Bingham to Terashima Munenor, September 26, 1874

Mr. Bingham to Mr. Terashima.

Your Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge your dispatch of the 25th instant, in which your excellency informs me that your government has, in accordance with my request, kindly granted a pass to Professor Davidson and his associates to visit any part of Japan for the purpose of observing, under the instructions of ray Government, the transit of Venus. I have made known to Professor Davidson, as your excellency requested me to do, the purpose of your excellency’s government to appoint officers to attend him and to obtain information of him as to his methods in this interesting work. I beg leave, in behalf of Professor Davidson, to thank your excellency’s government for its proffered courtesy, and have the honor to inform your excellency that he will be pleased to have the Japanese officials attend him as proposed, and to impart to them the information desired. I beg leave, in behalf of my Government, to request that your excellency’s government will telegraph the Japanese customs officials at Nagasaki to permit Mr. Edwards, the second assistant astronomer commissioned to this work, to receive from the Golden Age, upon its arrival in port, free of duty and without examination or delay, the instruments and outfit of the astronomical expedition, the property of my Government, and, when the work is completed, to reship the same without detention or payment of duties. I am authorized by Professor Davidson to say that there is nothing in this outfit but what especially appertains to the astronomical work assigned to him and his associates.

The professor also requests me to ask the further favor that your excellency’s government will authorize the telegraph officials at Nagasaki to furnish him material and labor to aid him in constructing whatever short telegraph line he may have occasion to construct for the connection of his astronomical station with the cable and government lines at that port, the reasonable expenses of which the professor will pay. He also desires that your excellency’s government will detail a government telegraph operator to assist him in the use of the telegraph lines, especially at night, for the determination of the difference of longitude, for which service also the professor will make payment.

Mr. Edwards has already gone forward on the Golden Age, and Professor Davidson leaves for Nagasaki on Thursday next, the 1st proximo. Your excellency will greatly oblige by sending the telegraph instructions to Nagasaki promptly, and by informing me of your action in the premises.

I have the honor to be your excellency’s obedient servant,