THOMAS BLAKE GLOVER was one of the first British merchants to come to Japan as a result of the treaties which ended that country's long policy of seclusion. The problems he and his fellow businessmen were to encounter in the early years of their stay were largely caused by ignorance and incomprehension on the part of both the Japanese and the treaty powers and their total strangeness to each other. As Glover played a small but important role in smoothing these difficulties, it is perhaps appropriate to review briefly the situation in Japan prior to his coming.

In 1854 Commodore Perry had forced Japan to grant a treaty which guaranteed the protection of shipwrecked sailors, the opening of ports for provisioning of ships, and the right of a consul to reside at Shimoda. Subsequent negotiating on the part of Townsend Harris produced a commercial treaty which would open the ports of Nagasaki and Kanagawa (Yokohama) to trade in 1859, Niigata in 1860, and Hyōgo (Kobe) in 1863. These treaties were soon signed by Russia, Great Britain, France and Holland.

Perry's visit caused much consternation in Japan. Though cut off from the world since the 1630s, the Tokugawa Shoguns were not entirely ignorant of what passed outside their realm. The Dutch factory in Nagasaki had long supplied rangaku — Dutch learning — to the Japanese, so that European military tactics, medical studies, and the natural sciences were not unknown to them. The Chinese Guild, also in Nagasaki, brought regular news from China so that the Shogun was well aware of that country's capitulation to European might. Within Japan the ‘foreign problem’ produced severe disagreement. The Imperial faction were against making treaties with the foreigners at all and desired to expel them by force. The Bakufu saw some concessions as inevitable, or the foreigners would compel them by superior strength. The great south-western clans, always enemies of the Bakufu, were against the treaties but for the reason that the treaty ports would all be under the control of the Shogunate.

The foreign treaty-makers were ignorant of the dissensions in Japan. In their eyes the Emperor reigned in Kyoto and the Shogun ruled in Edo.