the British East India Company brought to Macao, to be forwarded, if opportunity offered, to their native land. One of the leading American mercantile firms engaged in the Canton trade, Olyphant & Co.,[1] conceived the idea that the event might be taken advantage of to induce the Japanese government to relax its rules as to foreign intercourse, and they fitted out the Morrison, a vessel named after the first English missionary to China, to carry back the shipwrecked Japanese. In the party were the German missionary, Chinese scholar, and historian, Dr. Gutzlaff,
- ↑ To Mr. D. W. C. Olyphant, of New York, the founder of this house, which for many years occupied a prominent and honorable part in the China trade, American missions to that country owed their origin. Upon his invitation the first Protestant missionary, Robert Morrison, of England, was brought to China. His firm furnished the Canton mission a house, rent free for many years, gave more than fifty free passages to missionaries from the United States, and in other ways contributed largely to their work. The Chinese Repository was mainly indebted to this firm for its support. In all respects its members reflected honor upon their country.
