This book is the outcome of suggestions made to me by friends, naval and otherwise, that I should employ the enforced leisure of half-pay in turning my attention to authorship; but in offering it for the perusal of those who are attracted by historical subjects I would ask them to be indulgent enough to remember that forty-five years of service in the Navy is not the best of training for literary effort. All I have endeavoured to accomplish, therefore, is to present a seaman's view of a subject of maritime interest which nobody has hitherto studied as a whole, and as I do not possess the advantage of being able to read the old Japanese records in the original, I have been dependent for my information in regard to the events in history upon the labours of those who do.<br><br>Many histories of Japan have appeared in English, but very different versions of ancient historical occurrences are to be found in the various accounts hitherto published, and, as far as I have been able to ascertain in an exhaustive search through the British Museum Library, no attempt has been made to sift the discrepancies and produce a standard record based on an acceptance of the points on which the majority of well-qualified writers are in agreement. Moreover, some writers, by specializing in the treatment of selected periods and passing lightly over others, have produced books which are lacking in proportion as a guide to the study of the whole matter, however valuable as works of reference for a part.