Excerpt from The Early Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and Japan, 1853-1865 The invitation to deliver the Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History at the Johns Hopkins University afforded an opportunity to organize the first part of a more extensive study in which I have been engaged for a number of years. It is my hope to complete eventually a survey of the whole period of Japanese-American diplomatic relations. The present lectures take up the story with the beginnings of American intercourse, and continue it through the negotiation of the Perry and Harris treaties, into the period when, because of the Mikado's refusal to approve of the commercial conventions, the foreign relations of Japan became apparently inextricably involved with the turbulent domestic politics of that revolutionary era. The narrative ends with the Mikado's sanction of the treaties in 1865, one of the most important of all the events which occurred in the period between the real opening of Japan in 1859 and the war of the restoration in 1868. It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge here the gratitude owed to the friends and colleagues, in America and in Japan, who have given help and encouragement in these investigations. Their very number precludes individual mention. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.