the papers from the government, said he would deliver them to you in
person.” Presently the vessels came into the harhor; and as all the crew
spoke English, the Japanese, who had heen aocustomed to hear that language
since 1795, concluded that the vessels were American, and that they had
heen hired at Batavia by the Dutch, who they knew had sometimes sought
to carry on their commerce, without risk of capture, under the flag of the
United States. To ascertain the truth, M. Doeff himself went on hoard,
when M. Waardenar met him with evident embarrassment, and handed him
a letter. The Dutch direotor saw that there was something not yet intelligible
to him, and prudently declined opening the letter until he should reach
the factory, whither he soon returned accompanied by Waardenar and his
secretary.
When they reached Dezima, Doeff opened the letter in the presence of
Blomhoff and of Waardenar, and his secretary. I t was signed “ Baffles,
Lieutenant-Governor of Java and its Dependencies,” and announced that M.
Waardenar was appointed commissary in Japan, with supreme power over
the factory. The poor direotor was utterly bewildered. In his long isolation
great events, and among them the utter absorption of his own nation
into that of Prance, and the subjugation of all the Dutch colonies, had
occurred; and he asked in amazement, “ Who is Baffles ?H Then was
opened to him the last five years of European history, and he learned that
Holland no longer had an independent national existence, and that Java
belonged to England; that Sir Stamford Baffles, who ruled there, had
oppointed Waardenar and Dr. Ainslie, an Englishman, as commissioners in
Japan, and required of him a surrender of everything into their hands. It
was an ingenious hut most hazardous attempt on the part of Baffles to
transfer the trade which the Dutch had so long monopolized to the hands of
the English.
Doeff instantly refused compliance, on the ground that Japan was no
dependency of Java, and could not he affected by any capitulation the Dutch
might have made on the surrender of that island; and further, that if Java
was now an English island, then the order to him came from an authority to
which he, as a Dutchman, acknowledging no allegiance to England, certainly
owed no obedience. Doeff, who was exceedingly shrewd, saw also in an
instant that the ships and crew were completely at his mercy. He had hut
to tell the Japanese the facts he had just learned, and, exasperated as they
were by the, affair of the Phaeton, the destruction of the ships and their crews
would inevitably follow. He saw his advantage, and shaped his course accordingly.
Fraissinet (who in his work on Japan is very much of an apologist
for the Dutch in all cases) represents this conduct on the part of M.
Doeff as an example of exalted humanity and patriotism; while MacFar-
lane intimates that, such was the hatred of Doeff to the English, he would
probably have denounced the ships to the Japanese but for the fact that M.
Waardenar was his countryman, his friend, and early benefactor. We cannot
undertake to arbitrate between these conflicting views, our business is to
record the fact that, in the exercise either of loyalty, or friendship, or humanity,
as the case may be, he contrived to preserve, in all its purity, the high repu
tation of the Dutch for taking care of their commercial interests in J apan, at
any expense, particularly when such expense could be made to fall upon
others.
The Dutch factory had for five years been without its annual supplies
from Batavia, and had consequently been obliged to contract a large debt to
the Japanese for their support during this long period. M. Doeff, after
working upon the fears of Waardenar and Ainslie by a threat of exposure
to the Japanese, induced them to enter into an arrangement with him, and
to bind themselves in writing to the fulfilment of the contract, which was in
substance this : In the first place, the ships were to be passed off as being American,
employed by the Dutch, for the sake of obtaining the protection of the
neutral flag of the United States. Secondly, the presence of M. Waardenar,
well known to the Japanese as a Dutchman, and formerly president of Dezima,
was to give countenance to this view. Thirdly, M. Doeff demanded
as a price of holding his tongue, that is, as the price of saving the lives of
Waardenar and the English, that the cargoes of the two ships should be
delivered to him, as Dutch factor, in the usual manner; that he should dispose
of them, and out of the proceeds pay first all that Holland owed the
Japanese for the supplies of the last five years. The surplus was to be applied
to the purchase of copper, to load the ships as far as possible, though the
copper was to he estimated at more than the usual price to the English purchasers.
Finally, it was provided that when the ships reached Batavia and
sold the copper, twenty-five thousand rix dollars were to be placed to the personal
credit of M. Doeff. On these terms the Dutch director connived at
the imposition of a deception upon the Japanese, and successfully managed
to secure the silence of such of the interpreters as he could not help trusting
with the secret. The ships were loaded and dispatched as soon as possible,
and they certainly encountered no small risk while they remained at Dezima;
for the son of that governor of Nagasaki who killed himself about the affair
of the Phaeton was now a man of office and influence at Jeddo, and would
undoubtedly have availed himself of the opportunity, had he known it existed,
to avenge his father’s death.
Sir Stamford Baffles is generally supposed by his best friends to have
made a mistake in sending these ships. I f Doeff had surrendered the factory,
the probability is that as soon as the Japanese .discovered it to be transferred,
and that, too, without consulting them, they would have destroyed Dezima,
and put all the English there to death.
In 1814, however, Baffles sent CaBsa hack in one of the ships, (Waardenar
was probably too wise to put his neck into the halter again,) when the