It may be that the veneration, in which the memory of Iyeyas, is held by the Japanese, had much to do with the making of the treaty. Notwithstanding this Iyeyas, charged with the guardianship of the son of Taico, who was the husband of his granddaughter, usurped his powers and seized the ziogoonship for himself, still, barring his perfidy, he may be considered the great Lycurgus of Japan. His laws and influence endured longer than those of the ruler of Sparta. During his usurpation he took the names of Daifusama and Ongonchio, and with the honors that wait on success, about which it boots nothing to inquire,—at his death he was _deified_ by impotent ziogoonship. Such was the reverence, in which Iyeyas was and still is held, with a people, in whose annals, a century is spoken of as yesterday, that his will was not only law, but any wish, that he was known to have expressed, became sacred. He it was who first granted the privilege of intercourse with the Dutch: and that nation, instead of submitting to acts which would cause any cheeks to tingle, but those of great moral obliquity or meerschaum stupidity—instead of submitting to the durance vile of Dezima, and trampling upon the symbol of a Savior’s sufferings—had it in their power to exact anything, by expressing a wish or determination to leave their fan-shaped prison factory: but they are old fogies, and their course shows, that to stupidity they add stultification. [Illustration: _LITH. OF SARONY & Co. NEW YORK._ DEZIMA.] The contempt for mercantile pursuits, and the revenue derived therefrom, ascribed by the Dutch writers, to the “Japonicadom” of Japan, is all leather and prunella. The exchequer of the princes at times, is exceedingly limited and they are willing at such times to get funds and a wife, by taking the daughter of some wealthy merchant as _one_ of their better halves. The _quid pro quo_ to the father, for the dimes, that the patrician son-in-law may take from his coffers, is the privilege of wearing his coat-of-arms on the sleeve of his garments. But I have wandered from Iyeyas. This apotheosized usurper, enjoined upon his people to have nothing to do with Europeans, and our country not being known at the time of this injunction, and of course not included in such a designation, the hermetics may have thought, they could make a mere treaty of amity (and not of commerce, as has been stated), without mental reservation, with the United States. Then, too, the Japanese have an intelligent and excessive curiosity upon all subjects of information, and they contend, that inventions and discoveries are made now in such quick succession, that no nation may keep pace with them, that has not access to the world.