User:Yunggger/sandbox

On November 9, 1843, Cooper left Sag Harbor as captain of the 440-ton ship Manhattan on a whaling voyage. The saved twenty-two Japanese sailors triggered the trip of Captain Mercator Cooper to Japan. It was about the first of April 1845 when Captain Cooper passed by the neighborhood of St. Peters (a small island lying a few degrees to the S. E of Japan)to the northern ocean for whaling. When Captain Cooper was exploring the shore to hunt turtles, he met eleven Japanese sailors on the coast who had been shipwrecked on St. Peters many months ago. He took them to the shore, showed his vessel and informed them he would take them back to Jeddo if they trusted him. Captain Mercator Cooper decided to proceed them to Jeddo, although there is a clear rule published by Japanese court that prohibiting foreigners going to Japan. After Captain Cooper left St. Peters and sailed a day or two en route to Japan, he found a wrecked vessel on the ocean. This ship was from a port in Northern Japan and was initially shipping pickled salmon to Jeddo. Captain Cooper saved eleven more sailors from this ship and made sail gain for the shore of Japan.

The Manhattan set sail for Edo to repatriate the sailors. Outside Edo Bay four of the survivors took a Japanese boat with a message that Cooper wanted to deliver the remainder to the harbor. The Japanese normally wanted to avoid contact with outsiders due to the Tokugawa shogunate's official policy of national isolation. However, on April 18, 1845, an emissary from the shogunate gave the ship permission to proceed. "About three hundred Japanese boats with about 15 men in each took the ship in tow", according to Cooper's log. "They took all our arms out to keep till we left. There were several of the nobility came on board to see the ship. They appeared very friendly."Moriyama (The student of Ranald MacDonald) was an interpreter on the occasion of Capt. Mercator Cooper’s visit to Japan in 1845, he translated the government orders to the Captain into English.