“By whatever measures,” he remarks, “of a coercive nature, we might seek to attain this object” (the execution of the Treaty in all its stipulations), “it should be clearly seen that there is war in the background, more or less near, but tolerably certain sooner or later to come. During the last two years, whatever a conciliatory spirit could suggest, with temper, patience, and forbearance in all things, had been tried. Diplomacy had wellnigh exhausted its resources to induce the Japanese Government to take a different view of its interests, and to act in accordance with the spirit of the treaties entered into. Little more remained to be tried in this direction, nor could much hope be entertained that better success would follow a longer persistence in the same course.” The nature of our political relations with Japan is such, that a history of three years’ diplomacy in that country is not attended with the inconveniences which would be incidental to a similar narrative from a European court. Our relations with other friendly nations are in no way involved, and there can be no objection to such a work as that now before us, even in a red-tape point of view. Still, we are not aware of a work of this kind, from the pen of a minister actually at his post, ever having appeared; and although our author gives us a most detailed and graphic account of the moral and social state of Japan, it is the record of his diplomatic relations with the Government of the Tycoon that we regard as being at once the most novel and interesting feature of his book.