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he turned northwards and ravaged the islands of Sakhalin and Iturup. This made the Tokugawa Government pay greater attention to the defence of the north.
In 1808 the bold explorer Rinzo Mamiya explored the whole length of the western coast of Sakhalin, and ascertained for the first time that Sakhalin was not a peninsula, but an island. He even crossed the channel, and went up the river Amur as far as the Chinese town of Delen.
After this period the Russian vessels ceased to appear for some years, and as the cultivation of the northern islands entailed great expenses, though attended with little fruit, so the Tokugawa Government gradually called back the troops, and finally gave back the northern islands to the Daimyo of Matsumaye in 1821.
But in 1849 the Russian Captain Nevilskoi explored Sakhalin under the instigation of the famous Count Muravieff, and found a Russian port at Dui, on the western coast of it. On the 17th of July, 1853—that is, a month after the first arrival of Commodore Perry in Uraga—Admiral Putiatin arrived in Nagasaki with a letter from Emperor Nicholas I., and asked two things: the fixing of the northern boundary, and the opening of trade with Japan. After a long negotiation, first in Nagasaki, and the next year at Shimoda, the first treaty of amity and commerce with Russia was signed. By the same treaty, the sea between the islands of Iturup (Japanese) and Urup (Russian) was fixed to be the boundary between the two empires on the Kurile side; but as to Sakhalin, no definite limitation was made, and the maintenance of the status quo was promised as regards the mixed habitation of Japanese and Russians there. Taking advantage of this indeterminate condition of the island, Russia busily explored the interior of Sakhalin, and discovered some coal-mines.
After the Crimean War, Russia extended its territory towards the Pacific with renewed activity, and in 1859 Count Muravieff himself entered the Bay of Yedo in a man-of-war and demanded the recognition of the whole of Sakhalin as Russian territory, making the Straits of La Perouse the boundary between Japan and Russia. His argument was that by the Treaty of Aigun, 1858, Russia had obtained from China the cession of the whole territory along the Amur and the Pacific coast, and Sakhalin formed a part of the territory ceded. When the article promising the status quo was pointed out, he replied that Putiatin had had only full power for signing a commercial treaty, and not for boundary affairs. But the diplomats of the Tokugawa Government were also determined to resist, and so the famous Count of the Amur had to go away without having accomplished his object.