Within a few weeks after the negotiation of this treaty, Lord Elgin, British commissioner to China and Japan, arrived at Shimoda with a considerable British squadron. Mr. Harris went on board his ship, and accompanied him to the Bay of Yedo. On the 20th of August, a treaty was signed with the Japanese by Lord Elgin, on the basis of the American treaty. It contained the additional provision,—of which we also have the benefit to render the clause of our treaty giving us all privileges bestowed on other nations,—that no export duty should be charged higher than twenty per cent; certain articles, including cotton and woollen goods, to be admitted at five per cent. On the 9th of October, a similar treaty was signed with Baron Gros, who had visited Yedo as French commissioner. Similar privileges, it is understood, are granted to the Dutch and Russians. With the signing of these treaties the Japanese authorities may be considered as having yielded the point of the re-establishment of foreign intercourse. But a great difference of opinion as to this policy is understood still to exist among the nobles and princes of the Empire; and it is not impossible that these concessions to foreigners may lead to internal commotions. By one of the articles of this new treaty, negotiated by Mr. Harris, the Japanese agreed to send an embassy to Washington, as bearers of the Emperor’s ratification. The fulfilment of this promise was for some time delayed, partly, perhaps, by reason of the caution and slowness characteristic of Japanese policy, but principally, it is supposed, on account of the strong opposition of a large party of the princes and nobles to the new scheme of foreign intercourse. At length, however, on the 27th of February, 1860, the ambassadors, three in number, with a suite of seventy-three persons, embarked on board the United States steamer, the “Powhatan,” the American government having undertaken to convey them to the United States, and to carry them back again. The “Kanrin-maru,” a war steamer of two hundred and fifty tons, built for the Japanese by the Dutch, and manned with a Japanese crew of seventy men, arrived at San Francisco on the 14th of March, after a passage of forty days from the Bay of Yedo, to give notice of the approach of the ambassadors. The “Powhatan,” after touching at the Sandwich Islands, reached Panama on the 25th of April. The ambassadors, with their attendants, were immediately conveyed on the railroad to Aspinwall, where, the next day, they embarked on board the U.S. steamer “Roanoke,” lying there to receive them. The “Roanoke” sailed for New York, but on arriving at Sandy Hook she was ordered to Norfolk, it having been determined that the embassy should be first received at Washington. At Norfolk the Japanese were transferred to the steamer “Philadelphia.” They reached Washington on the 14th of May, disembarked at the Navy Yard, and were then conveyed to quarters which had been provided for them at Willard’s Hotel.