VI. " BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER."

A FEW months later Commodore Tattnall appeared in Chinese waters. It was Tattnall who, in 1847. at Vera Cruz, wanted to prolong his half-hour's cannonade of a fortress built of heavy masonry, with little steamers mounting one gun each. It was he who said, "war short

LIEUTENANT FREDERICK PEARSON.

ens life, but broadens it." Now, in 1860, he was conveying Mr. Ward, the United States minister, on the chartered steamer Toeywan, into the Pei-ho River. On the 23d of June the British and French allied gunboats, having blown up one boom, attacked the forts, but being unable to force the second, were caught in a trap under short range of the Chinese guns,

and were terribly defeated. Many ships were sunk or silenced. Eighty-five men were killed, and three hundred and forty-five were wounded.

Tattuall, in the American steamer outside of the bar, was a spectator. He bore the sight until things were at their worst. The flag-ship Plover had parted her cable, and drifted a helpless wreck until lashed to the Cormorant. With the admiral wounded, and all her men killed or disabled, only the one bow gun was still gallantly served by a weary squad. Then the American commodore ordered his cutter, and in the thick of the fight passed through the fleet and the hell of fire to visit and cheer Admiral Hope. A round shot from the Chinese fort killed Tattnall's cockswain and shattered the stern of his boat. This raised the fighting blood of both tars and chief to the hottest. To the British officer's query of surprise at this act of a neutral, Tattnall explained that blood was thicker than water, and that he would gladly aid their wounded. Meanwhile the American

proval twinkled in his eyes. His excuse for towing British marines into action, for assisting in an assault upon a Chinese fort, and for other technical violations of international law was, in a phrase, a sentiment, but one destined to strengthen and deepen as the years flow on.

On the other hand, with equal humanity, Tattnall offered the services of his surgeons to aid the wounded Chinese; but neither the Chinese government, nor race, nor nation-if there be such a thing as the last, which we doubt- - has ever been particularly interested in saving lives endangered in war. Tattnall's offer was declined. The Pei-ho forts were captured. Our minister, J. E. Ward, reached Peking, refused to make the kotow, or nine prostrations, but ratified the treaty and returned.

to blow off its rock cap. Townsend Harris had, on February 17. 1858, secured the written promise of the Yedo government to sign the treaty, and on the 27th of July the American envoy was at Yokohama with Tattnall on the Powhatan, delivering his letter, urging the Premier Ii's signature "without the loss of a single day."

Yet, so far, the anti-Tycoon party at Kyoto had withheld the Mikado's signature. The country seemed ready either for intestine war, or conquest by the "hairy alien." Should Japan become as India or China? The regent-premier i answered no. He signed the Harris treaty July 29, and opened Japan first to the United States, and thus to twenty nations. this act he was assassinated, March 23, 1860, while the Japanese embassy sent by

For

the critical scholarship of Shimada Saburo has set Ii's long-clouded character into the sunlight of honor. The hermit days of the agitated Japan of 1853-1868 are forgotten in the wealth, power, and splendor of the industrial and naval empire of today.

Nevertheless, the olive branch from America meant civil war in Japan. "The steel parted from the wood." Swords flashed from the red scabbards and from the white. Satsuma, of the scarlet sheath, typified the Mikado-reverencing and progressive South. Aidzu, of the virgin white wood covering the steel blade, stood for the loyal and conservative North. Choshiu, in the West, however, held the Strait of Shimonoseki, the great highway of foreign commerce. "In obedience to the [imperial] order," was inscribed on the flag which the clansmen flung to the wind from bluffs which they lined with batteries of heavy guns. They staked out the channel, so as to hit exactly the ships of the "barbarians," who had defiled the Land of the Gods.

THE LAST TYCOON OF JAPAN.

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER ALEXANDER SLIDELL

MACKENZIE.

way northward through the strait. She was fired upon by the Choshiu clansmen in the batteries and on their armed brig, formerly the Lanrick, but was unhurt. The peace of nearly 250 years in Japan was broken. On July 8 the French despatch-vessel Kien Chang was hit in seven places, her boat's crew nearly all killed by a shot, and the vessel saved from sinking only by lively use of the pumps. On July 11 the Dutch frigate Medusa was hit thirtyone times, seven shots piercing her hull, and three 8-inch shells bursting on board, four men being killed, and five wounded. On July 20 the French gunboat Tancrede, though steaming swiftly through the channel, was struck three times with round shot. Not long after a steamer belonging to Satsuma, but mistaken for an alien vessel, was set on fire by shells and sunk, twentysix Japanese losing their lives, their bodies floating past Yoshibe Rock. The Choshiu artillerists were in high feather at their splendid successes. With their armed brig, their bark (formerly

mounted six guns, two of them being 11inch Dahlgrens. He heard the news of the Pembroke from Minister Robert Pruyn at Yokohama. He determined to cheer up

his countrymen. Though without charts of the strait or map of the batteries, McDougal ordered coal and stores on board with all despatch. He learned the exact draught of the Japanese steamer Lancefield, and was delighted to find it greater than the Wyoming's. On July 16, under a cloudless sky, without a breath of wind, and the sea as smooth as a tank of oil, the Wyoming, with her ports covered with tarpaulin, so as to look like a merchantman, arrived in the strait. The lieutenant in the forecastle called out that he sighted two squarerigged vessels and a steamer at anchor close in to the town. Most of the Wyoming's men and her Japanese pilot had never been under fire.

the Daniel Webster), and the big steamer Lancefield converted into a man-of-war, the Japanese believed that they could whip anything afloat which the foreigners might bring. The Coufederate privateer Shenandoah had annihilated our whaling fleet in the North Pacific, and our commerce having been swept from the seas by the Alabama, Americans living in Japan felt like people without a

country.

VIII.-MCDOUGAL

AND THE
"WYOMING."

CAPTAIN DAVID MCDOUGAL was then in search of the Alabama. His ship, the sloop of war Wyoming,

When, therefore, McDougal called

we will steer right in between them and take the steamer," not a few aboard turned pale at the thought of their captain's thus running amuck." Moreover, McDougal, noticing the stakes that marked the channel, and suspecting that the Choshiu guns were all trained on it, ordered the man at the wheel to run the ship inside, between the stake-line and the northern shore. The Japanese pi

lot seemed paralyzed with terror at the ship's running so close under the batteries. Yet McDougal took his risks, with cool knowledge of the situation and the depths of water, and without foolhardiness.

Even before the ship was thus steered, the 8-inch guns on the bluffs opened fire. The American flag was hoisted at about 10.30, and the artillery of the Wyoming began to play. McDougal's wisdom was quickly justified. Great red dragonlike tongues of flame and white clouds of smoke revealed fresh batteries on the hills and behind the town. Shot and shell screeched through the air, but they flew ten or fifteen feet over the heads of the Wyoming's men, for the guns on shore had all been pointed upon the channel. There were six finished batteries, mounting in all thirty guns. The three Japanese men-of-war carried eighteen pieces, making forty-eight cannon opposed to the Wyoming's six. The first Americans killed were two sailors near the anchor, and then a marine named Furlong, from Maine. Except Furlong, all the casualties were in the forward division.

By 10.50 A. M. the Yankee ship, now in front of the town, dashed directly between the steamer and the two brigs. The Japanese gunners on the Lanrick, who

were so near that their faces could be seen, fired no fewer than three broadsides from their bronze twenty-four pounders, while the muzzles of the Wyoming's four thirty-two pounders nearly touched theirs. The Lancefield, having her heavier guns pointed up the channel, was not able to make use of them, but fired swivels and muskets. The Wyoming rounded the bow of the steamer, and when out into the clear water again became the target of the batteries behind the town and of one brig, the other brig showing signs of sinking.

Unfortunately the Wyoming grounded. Seeing this, the heavily manned Japanese steamer began to move, either to escape into the inner harbor, or to ram the Wyoming and board her while stuck in the mud. Fortunately the Yankee's propeller worked the ship off. Then, neglecting the sinking brig, the Wyoming manoeuvred, in the terribly swift stream, until the pivot-guns had the range of their splendid target. Then both Dahlgrens spoke. Their shots so demoralized the company on board the Lancefield that the dignitaries from under the magnificent purple canopy got off in sculling-boats and were rowed away, while the sailors leaped overboard by the score,