 Given the scarcity of such opportunities, Titsingh's informal contacts with "bakufu" officials and "Rangaku" scholars in Edo may have been as important as his formal audiences with the "shōgun", Tokugawa Ieharu.During the 18th century there was an improvement of the social position of the Dutch merchants and the treatment of the Dutch vis-à-vis the Japanese, who showed a higher degree of respect and recognition than in the centuries before.Nevertheless, the average "Opperhoofd" was not interested in the customs or culture of the Japanese.