PRUYN, Minister Resident of the United States in Japan to Duchesne de Bellecourt, May 7, 1863

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Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt this morning of your excellency’s letter of the 5th instant, transmitted through the United States consulate at Kanagawa.

The views therein communicated by your excellency, as to the propriety of giving support to the Tycoon, are in harmony with those expressed at our conference at Too Senje, the day succeeding the unfortunate murders of June. It has always appeared to me that it was the true policy and duty of the treaty powers to give to this government moral support, and material support even, if called on, against the hostility which the liberal policy it has inaugurated has naturally aroused in a portion of this empire.

The harmonious and vigorous co-operation of all the treaty powers in support of the Tycoon would be regarded by me as likely to confirm his power, and peaceably, but not the less effectually, to bring about a favorable solution of all the internal troubles of this empire growing out of its foreign relations, and all its complications with the treaty powers.

It would, moreover, be in accord with the proposal of the President of the United States to the treaty powers in 1861.

I shall transmit a copy of your letter to my government with great pleasure, though I expect to receive instructions on the question before your letter will have reached the United States.

On the 16th of February last I communicated to my government the information that the government of Japan feared a civil war might take place, and had asked me what course the United States would pursue in such event; to which I had replied, “that the United States would be deeply interested in such a struggle, and that all the moral support it could render, and all the material support which would be justified by international law, would doubtless be given; and that it was my opinion that, if called on by the government of the Tycoon for aid, all the treaty powers would be justified in giving it in self-defence, and would give it if, as was said, the object of the hostile daimios was to drive out foreigners.”

I have reason, therefore, to hope that even by this time our respective governments may have interchanged views on the subject in question.

Should the government of his Majesty the Tycoon be disposed meanwhile to accept the assistance of the fleets of France and England, now in these seas, I have no observation to offer, as neither your excellency nor our colleague of Great Britain has done me the honor either to invite me to your conference or to ask my opinion in reference to the results of your deliberations.

The government of his Majesty the Tycoon has, I have reason to believe, full faith in the peaceful and friendly disposition of the government of the United States, but at the same time, also, full knowledge of the conditions attached thereto, as it has very recently, as heretofore, been distinctly informed, pursuant to express instructions given me to that effect, “that it can only have friendship, or even peace, with the United States, by protecting citizens and subjects of foreign powers from domestic violence.”

Your allusion in your letter to the Gorogio of the 21st ultimo, with a copy of which you have kindly favored me, to a conversation with myself, induces me to remark, that though your excellency made no request that I should make the Japanese government acquainted with the opinions you expressed, I did not fail, in view both of your absence from Yedo and your unfortunate accident, to make known that your excellency was of opinion that the demand of her Britannic Majesty’s government should be promptly complied with, and that your excellency expected the French admiral to arrive here for the purpose of testifying to the sympathy of his Imperial Majesty’s government with the British demand for reparation.

Be pleased to accept, sir, the assurance of the high consideration with which I have the honor to be your excellency’s most obedient, humble servant,