Japanese Embassy To The US
Three years later, the Bakufu sent Kanrin Maru on a mission to the United States, clearly wanting to make a point to the world that Japan now mastered western navigation techniques and western ship technologies. On 9 February 1860 (18 January in Japanese calendar), the Kanrin Maru, sailed by Katsu Kaishū (as ship captain), John Manjiro, Fukuzawa Yukichi, altogether 96 Japanese sailors, and the American officer John M. Brooke, left Uraga for San Francisco.
This became the second official Japanese embassy to cross the Pacific Ocean, around 250 years after the embassy of Hasekura Tsunenaga to Mexico and then Europe in 1614, on the Japanese-built galleon San Juan Bautista.
Kanrin Maru was accompanied by a United States Navy ship, the Powhatan.
The official objective of the mission was to send the first ever Japanese embassy to the US, and to ratify the new treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation between the United States and Japan.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Warship Kanrin Maru
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