Connecting to AS/400 from within a JSP page

This posting is a sequel of my previous posting about JSP and the IBM 
Toolbox for Java.

I have modified the page Messages.jsp. The user should now enter a system 
name, a user name and a password. On the page GetMessages, I have added 
the following scriptlet:

<% 
try 
{
   AS400 anAS400  = new AS400(system, username, password); 
   out.println("Connection established...");
}
catch (Exception e)
{
   e.printStackTrace();
}
%>

The parameters system, username and password are taken from Messages.jsp. 
Now, to test this setup, I have entered some gibberish values in the 
parameter fields. I expected that an exception would be thrown, but 
instead I got a page showing the text "Connection established". 

Basically, my question is the following: how do I proceed when I want to 
make a connection to an AS/400 (or iSeries, or i5) from within a JSP page?

This stuff is all very unfamiliair to me. Are there any good tutorials 
about JSP and iSeries? (Of course, there are lots of tutorials about JSP 
in general, but I would like to focus my JSP efforts on the iSeries. 
Tutorials covering that combination are harder to find.)

Thanks in advance.

Ewout