(TRAVEL.) Thomas C Dudley. Group of letters by a clerk with Perry's expedition to Japan. 14 items: 13 Autograph Letters, mostly signed in full or with his initials, to cousin Mary Elizabeth Morgan (1829-1875) of Mountain Home, AL and Pembroke, NH; plus a 12-page manuscript narrative dated 14 March 1852. Various places, March 1852 to August 1853
"Our swords no doubt tended somewhat to excite their fears. . . . We scaled the walls of a temple."
Few primary sources survive from Perry's naval "gunboat diplomacy" expedition to open trade with Japan; the Commodore issued orders strictly forbidding the keeping of diaries or writing of letters home. Somehow, this one member of the expedition managed to evade these restrictions. Here he describes the USS Powhatan's visits to the Ryukyu Islands and mainland China, describes what he has heard of Perry's initial visit to Japan--and makes clear that he and his fellow Americans were not exactly making a good first impression as tourists.
Thomas Cochran Dudley (1830-1864) of Yonkers, NY sailed on merchant vessels in the Caribbean before joining the United States Navy as an assistant purser's clerk in December 1852. He was assigned to a paddle-wheel steamer, the USS Powhatan, which received orders in January 1853 to head east via the Cape of Good Hope to join Matthew Calbraith Perry's famed expedition to Japan.
The last two letters in this collection were written while attempting to connect with Perry's fleet off Asia. The first is dated simply as August 1853 from "Loochoo" (the Ryukyu Islands, then an independent kingdom, which stretch southwest of Japan toward Taiwan); it is unsigned. Having left Japan temporarily to let them consider America's threatening overtures, Perry's fleet split up and visited other Asian ports. Here Dudley describes visits to Brunei on the island of Borneo, and Hong Kong ("one of the dullest, meanest places I ever was at"), before attempting to join Perry at the "delightful island" of Loochoo on 9 August. The letter presents Dudley and his fellow officers as the worst variety of tourists, using American military might as an excuse to intimidate and mock the locals. In the capitol, "the people are all afraid of us. Whenever they appear, they run into their houses and fasten them up tight, but we being determined to see them and their houses too, did not hesitate to climb over the stone walls and enter . . . and in the politest manner possible went into their rooms. . . . Finding their dwellings so comfortable to rest and cool off in, we entered a great many . . . I hope leaving them a good impression of us from our conduct, we doing everything to assure them of our harmlessness. Our swords no doubt tended somewhat to excite their fears. . . . We scaled the walls of a temple. . . . They tried to prevent us, which only increased our curiosity. . . . As they requested & shewed us, we got down upon our knees & bowed to their idols, with great laughter."
The final letter is dated from "off Formosa" [Taiwan], 25 August 1853. While the Powhatan had still not managed to connect with Perry, it offers a second-hand account of Perry's dramatic first visit to Japan: "While at Japan, he had an interview with the emperor's prime minister, who promises to make a treaty next May when we shall all go up again in quite an imposing procession. My great regret was not to have been there at the opening ball. . . . The Commodore landed, aye actually landed at Japan with 400 men & officers & two bands and had a conference. Tell me the Yankee ain't the greatest people under the sun. This is what no other nation has ever done. We have unsealed the long-hidden empire and we are to reap a rich reward. The Commodore will join this vessel and make her his flag ship . . . entailing a great deal of trouble on everyone aboard, for our Commodore is one of those fidgety men with whom there is no peace." Perry has ordered all officers to surrender their private journals, but "I shall send mine home or throw them overboard first, as they were written for myself alone." Letters home are also forbidden--"You will have to keep all the contents of this letter to yourself." Dudley adds in a postscript that the Powhatan has since moved on to the Chinese port of Cumsingmoon, where they "found he squadron here, and saluted the Commodore with 13 guns. . . . China is a humbug. I think that a less curious place, a more bepraised one by travellers, and a dirtier one would not well be found. We are all disgusted, most horribly disgusted with these regions."
The other letters in this lot are interesting naval and travel letters in their own right. The 12-page manuscript and the first 3 letters describe travel in Haiti, Cuba, and other points in the Caribbean in 1852. 4 more letters describe Dudley's naval appointment and preparations to ship out on the Powhatan; on 24 December 1852 he boasts that "there is a great deal of glory in going on the Japan expedition which is attracting so much attention from all the nations of the earth." Another 4 are written at sea while en route eastward from March to June 1853; one is on illustrated letterhead with a view of Madeira.
Dudley's letters to his sister from this period are held at the Clements Library, and are regarded as a key source on the Perry Expedition.
