Quotes by Townsend Harris

• The expense of a war could be paid in time; but the expense of opium, when once the habit is formed, will only increase with time.
• The President regards the Japanese as a brave people; but courage, though useful in time of war, is subordinate to knowledge of arts; hence, courage without such knowledge is not to be highly esteemed.
• The nations of the West hope that by means of steam communication all the world will become as one family.
• The President is of opinion that if Japan makes a treaty with the United States, all other foreign countries will make the same kind of a treaty, and Japan will be safe thereafter.
• The President of the United States thinks that for the Japanese opium is more dangerous than war.
• The President wishes the Japanese to be very prudent about the introduction of opium, and if a treaty is made, he wishes that opium may be strictly prohibited.
• The United States have no possessions in the east and do not desire to have any, as other countries do.
• Two things are desired in order that intercourse may be had: First, that a minister or agent be allowed to reside at the capital. Second, that commerce between different countries be freely allowed.
• We were sent to this country by the President, who desires to promote the welfare of Japan, and are quite different from the ambassadors of other countries.
• When the ambassadors of other foreign countries come to Japan to make treaties, they can be told that such and such a treaty has been made with the ambassador of the United States, and they will rest satisfied with this.
• It appears that the English think the Japanese... are fond of opium, and they want to bring it here also.
• We do not wish to open your ports to foreign trade all at once.
• By means of steam one can go from California to Japan in eighteen days.
• Japan and China are isolated and without intercourse with other countries; hence the President directed me to attend to or watch the state of affairs in China also.
• Since the invention of steamships distant countries have become like those that are near at hand.
• As the treaty made with the United States was the first treaty entered into by your country with other countries, therefore the President regards Japan with peculiar friendliness.
• If I write in my name to the agents of England and France residing in Asia and inform them that Japan is ready to make a commercial treaty with their countries, the number of steamers will be reduced from fifty to two or three.
• If Japan had been near to either England or France, war would have broken out long ago.
• If war should break out between England and Japan, the latter would suffer much more than the former.
• If you make a treaty first with the United States and settle the matter of the opium trade, England cannot change this, though she should desire to do so.
• In case of war, a treaty would have to be made at the end of the war.
• In time of war steamships and improved arms are the most important things.
• It will be quite satisfactory if you open them gradually, as the circumstances may require; but the President assures you that this will not be the case if you make a treaty with England first.
• Any nation that refuses to hold intercourse with other nations must expect to be excluded from this family.