In 1852, American Commodore Matthew C. Perry embarked from Norfolk, Virginia, for Japan, in command of a squadron that would negotiate a Japanese trade treaty. Aboard a black-hulled steam frigate, he ported "Mississippi", "Plymouth", "Saratoga", and "Susquehanna" at Uraga Harbor near Edo (present-day Tokyo) on July 8, 1853, and he was met by representatives of the Tokugawa Shogunate. They told him to proceed to Nagasaki, where the sakoku laws allowed limited trade by the Dutch. Perry refused to leave, and he demanded permission to present a letter from President Millard Fillmore, threatening force if he was denied. Japan had shunned modern technology for centuries, and the Japanese military would not be able to resist Perry's ships; these "Black Ships" would later become a symbol of threatening Western technology in Japan. The Dutch behind the scenes smoothed the American treaty process with the Tokugawa shogunate. Perry returned in March 1854 with twice as many ships, finding that the delegates had prepared a treaty embodying virtually all the demands in Fillmore's letter; Perry signed the U.S.- Japan Treaty of Peace and Amity on March 31, 1854, and returned home a hero.