JAPAN
The Japanese pirates, it should be remembered, were not backed by any reserve of national force; they were private marauders, mere soldiers of fortune, without even the open countenance or support of a feudal chieftain, though undoubtedly their enterprises were often undertaken in the secret interests of some local magnate. It stands to China's lasting humiliation that she was at last compelled to treat the freebooters as a national enemy, and to move a large army against them. There is, indeed, an element of comicality in the situation as it existed at the time of which we write,—China always perched upon a pedestal of ineffable loftiness, addressing her neighbours in forms of speech rigidly adapted to the height at which she supposed herself to stand above them, and solemnly registering the visits of their ambassadors as tribute-bearing missions; Japan lightly contemptuous of such pretensions, thrusting the magnificent Empire's envoys into prison and keeping them there for months on some transparently petty pretext, crossing her neighbour's borders whenever and wherever she pleased, and carrying away everything of interest or of value that came under her hand, yet never hesitating to send openly and courteously for a Buddhist sutra, a céladon vase, or a brocade altar-cloth, if a desire for such objects suggested itself.
Korea underwent at Japan's hands experiences only a degree less harassing than those suffered by China, but failed altogether to find
106
