a free and open market, and the ports of Japan had furnished a friendly harbor for all vessels. The market had been not only free but very remunerative, as one hundred per cent. profit was not an unusual return.[1] The testimony of all writers of the period is that the Japanese in their intercourse with foreigners were distinguished for high-bred courtesy, combined with refined liberality and generous hospitality. On the other hand, the merchants and mariners with whom they came in contact were usually of bad manners and morals, over-reaching, avaricious, and cruel; the missionaries were often arrogant, ambitious, and without proper respect for native customs; and the naval and other officials of foreign governments were haughty, actuated by a spirit of aggression, and unmindful of the comity of nations. The history of the time shows that the policy of exclusion adopted by Japan in the seventeenth century was not inherent in the constitution of the state or the character of the people, but that it was adopted in consequence of the unfavorable character of the relations with Europeans.
It will be of interest to note the conditions under which the limited intercourse with the Dutch factory was carried on. The island of Deshima, artificially built in the harbor of Nagasaki, six hundred feet long and two hundred and forty feet wide, was surrounded by a high stone wall, which permitted only a distant view to its inmates. It was connected with the mainland by a stone bridge guarded by Japanese police and had only one other outlet, the sea gate. Both of these gates were
- ↑ Memorials of Japon, p. iv.; Chamberlain's Things Japanese, 296.
