Five weeks after the departure of the “Preble,” on the 29th of May, Commander Matheson, in the British surveying ship “Mariner,” anchored in the bay of Yedo, off the town of Uraga, and three miles higher up, according to his statement, than any other vessel had been allowed to proceed. As he entered the bay, he was met by ten boats. A paper was handed up, in Dutch and French, requesting him not to anchor, nor cruise in the bay; but when the Japanese found he was determined to proceed, they offered to tow him. During the night he was watched by boats and from the shore. Having a Japanese interpreter on board, he communicated the object of his visit, and sent his card on shore to the governor of the town, with a note in Chinese, proposing to wait upon him; to which the governor replied that it was contrary to the law for foreigners to land, and that he should lose his life if he allowed Captain Matheson to come on shore, or to proceed any higher up the bay. [Illustration: SCENES IN JAPANESE CEMETERIES] The survey of the anchorage having been completed, Matheson proceeded, on the 31st, to the bay of Shimoda, on the other side of the promontory of Izu, where he spent five days in surveying, and was detained two days longer by the weather. After the second day, he was visited by an interpreter, who understood Dutch, and by two officers from Uraga, apparently spies on each other, to watch his proceedings; and finally an officer of rank, from a town thirteen miles off, came on board. There were three fishing villages at the anchorage, and he landed for a short time, but the Japanese officers followed, begging and entreating him to go on board again. The ship was supplied with plenty of fish, and boats were furnished to tow her out. In 1850, the Japanese sent to Batavia, in the annual Dutch ship, three American sailors who had been left in 1848 on one of the Kurile Islands, also thirty-one other sailors belonging to the English whaling-ship Edmund, of Robertstown, wrecked on the coast of Yezo. At the same time, probably in consequence of the numerous recent visits to their coasts, the Dutch were requested to give notice to other nations, that although it had been determined, in 1842, to furnish with necessary supplies such foreign vessels as arrived on the coast in distress, this was not to be understood as indicating the least change as to the policy of the rigorous exclusion of foreigners.[111] CHAPTER XLV _Foreign Relations—New Shōgun—Dutch Trade—Chinese Trade—American Embassy—Its Object—Letter to the Emperor—Perry’s first visit to the Bay of Yedo—Death of the Shōgun—Perry’s second visit to the Bay of Yedo—Negotiation of a Treaty—The Treaty as agreed to—Shimoda—Hakodate—Additional Regulations—Japanese Currency—Burrow’s visit to the Bay of Yedo—Third visit of the American Steamers—Russian and English Negotiations—Exchange of Ratifications—Earthquake._