The despatches were soon brought back by several officers, the superior officer, it was stated, declining to receive them. They added that the depositions of the Japanese passengers, who had landed for the purpose of giving them, had been forwarded to Kagoshima, and that a superior officer might be expected from that city. Provisions were promised, and that the vessel should be towed higher up the bay; early in the morning of the twelfth, the crew of a fishing-boat communicated to the Japanese on board a rumor that the ship was to be expelled. Warlike preparations were soon seen on shore, in strips of blue and white canvas stretched from tree to tree. The Japanese on board stated, with rueful faces, that these preparations portended war; nor, according to their description, were these cloth batteries so contemptible as they might seem, as four or five pieces of heavy canvas, loosely stretched, one behind another, at short intervals, would weaken the force of, indeed almost stop, a cannon ball. Officers on horseback, and several hundred soldiers, soon made their appearance, and a fire of musketry and artillery was commenced. The anchor was weighed, and the sails set, but there was no wind. For eighteen hours the ship was exposed, without any means of offering resistance, to two fires from opposite sides of the bay, which was from three to five miles broad, till at last she was with difficulty conducted clear of the shoals and past the forts. All hope of friendly intercourse, or of returning the men, was now abandoned. The poor fellows suffered severely at this unexpected extinction of their prospect of revisiting their families. They expressed great indignation at the conduct of their countrymen, and two of them shaved their heads entirely in token, as it was understood, of having renounced their native soil. As it was not deemed expedient to go to Nagasaki, where the Japanese on board expressed their determination not to land, the “Morrison” returned to Macao.[106] In 1843, probably in consequence of this visit of the “Morrison,” the Japanese authorities promulgated an edict, of which the following is a translation, as given by the Dutch at Deshima, who were requested to communicate to the other European nations,—the first attempt ever made to employ their agency for that purpose. [Illustration: A BUDDHIST FUNERAL] “Shipwrecked persons of the Japanese nation must not be brought back to their country, except on board of Dutch or Chinese ships, for, in case these shipwrecked persons shall be brought back in the ships of other nations, they will not be received. Considering the express prohibition, even to Japanese subjects, to explore or make examinations of the coasts or islands of the empire, this prohibition, for greater reason, is extended to foreigners.”