The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-06-13
BALTIMORE.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE Is, 1860

We can we'll imagine the perplexity of Captain
n,-noxr upon the receipt of the recent news from
Topap We do not wonder that he should have
telegraphed to Washington for instructions how !
to proceed or that the situation should have
nroved as embarrassing to the Administration as
it had previously appeared to the gallant officer
himself Certainly, there are no persons in the
UNITED STATES who can be supposed to be as much
interested in the news from Japan as the japanese
themselves, particularly, when that news is of the
highest political Importance, being nothing less
than the intelligence of the assassination of the
TYCooY-of revolution in the governmental a
probable change in the foreign policy of the EN-
pre- involving, perhaps, the entire failure VI ''e
purposes which the present Embassy was uesisneu
to subserye-and of an anticipated reoeii'oh anu
nrosnective civil war. All this has come 10 us by
NOV of San Francisco and the Overland mail. IL
hos come too. with such particularly of detail as,
!; enite of the doubts suggested in official quarters
leaves little room to question its truth. Names
and dates are carefully given-the day and man.
ner of the assassination-he fate of the assassins
and the effect produced upon the politics of the
country and its relations with foreigners, are all
described All this is exceedingly minute and cir
cumstantial and gives to the news an air of eX-
extreme probability. If it should turn out TO
be hoax, we must concede that it is at all
events. a clever one. But, hoax or no hoax, we
do not sec how that consideration relieves Captain
DUpoNT, in the least, from the perplexites of his
situation. Some time must elapse before that ques-
ton can be settled, and in the neutrality-suspicious.
to communicate the news to the Embassy or not
is another and not unimportant one Ordinarily
one would suppose such a case would present no
difficulty. 1t would be simply breaking a dis
agreeable piece of intelligence, and there would
be an end of it. But then-the japanese are such
a peculiar people-who knows but that the news,
if told, might make an end of them? In coun-
try, where every gentleman goes constantly
girded with a sword intended specially for suici-
dal purposes-where people, if troubled in their
minds or unhappy in their circumstances, make
no bones so to speak, of letting out their bowels
where gentleman, when insulted, takes satisfac-
ton by ripping up his own abdomen and dies
happy in the consciousness that his enemy, if
man of honor, must initiate his example or live
disgraced for ever-who knows but that high
official personages like ambassadors, may esteem
-
of the death of their Sovereign, to take immediate
steps to reioin him in the other world, through
the expeditions instrumentalty of the Hari-Kdri
or t'happy despatch and there present to him,
in person, the official report of their Embassy?
In fine there is disagreeable uncertainty as to
whether our japanese guests should they by any
means hear of the assassination of the Tycoon
may not straightway proceed to disembowel them
selves after the fashion of their country and thus
leave Captain DUPONT and mine host of the Cont
mental with seventy-one dead Japanese on their
hands. We are not surprised that the gallant
Captain stood aghast at the bare possibility of
such a catastrophe-that he should have trembled
to impart the news to the Embassy-that he
should have taken immediate measures TO pre-
vent it from being communicated to them by
others-and that he should have teegraphed to
Washington for further instructions. In the same
spirit of thoughtful consideration which dictated
these precautionary proceedings on the part of the
Captain, Government is said to have directed that
all mention of the news should be withheld from
the Embassy until it is confirmed by the receipt
of official dispatches. The necessity, therefore,
of ordering seventy-one collins for the Embassa-
doris and their suite though not obviated, is at
least postponed. See Naples and then die-is
the boastful saying of the people of Southern
Italy. 1t is some consolation to reflect that the
japanese will have the happiness of seeing New
York before being required to kill themselves
Let us hope, in view of the very short remnant
Of time which our guests possibly may
have to spend upon this earth, that those who
have charged themselves with the duty of enter
tanning them will deal gently with them. Let not
the Common Councilmen of New York, to whose
tender mercies-proverbially cruel-they are next
to be committed volunteer to be their execution
ers. For the sake of our future relations with ia
pan-which the intelligence just received shows TO
be in n critical condition-if the members of the
Embassy must die before they leave our shores.
let not their counTymen have occasion to say
that we did it, but let all the world under
stand that they died, decently and in order, by
their own hands, in the privacy of their own
apartments at the Metropolitan Hotel, in accord
ance with the strictest requirements of court
etiquette and in pious fulflment of their obliga-
tons to the late Tycoon.