[88] The ships of 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, and 1803 had been Americans. The renewal of the war in Europe having again driven the Dutch flag from the ocean, the ships of 1806 had been an American and a Bremener; and those of 1807 an American and a Dane. One of the ships of 1809 was also an American, the “Rebecca.” [89] This is Doeff’s account, but, according to Golownin, at that time a prisoner in the north of Japan (see next chapter), and who learned from the Japanese the arrival of the two vessels above mentioned, he communicated to the Japanese the fact of the capture of Batavia by the English, which fact, it was afterwards reported to him, the Dutch had confessed. Baffles also, in his memoirs, in speaking of Ainslie and his good treatment by the Japanese, clearly implies that he was known to be English. [90] Mr. Medhurst, English missionary at Batavia, who has published an English and Japanese vocabulary, enumerates, in a letter written in 1827, as among his helps to the knowledge of the language, besides five different Japanese and Chinese dictionaries, a Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese one, in two thick 8vo volumes; also a corresponding one in Japanese, Chinese, and Dutch. These were printed in Japan, and were, perhaps, fruits of Doeff’s labors. [See also paper on “The Early Study of Dutch in Japan,” by Dr. Mitsukuri, in vol. v of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—EDR.] [91] The English translator of Golownin’s narrative mentions a species of sea-weed collected for eating, on the northern coast of Scotland and Ireland, and there called _dhulish_, or, when boiled, _sloak_, and which, he says, answers exactly to Thunberg’s description of the edible fucus of the Japanese. [92] “The Japanese radish,” says Golownin, “is in form and taste very different from ours. It is thin and extremely long. The taste is not very acrid, but sweetish, almost like our turnips. Whole fields are covered with it. A great part of the crop is salted, the remainder is buried in the ground for winter, and boiled in soup. Not even the radish-leaves remain unused; they are boiled in soup, or salted and eaten as salad. They manure the radish fields with night-soil; this we ourselves saw at Matsumae.” [93] The fort on the island where they were taken prisoners, when first seen from the ship, was hung round with striped cloths, which concealed the walls. These cloths had embrasures painted on them, but in so rough a manner that the deception could be perceived at a considerable distance. [94] The description of this prison corresponds very well to Kämpfer’s description of the one at Nagasaki.