The Express.
London, England, 1860-02-22 00:00:00

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LONDON, iVEDNESDAY, FBB. 22.

Tile earliest edition of one of the most pleasing
works of that pleasing writer, WASHINGTON IRVING,
contained a vignette, illustrating the primitive com-
mercia► intercourse of the White Man and the North
American Indian. In the interior of a warehouse
were seen a couple of dusky hunter,, standing neer
the scales where the merchant, by a process singu-
larly free from the cumbrous and complicated
technicalities of commerce, was taking the weight
of their spoils. In his scheme of calculations his
hand weighed so many pounds and his toot so many
more, and great was the dismay depicted in
the faces of the children of the forest as they
learned, while halt the weight of their civilian' 1.
friend was thrown into the scale, for how
small a result they had (Inc metered the toils
and privations of the chase. By the overland
mail we have intelligence of frauds practised
on the people of Japan by Europeans, and
we are entry to say by our countrymen, quite as
flagrant as those described by the American novelist-
For the last two or three mouths we have heard
from Kanagawa of differences of a serious character
which had broken out between the European com-
munity and the Japanese respecting the currency,
and of an almost entire stoppage of trade as its con-
sequence. There is a profit of 100 per cent. on the
purchase by silver of Japanese gold tains; the latter
are, therefore, everywhere demanded. The Japanese
appear to hays eithir very much confident in the
honesty of mankind, or very little knowledge of
the laws which govern trade, for implicitly relying
on the efficacy of the decree which forbids
the export of gold, they afforded facilities for
the exchange of foreign and Japanese coin until
their gold ooluage had become exceedingly scarce,
when of necessity those facilities were suddenly
withdrawn. Now, although it was not to open up
an irregular and predatory trade of this character
that Lord Bunn went to Yeddo, yet if the
matter had ended here, and our eountrysieu, having
spoiled the natives of • too luxurious circulating
medium, had been satisfied, and settled fairly down
to the useful interchanges of commerce, there would
have been little said. Bat four British merchants,
whose names are recorded, and many others not
known nominally, have sent in to the Japanese
officials requisitions for exchange into Japanese
currency of more foreign dollars than pro-
bably exist in the world. It makes no
difference whether we say that their demand
is infinite, or that it is numerically ex-
pressed by the figures 1,200,1368,778,224,601,086,963
dots. Three numerals represent nothing but the
wantonness of a aharkieh crew, who mean to trade
upon the preetigeof the English name until they have
extracted the last oein from the Japanese treasury.
But those gentlemen bad reckoned without their host.
From some unexplained cause, it happens that we are
represented at Yeddo by the man of all others most
fitted for the post—a gentleman not only upright and
firm, but of great experience in the trade of the
East. Mr. BUTEZIPORD ALCOCK, who went to Japan
se Cmisul-General, and has recautly been invested
witha diplomatic character, has pet his hand on these
gentry, and exposed their doings in a despatch to
theActiug Causal at Kant/awe, the principal port of
Jepson. wade. Of the requisitions sent in, Mr.
ALCOCK says:—"Some are a positive disgrace to
▪ any one bearing the name of an Englishman, or
" having a character to low. Not only the sums,
" is their preposterous amount, are an insult to the
▪ Japanese Government, to whose officers these
quieitions were presented, but they are documents
' amen, tally false and duhoent, as purporting to be
" the names of individuals having a real existence
" and entitled to demand facilities for trade ; whereas