A few days afterward, some of our officers in their strolls ashore, ascertained that there were two Japanese confined in a cage at a little barrack back of the town, and on going there they were found to be the persons who had paid the midnight visit to our ships, and they also proved to be my unfortunate friends of the letter. They did not appear greatly down-cast by their situation, and one of them wrote in his native character on a piece of board, and passed through the bars of his cage, to one of our surgeons present, what follows:— When a hero fails in his purpose, his acts are then regarded as those of a villain and robber. In public have we been seized and pinioned, and darkly imprisoned for many days; the village elders and headmen treat us disdainfully, their oppressions being grievous indeed; therefore looking up while yet we have nothing wherewith to reproach ourselves, it must now be seen whether a hero will prove himself to be one indeed. Regarding the liberty of going through the sixty states (of Japan) as not enough for our desires, we wished to make the circuit of the five great continents; this was our heart’s wish for a long time. Suddenly our plans are defeated, and we find ourselves in a half-sized house, where eating, resting, sitting, and sleeping, are difficult, nor can we find our exit from this place. Weeping we seem as fools, laughing as rogues—alas! for us, silent we can only be. ISAGI KÓÓDA, KWANSUCHI MANJI. The commodore, it is said, did not hear of their capture and confinement, until the next morning, when he sent some officers ashore to see what might be done in the way of intercession, but on reaching the barrack, it was found that they had that morning been sent to the city of Yedo, and as the attendant at the place made sign, for the purpose of being beheaded. The following is the translation of the letter, which the unfortunate aspirants, for a sight of the great world, beyond their hermetic empire, placed in the breast of my vest, the neat and sharply-defined characters of whose original, as it lies before me, would assure even one, who did not comprehend their language, that it had been pencilled by men of intelligence and taste.