by purchase and partly by creditable home-made work, the clansmen had secured a store of powder and formidable artillery. They had erected on advantageous points and in commanding positions twelve batteries. mounting about seventy guns. Some of these were eight-inch Dahlgrens. Others were iron and bronze of European make. A few were field guns, cast and finished in Choshiu. They believed they could control and keep shut the straits of Shimonoseki, that is, the narrow western entrance to the Island Sea. They had in fact done so for fifteen months. There is hardly anywhere in the world a passage the Sound, the Straits of Dover, or Gibraltar-quite like this. It resembles but is much narrower than the Dardanelles. Through the rocky gateway between Hondo and Kiushiu the current scours like a mill

race.

The Choshiu clansmen had become the "cockiest" men in Japan. They believed they could whip not only the Tycoon and the foreigners but the whole world, the centre and chief part of which they believed to be Japan. As a matter of fact, while their artillerists and a few hundred riflemen remained at home to drive off the foreigners or sink their ships, a body of their picked men numbering perhaps two thousand with artillery and rifles actually marched northward and attacked Kioto August 20, 1864. They were the Japanese "Reds of the Midi." They expected

to seize the sacred person of the Mikado and by issuing orders in his name, make themselves virtual masters of the whole empire. In the battle which ensued the Satsuma, Aidzu, and Echizen clansmen fought desperately and drove off the Southrons, but not before nearly half the city had become a mass of smouldering ruins.

By the end of August, 1864, the foreign envoys had exhausted their resources. The great Yashikis, or caravansaries of this fighting clan in Yedo had been destroyed and levelled to the ground by the Bakufu. The poor old Tycoon, who wanted to resign his office, was not allowed to do So, but soon died of too many foreigners and too much Choshiu. Largely through the zeal of the British Minister, Sir Rutherford Alcock, whose one idea of diplomacy with Orientals was that every proposition must rest on "a solid substratum of force," an allied expedition to chastise Choshiu and open the straits of Shimonoseki was organized. Mr. Pruyn heartily approved of American participation, but the question was, what could be done? It was the time of our Civil War, when the government could not spare anything more than a nominal representation of force in the far East, so that the Jamestown was the only ship of war available. Apart from the necessity of having the American interests in Yokohama guarded, of what use would a sailing ship be in naval operations which would be conducted against batteries on high bluffs, in a narrow passage where the currents were violent? The British admiral offered to tow the old tub down into

the straits, but Captain Price wisely declined to go where he could not take his unmanageable ship with either dignity or safety.

Nevertheless, both minister and naval commander believed that the United States ought to be represented, for the sake of the moral effect (and financial benefit), lest the Japanese might think that we did not approve of the expedition or of keeping the straits open to commerce. Moreover, as a result of victory, they expected to compel the Bakufu to open new ports to commerce or else to pay roundly in indemnity. Thus a few thousand dollars spent in "moral" representation would subsequently yield a tremendous pecuniary harvest and justify a small outlay at little risk.

So the little merchant propeller steamer Ta-Kiang, of six hundred tons, belonging to the American firm of Walsh, Hall & Co., which had just brought British troops from Shanghai to Yokohama, was chartered. If lost in battle or during her one month's engagement, the United States was to pay $75,000 in "clean Mexicans" within nine months. (She was soon afterwards sold for $108,000.) For her services $9,500 were paid, besides $1,848 for coal. Her regular complement was forty men and she carried two little cannon for salutes or for a possible brush with Chinese pirates. Captain Price's object in chartering this vessel was not to take part in the fight, but only to go with the squadron as an ambulance-vessel to carry the wounded, to tow the boats of a landing party, and in any and every way "to assist in the common object, but not to be under fire of the forts."

When the peaceful little propeller was brought alongside the big sloop of war, the officers noticed that her boilers were well above the water line. The proper tackle being rigged, the Jamestown's thirty-pound Parrott rifle gun, with its carriage, was hoisted from the after spar deck and lowered on board the Ta-Kiang, with ammunition for about fifty rounds. The naval officers, gun squad and marines numbered eighteen, making the total number on board the TaKiang fifty-eight persons.

Captain Price then tendered the command of this vessel to Ensign J. D. Graham, but when this officer found that he was to command only a towboat or hospital ship, he was disgusted, intimating that he did not care much about the job. So Price

revoked the orders, and Lieutenant. Pearson was detailed for the duty.

Frederick Pearson was a Pennsylvania boy, born in Reading. He had seen service in the early part of the war and was on the Saint Lawrence, when she sank the Confederate Petrel off Charleston, July 28, 1861. On the Wabash he assisted in the capture of Fort Pulaski. He had the curious experience of being on the steamer Ottawa when she chased a train of cars up the St. Mary's River in Florida. Pearson was a sunny and cheerful fellow, brave as a lion, a born fighter and one always anxious to do his duty to the full. He understood perfectly why Ensign Graham declined the appointment. He resolved that if he were called to go to war in the name of the United States it would be elsewhere than on an ambulance, but this would require that the captain's orders should be modified. How to do this was a question.

Pearson was a man of resources. He knew the captain well and had learned which was his "weather" side. So, when called into the cabin to get his instructions, he began telling some good stories which greatly interested Captain Price, and at last the funny yarns made his superior officer laugh heartily. Then coming to the subject of the Ta-Kiang, he prevailed upon Price to modify the instructions, so that the words "without however, being under the fire from the forts" were not in the new order. His instructions read as follows:

"As the steamer under your command is not a man-of-war or prepared to attack the forts, you will render any and every other aid in your power such as

towing boats, landing men and receiving the wounded on board of you if required to do so. To this end you will consult the senior officers present."

an

Practically these orders amounted to this: "Use your own discretion with every precaution." So the next morning the Ta-Kiang, with extra boat, sailed with Pearson in charge. With him were Surgeon Alexander M. Vedder, a brother of the artist Elihu, Mr. Butt, master's mate, and fifteen men, each with a Sharpe's rifle.

With his little steamer, Pearson arrived promptly at the rendezvous, at Himeshima in the Inland Sea. He at once reported to the British Admiral Kuper. The same good fortune met him that he had had with Captain Price. He got on the right side of the bold Briton and intimated that he wanted to give Price's orders the largest possible "broad construction." He desired above all things not to be made the reserve vessel that was to lie outside of the line, to do the work of relief or towing in case a ship was sunk or got aground. He preferred to be near the flag. ships.

Admirals Kuper and Jaurez so far yielded to his request as to give him

a position, not indeed with the advance squadron of heavy vessels which were to anchor directly in front of, nor with the light squadron which was to flank, the batteries; but with the Conqueror, Euryalus and Semiramis, which were to take their stations in the centre to the southeast and further from the range of the Choshiu cannon. The Conqueror had the British Naval Brigade on board. Between this British