the more is he puzzled in deciding upon the best course to adopt. The only persons who feel no difficulty on this score are the merchants’ clerks who have just arrived, and who love to propound their views in the local newspapers. There are those even in this country who profess to understand how to deal with “Orientals,” and because, perhaps, they may have been at Bombay, consider themselves qualified to lay down the law upon any question of policy which may arise between Cairo and the Sandwich Islands; but it is only the superficial observer who classes all Orientals in the same category; they require as many different modes of treatment as “Westerns,” and there is no more resemblance between a Japanese and a Tamul than there is between a Wallachian and a New-Englander. There is a great danger of such persons applying some general principle, which is right in the main, to all cases, and failing to discover when the rule demands an exception. For instance, it is pretty generally admitted that any concession to an Oriental government is considered as a sign of weakness; therefore, although you may have burnt down the Summer Palace of the Emperor of China, and had Pekin at the mercy of your armies, bully the Government of that country into conceding our exorbitant demands, or they will think you weak. Such is the logic of a recent memorial signed by the mercantile community of China. Again, in Japan, when the Tycoon signed a treaty with this country, his ministers, foreseeing the difficulties with which they would have to contend from the opposition of the aristocracy, stipulated that the ports should be opened by degrees, and the commencement of trade thus assumed the form of a political experiment. We have given a list of the bloody results: the Japanese Government points to it, and prays that a postponement for five years may be allowed in the opening of the other ports, to avoid the multiplication of tragedies by the number of ports. The sum appears a simple one: if you have twelve murders a year with three ports open, how many will you have with six? The mercantile community demand that the other three be opened according to Treaty; any concession will be considered a sign of weakness. They may be right in this instance; and as our diplomatic relations with Japan are certain not to run smoothly, it will be always open to them to say there would have been no difficulty had we refused the concession. However that may be, our Government have given the Japanese credit for a certain amount of good faith in the efforts they have made for our protection, and are willing to try the effect of time in softening the asperities of the hostile class.