After the close of the preliminary negotiations, and a hasty survey of the bay of Yeddo, the fleet departed on a short cruise to Hong-Kong, in order to give the Japanese emperor time to think over the propositions which the United States Government had made to His Majesty.
The trip to Hong-Kong, by way of the Loo-Choo Islands, was without special incident, and on the 7th of August he was again in the harbor which he had left in the month of March. For five months he had known what it was to be a seaman and made subject to the strict orders enforced on a man-of-war. It was a fresh experience. He was keen enough to recognize the merits and failings of naval discipline and naval drill. He saw that many improvements might be made in both. He thought, furthermore, that the ships themselves might be constructed on a better pattern. Hence, he boldly recommended changes whenever the opportunity came for him to speak through the public prints. He had become much attached to the officers and men of his ship, and parted with them at Hong-Kong with the feeling of sincere regret. He had made it his home on board, and had been so contented and so kindly treated that he felt the pangs of homesickness as he shook hands and went over the side for the last time.
Although he had enlisted for the usual term of years, as the laws of the United States recognized no shorter term, and ran the risk of being held to the terms of his enlistment, yet there was a tacit understanding between him and the Commodore that he should be allowed to resign when the fleet returned to Macao. Consequently, when he presented at that port his resignation it was promptly accepted, and he became a civilian again. He found it nearly as awkward to be a landsman as he had at first to be a sailor, and often looked out on the great men-of-war, as they lay at anchor, with an indescribable yearning to tread their decks.
From Macao, he made excursions to Hong-Kong and Canton, finding friends that pleased him, and an aristocratic snobbery that displeased him, in the former place, and dirt, vice, and cheating in the latter, which made him further disgusted with the Chinese race. In Canton, as elsewhere, he spoke of them in strong terms, condemning their importation into the United States in a manner to please the bitterest hater of the Celestials to be found on our Pacific coast. Yet he visited the shops, practised the “pigeon English,” visited the great temple of Honan, tested the power of opium by smoking it himself, made a tour into the country, interested himself in the foreign factories and the local government, and made the acquaintance of many enterprising foreign merchants. But his aversion to the Chinese, doubtless intensified by the wild rumors of barbarous deeds then current on account of the rebellion, was not abated after he had seen the great metropolis; and he frankly admitted, in his letters and in his book, that he was glad to get away from China.