planse. He spoke in his native tongue.

Mr. Tadas

Hyash then read the following remarks in English:

"GENTLEMEN: I earnestly desire to express, on behalf of the other members of this Embassy, and in my own behalf, our warmest thanks for all the kind honors you have shown us. The particulars of our reception, and the princely hospitality of your banquet this evening, will be sources of great gratification to our Emperor and his subjects.

The relative situation of this port to Japan is such that your prosperity will be the promoter of our civilization, and we hope our progress will contribute to enrich your city. We promise our best exertions to uphold and increase friendly relations between our countries, by which, in future, we will have many mutual interests. The gratitude I feel for your great kindness is beyond my power of expression. Governor Ito, one of our ambassadors, will respond more fully in our behalf."

The Vice-Ambassador Ito, in furtherance of the response, read the following words in a clear voice, so as to be distinctly understood by all present:

"GENTLEMEN: Being honored by your kind generosity, I gladly express to you, and through you to the citizens of San Francisco, our heartfelt gratitude for the friendly reception which has everywhere greeted the Embassy since its arrival in your State, and especially for the marked compliment paid this evening to our nation.

"This is perhaps a fitting opportunity to give a brief and reliable outline of many improvements being introduced into Japan. Few but native Japanese have any correct knowledge of our country's internal condition. Friendly intercourse with the Treaty Powers has been maintained (first among which was the United States), and a good understanding on the part of our people has increased commercial relations.

"Our mission, under special instruction from His Majesty, the Emperor, while seeking to protect the rights and interests of our respective nations, will seek to unite them more closely in the future, convinced that we shall appreciate each other more when we know each other better.

"By reading, hearing, and by observation in foreign lands, our people have acquired a general knowledge of constitutions, habits, and manners, as they exist in most foreign countries. Foreign customs are now gener ally understood throughout Japan.

"To-day it is the earnest wish of both our Government and people to strive for the highest points of civilization enjoyed by more enlightened countries. Looking to this end, we have adopted their military, naval,

scientific, and educational institutions, and knowledge has flowed to us freely in the wake of foreign commerce. Although our improvement has been rapid in material civilization, the mental improvement of our people has been far greater. Our wisest men, after careful observation, agree in this opinion.

"While held in absolute obedience by despotic sovereigns through many thousand years, our people knew no freedom or liberty of thought.

"With our material improvement, they learned to understand their rightful privileges, which, for ages, have been denied them. Civil war was but a temporary result.

"Our Daimios magnanimously surrendered their principalities, and their voluntary action was accepted by the General Government. Within a year a feudal system, firmly established many centuries ago, has been completely abolished, without firing a gun or shedding a drop of blood. These wonderful results have been accomplished by the united action of a Government and people, now pressing jointly forward in the peaceful paths of progress. What country in the middle ages broke down its feudal system without war?

"These facts assure us that mental changes in Japan exceed even the material improvements. By educating our women, we hope to insure greater intelligence in future generations. With this end in view, our maidens have already commenced to come to you for their education.

"Japan cannot claim originality as yet, but it will aim to exercise practical wisdom by adopting the advantages, and avoiding the errors, taught her by the history of those enlightened nations whose experience is her teacher.

"Scarcely a year ago, I examined minutely the financial system of the United States, and, while in Washington, received most valuable assistance from distinguished officers of your Treasury Department. Every detail learned was faithfully reported to my Government, and suggestions then made have been adopted, and some of them are now already in practical operation.

“In the Department of Public Works, now under my administration, the progress has been satisfactory. Railroads are being built, both in the eastern and western portions of the Empire. Telegraph wires are stretching over many hundred miles of our territory, and nearly one thousand miles will be completed within a few months. Light-houses now line our coasts, and our ship-yards are active. All these assist our civilization, and we fully acknowledge our indebtedness to you and other foreign nations.

"As Ambassadors and as men, our greatest hope is to return from this mission laden with results-valuable to our beloved country and calculated to advance permanently her material and intellectual condition.

"While in duty bound to protect the rights and privileges of our people,

we shall aim to increase our commerce, and, by a corresponding increase of our productions, hope to create a healthy basis for this greater activity.

"As distinguished citizens of a great commercial nation, prepared for business, desirous of participating in the new commercial era now dawning auspiciously upon the Pacific, Japan offers you her hearty co-operation. "Your modern inventions and results of accumulated knowledge, enable you to do more in days than our fathers accomplished in years.

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Time, so condensed with precious opportunities, we can ill afford to waste. Japan is anxious to press forward.

"The red disk in the centre of our national flag shall no longer appear like a wafer over a sealed empire, but henceforth be in fact what it is designed to be, the noble emblem of the rising sun, moving onward and upward amid the enlightened nations of the world."

This response was repeatedly interrupted by applause and cheers, and when he sat down the clapping of hands was deafening.

The next toast, "Our Relations with Japan," was responded to by Hon. C. E. DeLong. His remarks were as follows:

"GENTLEMEN: The toast that I am called upon to respond to is one about which I would most love to speak with freedom, but it is at the same time the one of all other subjects that I, as American Representative to the Empire of Japan, am least at liberty to discuss.

"I will venture a few words, however, in the hope of not transgressing my instructions, and yet, in part, responding to your call.

"What were our relations with that Empire in the past and what are they now? No intelligent Japanese or American can ever hear the name of Commodore Perry mentioned with indifference. His gallantry first bore down the outer walls of seclusion that had walled that Empire in from any but the most limited communication with other powers, for unknown centuries of time. Under his auspices the foothold was gained which is revolutionizing that land.

"To day what do we behold?

"Under the wise administration of His Imperial Majesty, the Tenno, we see thirty odd millions of people marching at a 'double-quick' into full fellowship with foreign states.

“The reign of his Majesty, signalized by its enlightenment, must make its own history forever illustrious. In this noble and unprecedented work of reform it is but proper to add that his Majesty finds most able and effec

tual support from the counsel of the noble Ministers of the Empire, some of whom it is our good fortune to be able to meet and honor in our land. "The mighty change, from our relations as they were to our relations as they are, is so sudden, so complete, so very wonderful as to be bewildering.

"Allow me to note a few of the prominent landmarks in this road of reform upon which this nation is travelling. The Japanese Government has been centralized by the abolishment of Daimiates, thus resolving its political condition from one of numberless and comparatively small principalities into a consolidated nation of over thirty millions of people, containing over two millions of men born to the profession of arms,-men whose martial valor none who knows them doubts, and who are rapidly being armed, uniformed, and drilled with the best of arms, under the tuition of the best of foreign military teachers.

"But the other day his Majesty received his fleet of ten steam-vessels of war, including two powerful iron-clads, and in a few days a flying squadron, composed of three of his Majesty's vessels of war, will sail to circumnavigate the globe.

"A railroad completed and in running order, from Yeddo to Yokohama, conveyed these gentlemen, our noble guests, on the commencement of their journey.

"Telegraph lines in working order, operated by Japanese operatives, are already constructed, and more contemplated.

Light-houses and light-ships have been constructed at all necessary points along the Japanese coast, where well-kept beacons guide and welcome commerce in safety to their ports.

"An Imperial Mint, complete in all of its appointments, has coined millions of dollars of the precious metals, and is still in active operation.

"A dry-dock has been constructed in which, but the other day, one of the largest of our vessels of war, the flagship Colorado, was docked with all of her guns in position, and repairs to her bottom most successfully made.

"Hundreds of the young nobility of Japan are being educated in our own country and in Europe. A college, numerously attended, is in full operation in Yeddo, under the jurisdiction of an American gentleman, assisted by European and American subordinates.

"Private schools are numerous throughout the Empire, conducted by foreigners, and with me come five Japanese ladies, seeking foreign culture, and marking by their advent the promise of a most noble reform.

"Thus I might proceed, and enumerate, at a great length, the evidences of this nation's progress, but I feel that more extended allusions are not necessary in the face of the one great fact that meets us here, face to face tonight, in the presence of this noble array of Japanese dignitaries, represent ing, as they do, not only all departments of that Government, but the dig

nity of the throne itself-a throne which but yesterday, as it were, was one of the most secluded and mysterious on earth.

"Who of you all, gentlemen, can fail to see in this sight the harbinger of greater events still to follow, that shall place Japan, in a very brief future, in complete alignment with the most advanced nations of the earth? We are proud of the past, proud of the present, and confident of the future. In this spirit I am sure the whole heart of the American nation will leap up to welcome the noble Ambassadors of our sister nation."

The advent of the Embassy on American soil called forth a large number of hearty editorials of welcome in the San Francisco papers, but the most satisfactory one, on account of its authentic facts, appeared in the Daily Evening Bulletin; and no apology is needed for introducing a portion of it in this place.

"Japan is to-day, all the circumstances of her previous condition considered, the most progressive nation on the globe. Less than twenty years have elapsed since the first treaty was made by Perry in 1854, for harbors of refuge for shipwrecked seamen and supplies for vessels in distress, and still less since the treaty was made by Minister Harris for purposes of trade. Prior to the period named, the penalty of death was visited upon Japanese who had had intercourse with foreigners, and trade was simply impossible. The government of the empire was in the hands of a number of Princes, or Daimios, who nominally ruled in the name of the Mikado, but practically in their own right. Each Daimio had his armed retainers, who wore the uniforms and marched under the distinctive banners of their chief. The Mikado was termed the spiritual Emperor, and had his own court at Kioto; while the Shogoon, or Tycoon, which title was hereditary in the Tokagawa family, exercised temporal authority at Yeddo, under the Gorogio, or Council of State, composed of some of the Daimios of