He was not
ignorant of the difference in national characteristics between the
inhabitants of China and the more independent, self-reliant, and sturdy
natives of the Japanese islands. He knew that the latter held the former
in some degree of contempt and treated them in the matter of trade very
much as they treated the Dutch. He was also aware that the Chinese, when
they made their treaty, did know something of the advantages that might
result from intercourse with the rest of the world; while as to the
Japanese, in their long-continued isolation, either they neither knew
nor desired such advantages, or, if they knew them, feared they might be
purchased at too high a price in the introduction of foreigners, who, as
in the case of the Portuguese, centuries before, might seek to overturn
the empire. It was too much, therefore, to expect that the Japanese
would in all the particulars of a treaty imitate the Chinese.
Of the difficulties encountered, even after the Japanese had consented
to negotiate, the best account may be given from the conferences and
discussions between the negotiators, of all which most accurate reports
were kept on both sides, in the form of dialogue.
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