ABSTRACT
The pride and barbarism of the numerous countries situated on the coasts of Asia and America, as well as of the inhabitants of the islands lying between, have forbidden hitherto any hope of a relation, commercial or otherwise, between them and the more enlightened world. The earliest Spanish travellers and discoverers heard of foreign merchants who had landed on the north-west coast of America, and even assert that they saw fragments of a Chinese vessel. Even if the Chinese and Japanese have never at any time intentionally undertaken a voyage to America, it has happened that ships from Eastern Asia, China, and Japan, as well as those of Russians from Ochotsk coasts of the New World. A number of facts, taken from the occurrences of later times, may be alleged to support the theory of a former intercourse of China and Japan with islands which lie between those countries and America, and also with the western coast of the latter.
