In English Voyages It Appears
As "Seegar," "Segar," And "Sagar."
Formosa was visited in April, northern Japan in May, and the
investigation of the north-eastern coasts of Asia occupied until
October.
A passage in a letter from Laperouse to Fleurieu is worth quoting for
two reasons. It throws some light on the difficulties of navigation in
unknown seas, and upon the commander's severe application to duty; and
it also serves to remind us that Japan, now so potent a factor in the
politics of the East and of the whole Pacific, had not then emerged
from the barbarian exclusiveness towards foreigners, which she
had maintained since Europe commenced to exploit Asia. In the middle of
the seventeenth century she had expelled the Spaniards and the
Portugese with much bloodshed, and had closed her ports to all traders
except the Chinese and the Dutch, who were confined to a prescribed
area at Nagasaki. Intercourse with all other foreign peoples was
strictly forbidden. Even as late as 1842 it was commanded that if any
foreign vessel were driven by distress or tempestuous weather into a
Japanese port, she might only remain so long as was necessary to meet
her wants, and must then depart. Laperouse knew of this jealous
Japanese antipathy to foreign visitors, and, as he explains in the
letter, meant to keep away from the country because of it. He wrote: -
"The part of our voyage between Manilla and Kamchatka will afford you,
I hope, complete satisfaction. It was the newest, the most interesting,
and certainly, from the everlasting fogs which enveloped the land in
the latitudes we traversed, the most difficult. These fogs are such
that it has taken one hundred and fifty days to explore a part of the
coast which Captain King, in the third volume of Cook's last voyage,
supposes might be examined in the course of two months. During this
period I rested only ten days, three in the Bay of Ternai, two in the
Bay de Langle, and five in the Bay de Castries. Thus I wasted no time;
I even forebore to circumnavigate the island of Chicha (Yezo) by
traversing the Strait of Sangaar (Tsugaru). I should have wished to
anchor, if possible, at the northern point of Japan, and would perhaps
have ventured to send a boat ashore, though such a proceeding would
have required the most serious deliberation, as the boat would probably
have been stopped. Where a merchant ship is concerned an event of this
kind might be considered as of little importance, but the seizure of a
boat belonging to a ship of war could scarcely be otherwise regarded
than as a national insult; and the taking and burning of a few sampans
would be a very sorry compensation as against the people who would not
exchange a single European of whom they were desirous of making an
example, for one hundred Japanese. I was, however, too far from the
coast to include such an intention, and it is impossible for me to
judge at present what I should have done had the contrary been the
case.
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