Three reasons inspired these visits of foreign vessels: the need of provisions, looking for shipwrecked crews, or repatriating shipwrecked Japanese, and a desire to engage in trade, or to establish friendly relations which would lead to that result. In no case was the reception accorded encouraging, though a clear discrimination was exercised between merchant vessels and warships. To the former scant mercy was shown; but warships were treated with more respect. They were towed into and out of harbour free of charge, and were supplied with provisions for which no money was accepted. America was the country most interested at that time in the opening of Japan to foreign intercourse on account of the operations of her whalers in the Pacific and her trade route to China. The United States Government, therefore, decided to take the initiative in endeavouring to put an end to the Japanese policy of isolation. Accordingly, in the year 1845, Commodore Biddle arrived in Yedo with two men-of-war for the purpose of establishing trade relations between the two countries. He failed, however, to induce the Japanese Government to enter into any negotiations on the subject. Seven years later the matter was again taken up by the Government at Washington, Commodore Perry receiving orders to proceed to Japan on a mission to arrange for the more humane treatment of American sailors shipwrecked on the coasts of Japan; to obtain the opening of one or more harbours as ports of call for American vessels and the establishment of a coal depôt; and to secure permission for trade at such ports as might be opened. No secrecy surrounded the intentions of the United States. They were known in Europe as well as in America, as Macfarlane, writing in 1852, mentions, and the Dutch promptly told the Japanese. On July 8th, 1853, Perry arrived in the harbour of Uraga, a small cove in the Bay of Yedo, some thirty miles from the present capital. His instructions were to obtain the facilities desired by persuasion, if possible, but, if necessary, by force. He succeeded after some difficulty in prevailing upon the Japanese authorities to receive the President’s letter at a formal interview on shore. At the same time he presented a letter from himself demanding more humane treatment for shipwrecked sailors, and pointed out the folly of persistence in the policy of seclusion. He would return next spring, he added, with more ships to receive the answer to the President’s letter. With Perry’s arrival the Shōgun figures under a new title, that of Tycoon (_Taikun_), or Great Lord, a term first used in correspondence with Korea in order to conceal the fact that the Shōgun was not the sovereign of Japan. This was the word chosen to designate the Shōgun in the earlier treaties concluded with foreign Powers, and is the name by which he was commonly known to foreigners until the Restoration put an end to the government he represented.