“The _Ship and Harbor Guard_, appointed to have a general inspection over all foreigners, Chinese as well as Dutch, goes the round of the harbor all night, particularly about our island. The _Spy Guard_ watches from the mountains back of the town the approach of foreign ships. The _Gate Guard_ keeps the gate towards the town, that being the only passage in and out. It is mounted daily by five persons, their servants not computed. At the time of the sale of our goods there are never less than ten, but sometimes twelve or more, and to these, its regular members, are added at that time two persons from the ship and harbor guard, two from the spy guard, four furnished by the town of Nagasaki, four by the silk merchants, and two on the part of the two chief magistrates or burgomasters of the lower town of Nagasaki, one of whom keeps the journal of the guard, wherein (for the information of the governors of the town, who, at least once a month, call for this record and look it over) is entered what passes from hour to hour, and what persons and things go in or out. Yet, without express orders from the governors, or leave given by the Otona, nothing is suffered to pass through but what is sent in by those appointed to provide us with necessaries and unprohibited goods. For a still greater security, three sworn searchers are added to this guard, one or two of whom attend constantly hard by the gate, to search whoever goes in or out. Nor is anybody exempted from being searched but the governors, their deputies or commissioners, with their retinues, and our ordinary interpreters and their sons, who are entered as apprentices. “Such a variety of people of different ranks and characters being to do duty upon one guard, it obliges on the one side everybody to discharge their duty to the utmost of their power, and on the other it puts the government out of all apprehensions of their plotting or conspiring together; for, in fact, they are not only to watch us, and the people who have business with us, and, on this account, go in and out of our island, but each other also. Among the things which stand by, or are hung upon the walls of the guard-house, are irons to put on criminals, ropes to bind them, heavy staffs to beat them, and a particular sort of an instrument, a kind of hook or rake, which they make use of to catch thieves and deserters, and which is commonly carried about at their public execution. “All these people, although they maintain themselves and their families entirely by what they get by us and our service, yet from their conduct one would think them to be our sworn enemies, always intent to do us what mischief they can, and so much the more to be feared, as their hatred and enmity is hid under the specious color of friendship, deference, and good-will.