De Long to Soyeshmia Tane-omi, November 20, 1872

Mr. De Long to Soyeshmia Tane-omi.

Sir: I have the honor to advise you that Captain Trask, master of the Maria Luz, advised me that her crew are in a mutinous and insubordinate condition; that they were demanding to be paid the wages due them and be discharged. He had become alarmed that they might commit some act of violence to the vessel or himself unless their request was complied with; in view of which statement of facts he recommended to me that the crew be discharged and sent away. Attaching full faith and credit to this report, I forwarded a copy of the same to your kencho at Kanagawa, indorsing the recommendations made by the captain, and offering, in event the crew should be discharged, to pay them their wages and provide a way for them to leave the empire. Your kencho also approving the recommendations, did discharge the twelve members of the crew, who, upon receiving from me their wages and passage-tickets for Hong-Kong, left the port of Yokohama on the last American mail steamer.

While being placed on board the steamer, it is reported to me that they behaved in a very outrageous manner, assaulting the captain and several of your police officers with their knives and pistols, and, after arriving on board the steamer, firing at boats around the vessel.

The ship Maria Luz is now in charge of the captain, one of the former crew, and a Japanese assistant.

I sincerely trust that this report may be gratifying to your excellency, and that in the whole matter of the Maria Luz what I have done by way of lending my good offices to the Peruvian government may not have resulted in annoyance or inconvenience to your excellency’s government or yourself.

I remain, &c.,