An excerpt from The Americans in Japan by Robert Tomes about the initial encounter between Perry and the Japanese, 1857.
Author Robert Tomes was a medical doctor, writer, and translator. Tomes principally wrote for magazines such as Harper’s Weekly but also published several books. Tomes had assisted Matthew Perry and Francis L. Hawks with compiling and publishing the official three-volume US government record of the Perry expedition. The Americans in Japan is an abridged version that was more accessible to readers from the general public.