Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856,
By D. APPLETON & CO.,
c Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern
District of New York.
PREFATORY NOTE.
P k o m p t e d in a great degree by feelings of personal friendship
for Commodore Perry, the compiler of the following pages yielded
to his earnest request, enforced as it was by that of other friends,
and consented to undertake the task of preparing this Narrative of
the United States’ Expedition to Japan.
And here it is proper to mention, that among the expressed
motives which induced the Commander of the Expedition to desire
the execution of the work by other hands than his own, none
seemed more prominent than this consideration ; that, as the facts
here embodied were to be gathered not merely from the pages of
his own journal, but from those also of several of his officers as
well as from their official reports to him, he thought it better to
confide the compilation to a disinterested third party, who might
weave the various materials into a connected narrative of all the
important events, uninfluenced by that partiality for his own words
or acts, from which, owing to the infirmities of human nature
the most honest and best of men are not always entirely exempt.
As the sole object on the part of the Commander was to afford
to his government and countrymen the most ample account he
could of what had been done by himself, his officers, and men—as