the American visitors served but to accentuate the difficulties of the situation for the Yedo potentate, who was placed on the horns of a dilemma. If he yielded to the demands of the Americans that the nation which had so long been hidden from the rest of the world should emerge from its retirement and admit foreigners within its gates, he would incur the wrath of the ultra-Conservative party among the nobility of his own land. If he refused to comply with the American President Fillmore’s amiable suggestions, Japan might yet share the fate of China, and a forcible invasion of his Imperial master’s dominions, which would be equally disastrous to himself as being responsible for the exclusion of the “barbarians,” was almost certain to occur. The Shogun took the advice of those who advocated the making of treaties with men whom they were not then strong enough in Japan to effectually exclude, and the thin end of the wedge was inserted by the conclusion of the compact,—at first nothing more than a promise of friendship,—between Japan and the United States of America. Under the provisions of the American treaty then negotiated by Perry, the United States acquired the right of establishing a legation at Shimoda. This is a small town at the tip of the Idzu promontory, which extends in a southern direction from the province of Sagami, and it is sixty-five miles as the crow flies south-west of Yokohama. Over a building which had previously been a Buddhist temple the Stars and Stripes were hoisted at Shimoda in September 1856, and America’s accredited envoy, Mr Townsend Harris, resided there for many months, being the first of the diplomatic representatives of foreign powers to dwell in the newly awakened Land of Sunrise, and the first to arrange a treaty of commerce. Under the arrangement made with Commodore Perry there were to be two seaports opened to the reception of American vessels, where they might obtain coal, provisions, wood, and water. One of these ports was Shimoda, the other was Hakodate, in the northern island of Yeso. The treaty provided for hospitable behaviour towards shipwrecked crews,—a matter in which, had the instincts of the Japanese nation at large been appreciated as they are to-day it would perhaps have been deemed superfluous to make any stipulations—and it also included certain regulations for conducting trade and for the residence of consuls or agents, at the places named. The stay of the American agent at Shimoda was not of long duration, for on the opening of the capital, as a place wherein the representatives of other powers could most fittingly dwell, Mr Harris removed to that city. But it should not be lost sight of that Shimoda was for a time the official headquarters of the American Legation in Japan, and a place where the population was more or less accustomed to see foreigners long before the rest of the country,—save the trading ports of Yokohama, Kobé, Nagasaki, and three other places on the coast opened later—was