A DIPLOMAT IN JAPAN

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The Last of the Shoguns
Tokugawa Yoshinobu (Keiki)

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
THE DUNEDIN PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH

PREFACE

The first portion of this book was written at intervals between 1885 and 1887, during my tenure of the post of Her Majesty's minister at Bangkok. I had but recently left Japan after a residence extending, with two seasons of home leave, from September 1862 to the last days of December 1882, and my recollection of what had occurred during any part of those twenty years was still quite fresh. A diary kept almost uninterruptedly from the day I quitted home in November 1861 constituted the foundation, while my memory enabled me to supply additional details. It had never been my purpose to relate my diplomatic experiences in different parts of the world, which came finally to be spread over a period of altogether forty-five years, and I therefore confined myself to one of the most interesting episodes in which I have been concerned. This comprised the series of events that culminated in the restoration of the direct rule of the ancient line of sovereigns of Japan which had remained in abeyance for over six hundred years. Such a change involved the substitution of the comparatively modern city of Yedo, under the name of Tôkiô, for the more ancient Kiôto, which had already become the capital long before Japan was heard of in the western world.

When I departed from Siam in 1887 I laid the unfinished manuscript aside, and did not look at it again until September 1919, when some of my younger relations, to whom I had shown it, suggested that it ought to be completed. This second portion is largely a transcript of my journals, supplemented from papers drawn up by me which were included in the Confidential Print of the time and by letters to my chief Sir Harry Parkes which have been published elsewhere. Letters to my mother have furnished some particulars that were omitted from the diaries.

Part of the volume may read like a repetition of a few pages from my friend the late Lord Redesdale's "Memories," for when he was engaged on that work he borrowed some of my journals of the time we had spent together in Japan. But I have not referred to his volumes while writing my own.

ERNEST SATOW.

Ottery St Mary,
January 1921.

Note.—In pronouncing Japanese words the consonants are to be taken as in English, the vowels more or less as in Italian. G, except at the beginning of a word, when it is hard, represents ng.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I PAGE

Appointment as Student Interpreter at Yedo [17]

CHAPTER II

Yokohama Society, Official and Unofficial [22]

CHAPTER III

Political Conditions in Japan [33]

CHAPTER IV

Treaties—Anti-Foreign Spirit—Murder of Foreigners [42]

CHAPTER V

Richardson's Murder—Japanese Studies [50]

CHAPTER VI

Official Visit to Yedo [61]

CHAPTER VII

Demands for Reparation—Japanese Proposals to Close the Ports—Payment of the Indemnity [72]

CHAPTER VIII

Bombardment of Kagoshima [84]

CHAPTER IX

Shimonoseki: Preliminary Measures [95]

CHAPTER X

Shimonoseki—Naval Operations [102]

CHAPTER XI

Shimonoseki—Peace concluded with Chôshiû [116]

CHAPTER XII

The Murder of Bird and Baldwin [134]

CHAPTER XIII

Ratification of the Treaties by the Mikado [141]

CHAPTER XIV

Great Fire at Yokohama [156]

CHAPTER XV

Visit to Kagoshima and Uwajima [167]

CHAPTER XVI

First Visit to Ozaka [185]

CHAPTER XVII

Reception of Foreign Ministers by the Tycoon [194]

CHAPTER XVIII

Overland from Ozaka to Yedo [204]

CHAPTER XIX

Social Intercourse with Japanese Officials—Visit to Niigata, Sado Gold Mines, and Nanao [228]

CHAPTER XX

Nanao to Ozaka Overland [239]

CHAPTER XXI

Ozaka and Tokushima [252]

CHAPTER XXII

Tosa and Nagasaki [265]

CHAPTER XXIII

Downfall of the Shogunate [281]

CHAPTER XXIV

Outbreak of Civil War (1868) [295]

CHAPTER XXV

Hostilities begun at Yedo and Fushimi [310]

CHAPTER XXVI

The Bizen Affair [319]

CHAPTER XXVII

First Visit to Kioto [332]

CHAPTER XXVIII

Harakiri—Negotiations for Audience of the Mikado at Kioto [343]

CHAPTER XXIX

Massacre of French Sailors at Sakai [351]

CHAPTER XXX.

Kioto—Audience of the Mikado [356]

CHAPTER XXXI

Return to Yedo and Presentation of the Minister's New Credentials at Ozaka [364]

CHAPTER XXXII

Miscellaneous Incidents—Mito Politics [373]

CHAPTER XXXIII

Capture of Wakamatsu and Entry of the Mikado into Yedo [386]

CHAPTER XXXIV

Enomoto with the Runaway Tokugawa Ships Seizes Yezo [395]

CHAPTER XXXV

1869—Audience of the Mikado at Yedo [400]

CHAPTER XXXVI

Last Days in Tokio and Departure for Home [409]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The Last of the Shoguns [Frontispiece]

Sir Ernest Satow—1869 [56]

Sir Ernest Satow—1903 [56]

Payment of the Indemnity for the Murder of Richardson [80]

Kagoshima Harbour: Bombardment [90-91]

The Straits of Shimonoseki [106-107]

Interior of a Japanese Battery after the Landing of the Allied Naval Forces [112]

Daimio of Cho-shiu and His Heir [184]

Cho-shiu Councillors [184]

Group Photographed during a Visit to Ozaka [192]

Niiro Giobu, a Satsuma Councillor [272]

Katsu Awa no Kami [272]

The Design on the Cover of this Book is the Family Crest of
the Tokugawa Shôguns.

A DIPLOMAT IN JAPAN

A DIPLOMAT IN JAPAN

CHAPTER I

APPOINTMENT AS STUDENT INTERPRETER AT YEDO (1861)

My thoughts were first drawn to Japan by a mere accident. In my eighteenth year an elder brother brought home from Mudie's Library the interesting account of Lord Elgin's Mission to China and Japan by Lawrence Oliphant, and the book having fallen to me in turn, inflamed my imagination with pictures verbal and coloured of a country where the sky was always blue, where the sun shone perpetually, and where the whole duty of man seemed to consist in lying on a matted floor with the windows open to the ground towards a miniature rockwork garden, in the company of rosy-lipped black-eyed and attentive damsels—in short, a realised fairyland. But that I should ever have a chance of seeing these Isles of the Blest was beyond my wildest dreams. An account of Commodore Perry's expedition, which had preceded Lord Elgin's Mission, came in my way shortly afterwards, and though much more sober in its outward appearance and literary style, only served to confirm the previous impression. I thought of nothing else from that time onwards. One day, on entering the library of University College, London, where I was then studying, I found lying on the table a notice that three nominations to student-interpreterships in China and Japan had been placed at the disposition of the Dean. Here was the chance for which I had been longing. Permission to enter myself for the competition was obtained, not without difficulty, from my parents, and having gained the first place in the public examination, I chose Japan. To China I never wished or intended to go. My age was sufficient by a few hours to enable me to compete. I was formally appointed in August 1861, and quitted England full of joyful anticipation in November of that year.

Owing to the prevalence of a belief among those who then had the direction of our affairs in Japan that a knowledge of Chinese was a necessary preliminary to the study of Japanese, my fellow-student, R. A. Jamieson, and myself were at first stationed for a few months at Peking, where we were joined early in 1862 by Russell Robertson, who also belonged to the Japan establishment. I pass over our sojourn there, which, though not without its own interest, was not long enough for me to gain any useful knowledge of China. But I learnt a few hundred Chinese characters which were of great help to me afterwards, and I even began the study of Manchu.

Our stay at the Chinese capital was suddenly cut short by the arrival of a despatch from Yedo, containing the original text of a Note from the Japanese Ministers, which it was found no Chinaman could decipher, much less understand. This was decisive of the question whether the short cut to Japanese lay through the Chinese language. I thought then, and still think, that though an acquaintance with Chinese characters may be found useful by the student of Japanese, it is no more indispensable than that of Latin is to a person who wishes to acquire Italian or Spanish. We were consequently bundled off to Japan with the least possible delay.

Of the eight students belonging to the China establishment then at Peking, three only are still (1885) in the service—H. J. Allen, C. T. Gardner, and W. G. Stronach, each of whom attained the rank of consul in 1877. They had all passed the examination at the same time as myself. The man who came out second was "allowed to resign" in 1867, three are dead, and one, the best man of the whole set, and who oddly enough was last or last but one in the examination list, passed in 1872 into the Chinese Customs Service, in which he now holds one of the highest appointments. So unequal are the results obtained by even limited competitive examination. When the competition was afterwards thrown open to the public, the results became even more uncertain, as later experience has shown, at least in Japan, and perhaps elsewhere.

The great fault of the system is that it takes no account of moral qualities. Whether a candidate has the manners or feelings of a gentleman cannot be ascertained from the way in which he will reproduce a proposition of Euclid or translate a passage from a Greek author. It does not test the intellectual powers, for a stupid young man who has been properly coached will almost always beat the real student who has not got the right "tips." Nowadays, every candidate for a public examination goes to a crammer, who trains him in a few months for the contest, and enables him to bring forth forced fruit for a moment. Show me a successful examinee, and I will show you a well-coached candidate. In the majority of cases the process disgusts the man who has undergone it, and takes away any inclination he may previously have had for study. And without serious study it is not possible to acquire such languages as Chinese, Siamese or Japanese. The scheme of examination is no test of the linguistic capabilities of the men, and sometimes sends into the service those who can no more learn to speak a foreign language than they can fly. My own success in the examination was due to my having left school more recently than any of the other competitors.

While I was at Peking the whole body of students was invited to dine one evening with the Bishop of Victoria, who was stopping at the Legation in the absence of Mr. Bruce, the Minister. The conversation fell upon the effects of Chinese studies on the intellectual powers, and the Bishop inquired of us whether we did not find that the mind was weakened by close application to such a dry, unproductive form of learning. At least, his own experience had been to that effect. This was a curious admission to make, but the matter of his conversation certainly corroborated it. I do not think any of us was candid enough to confess to a similar result in his own case.

I should like to dwell longer on our life in Peking—the rides in the early morning over the plain on the north of the city, excursions to the ruins of the Summer Palace, beautiful still in its desolation, the monasteries among the blue mountains west of the city, the magnificent temples inside and outside the walls, the dirt and dust of the streets in wet or fine weather, the pink lotus blossoms on the lake of the marble bridge, the beggars with their cry of K'olien, k'olien, shang i-ko ta, the bazaar outside the Ch'ien Men Gate, with its attractive shops, the Temple of Heaven, the view of yellow, brown and green-tiled roofs embosomed in trees as one saw them from the city wall, the carts bumping over the stone pavements worn into deep ruts, the strange Eastern life that surrounded a band of boys fresh from school or college or their mothers' apron-strings, and the splendour of the newly restored buildings of the Liang Kung Fu, occupied by the British Legation—which will never be effaced from my memory: but there is no time. Mr, afterwards Sir Frederick, Bruce was then our Minister there, a tall man of about fifty, with a noble forehead and brown eyes, grey beard, whiskers and moustache; altogether a beautiful appearance. The Chinese Secretary was Mr, afterwards Sir Thomas, Wade, a great Chinese scholar, to whom we looked up with awe, and who was said to be of an irascible temper. A story was told of his visiting the Chinese Ministers with the chief, and waxing very warm in argument. The president of the Ts'ung-li Ya-mên remarked: "But, Mr. Wade, I do not observe that Mr. Bruce is so angry." "D'ye hear that, Mr. Bruce, they say you're not angry." Whereupon Mr. Bruce, with a benevolent smile and with the most good-tempered expression in the world, replied: "Oh, tell them I'm in a deuce of a rage."

We, that is to say Jamieson, Robertson and myself, got away early on the morning of August 6, arriving that evening at Ho-si-wu, a town on the way, and reached Tientsin next day. Thence we took boat to Taku, where we passed some days under the hospitable roof of the Vice-Consul Gibson. He was later on transferred to a post in Formosa, where he got into difficulties with the Chinese officials and called on the commander of a gunboat to bombard the Custom House, for which he was smartly reprimanded by the Foreign Office. Shortly afterwards he died, it was said, of a broken heart. This happened in the days when the so-called "gun-boat" policy was no longer in favour, and poor Gibson fell a victim to his excess of zeal.

At Shanghai Jamieson left us, to start a newspaper on terms which promised him a better future than the Consular service could offer. Robertson and I embarked in the steamer Lancefield, and started for Japan on September 2. The first land we sighted after leaving the coast of China was Iwô Shima, a volcanic island to the south of Kiû-shiû, and on the 7th we found ourselves close to Cape Idzu in a fog. Luckily it lifted for a moment, and the captain, who was new to the coast, ordered the ship to be put about, and we ran down among the islands. Next morning early we were steaming over the blue waves east of Vries Island, passed the serrated wooded range of Nokogiri yama on our right and the tiny inlet of Uraga to our left, and stood across the broad bay towards Yokohama. It was one of those brilliant days that are so characteristic of Japan, and as we made our way up the bay of Yedo, I thought no scenery in the world could surpass it. Irregular-shaped hills, covered with dark-green trees, lined the whole southern coast, and above them rose into the air for 12,000 feet and more the magnificent cone of Fuji, with scarcely a patch of snow visible. The noble ranges of Oyama and others bounded the plain on its western side, while by way of contrast, a low-lying sandy coast trended rapidly away on our right, and speedily sank below the horizon in the direction of the capital.

Curious duck-shaped boats of pure unpainted wood, carrying a large four-square sail formed of narrow strips of canvas loosely tacked together, crowded the surface of the sparkling waters. Now and then we passed near enough to note the sunburnt, copper-coloured skins of the fishermen, naked, with the exception of a white cloth round the loins, and sometimes a blue rag tied across the nose, so that you could just see his eyes and chin. At last the white cliffs of Mississippi Bay became closer and more distinct: we rounded Treaty Point and dropped anchor on the outer edge of the shipping. After the lapse of more than a year I had at last attained my cherished object.

CHAPTER II

YOKOHAMA SOCIETY, OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL (1862)

Three years had now elapsed since the opening of the country to foreign trade in consequence of the Treaties of 1858, and a considerable number of merchants had settled at the ports of Nagasaki and Yokohama. Hakodaté, however, offered then, as now, few attractions to mercantile enterprise, and being far removed from the political centre, shared very slightly in the uneasy feeling which prevailed elsewhere. At Nagasaki most of the territorial nobles of Western Japan had establishments whither they sent for sale the rice and other produce received in payment of tribute from the peasants, and their retainers came into frequent contact with foreigners, whose houses they visited for the purchase of arms, gunpowder and steamers. Some sort of friendly feeling thus sprang up, which was increased by the American missionaries who gave instruction in English to younger members of this class, and imparted to them liberal ideas which had no small influence on the subsequent course of events. At Yokohama, however, the foreign merchants had chiefly to do with a class of adventurers, destitute of capital and ignorant of commerce. Broken contracts and fraud were by no means uncommon. Foreigners made large advances to men of straw for the purchase of merchandise which was never delivered, or ordered manufactures from home on the account of men who, if the market fell, refused to accept the goods that would now bring them in only a loss. Raw silk was adulterated with sand or fastened with heavy paper ties, and every separate skein had to be carefully inspected before payment, while the tea could not be trusted to be as good as the sample. Now and then a Japanese dealer would get paid out in kind, but the balance of wrong-doing was greatly against the native, and the conviction that Japanese was a synonym for dishonest trader became so firmly seated in the minds of foreigners that it was impossible for any friendly feeling to exist.

The Custom House officials were in the highest degree corrupt, and demanded ever-increasing bribes from the foreigners who sought to elude the import duties. One of the worst abuses was the importation of large quantities of wines, beer, spirits and stores, for which exemption from the payment of duty was claimed as goods intended for "personal use."

The local administration was carried on by a large staff of officials established at the Custom House. There were two Bugiô, or Governors; two Kumi-gashira, or Vice-Governors; two Metsuké, whose function was that of keeping an eye on the doings of the others; a number of Shirabé-yaku, or Directors; and Jô-yaku, or chief clerks, besides a host of scribes, interpreters, tidewaiters and policemen, in black or green robes. Dutch was the common medium of communication both orally and in writing, for English was as yet scarcely studied by the natives, and the foreigners who could speak Japanese might be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet all knew a little. A sort of bastard language had been invented for the uses of trade, in which the Malay words peggi and sarampan played a great part, and with the addition of anata and arimasu every one fancied himself competent to settle the terms of a complicated transaction. In this new tongue all the rich variety of Japanese speech, by which the relative social position of the speakers is indicated, and the intricate inflexion of the verbs, were conspicuous by their absence. Outside the settlements it was of course not understood, and its use by Europeans must have contributed not a little to the contempt for the "barbarian" which was characteristic of the native attitude towards foreigners.

By virtue of the treaties Kanagawa had been at first fixed upon for the residence of Europeans, but, lying on the Tôkaidô, or principal highway between Yedo and Kiôto, it was only too well calculated to afford occasion for collision between the armed followers of the Japanese nobles and the foreign settlers. Early in the day the Tycoon's government sought to avoid this difficulty by erecting a Custom House and rows of wooden bungalows at the fishing village of Yokohama, across the shallow bay to the south. Some of the foreign representatives, more intent upon enforcing Treaty provisions than desirous of meeting the convenience of the native officials and the European merchants, strongly opposed this arrangement, but the practical advantages of proximity to the anchorage and personal security won the favour of the merchants, and Yokohama became recognised as the port. Long after, and perhaps to this day, the foreign consuls continued to date their official reports from Kanagawa, though they were safely ensconced at the rival site, where a town of 100,000 inhabitants now exists, and curious stories are told of the difference in freight that used to be earned on goods shipped from Europe to Yokohama or Kanagawa as the case might be.

The foreign settlement, for greater security, was surrounded on the land side by wide canals, across which bridges were thrown, while ingress and egress were controlled by strong guards of soldiers placed there with the double object of excluding dangerous characters and levying a tax on the supplies introduced from the surrounding country. At first land was given away freely to all applicants, some of whom were employés of the different consulates. These latter afterwards sold their lots to new arrivals bent upon commercial pursuits, and thus pocketed gains to which they had no shadow of a right. When further additions were afterwards made to the "settlement," precautions were taken which effectually prevented any one, whether merchant or official, from obtaining land without paying an adequate price. Later on, title-deeds were made out, by which the ground was conveyed to the holders, their heirs, administrators, executors and assigns, thus creating a form of property new to English experience, which purported to be at once real and personal. Streets were laid out with but little thought of the general convenience, and slight provision for the future. The day of wheeled carriages had not dawned upon Japan. It was sufficient if space were left for handcarts, and the most important Japanese commercial town of the future was thus condemned in perpetuity to inconveniences of traffic, the like of which can be best appreciated by those who knew the central parts of business London fifty years ago, or the successive capitals of the Italian kingdom when they were raised to that rank. Architectural ambition at first was contented with simple wooden bungalows, and in the latter part of 1862 there were not more than half a dozen two-storied buildings in the foreign portion of the town.

Behind the settlement lay a newly filled-in tract of ground known as the "swamp," still unoccupied except by a racecourse track, and in the rear of this again, across a foul marsh, were conspicuous the flimsy buildings of the Yoshiwara, euphemistically described by a noble Duke from his place in Parliament as an "establishment for the education of young ladies," and where a colonial bishop, to the intense amusement of the younger and more irreverent of the foreign community, had innocently left his visiting-card upon the elderly female who presided over the pleasures of the place. But in those days all the residents were young.

Two churches, however, had already been erected, by Catholics and Protestants respectively, and a foreign cemetery had been set apart on the outside of the settlement. The health enjoyed by the European and American inhabitants was such that the only occupants of the burial-ground were some Russian officers and two Dutch merchant captains, who had fallen victims to the deadly and mistaken patriotism of Japanese samurai (two-sworded men). No one had yet succumbed to disease in that beautiful sunny climate.

The foreign community of Yokohama of that day was somewhat extravagantly described by an English diplomat as "the scum of Europe." No doubt there was a fair sprinkling of men who, suddenly relieved from the restraints which social opinion places upon their class at home, and exposed to the temptations of Eastern life, did not conduct themselves with the strict propriety of students at a theological college. That they were really worse than their co-equals elsewhere is unlikely. But in a small community, where the actions of everyone are semi-public and concealment is not regarded as an object of first-rate importance, the vices that elsewhere pass unnoticed become prominent to the eyes of those who are not exposed to the same temptations. There were also not a few who came there without much capital to make a livelihood, or, if possible, something more, and hastened to the attainment of their object without being troubled with much scruple. And the difficulty which soon presented itself of obtaining a sufficiency of native coin in exchange for the silver dollar of Eastern commerce was the cause of extravagant demands being presented to the Japanese Treasury. But the compromise eventually arrived at, by which the merchant had to buy his ichibus in the open market, while the official obtained the equivalent of his salary, and often much more, in native coin nearly weight for weight of his "Mexicans," was to the minds of all unprejudiced persons a far greater scandal. Detractors said that the advantages thus given to Ministers, Consuls, sailors and soldiers was a bribe to induce their compliance with violation of treaty stipulations to the prejudice of their non-official countrymen; but this is unfair. It was the result of false theories as to the nature and function of money, and personal interest worked against a conversion to views more in accordance with the principles of political economy.

The fact, however, remains, that in September 1862 the current rate of exchange was 214 ichibus for 100 dollars, though the latter were really exchangeable for 311 ichibus according to the Treaty. Each diplomatic or consular establishment was allowed to exchange monthly a certain number of dollars, supposed to represent the total salaries of the staff, and other government charges, thirteen ichibus per $100 being deducted for coinage. An official whose salary was $100 received 298 ichibus, the surplus of which over his bazaar expenses he proceeded to change back into dollars; but practically he received $139.25, or a profit of nearly 40 per cent. The gains of a Minister whose salary was £3000 a year it may easily be seen were very large. This was not all. The balance of the monthly quota of ichibus was then reconverted into dollars, the amount due to the official chest was deducted, and the profit then divided among the staff in proportion to their salaries. On a nominally small income it was consequently possible to live well, keep a pony and drink champagne. As time went on, the number of ichibus thus put into circulation increased, and the rate of exchange eventually declined to par. Then and only then the system was abandoned. Where the money came from that was thus transferred to the pockets of officials can be best explained by those who are versed in economical questions. For my own part, I cannot look back on that period without shame, and my only excuse, which is perhaps of little worth in the court of history, is that I was at the bottom of the ladder, and received the proportion paid to me by those who were in charge of the business.

A few words may be devoted to describing the Yokohama society of those days. There were few ladies in the settlement. Japan was a long way from Europe, with no regular steam communication, and the lives of foreigners were supposed to be not very safe at the hands of the arm-bearing classes. The two great China firms of Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Dent & Co. were of course represented. The latter came down with a crash a year or two after my arrival. Fletcher & Co., another important Shanghai firm, had a branch, and so had Barnet & Co., both now long forgotten. Most of the remainder were Japan firms, amongst whom Aspinall, Cornes & Co., Macpherson, Marshall & Co., were the foremost English, and Walsh, Hall & Co., the leading American firms. Germans, French and Dutch were considered of "no account." Money was abundant, or seemed to be, every one kept a pony or two, and champagne flowed freely at frequent convivial entertainments. Races were held in the spring and autumn, and "real" horses competed in some of the events. A favourite Sunday's excursion was the ride along the Tôkaidô to Kawasaki for tiffin, and back again toward evening. Longer outings were to Kanazawa, Kamakura and Enoshima; but anyone who had ventured as far as Hachiôji or Hakoné, which were beyond the Treaty limits, was regarded as a bold, adventurous spirit. The privilege of travelling beyond a distance of 25 miles from Yokohama was reserved to the diplomatic representatives of foreign powers, and Yedo could be visited only in the disguise of a member of one of the legations, with the permission of its head. Such favours were regarded with extreme jealousy by those who were debarred by circumstances from obtaining them, and loud murmurs were heard that it was the Minister's duty to invite his countrymen to the capital, and give them board and lodging, irrespective of the shape which their private relations with him might have assumed. Then, and perhaps even yet, there existed a theory that public servants were practically the servants of the extremely small section of the public that inhabited Yokohama, and when the servants failed to comply with the wishes of their employers they were naturally and rightly abused—behind their backs.

So strong was the hostility excited in the breasts of the English-Scotch-Irish portion of the community by the unlucky phrase, "scum of Europe," that no member of either legation or consulate of their country was allowed admittance into the Yokohama Club, composed chiefly of British merchants; and this feeling lasted until the year 1865 brought about a permanent change in the representation of Great Britain. The excuse for such relations between the British residents and one who ought to have been the leader of the small society, is to be found in the comparative youthfulness and ignorance of the world which characterised the former. The experience of men and manners which saves the dwellers in Little Peddlington from believing that others are deliberately plotting to inflict insults on them is seldom attained before middle life, especially when Little Peddlington happens to be located in an Eastern land where the mind's growth comes to a standstill, and a man's age is virtually to be reckoned by the years actually spent in the mother country. For all purposes of mental and moral development the time passed on the opposite side of the world must be left out of the calculation.

It was agreed in the Treaties that Yedo should be the residence of the foreign diplomatic representatives, and four Buddhist monasteries had, in accordance with Japanese custom, been assigned to the representatives of the four chief powers—Great Britain, France, Holland and the United States. Sir R. Alcock [1] occupied Tô-zen-ji, in the suburb of Takanawa; M. de Graef van Polsbrock lived in Chô-ô-ji, a little nearer the city; then came Sai-kai-ji, the residence of M. Duchesne de Bellecourt; and Mr. Harris had settled down at Zem-puku-ji in Azabu. But a series of alarming occurrences had caused the European portion of the diplomatic body to transfer their quarters to Yokohama, and the American Minister alone held out, declaring his confidence in the good faith of the Japanese Government and their ability to protect him. In September of 1862 he had already been replaced by General Pruyn, who followed the example of his predecessor, until eventually driven out of the capital by a fire which destroyed his house, whether purely accidental or maliciously contrived. The English legation in 1861 had been the object of a murderous attack in which the Secretary, Mr. Laurence Oliphant, and Mr. G. C. Morrison were wounded. The assailants were principally retainers of the Daimiô of Mito, but others belonging to various clans were concerned in the affair, and some of these are still living. Sir R. Alcock had consequently removed to Yokohama, where the strong guard placed by the Japanese government at the entrances to the town and the foreign men-of-war in the harbour offered sufficient guarantees for safety. On his quitting Japan for a term of leave early in 1862, his locum-tenens, Colonel Neale, not believing in a danger of which he had no experience, brought the legation back to Tô-zen-ji. But he had no sooner installed himself there than an event occurred which led him to change his opinion. This was nothing less than the murder of the sentry who stood at his bedroom door and of a corporal on his rounds, at the hands of one of the Japanese guard, in revenge for an insult offered to him, it is said, by the youngest member of the staff, a heedless boy of fifteen or sixteen. So the British Legation packed up their archives and hastened back to Yokohama, where they installed themselves in a house that stood on the site of the present Grand Hotel. This building belonged to an Englishman named Hoey, who was murdered in his bed in 1870, apparently from motives of private revenge. The foreign consuls were all stationed at Yokohama with the exception of the American consul, Colonel Fisher, who remained at Kanagawa. Mr. Harris, it is said, would never admit that Yokohama could be rightfully substituted for Kanagawa, the town mentioned in the Treaty, and would not permit his consul to reside there. He even carried his opposition so far as to declare that he never would countenance the change of settlement, and carried out his vow by leaving Japan without having set foot in Yokohama.

[ [1] It would be inconvenient to observe chronological exactness in matters of official rank or title, which in the case of most individuals are subject to progression. I shall speak therefore of persons by the titles they bore at the latest portion of the period covered by these reminiscences.

At the time of my arrival there, Colonel Neale, an old warrior who had seen service with the Spanish Legion commanded by Sir de Lacy Evans, and who, gossip said, regarded Sir R. Alcock, formerly attached to the Marine Brigade of Portugal in the quality of surgeon, with no friendly feelings, was Secretary of Legation, and consequently chargé d'affaires in the absence of his chief. He had great command of his pen, and composed most drastic Notes to the Japanese Government, some of which have been printed by my friend, Mr. F. O. Adams in his History of Japan. He had previously been consul at Varna and Belgrade, and consequently had a sufficient experience of the system known as "extra-territoriality," which in most non-Christian countries of the East exempts Europeans from the operations of the local law. In stature considerably less than the average Englishman, he wore a heavy grey moustache, and thin wisps of grizzled hair wandered about his forehead. His temper was sour and suspicious. Of his political capacity there is not much to be said, except that he did not understand the circumstances amongst which he was thrown, as his despatches sufficiently indicate, well-written and incisive as they are. But this is only an example of the fact that power of speech with tongue or pen is not a measure of a man's fitness for the conduct of affairs. In his jovial moments he easily unbent, and would entertain his companions with snatches of operas of which he carried a large assortment in his memory.

At this period he was about fifty-five, and probably already affected with the beginnings of the disease which carried him off a few years later at Quito.

The second in rank was the so-called Japanese Secretary. He was neither a native of Japan nor had he any knowledge of the language, so that the title must be understood as signifying "secretary in charge of correspondence with the Japanese Government." At our mission in China there is always an official who bears the corresponding title of Chinese Secretary, but there the post has always been held by a scholar. Dutch was the only European language of which the Japanese knew anything, and therefore when the Foreign Office came to provide a staff of officials for the consular establishment, they sought high and low for Englishmen acquainted with that recondite tongue. Four were at last discovered, one of whom was first appointed interpreter to the legation and afterwards accorded the higher title. Part of his salary was expressly granted by way of remuneration for instructing the student-interpreters in the language of the country, and consequently could not be said to be earned. He retained his office for eight years, when a consulate became vacant, and the opportunity was at once seized of "kicking him up the ladder." All the domestic virtues were his, and of actively bad qualities he showed no trace.

Next to this gentleman came a First Assistant, sociable and accomplished, musical, artistic and speaking many languages beside his own, but no lover of hard work. In his hands the accounts fell eighteen months in arrear, and the registers of correspondence were a couple of years behind hand. It was his function to preside over the chancery, and he left it to his successor in a condition which the latter aptly compared to that of an "Aegean stable." He was the sort of man who is always known among his friends by his Christian name, and no higher tribute to personal qualities is possible. In the course of time he became a consul, and retired from the service at an early age, carrying with him the regrets and good wishes of everybody who knew him.

In the legation staff there were also included two doctors, who at the same time discharged the functions of Assistants in the chancery. One of them shortly quitted the service, and set up in Yokohama as a general practitioner, to retire with a competent fortune after but a few years. The other merits more extended notice, on account both of his character and public services of every kind. I mean my life-long friend, William Willis. Perhaps no other man ever exhibited in a greater measure the quality which we are wont to call conscientiousness, whether in his private relations or in the discharge of his duties. Those who have had the fortune to profit by his medical or surgical aid, feel that no man could be more tender or sympathetic towards a patient. He was devoted to his profession, and lost no opportunity of extending his experience. In those days a doctor had frequently to encounter personal risks such as fall to the lot of few civilians; he exposed himself freely, in order to succour the wounded. In the chancery his services were indispensable. He it was who "swept the 'Aegean stable,'" arranged the archives in order, and brought the register up to date. Always on the spot when he was wanted, an indefatigable worker, and unswervingly loyal to his chief. After nine years service he was promoted to be a vice-consul, but by this time the Japanese had become so impressed with his value as a surgeon and physician that they begged him to accept a salary more than four times what he received from the Foreign Office, and he went where his great qualities were likely to be of more use than in trying petty police cases and drawing up trade reports of a city which never had any foreign commerce. His gigantic stature made him conspicuous among all the Europeans who have resided in Japan since the ports were opened, and when I first knew him he was hardly five and twenty years of age. A man endowed with an untiring power of application, accurate memory for words and things, and brimful of good stories from the three kingdoms. Big men are big-hearted, and he was no exception. We shall come across him again repeatedly in the course of these reminiscences, and for the present these few words must suffice.

Besides these, the legation staff included Russell Brooke Robertson and myself, as student-interpreters.

Last, but not least, were the officers of the mounted escort and infantry guard. The latter was commanded by Lieut. Price of the 67th Regiment, and was soon replaced by fifty marines under the command of a man widely known in the service to which he belonged as "Public-spirited" Smith. I shall say more of him later on. The cavalry escort consisted of a dozen men from the Military Train, a corps which went by the honorary title of "Pig-drivers," and at their head was a lieutenant, a good, harmless sort of fellow, whose only weakness was for fine uniforms and showy horses. Not being learned in the extremely complicated subject of military costume, full dress, half dress, and undress, I cannot say what it was that he had adopted for himself, but it was whispered about that he had been audacious enough to assume the insignia of a field-officer, which is undoubtedly a serious offence against discipline. However that may be, the blaze of gold which decorated his person was wonderful to behold, and on at least one occasion, when we were going in solemn procession to an audience of the Tycoon, caused him to be mistaken for the Envoy by the Japanese officials, who gave him the salutes that rightfully belonged to his less conspicuously adorned diplomatic chief. To determine whether the pleasure derived from this confusion of persons by the one outweighed the mortification which might not unnaturally have been felt by the other would have required a delicate moral balance, which was not available at the moment; but judging from the relative scale of the two men in other points of character, I am inclined to infer that the good preponderated largely over the evil, and that applying consequently the criterion so unfairly attributed to the utilitarians by their opponents, we must arrive at the provisional conclusion that the lieutenant's uniform was highly virtuous and worthy of the applause of mankind.

But it is time to quit this gossiping tone and speak of more serious matters.

CHAPTER III

POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN JAPAN

At this period the movement had already commenced that finally culminated in what may fitly be called the Revolution of 1868, by which the feudal system was destroyed and the old monarchical government revived. The tendency of the times was as yet scarcely perceived by foreigners, with but one or two exceptions. They generally supposed that political strife had broken out between the sovereign and a few unruly vassals dissatisfied with the treaties that permitted the sacred soil of Japan to be defiled by the footsteps of "barbarians," and secured all the profits of trade to the head of the State, the vassals being enabled to defy their suzerain owing to his own feebleness and the incapacity of his Ministers. It was still believed that the potentate in whose name the Treaties had been concluded was the Temporal Sovereign, and that the Mikado was little more than the head of the priesthood, or Spiritual Emperor. This theory of the Japanese Constitution was almost as old as the earliest knowledge of the country possessed by Europeans. Marco Polo, indeed, says nothing of its system of government in the two short chapters which he devotes to Zipangu, but the Jesuit missionaries who laboured in Japan during the 16th and 17th centuries uniformly held the Mikado to be a spiritual dignitary, and spoke of the Shôgun as the real ruler of the country, the temporal king, and even Emperor. Kaempfer, the best known and most often quoted of the authorities on Japan, writing at the beginning of the 18th century, calls the two potentates Ecclesiastical and Secular Emperors, and his example had, up to the time I am writing of, been followed by all his successors without exception. The truth is that the polity of the Japanese State had assumed already in the 12th century the form which it was still displaying at the beginning of the latter half of the 19th, and institutions which could boast of such a highly respectable antiquity might well be supposed to have taken a deep enough hold to be part and parcel of the national life.

The history of Japan has still to be written. Native chronicles of the Mikados and annals of leading families exist in abundance, but the Japanese mind is only just now beginning to emancipate itself from the thraldom of Chinese literary forms, while no European has yet attempted a task which requires a training different from that of most men who pursue an Eastern career. Until within the last two decades, the literature of Japan was almost entirely unknown to Europeans, and the existing keys to the language were ridiculously inadequate. The only historical works accessible to foreigners were the scanty Annales des Dairi, translated by Titsingh with the aid of native Dutch interpreters and edited by Klaproth with a degree of bold confidence that nothing but the position of a one-eyed man amongst the blind can give; and a set of chronological tables, translated by Hoffman for Siebold's Nippon. It is no wonder, therefore, if at the outset of Treaty relations, the foreign representatives were at a loss to appreciate the exact nature of the political questions that confronted them, and were unable to diagnose the condition of the patient whose previous history was unknown to them.

To trace in detail the development of the Japanese monarchy, from its beginnings as a pure theocracy of foreign invaders, attracting to itself the allegiance of a number of small tribal chieftains, the fusion of these tribes with their conquerors into one seemingly homogeneous race, the remodelling of the administration which followed upon the introduction of Chinese laws and philosophy, the supplanting of the native hero and native worship by the creed of Gautama, the rise of a military caste brought about by the constant warfare with the barbarous tribes in the east and north of the country, the rivalry of the Taira and Minamoto clans, both sprung from base-born younger sons of the Mikados, and the final suppression of the civil administration in the provinces by the distribution of the country amongst the followers of the Minamoto and their allies, would require a profound study of documents which no one has yet undertaken. With the appointment of Yoritomo to be Commander-in-Chief the feudal system was fully established. The ancient official hierarchy still existed at Kiôto, but in name only, exercising no influence whatever over the conduct of affairs, and in the 14th century its functions were already so far forgotten as to become the subject of antiquarian research. The civil and penal codes borrowed from the great Empire of Eastern Asia fell into disuse, and in part even the very traces of them perished. Martial law reigned throughout the land, half the people were converted into a huge garrison, which the other half toiled to feed and clothe. Reading and writing were the exclusive accomplishments of the Buddhist priesthood and of the impoverished nobles who formed the court of a Mikado shorn of all the usual attributes of a sovereign, and a deep sleep fell upon the literary genius of the nation. The absence of danger from foreign invasion rendered the necessity of a strong central administration unfelt, and Japan under the Shôguns assumed the aspect of Germany in the middle ages, the soil being divided between a multitude of petty potentates, independent in all but name, while their nominal head was little better than a puppet.

This state of things lasted till the second quarter of the 14th century, when an attempt was made under the Mikado Go-Daigo to re-establish the pristine rule of the legitimate sovereigns. A civil war ensued that lasted for over fifty years, until the Ashikaga family finally established themselves in the office of hereditary Shôguns. Before long they split up into two branches which quarrelled among themselves and gave opportunity for local chiefs to re-establish their independence. In the middle of the 16th century a soldier of fortune, Ota Nobunaga by name, profited by the central position of the provinces he had acquired with his sword to arrogate to himself the right of arbitrating between the warlike leaders who had risen in every direction. After his assassination a still greater warrior, known most commonly by the title of Taicosama, carried on the work of pacification: every princelet who opposed his authority was in turn subdued, and he might have become the founder of a new line of "maires du palais." He died, however, before time had sufficiently consolidated his position, leaving an inexperienced youth heir to his power, under the tutelage of guardians who speedily quarrelled. The most distinguished of these was Iyéyasu, who, besides the vast domains which he had acquired in the neighbourhood of Yedo, the modern Tôkiô, possessed all the qualities which fit a man to lead armies and rule kingdoms. He had been Taicosama's sole remaining competitor for power, and at the death of the latter naturally assumed the most prominent position in the country. A couple of years sufficed for the transference to him of all, and more than all, the authority wielded by his two predecessors. No combination against him had any chance of success. The decisive battle of Sekigahara in 1600 brought the whole nation to his feet, and he made full use of this opportunity to create checks upon the Daimiôs of whose fidelity he was not sufficiently assured, by grants of territories to his own friends and followers, a few of the older families alone being allowed to retain their ancient fiefs. Among these were Shimadzu in the south of Kiû-shiû, Môri in the extreme west, and Daté, Nambu and Tsugaru in the northern provinces of the main island. His own sons received portions in Owari, Ki-shiû, Mito and elsewhere. In 1616, at Iyéyasu's death 19-20ths of the whole country was held by his adherents. Thus there arose five or six classes of barons, as they may best be called, to render their position intelligible to the English reader. Firstly, there were the Three Families descended from his most favoured sons, from whom according to the constitution established by him in case of a default of direct heirs, the successor to the Shôgunate was to be chosen (as a matter of fact resort was had only to Ki-shiû when a break in the line occurred). Next came the Related Families (Kamon) sprung from his younger sons, and in the third place were ranked the Lords of Provinces (Koku-shi). The members of these three classes enjoyed the revenue of fiefs comprising one or more provinces, or lands of equivalent extent. Below them in importance were the Hereditary Servants (fu-dai) and Banner-men (hatamoto) composed as has been said before of the immediate retainers of the Tokugawa family, and the Stranger Lords (tozama), relics of the former barons, who had submitted to his supremacy and followed his banner in his last wars. The qualification of a daimiô was the possession of lands assessed at a production of 10,000 koku (=about 5 bushels) of rice and upwards. The hatamotos were retainers of the Tokugawa family whose assessment was below 10,000 koku and above 1000. Below them came the ordinary vassals (go-ke-nin).

The fiefs of all classes of the daimiôs were in their turn at first partitioned out among their retainers, and called Ke-rai in their relation to their immediate lords, and bai-shin (arrière vassals) as being vassals of those who acknowledged the suzerainty of the Shôgun. Samurai and ashigaru denoted the two ranks of sword-bearing gentlemen and common soldiers among the retainers of the daimiôs. In the end every retainer, except the samurai of Satsuma, received an annual allowance of so much rice, in return for which he was bound to perform military service and appear in the field or discharge the ordinary military duties required in time of peace, accompanied by followers proportioned in number to his income. In Satsuma the feudal sub-division of the land was carried out to the fullest extent, so that the vassal of lowest rank held the sword in one hand and the hoe in the other. No taxes were paid by any feudal proprietor. The koku-shi and other barons of equal rank ruled their provinces absolutely, levying land-tax on the farmers and imposts on internal trade as they chose. They had further the power of life and death, subject only to the nominal condition of reporting once a year the capital sentences inflicted by their officers. The other nobles were less independent. Every daimiô had to maintain an establishment at the capital, where his wife and children resided permanently, while the lord passed alternate years in Yedo and in his territories.

On his journeys to and fro he was accompanied by a little army of retainers, for whose accommodation inns were built at every town on the main roads throughout the country, and the expense involved was a heavy tax on his resources. A strict system of etiquette regulated the audiences with which the daimiôs were favoured on their arrival and departure, and prescribed the presents they were to offer as a symbol of their inferiority. There was little social intercourse among them, and they lived for the most part a life of extreme seclusion surrounded by vast numbers of women and servants. A fixed number of hereditary councillors (karô and yônin) checked all initiative in the administration of their fiefs. They were brought up in complete ignorance of the outer world, and the strings of government were pulled by the unseen hands of obscure functionaries who obtained their appointments by force of their personal qualities. After a few generations had passed the descendants of the active warriors and statesmen of Iyéyasu's time were reduced to the state of imbecile puppets, while the hereditary principle produced a similar effect on their councillors. Thus arose in each daimiate a condition of things which may be compared to that of a Highland clan, where the ultimate power was based upon the feelings and opinions of a poor but aristocratic oligarchy. This led to the surprising results of the revolution of 1868, when the power nominally exercised by the chief daimiôs came to be wielded by the more energetic and intelligent of their retainers, most of whom were samurai of no rank or position. These men it was who really ruled the clan, determined the policy of its head and dictated to him the language he should use on public occasions. The daimiô, it cannot be too often repeated, was a nobody; he possessed not even as much power as a constitutional sovereign of the modern type, and his intellect, owing to his education, was nearly always far below par. This strange political system was enabled to hold together solely by the isolation of the country from the outer world. As soon as the fresh air of European thought impinged upon this framework it crumbled to ashes like an Egyptian mummy brought out of its sarcophagus.

The decline of the Mikado's power dates from the middle of the 9th century, when for the first time a boy of nine years ascended the throne of his ancestors. During his minority the country was governed by his father-in-law, the chief of the ancient Fujiwara family, who contrived for a long period to secure to themselves the power of setting up and removing their own nominees just as suited their convenience. A similar fate befel the institution of the Shôgunate. After the murder of Yoritomo's last surviving son, the country was nominally ruled by a succession of young princes, none of whom had emerged from the stage of boyhood when appointed, and who were deposed in turn after a few years of complete nullity, while the real heads of the government were the descendants of Hôjô Tokimasa, Yoritomo's father-in-law. The vices of the hereditary principle in their case had again full sway, and the later Hôjô were mere puppets in the hands of their principal advisers. A revolution in favour of the Mikado overthrew this system for a short interval, until the Shôgunate was restored for a time to reality by the founder of the Ashikaga family. But after the lapse of a few years its power was divided between Kiôto and Kamakura, and the two heads of the family fell under the dominating influence of their agents the Kwan-rei Uyésugi and Hosokawa.

Towards the end of the Ashikaga period the Shôgun had become as much an empty name as the Mikado himself, and the country was split up among the local chieftains. The bad condition of the internal communications between the provinces and the capital probably contributed to this state of things. Iyéyasu was the first to render consolidation possible by the construction of good military roads. The governmental system erected by him seemed calculated to ensure the lasting tranquillity of the country. But the hereditary principle again reasserted its influence. The third Shôgun, Iyémitsu, was a real man. Born four years after the battle of Sekigahara and already twelve years of age when his grandfather died in the year succeeding his final appearance in the battlefield, he had the education of a soldier, and to his energy was owing the final establishment of the Tokugawa supremacy on a solid basis. Iyéyasu and his successor had always been in the habit of meeting the daimiôs on their visits to Yedo outside the city. Iyémitsu received them in his palace. He gave those who would not submit to their changed position the option of returning home, and offered them three years for preparation to try the ordeal of war. Not a single one ventured to resist. But he was succeeded by his son Iyétsuna, a boy of ten. During Iyétsuna's minority the government was carried on in his name by his Council of State, composed of Hereditary Servants (fu-dai daimiôs), and the personal authority of the head of the Tokugawa family thus received its first serious blow. But worse than that, the office of chief councillor was from the first confined to four baronial families, Ii, Honda, Sakakibara and Sakai, and the rôjiû or ordinary councillors were likewise daimiôs.

On them the hereditary principle had, in the interval between the close of the civil wars and the accession of the fourth Shôgun, produced its usual result. Nominally the heads of the administration they were without any will of their own, and were guided by their own hereditary councillors, whose strings were pulled by someone else. The real power then fell into the hands of ministers or bu-giô, chosen from the hatamoto or lesser vassals, and many of these were men of influence and real weight. Still with them the habit of delegating authority into the hands of anyone of sufficient industry and energy to prefer work to idleness, was invincible, and in the end the dominions of the Tokugawa family came to be ruled by the Oku go-yû-hitsu or private secretaries. The machine in fact had been so skilfully constructed that a child could keep it turning. Political stagnation was mistaken for stability.

Apart from one or two unsuccessful conspiracies against the government, Japan experienced during 238 years the profoundest tranquillity. She resembled the sleeping beauty in the wood, and the guardians of the public safety had a task not more onerous than that of waving a fan to keep the flies from disturbing the princess's slumbers. When her dreams were interrupted by the eager and vigorous West the ancient, decrepit and wrinkled watchers were found unfit for their posts, and had to give way to men more fit to cope with the altered circumstances which surrounded them.

Socially the nation was divided into two sections by a wide gulf which it was impossible to pass. On the one hand the sword-bearing families or gentry, whose frequent poverty was compensated for by their privileges of rank, on the other the agricultural, labouring and commercial classes; intermarriage was forbidden between the orders. The former were ruled by the code of honour, offences against which were permitted to be expiated by self-destruction, the famous harakiri or disembowelment, while the latter were subject to a severe unwritten law enforced by cruel and frequent capital punishment. They were the obedient humble servants of the two-sworded class.

Japan had already made the experiment of free intercourse with European states in the middle of the 16th century, when the merchants and missionaries of Portugal were welcomed in the chief ports of Kiû-shiû, and Christianity bade fair to replace the ancient native religions. They were succeeded by the Spaniards, Dutch and English, the two latter nations confining themselves however to commerce. The gigantic missionary undertakings of the two great English-speaking communities of the far West were the creation of a much later time. It will be recollected that in 1580 Spain for a time absorbed Portugal. The Roman Catholics began before long to excite the enmity of the Buddhist and Shintô priesthood, whose temples they had caused to be pulled down and whose revenues they seemed on the point of usurping. Nobunaga had favoured them, but in the civil wars that raged at that period the principal patrons of the Jesuits were overthrown, and the new ruler Taicosama soon proclaimed his hostility to the strangers. Their worst offence was the refusal of a Christian girl to become his concubine. Iyéyasu, a devout Buddhist, pursued the same religious policy as his predecessor in possession of the ruling power. His dislike to Christianity was stimulated by the fact that some of Hidéyori's adherents were Christians, and the young prince Hidéyori was himself known to be on friendly terms with the missionaries. The flame was fanned by the Dutch and English, now become the hereditary political foes of Spain, and the persecution was renewed with greater vigour than ever. Missionaries were sought out with eager keenness, and in the company of their disciples subjected to cruel tortures and the most horrible deaths. The fury of persecution did not relax with Iyéyasu's disappearance from the scene, and the final act of the drama was played out in the time of his grandson.

An insurrection provoked by the oppression of the local daimiôs broke out in the island of Amakusa, where thousands of Christians joined the rebel flag. After a furious struggle the revolt was put an end to on the 24th February, 1638, by the assault and capture of the castle of Shimabara, when 37,000 people, two-thirds of whom were women and children, were put to the sword. It is hardly possible to read the native accounts of this business without a feeling of choking indignation at the ruthless sacrifice of so many unfortunate creatures who were incapable of defence, and whose only crime was their wish to serve the religion which they had chosen for their rule of life. The Portuguese were forbidden ever to set foot again in Japan. The English had previously retired from a commercial contest in which they found their rivals too fortunate and too skilful, and the edict went forth that the Dutch, who now alone remained, should thenceforth be confined to the small artificial island of Déshima, off the town of Nagasaki, where for the next 2-1/4 centuries they and the Chinese were permitted to carry on a restricted and constantly diminishing trade. Attempts were made once or twice by the English, and early in the present century by the Russians, to induce the government of Japan to relax their rule, but in vain. The only profit the world has derived from these abortive essays is the entrancing narrative of Golownin, who was taken prisoner in Yezo in connection with a descent made by Russian naval officers in revenge for the rejection of the overtures made by the Russian envoy Resanoff, perhaps the most lifelike picture of Japanese official manners that is anywhere to be met with. No further approaches were made by any Western Government until the United States took the matter in hand in 1852.

CHAPTER IV

TREATIES—ANTI-FOREIGN SPIRIT—MURDER OF FOREIGNERS

The expedition of Commodore Perry to Loochoo and Japan was not the first enterprise of its kind that had been undertaken by the Americans. Having accomplished their own independence as the result of a contest in which a few millions of half-united colonists had successfully withstood the well-trained legions of Great Britain and her German mercenaries (though not, it may be fairly said, without in a great measure owing their success to the very efficient assistance of French armies and fleets), they added to this memory of ancient wrongs a natural fellow-feeling for other nations who were less able to resist the might of the greatest commercial and maritime Power the world has yet seen. While sympathising with Eastern peoples in the defence of their independent rights, they believed that a conciliatory mode of treating them was at least equally well fitted to ensure the concession of those trading privileges to which the Americans are not less indifferent than the English.

In 1836 they had despatched an envoy to Siam and Cochin-China, who was successful in negotiating by peaceful methods a treaty of commerce with the former state. In China, like the other western states, they had profited by the negotiations which were the outcome of the Opium War, without having to incur the odium of using force or the humiliation of finding their softer methods prove a failure in dealing with the obstinate conservatism of Chinese mandarins. For many years their eyes had been bent upon Japan, which lay on the opposite side of the Pacific fronting their own state of California, then rising into fame as one of the great gold-producing regions of the globe. Warned by the fate of all previous attempts to break down the wall of seclusion that hemmed in the 'country of the gods,' they resolved to make such a show of force that with reasonable people, unfamiliar with modern artillery, might prove as powerful an argument as theories of universal brotherhood and the obligations imposed by the comity of nations. They appointed to the chief command a naval officer possessed of both tact and determination, whose judicious use of the former qualification rendered the employ of the second unnecessary. Probably no one was more agreeably surprised than Commodore Perry at the comparative ease with which, on his second visit to the Bay of Yedo, he obtained a Treaty, satisfactory enough as a beginning. No doubt the counsels of the Dutch agent at Nagasaki were not without their effect, and we may also conjecture that the desire which had already begun to manifest itself among some of the lower Samurai for a wider acquaintance with the mysterious outer world was secretly shared by men in high positions. Fear alone would not have induced a haughty government like that of the Shôguns to acquiesce in breaking through a law of restriction that had such a highly creditable antiquity to boast of.

Most men's motives are mixed, and there was on the Japanese side no very decided unwillingness to yield to a show of force, which the pretext of prudence would enable them to justify. England and Russia, then or shortly afterwards at war, followed in the wake of the United States. Next an American Consul-General took up his residence at Shimoda, to look after the interests of whaling vessels, and skilfully made use of the recent events in China to induce the Shôgun's government to extend the concessions already granted. In 1858 the China War having been apparently brought to a successful conclusion, Lord Elgin and the French Ambassador, Baron Gros, ran across to Japan and concluded treaties on the same basis as Mr. Harris, and before long similar privileges were accorded to Holland and Russia. In 1859 the ports of Nagasaki, Hakodaté and Yokohama were thrown open to the trade of the Five Powers, and a new age was inaugurated in Japan.

It was not without opposition that the Shôgun's government had entered into its first engagements with the United States, Great Britain and Russia. An agitation arose when the first American ships anchored in the Bay of Yedo, and there were not wanting bold and rash men ready to undertake any desperate enterprise against the foreign invaders of the sacred soil of Japan. But at this time there was no leader to whom the malcontents could turn for guidance. The Mikado was closely watched by the Shôgun's resident at Kiôto, and the daimiôs were divided among themselves. The principal opponent was the ex-Prince of Mito, whose constitutional duty was to support the Shôgun and aid him with his counsels in all great national crises.

During the presence of Commodore Perry the reigning Shôgun Iyéyoshi had fallen ill, and he died not long after the squadron had sailed. He was succeeded by his son Iyésada, a man of 28, who does not seem to have been endowed with either force of character or knowledge of the world. Such qualities are not to be expected from the kind of education which fell to the lot of Japanese princes in those days.

In view of the expected return of the American ships in the following year, forts were constructed to guard the sea-front of the capital, and the ex-Prince of Mito was summoned from his retirement to take the lead in preparing to resist the encroachments of foreign powers. By a curious coincidence, this nobleman, then forty-nine years of age, was the representative of a family which for years had maintained the theoretical right of the Mikado to exercise the supreme government, and was at the same time strongly opposed to any extension of the limited intercourse with foreign countries then permitted. Nor can it be wondered that Japan, who had so successfully protected herself from foreign aggression by a policy of rigid exclusion, and which had seen the humiliation of China consequent upon disputes with a Western Power arising out of trade questions at the very moment when she was being torn by a civil war which owed its origin to the introduction of new religious beliefs from the West, should have believed that the best means of maintaining peace at home and avoiding an unequal contest with Europe, was to adhere strictly to the traditions of the past two centuries. But when the intrusive foreigners returned in the beginning of the following year, Japan found herself still unprepared to repel them by force. The treaty was therefore signed, interdicting trade, but permitting whalers to obtain supplies in the three harbours of Nagasaki, Hakodaté and Shimoda, and promising friendly treatment to shipwrecked sailors.

While making these unavoidable concessions, the Japanese buoyed themselves up with the belief that their innate superiority could enable them easily to overcome the better equipped forces of foreign countries, when once they had acquired the modern arts of warfare and provided themselves with a sufficient proportion of the ships and weapons of the nineteenth century. From that time onwards this was the central idea of Japan's foreign policy for many years, as the sequel will show. Even at this period there were a few who would have willingly started off on this new quest, and two Japanese actually asked Commodore Perry to give them a passage in his flagship. They were refused, and their zeal was punished by their own government with imprisonment. The residence of Mr. Harris at Shimoda and the visit which he insisted on paying to the capital created fresh difficulties for the advisers of the Shôgun. Written protests were delivered by non-official members of his council, and he was obliged at last to ask the Mikado's sanction to the treaties, in order to strengthen his own position. This invocation of the Mikado's authority may fairly be called an innovation upon ancient custom. Neither Nobunaga, Hidéyoshi nor Iyéyasu had thought it necessary to get their acts approved by him, and Iyéyasu granted trade privileges entirely on his own responsibility, without his right to do so ever being questioned. This reference to Kiôto is the first sign of the decadence of the Shôgun's power.

The supremacy of the Mikado having been once admitted, his right to a voice in the affairs of the country could no longer be disputed. His nobles seized the opportunity, and assumed the attitude of obstruction, which has always been a powerful weapon in the hands of individuals and parties. One man out of a dozen, of sufficient determination, can always force the others to yield, when his position is legal, and cannot be disturbed by the use of force. On the one hand, Mr. Harris pressed for a revision of the treaty and the concession of open ports at Kanagawa and Ozaka; on the other was the Court, turning an obstinately deaf ear to all proposals. In its desperation the Shôgun's government appointed to be Prime Minister, or Regent as he was called by foreigners, the descendant of Iyéyasu's most trusted retainer, the daimiô Ii Kamon no Kami of Hikoné, and Mr. Harris, as has already been said, skilfully turning to account the recent exploits of the combined English and French squadrons in the Chinese seas, obtained his treaty, achieving a diplomatic triumph of the greatest value purely by the use of "moral" pressure. The English, French, Russian and Dutch treaties followed. The Shôgun stood committed to a policy from which his new allies were not likely to allow of his receding, while to the anti-foreign party was imparted a consistency that there had previously been little chance of its acquiring.

Scarcely was the ink of these engagements dry, when the Shôgun, who had been indisposed for some weeks past, was gathered to his fathers, leaving no heir. According to the custom which had been observed on two previous occasions when there had been a break in the direct line, a prince was chosen from the house of Ki-shiû to be his successor. The ex-Prince of Mito, and several of his sympathisers among the leading nobles, namely, Hizen, Owari, Tosa, Satsuma and the Daté of Uwajima, a man of abilities superior to the size of his tiny fief in Shikoku, had desired to choose a younger son of Mito, who had been adopted into the family of Hitotsubashi. But the Prime Minister was too strong for them. He insisted on the election of his own nominee, and forced his opponents to retire into private life. Thus to their disapproval of the political course adopted by the Shôgunate, was added a personal resentment against its chief minister, and this feeling was shared in a remarkable degree by the retainers of the disgraced nobles. A bloody revenge was taken two years later on the individual, but the hostility to the system only increased with time, and in the end brought about its complete ruin.

Mito was the ringleader of the opposition, and began actively to intrigue with the Mikado's party against the head of his own family. The foreigners arrived in numbers at Kanagawa and Yokohama, and affronted the feelings of the haughty samurai by their independent demeanour, so different from the cringing subservience to which the rules of Japanese etiquette condemned the native merchant. It was not long before blood was shed. On the evening of the 26th August, six weeks after the establishment at Yedo of the British and American Representatives, an officer and a seaman belonging to a Russian man-of-war were cut to pieces in the streets of Yokohama, where they had landed to buy provisions. In November, a Chinese servant belonging to the French vice-consul was attacked and killed in the foreign settlement at Yokohama. Two months later, Sir R. Alcock's native linguist of the British Legation was stabbed from behind as he was standing at the gateway of the British Legation in Yedo, and within a month more two Dutch merchant captains were slaughtered in the high street at Yokohama. Then there was a lull for eight or nine months, till the French Minister's servant was cut at and badly wounded as he was standing at the gate of the Legation in Yedo. On the 14th January, 1861, Heusken, the Secretary of the American Mission, was attacked and murdered as he was riding home after a dinner-party at the Prussian Legation. And on the night of July 5 occurred the boldest attempt yet made on the life of foreigners, when the British Legation was attacked by a band of armed men and as stoutly defended by the native guard. This was a considerable catalogue for a period of no more than two years since the opening of the ports to commerce. In every case the attack was premeditated and unprovoked, and the perpetrators on every occasion belonged to the swordbearing class. No offence had been given by the victims to those who had thus ruthlessly cut them down; they were assassinated from motives of a political character, and their murderers went unpunished in every instance. Japan became to be known as a country where the foreigner carried his life in his hand, and the dread of incurring the fate of which so many examples had already occurred became general among the residents. Even in England before I left to take up my appointment, we felt that apart from the chances of climate, the risk of coming to an untimely end at the hands of an expert swordsman must be taken into account. Consequently, I bought a revolver, with a due supply of powder, bullets and caps. The trade to Japan in these weapons must have been very great in those days, as everyone wore a pistol whenever he ventured beyond the limits of the foreign settlement, and constantly slept with one under his pillow. It was a busy time for Colt and Adams. But in all the years of my experience in Japan I never heard of more than one life being taken by a revolver, and that was when a Frenchman shot a carpenter who demanded payment for his labour in a somewhat too demonstrative manner. In Yedo I think we finally gave up wearing revolvers in 1869, chiefly because the few of us who resided there had come to the conclusion that the weight of the weapon was inconvenient, and also that if any bloodthirsty two-sworded gentleman intended to take our lives, he would choose his time and opportunity so as to leave us no chance of anticipating his purpose with a bullet.

In the spring of 1862 Sir Rutherford Alcock returned to England on leave of absence, and Colonel Neale was left in charge. As I have said before, disbelieving in the validity of the reasons which had led the Minister to remove his official residence to Yokohama, the Chargé d'Affaires reestablished himself at the temple formerly occupied as the British Legation. On the anniversary, according to the Japanese calendar, of the attack referred to on a previous page, some Commissioners for Foreign Affairs in calling upon Colonel Neale, congratulated him and themselves on the fact that a whole year had elapsed since any fresh attempt had been made on the life of a foreigner. It was not unnatural, therefore, that in the first impulse of indignation at the savage and bloody slaughter of the sentry and corporal almost at his bedroom door, he should have conceived the suspicion that the visit of the Commissioners and their language in the morning, had been intended to put him off his guard, and that consequently the Japanese government, or rather the Shôgun's ministers, were implicated in what looked like a barbarous act of treachery that deprived the Japanese nation of all right to be regarded as a civilized community; more especially as the native watch had been recently changed, and fresh men substituted for those who had fought so well in defence of Sir Rutherford Alcock the year before. But on reflection it will easily be seen that there was no real justification for such a belief. The assassin was one of the guard. After the murder of the two Englishmen he returned to his quarters and there committed suicide by ripping himself up in the approved Japanese fashion. We may be sure that if his act had been the result of a conspiracy, he would not have been alone. Ignorant as the Shôgun's ministers may have been, and probably were, of the sacred character of an envoy, it was not their interest to bring upon themselves the armed vengeance of foreign powers at a moment when they were confronted with the active enmity of the principal clans of the west. I think they may be entirely absolved from all share in this attempt to massacre the inmates of the English Legation. But on the other hand it seems highly probable that the man's comrades were aware of his intention, and that after his partial success they connived at his escape. But he had been wounded by a bullet discharged from the pistol of the second man whom he attacked, and drops of blood on the ground showed the route by which he had made his way out of the garden. As his identity could not be concealed, he had to commit suicide in order to anticipate the penalty of death which the Shôgun's government could not have avoided inflicting on him. The apparent cognisance of the other men on guard (who were what our law would call accessories before the fact), and the fact that nevertheless they took no share in his act, is consonant with the statement that he was merely accomplishing an act of private revenge. His selection of the darkness of night seems to indicate that he hoped to escape the consequences. Willis said that when he arose and looked out, the night was pitch dark. It was the night before full moon, and in the very middle of what is called in Japan the rainy season. He informed me that there was a high wind and that heavy black clouds were drifting over the sky. The stormy weather and the lateness of the hour (11 to 12 o'clock) might perhaps account for the native lanterns which were hung about the grounds having ceased to give any light, but even under those circumstances it is a little suspicious that the guard should have neglected to replace the burnt out candles.

It was at Taku on our way down from Peking that Robertson, Jamieson and I heard of this new attack on the legation. I believe our feeling was rather one of regret that we had lost the opportunity of experiencing one of the stirring events which we had already learnt to regard as normally characteristic of life in Japan. It certainly did not take us by surprise, and in no way rendered the service less attractive. But Jamieson had found a better opening in Shanghai, and the remaining two went on to Yokohama as soon as they could get a passage.

CHAPTER V

RICHARDSON'S MURDER—JAPANESE STUDIES

The day after my arrival at Yokohama I was taken over to Kanagawa and introduced to the Rev. S. R. Brown, an American Missionary, who was then engaged in printing a work on colloquial Japanese, and to Dr J. C. Hepburn, M.D., who was employed on a dictionary of the language. The former died some years ago, but the latter is at this moment (1886) still in Japan, [2] bringing out the third edition of his invaluable lexicon and completing the translation of the Bible on which he has been occupied for many years. In those days we had either to take a native sculling boat for an ichibu across the bay to Kanagawa or ride round by the causeway, the land along which the railway now runs not having been filled in at that time. Natives used to cross by a public ferry boat, paying a tempô (16-1/2 to the ichibu) a-piece, but no foreigner was ever allowed to make use of the cheaper conveyance. If he was quick enough to catch the ferryboat before it had pushed off, and so seize a place for himself, the boatmen simply refused to stir. They remained immovable, until the intruder was tired of waiting, and abandoned the game. It was only after a residence of some years, when I had become pretty fluent in the language and could argue the point with the certainty of having the public on my side, that I at last succeeded in overcoming the obstinacy of the people at the boathouse who had the monopoly of carrying foreigners. There was in those days a fixed price for the foreigner wherever he went, arbitrarily determined without reference to the native tariff. At the theatre a foreigner had to pay an ichibu for admittance, and was then thrust into the "deaf-box," as the gallery seats are called, which are so far from the stage that the actors' speeches are quite indistinguishable. The best place for both seeing and hearing is the doma, on the area of the theatre, close in front of the stage. On one occasion I walked into the theatre, and took my place in one of the divisions of the doma, offering to pay the regular price. No, they would not take it. I must pay my ichibu and go to the foreigner's box. I held out, insisting on my right as one of the public. Did I not squat on the floor with my boots off, just like themselves? Well then, if I would not come out of that, the curtain would not rise. I rejoined that they might please themselves about that. In order to annoy a single foreigner, they would deprive the rest of the spectators of the pleasure they had paid to enjoy. So I obstinately kept my place, and in the end the manager gave way. The "house" was amused at the foreigner speaking their language and getting the best of the argument, and for the rest of my time in Yokohama I had no more difficulty in obtaining accommodation in any part of the theatre that I preferred.

[ [2] Dr Hepburn died in 1911.

In those days the Yokohama theatre used to begin about eleven o'clock in the morning and keep open for twelve hours. A favourite play was the Chiu-Shin-Gura, or Treasury of Faithful Retainers, and the Sara-Yashiki, or the Broken Plate Mansion. The arrangement of the interior, the fashion of dress and acting, the primitive character of the scenery and lights, the literary style of the plays have not undergone any changes, and are very unlikely to be modified in any marked degree by contact with European ideas. There is some talk now and then of elevating the character of the stage and making the theatre a school of morals and manners for the young, but the good people who advocate these theories in the press have not, as far as I know, ventured to put them to practical proof, and the shibai will, I hope, always continue to be what it always has been in Japan, a place of amusement and distraction, where people of all ages and sizes go to enjoy themselves without caring one atom whether the incidents are probable or proper, so long as there is enough of the tragic to call forth the tears which every natural man sheds with satisfaction on proper occasions, and of the comic by-turns to give the facial muscles a stretch in the other direction.

On the 14th September a most barbarous murder was committed on a Shanghai merchant named Richardson. He, in company with a Mrs Borradaile of Hongkong, and Woodthorpe C. Clarke and Wm. Marshall both of Yokohama, were riding along the high road between Kanagawa and Kawasaki, when they met with a train of daimiô's retainers, who bid them stand aside. They passed on at the edge of the road, until they came in sight of a palanquin, occupied by Shimadzu Saburô, father of the Prince of Satsuma. They were now ordered to turn back, and as they were wheeling their horses in obedience, were suddenly set upon by several armed men belonging to the train, who hacked at them with their sharp-edged heavy swords. Richardson fell from his horse in a dying state, and the other two men were so severely wounded that they called out to the lady: "Ride on, we can do nothing for you." She got safely back to Yokohama and gave the alarm. Everybody in the settlement who possessed a pony and a revolver at once armed himself and galloped off towards the scene of slaughter.

Lieut.-Colonel Vyse, the British Consul, led off the Legation mounted escort in spite of Colonel Neale's order that they should not move until he or their own commander gave the word. M. de Bellecourt, the French Minister, sent out his escort, consisting of a half-dozen French troopers; Lieut. Price of the 67th Regiment marched off part of the Legation guard, accompanied by some French infantry. But amongst the first, perhaps the very first of all, was Dr Willis, whose high sense of the duty cast on him by his profession rendered him absolutely fearless. Passing for a mile along the ranks of the men whose swords were reeking with the blood of Englishmen, he rode along the high road through Kanagawa, where he was joined by some three or four more Englishmen. He proceeded onwards to Namamugi, where poor Richardson's corpse was found under the shade of a tree by the roadside. His throat had been cut as he was lying there wounded and helpless. The body was covered with sword cuts, any one of which was sufficient to cause death. It was carried thence to the American Consulate in Kanagawa, where Clarke and Marshall had found refuge and surgical aid at the hands of Dr Hepburn and later on of Dr Jenkins, our other doctor. There was only one British man-of-war lying in the harbour, but in the course of the evening Admiral Küper arrived in his flagship, the Euryalus, with the gun-vessel Ringdove. The excitement among the foreign mercantile community was intense, for this was the first occasion on which one of their own number had been struck down. The Japanese sword is as sharp as a razor, and inflicts fearful gashes. The Japanese had a way of cutting a man to pieces rather than leave any life in him. This had a most powerful effect on the minds of Europeans, who came to look on every two-sworded man as a probable assassin, and if they met one in the street thanked God as soon as they had passed him and found themselves in safety.

It was known that Shimadzu Saburô was to lie that night at Hodogaya, a post-town scarcely two miles from Yokohama. To surround and seize him with the united forces of all the foreign vessels in port would, in their opinion, have been both easy and justifiable, and viewed by the light of our later knowledge, not only of Japanese politics but also of Japanese ideas with regard to the right of taking redress, they were not far wrong. In the absence of any organised police or military force able to keep order among the turbulent two-sworded class it cannot be doubted that this course would have been adopted by any Japanese clan against whom such an offence had been committed, and the foreign nationalities in Japan were in the same position as a native clan. They were subject to the authorities of their own country, who had jurisdiction over them both in criminal and civil matters, and were responsible for keeping them within the bounds of law and for their protection against attack. A meeting was called at Hooper's (W. C. Clarke's partner) house under the presidency of Colonel F. Howard Vyse, the British Consul, when, after an earnest discussion and the rejection of a motion to request the foreign naval authorities to land 1000 men in order to arrest the guilty parties, a deputation consisting of some of the leading residents was appointed to wait on the commanding officers of the Dutch, French and English naval forces and lay before them the conclusions of the meeting. The British admiral, however, declined to act upon their suggestion, but consented to attend another meeting which was to be held at the residence of the French Minister at 6 a.m. on the following morning. The deputation then went to Colonel Neale, who with great magnanimity waived all personal considerations and promised to be present also. The idea had got abroad amongst the foreign community that Colonel Neale could not be trusted to take the energetic measures which they considered necessary under the circumstances. In fact, they found fault with him for preserving the cool bearing which might be expected from a man who had seen actual service in the field and which especially became a man in his responsible situation, and they thought that pressure could be put upon him through his colleagues and the general opinion of the other foreign representatives. But in this expectation they were disappointed. At the meeting Colonel Neale altogether declined to authorise the adoption of measures, which, if the Tycoon's government were to be regarded as the government of the country, would have amounted virtually to making war upon Japan, and the French Minister expressed an opinion entirely coinciding with that of his colleague. Calmer counsels prevailed, and Diplomacy was left to its own resources, arrangements, however, being made by the naval commanders-in-chief to patrol the settlement during the night and to station guard-boats along the sea-front to communicate with the ships in case of an alarm.

Looking back now after the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century, I am strongly disposed to the belief that Colonel Neale took the best course. The plan of the mercantile community was bold, attractive and almost romantic. It would probably have been successful for the moment, in spite of the well-known bravery of the Satsuma samurai. But such an event as the capture of a leading Japanese nobleman by foreign sailors in the dominions of the Tycoon would have been a patent demonstration of his incapacity to defend the nation against the "outer barbarian," and would have precipitated his downfall long before it actually took place, and before there was anything in the shape of a league among the clans ready to establish a new government. In all probability the country would have become a prey to ruinous anarchy, and collisions with foreign powers would have been frequent and serious. Probably the slaughter of the foreign community at Nagasaki would have been the immediate answer to the blow struck at Hodogaya, a joint expedition would have been sent out by England, France and Holland to fight many a bloody battle and perhaps dismember the realm of the Mikados. In the meantime the commerce for whose sake we had come to Japan would have been killed. And how many lives of Europeans and Japanese would have been sacrificed in return for that of Shimadzu Saburô?

I was standing outside the hotel that afternoon, and on seeing the bustle of men riding past, inquired what was the cause. The reply, "A couple of Englishmen have been cut down in Kanagawa," did not shock me in the least. The accounts of such occurrences that had appeared in the English press and the recent attack on the Legation of which I had heard on my way from Peking had prepared me to look on the murder of a foreigner as an ordinary, every-day affair, and the horror of bleeding wounds was not sufficiently familiar to me to excite the feelings of indignation that seemed to animate every one else. I was secretly ashamed of my want of sympathy. And yet, if it had been otherwise, such a sudden introduction to the danger of a horrid death might have rendered me quite unfit for the career I had adopted. This habit of looking upon assassination as part of the day's work enabled me later on to face with equanimity what most men whose sensations had not been deadened by a moral anæsthetic would perhaps have considered serious dangers. And while everyone in my immediate surroundings was in a state of excitement, defending Vyse or abusing Colonel Neale, I quietly settled down to my studies.

In those days the helps to the acquisition of the Japanese language were very few. A thin pamphlet by the Rev. J. Liggins, containing a few phrases in the Nagasaki dialect, a vocabulary compiled by Wm. Medhurst, senior, and published at Batavia many years before; Rodriguez' Japanese Grammar, by Landresse; a grammar by MM. Donker Curtius and Hoffmann in Dutch, and a French translation of it by Léon Pagès; a translation by the latter of part of the Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary of 1603; Hoffmann's dialogues in Japanese, Dutch and English; Rosny's Introduction à la langue Japonaise, were about all. And but few of these were procurable in Japan. I had left London without any books on the language. Luckily for me, Dr S. R. Brown was just then printing his Colloquial Japanese, and generously allowed me to have the first few sheets as they came over at intervals from the printing office in Shanghai. A Japanese reprint of Medhurst's vocabulary, which could be bought in a Japanese bookshop that stood at the corner of Benten-Dôri and Honchô Itchôme, speedily proved useless. But I had a slight acquaintance with the Chinese written characters and was the fortunate possessor of Medhurst's Chinese-English Dictionary, by whose help I could manage to come at the meaning of a Japanese word if I got it written down. It was very uphill work at first, for I had no teacher, and living in a single room at the hotel, abutting too on the bowling alley, could not secure quiet. The colonel ordered us, Robertson and myself, to attend every day at the "office" (we did not call it the chancery then) to ask if our services were required, and what work we had consisted chiefly of copying despatches and interminable accounts. My handwriting was, unfortunately for me, considered to be rather better than the average, and I began to foresee that a larger share of clerical work would be given to me than I liked. My theory of the duty of a student-interpreter was then, and still is, to learn the language first of all. I considered that this order would be a great interruption to serious work if he insisted upon it, and would take away all chances of our learning the language thoroughly. At last I summoned up courage to protest, and I rather think my friend Willis encouraged me to do this; but I did not gain anything by remonstrating. The colonel evidently thought I was frightfully lazy, for when I said that the office work would interfere with my studies, he replied that it would be much worse for both to be neglected than for one to be hindered. At first there was some idea of renting a house for Robertson and myself, but finally the Colonel decided to give us rooms at one end of the rambling two-storied building that was then occupied as a Legation. It stood at the corner of the bund and the creek, where the Grand Hotel now is, and belonged to a man named Hoey, who took advantage of my inexperience and the love of books he had discovered to be one of my weaknesses to sell me an imperfect copy of the Penny Cyclopædia for more than a complete one would have cost at home. I used to play bowls sometimes with Albert Markham (of Arctic fame), who was then a lieutenant on board H.M.S. Centaur, and Charles Wirgman, the artist-correspondent of the Illustrated London News. Towards the end of October we induced the colonel to consent to our getting two lessons a week from the Rev. S. R. Brown, and to allow us to engage a native "teacher," at the public expense. So we had to get a second, and pay for him out of our own pockets. He also agreed to leave us the mornings free for study up to one o'clock. A "teacher," it must be understood, does not mean a man who can "teach." In those days, at Peking and in Japan also, we worked with natives who did not understand a word of English, and the process by which one made out the meaning of a sentence was closely akin to that which Poe describes in the Gold Beetle for the decyphering of a cryptograph. Through my "boy," who was equally ignorant of English, I got hold of a man who explained that he had once been a doctor, and having nothing to do at the moment would teach me Japanese without any pay. We used to communicate at first by writing down Chinese characters. One of his first sentences was literally "Prince loves men, I also venerate the prince as a master"; prince, as I afterwards divined, being merely a polite way of saying you. He said he had lots of dollars and ichibus and would take nothing for his services, so I agreed with him that he should come to my room every day from ten to one. However, he never presented himself again after the first interview.

Sir Ernest Satow 1869

Sir Ernest Satow 1903

My "boy" turned out to be what I considered a great villain. I had at an early date wanted one of the native dictionaries of Chinese characters with the Japanese equivalents in Katakana. I sent him out to buy one, but he shortly returned and said that there were none in the place, and he must go over to Kanagawa, where he would be sure to find what I wanted. After being out the whole day, he brought me a copy which he said was the only one to be found and for which he charged me four ichibus, or nearly two dollars. This was just after my arrival, when I was new to the place and ignorant of prices. Six weeks afterwards, being in the bookseller's shop, I asked him what was the price of the book, when he replied that he had asked only 1-1/2 ichibu. My boy had taken it away and returned next day to say that I had refused to give more than one, which he consequently accepted. Unconscionable rascal this, not content with less than 300 per cent. of a squeeze! I found out also that he had kept back a large slice out of money I had paid to a carpenter for some chairs and a table. He had to refund his illicit gains, or else to find another place.

After a time I got my rooms at the Legation and was able to study to my heart's content. The lessons which Mr. Brown gave me were of the greatest value. Besides hearing us repeat the sentences out of his book of Colloquial Japanese and explaining the grammar, he also read with us part of the first sermon in the collection entitled Kiu-ô Dôwa, so that I began to get some insight into the construction of the written language. Our two teachers were Takaoka Kanamé, a physician from Wakayama in Ki-shiû, and another man, whose name I forget. He was stupid and of little assistance. Early in 1863 Robertson went home on sick leave, and I had Takaoka Kanamé to myself. In those days the correspondence with the Japanese Government was carried on by means of Dutch, the only European tongue of which anything was known. An absurd idea existed at one time that Dutch was the Court language of Japan. Nothing was farther from the truth. It was studied solely by a corps of interpreters attached to the Dutch settlement at Nagasaki, and when Kanagawa and Hakodaté were opened to foreign trade, some of these interpreters were transferred to those ports. On our side we had collected with some difficulty a body of Dutch interpreters. They included three Englishmen, one Cape Dutchman, one Swiss, and one real Dutchman from Holland, and they received very good pay. Of course it was my ambition to learn to read, write, and speak Japanese, and so to displace these middlemen.

So Takaoka began to give me lessons in the epistolary style. He used to write a short letter in the running-hand, and after copying it out in square character, explain to me its meaning. Then I made a translation and put it away for a few days. Meanwhile I exercised myself in reading, now one and now the other copy of the original. Afterwards I took out my translation and tried to put it back into Japanese from memory. The plan is one recommended by Roger Ascham and by the late George Long in a preface to his edition of the de Senectute, etc., which had been one of my school books. Before long I had got a thorough hold of a certain number of phrases, which I could piece together in the form of a letter, and this was all the easier, as the epistolary style of that time demanded the employment of a vast collection of merely complimentary phrases. I also took writing lessons from an old writing-master, whom I engaged to come to me at fixed hours. He was afflicted with a watery eye, and nothing but a firm resolve to learn would ever have enabled me to endure the constant drip from the diseased orbit, which fell now on the copy-book, now on the paper I was writing on, as he leant over it to correct a bad stroke, now on the table.

There are innumerable styles of caligraphy in Japan, and at that date the on-ye-riû was in fashion. I had unluckily taken up with the mercantile form of this. Several years afterwards I changed to a teacher who wrote a very beautiful hand, but still it was on-ye-riû. After the revolution of 1868 the kara-yô, which is more picturesque and self-willed, became the mode, and I put myself under the tuition of Takasai Tanzan, who was the teacher of several nobles, and one of the half dozen best in Tôkiô. But owing to this triple change of style, and also perhaps for want of real perseverance, I never came to have a good handwriting, nor to be able to write like a Japanese; nor did I ever acquire the power of composing in Japanese without making mistakes, though I had almost daily practice for seven or eight years in the translation of official documents. Perhaps that kind of work is of itself not calculated to ensure correctness, as the translator's attention is more bent on giving a faithful rendering of the original than on writing good Japanese. I shall have more to say at a later period as to the change which the Japanese written language has undergone in consequence of the imitation of European modes of expression.

The first occasion on which my knowledge of the epistolary style was put into requisition was in June 1863, when there came a note from one of the Shogun's ministers, the exact wording of which was a matter of importance. It was therefore translated three times, once from the Dutch by Eusden, by Siebold with the aid of his teacher from the original Japanese, and by myself. I shall never forget the sympathetic joy of my dear Willis when I produced mine. There was no one who could say which of the three was the most faithful rendering, but in his mind and my own there was, of course, no doubt. I think I had sometime previously translated a private letter from a Japanese to one of our colleagues who had left Yokohama; it must have been done with great literalness, for I recollect that sessha was rendered "I, the shabby one." But it could not be made use of officially to testify to my progress in the language.

After the Richardson affair the Tycoon's government erected guardhouses all along the Tôkaidô within Treaty limits, and even proposed to divert the trains of the daimiôs to another route which ran through the town of Atsugi, but this project fell through. Foreigners were in the habit of using it for their excursions, but Robertson and I had to pass along it twice a week on our way to and from our Japanese lesson at Mr. Brown's, and though determined not to show the white feather, I always felt in passing one of these trains that my life was in peril. On one occasion as I was riding on the Tôkaidô for my pleasure, I met a tall fellow armed with the usual two swords, who made a step towards me in what I thought was a threatening manner, and having no pistol with me, I was rather alarmed, but he passed on, content probably with having frightened a foreigner. That is the only instance I can recollect of even seeming intention on the part of a samurai to do me harm on a chance meeting in the street, and the general belief in the bloodthirsty character of that class, in my opinion, was to a very great extent without foundation. But it must be admitted that whenever a Japanese made up his mind to shed the blood of a foreigner, he took care to do his business pretty effectually.

My first experience of an earthquake was on the 2nd November of this year. It was said by the foreign residents to have been a rather severe one. The house shook considerably, as if some very heavy person were walking in list slippers along the verandah and passages. It lasted several seconds, dying away gradually, and gave me a slight sensation of sickness, insomuch that I was beginning to fancy that a shaking which lasted so long must arise from within myself. I believe the sensations of most persons on experiencing a slight shock of earthquake for the first time are very similar. It is usually held that familiarity with these phenomena does not breed contempt for them, but on the contrary persons who have resided longest in Japan are the most nervous about the danger. And there is a reason for this. We know that in not very recent times extremely violent shocks have occurred, throwing down houses, splitting the earth, and causing death to thousands of people in a few moments. The longer the interval that has elapsed since the last, the sooner may its re-occurrence be looked for. We have escaped many times, but the next will be perhaps our last. So we feel on each occasion, and the anticipation of harm becomes stronger and stronger, and where we at first used to sit calmly through a somewhat prolonged vibration, the wooden joints of the house harshly creaking and the crockery rattling merrily on the shelves, we now spring from our chairs and rush for the door at the slightest movement.

My experiences in Japan of an exciting kind were pretty numerous, but, I regret to say, never included a really serious earthquake, and those who care to read more about the insignificant specimens that the country produces now-a-days must be referred to the pages of the Seismological Society's Journal and other publications of the distinguished geologist, my friend Professor John Milne, who has not only recorded observations on a large number of natural earthquakes, but has even succeeded in producing artificial ones so closely resembling the real thing as almost to defy detection.

CHAPTER VI

OFFICIAL VISIT TO YEDO

During the later months of 1862 a good deal of correspondence went forward about the Itô Gumpei (murderer of the sentry and of the corporal) affair and the Richardson murder, and Colonel Neale held various conferences with the Shôgun's ministers. The diplomatic history of these proceedings has been already recounted by Sir Francis Adams, and as for the most part I knew little of what was going on, it need not be repeated here. The meeting-place for the more important discussions was Yedo, whither the Colonel used to proceed with his escort and the larger portion of the Legation staff. Some went by a gunboat, others rode up to the capital along the Tôkaidô. At that period and for several years after, the privilege of visiting Yedo was by Treaty restricted to the foreign diplomatic representatives, and non-official foreigners could not cross the Rokugô ferry, half way between Kanagawa and Yedo, except as the invited guest of one of the legations. And now all the foreign ministers had transferred their residences to Yokohama in consequence of the danger which menaced them at Yedo. We younger members, therefore, appreciated highly our opportunities, and it was with intense delight that I found myself ordered to accompany the chief early in December on one of his periodical expeditions thither. We started on horseback about one o'clock in the afternoon in solemn procession, the party consisting of Colonel Neale, A von Siebold, Russell Robertson, and myself, with Lieutenant Applin commanding the mounted escort. It was a miserably cold day, but R. and I combated the temperature by dropping behind to visit Mr. Brown on our way through Kanagawa, and then galloping on after the others. They had evidently been going at a foot's pace during the interval. At Kawasaki we encountered an obstruction in the shape of an obstinate head ferryman, who did not recognize the British Chargé d'Affaires, and refused to pass us over. The men on guard at the watch-house commanding the ferry, on seeing some of us approach to demand their assistance, ran away. The Colonel fumed with wrath, but fortunately at this moment there arrived in breathless haste a mounted officer from Kanagawa, who had followed us of his own accord on hearing that the English Chargé d'Affaires had passed without a Japanese escort. So the ferryman collected his men, and we got over without further trouble. A couple of miles beyond the river we came to the well-known gardens called Mmé Yashiki, the plum-orchard, where we were waited on by some very pretty girls. Everybody who travelled along the Tôkaidô in those days, who had any respect for himself, used to stop here, in season or out of season, to drink a cup of straw-coloured tea, smoke a pipe and chaff the waiting-maids. Fish cooked in various ways and warm saké (rice beer) were also procurable, and red-faced native gentlemen might often be seen folding themselves up into their palanquins after a mild daylight debauch. Europeans usually brought picnic baskets and lunched there, but even if they started late were glad of any excuse for turning in to this charmingly picturesque tea-garden. Everyone now-a-days is familiar with the Japanese plum-tree as it is represented in the myriad works of art of these ingenious people, but you must see the thing itself to understand what a joyful surprise it is to enter the black-paled enclosure crowded with the oddly angular trees, utterly leafless but covered with delicate pink or white blossoms which emit a faint fragrance, and cover the ground with the snow of their fallen petals. It is early in February that they are in their glory, on a calm day when the sun shines with its usual brilliance at that season, while in every shady corner you may find the ground frozen as hard as a stone. But to my taste the plum-blossom looks better on a cloudy day against a dull background of cryptomeria when you sit by a warm fire and gaze on it out of window. In December, however, only the swelling buds are to be seen stretching along the slender shoots of last spring. We proceeded on our way without any special incident until we reached the notorious suburb of Shinagawa, half consisting of houses, or rather palaces, of ill-fame, where a drunken fellow who stood in the middle of the road and shouted at us got a fall from one of the troopers, and so we reached the Legation about sunset. The rest of the staff and the infantry guard, who had come by sea, landed about an hour later.

The building occupied as the legation was part of a Buddhist temple, Tô-zen-ji, behind which lay a large cemetery. But our part of it had never been devoted to purposes of worship. Every large temple in Japan has attached to it a suite of what we might call state apartments, which are used only on ceremonial occasions once or twice in the year, but from time immemorial it has been the custom to accommodate foreign embassies in these buildings. A suitable residence for a foreign representative could not otherwise have been found in Yedo. As a general rule every Japanese, with the exception of the working classes, lives in his own house, instead of renting it as do most residents in an European capital. The only purely secular buildings large enough to lodge the British Minister and his staff were the Yashiki or "hotels" of Daimiôs, but the idea of expropriating one of these nobles in order to accommodate a foreign official was probably never mooted. There remained, therefore, only the "state apartments" of some large monastery as a temporary residence until a site could be obtained and the necessary buildings constructed. Consequently there was no ground for the reproach which one writer at least has urged against the foreign ministers, that by turning sacred edifices into dwelling-houses they had insulted the religious feelings of the Japanese people. In the early years of our intercourse with Japan it is true that we were regarded as unwelcome "intruders," but in native opinion we "polluted" the temples by our presence no more than we should have "polluted" any other residence that might have been assigned to us. Tô-zen-ji lay in the suburb of Takanawa fronting the seashore, and was therefore conveniently situated for communication with our ships, the smallest of which could anchor just inside the forts, at a distance of perhaps a mile and a half. Owing, however, to the shallowness of the bay, boats were unable to get up to the landing place at low tide, and the assistance which could have been rendered by a gunboat in the event of a sudden attack, such as had been experienced in 1861, was absolutely nil. There remained, however, the comfort derived from knowing that a refuge lay at no great distance, and no doubt the appearance of a gunboat within the line of forts that had been built to keep out foreign fleets produced a considerable moral effect upon the general population, though desperadoes of the sort that assaulted the guard in July 1861 would certainly have been no whit deterred by any number of threatening men-of-war which could not reach them. Behind the house there was a small ornamental garden with an artificial pond for gold fish, on the opposite side of which rose a hill covered with pine-trees. A good way off from the quarters of the minister, and at the back of the cemetery belonging to the temple, there was a small house named Jô-tô-an, which was occupied by the senior chancery assistant. A tall bamboo fence cut us off entirely from this part of the grounds, and joined the house at either end. The rooms were not spacious, and very little attempt had been made to convert them into comfortable apartments. I think there was an iron stove or two in the principal rooms, but elsewhere the only means of warming was a Japanese brasier piled up with red hot charcoal, the exhalations from which were very disagreeable to a novice. The native who wraps himself up in thick wadded clothes and squats on the floor has no difficulty in keeping himself warm with the aid of this arrangement, over which he holds the tips of his fingers. His legs being crumpled up under him, the superficies he presents to the cold air is much less than it would be if he sat in a chair with outstretched limbs in European fashion. To protect himself against draughts he has a screen standing behind him, and squats on a warm cushion stuffed with silk wool. These arrangements enable him even in winter to sit with the window open, so long as it has a southern aspect, and foreigners who adopt the same system have made shift to get on. But if you are going to live in Japan in European style, you must, in order to be moderately warm during the winter months, replace the paper of the outer wooden slides with glass, stop up the openwork above the grooves in which the slides work that divide the rooms, and either build a fireplace or put up an American stove. But even all this will not make you thoroughly comfortable. Underneath you there are thick straw mats laid upon thin and badly jointed boarding, through which the cutting north-west wind rises all over the floor, while the keen draughts pierce through between the uprights and the shrunken lath-and-plaster walls. The unsuitability of such a building as a residence for the minister and his staff had been perceived from the outset, and long negotiations, having for their object the erection of a permanent legation, had by this time resulted in the assignment of an excellent site, on which a complete series of buildings was being constructed from English designs, but at the expense of the Shôgun's government. Other sites in the immediate vicinity had been given to the French, Dutch and Americans for the same purpose. All these were carved out of what had been once a favourite pleasure resort of the people of Yedo, whither in the spring all classes flocked to picnic under the blossoms of the cherry-trees in sight of the blue waters of the bay. Gotenyama was indeed a famous spot in the history of the Shôgunate. In its early days the head of the State was wont to go forth thither to meet the great daimiôs on their annual entry into Yedo, until Iyémitsu, the third of the line, to mark still more strongly the supremacy to which he felt he could safely lay claim, resolved that henceforward he would receive them in his castle, just like the rest of his vassals. From that time the gardens had been dedicated to the public use. But already before the foreign diplomats took up their abode in Yedo, Gotenyama had been partially diverted from its original purpose, and vast masses of earth had been carried off to form part of the line of forts from Shinagawa to the other side of the junk channel that leads into the river. The British minister's residence, a large two-storied house, which from a distance seemed to be two, stood on an eminence fronting the sea. Magnificent timbers had been employed in its construction, and the rooms were of palatial dimensions. The floors were lacquered, and the walls covered with a tastefully designed Japanese paper. Behind and below it a bungalow had been erected for the Japanese secretary, and a site had been chosen for a second, destined for the assistants and students. On the southern side of the compound was an immense range of stables containing stalls for 40 horses, and on the second storey quarters for a portion of the European guard. Some slight progress had been made with the buildings for the French and Dutch legations. But we knew that the people disliked our presence there. The official and military class objected to the foreigner being permitted to occupy such a commanding position overlooking the rear of the forts, and the populace resented the conversion of their former pleasure-ground into a home for the "outer barbarians." To press on the completion of the houses and to take possession was rightly considered an important matter of policy. A deep trench was being dug round the enclosure, and a lofty wooden palisade was built on the inner margin, which, it was expected, would afford sufficient protection against a repetition of such attacks as that of the 5th July 1861, and the British ensign was to be hoisted again in Yedo as soon as the buildings should be ready for occupation. We all looked forward to that event with the liveliest feelings of anticipation, and for myself I anxiously expected its arrival because Yokohama was a hybrid sort of town, that by no means fulfilled my expectations, and I hoped before long to become a resident of the famous city to which I had looked with longing eyes from the other side of Europe.

We rode daily in the environs of Yedo, to the pretty tea-house at Oji, which is depicted with such bright colours in Laurence Oliphant's book, to the pond of Jiû-ni-sô on the road to Kô-shiû, to the other pond called Senzoku half way to Mariko, and to the temple of Fudô at Meguro, where the pretty damsels at the tea-houses formed more than half the attraction. Within the city we made excursions to the temple of Kwannon at Asakusa, then and for long afterwards the principal sight of interest to the foreign visitor, to Atagoyama, where other pretty damsels served a decoction of salted cherry-blossoms, and to the temple of Kanda Miôjin for the view over the city. But the gorgeous mausoleums of the Shôguns at Shiba and Uyeno were closed to the foreigner, and remained so up to the revolution of 1868. We were allowed in riding back from Asakusa to catch a passing glimpse of the lotus pond Shinobazu-no-iké, which is now surrounded by a racecourse after the European manner, but the Fukiagé Park, since known as the Mikado's garden, and the short cut through the castle from the Sakurada Gate to the Wadagura Gate of the inner circle were shut to us in common with the Japanese public. A large portion of the city in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle, and large areas in every quarter were occupied by the Yashiki of Daimiôs and Hatamotos, of which little could be seen but long two-storied rows of stern barrack-buildings surrounding the residence of the owner. From the top of Atagoyama alone was it possible to get a view of the interior of such enclosures, and it must be admitted that the knowledge thus gained completely upset the idea that the nobles lived in palaces. Irregular masses of low brown roofs and black weather-boarded walls alone were visible. The use of telescopes was strictly forbidden on Atagoyama, lest the people should pry into the domestic doings of their masters. Wherever we went a band of mounted guards surrounded us, ostensibly for our protection, but also for the purpose of preventing free communication with the people. These men belonged to a force raised by the Shôgun's ministers from the younger sons of the hatamotos, and numbered 1000 or 1200. They wore the customary pair of swords (i.e. a long and short sabre thrust through the belt on the left side), a round flat hat woven from the tendrils of the wistaria, for the rank and file, and a mound-shaped lacquered wooden hat for the officers, a mantle or haori, and the wide petticoat-shaped trousers called hakama. Between them and the members of the foreign legations there existed no tie of any kind, for they were changed every fifteen days just like so many policemen, and mounted guard indifferently at all the legations. It was not until 1867 that I managed to break through this rule and get a special body of men attached to myself. Small guardhouses were dotted about the legation grounds for their accommodation. As soon as it became known that a foreigner was about to go out on foot or on horseback, half-a-dozen were detailed to follow him at all hazards. It was impossible to escape their vigilance. They were to prevent our speaking to any person above the rank of a common citizen or to enter a private house. On one occasion two members of our legation managed a visit to the father of a young samurai named Kotarô, who lived with us to study English. The fact was reported, and when the visitors went a second time they found the occupants of the house had removed to another part of the city. We were allowed to sit down in shops, and even to bargain for articles that took our fancy; but two kind of purchases were strictly prohibited, maps and the official list of daimiôs and government officials. Anything we bought had to be sent afterwards to the legation, and delivered to the officials of the foreign department who lived within our gates, and payment was made to them. On one occasion the Prussian representative, Herr Max von Brandt, made a determined stand against this prohibition. Entering the shop of the bookseller Okada-ya in Shimmei Maye, where we foreigners were in the habit of buying books, he inquired for the List of Daimiôs. The bookseller replied that he had it not in stock. Herr von Brandt knew that he had, and announced his intention of remaining there until he was furnished with what he required. He sent a member of his party home to the Legation to bring out the materials for luncheon, and sat determinedly down in the shop. The guards were at their wits' end. At last they dispatched a messenger to the castle to represent the impossibility of inducing him to give way, and at last towards evening there came an order to say that for this once the foreigner was to have the book. So the day was won. As a matter of fact, however, it was never necessary to proceed to this extremity, as we could easily procure what we wanted in the way of maps and printed books through our Japanese teachers. MSS. were always a difficulty. As nothing could be published without permission, any book that touched upon governmental matters had from of old to be circulated in MS. Amongst such works were the so-called "Hundred Laws of Iyéyasu," which were supposed to embody the constitution of the Japanese government. The book contains references to offices of state that were instituted after his time, and the utmost that can be alleged in its favour is that it perhaps contains a few maxims from his lips and certain rules as to the appointment of high political functionaries that were observed in actual practice. There was another book, of undoubted authenticity, containing a vast mass of administrative regulations, of which I never obtained a copy until after the revolution, when it was no longer of practical value. That MS. is now in the British Museum. Another expedient for eluding the censorate was printing forbidden books with moveable types. It was frequently resorted to during the last years of the Shôgunate and at the beginning of the new rule of the Mikado, especially for narratives of political events during that period and for one or two important treatises on politics. Shimmei Maye was one of our favourite resorts in those days; here were to be had cheap swords, porcelain, coloured prints, picture-books and novels. I much regret that I did not then begin to collect, when the blocks were comparatively fresh; a complete set of Hokusai's Mangwa, in perfect condition, could be had for a couple of dollars, and his Hundred Views of Fuji for about a couple of shillings. But I had little spare cash for such luxuries, and all my money went in necessaries.

Two days after our arrival in Yedo we paid a visit to the Gorôjiû, or Shôgun's Council. The word means "August Elders." It was somewhat infra dig. for a foreign representative to use the prefix go in speaking of them, but the phrase had been caught up from the Japanese who surrounded the minister, and for a long time I believe it was thought that go meant five. I unveiled the mistake, and when I afterwards became interpreter to the Legation we adopted the practice of giving them the bare rôjiû, except in addressing them direct, when etiquette demanded the honorific. I was unprovided with anything in the shape of uniform, and had to borrow a gold-laced forage cap from Applin. We came afterwards to look with much contempt on these gauds, and to speak derisively of "brass caps," but in 1862 I was young enough to take considerable pride in a distinctive mark of rank, and after this occasion lost no time in buying a bit of broad gold lace to wear like my fellow officers. It was an imposing procession, consisting as it did of half-a-dozen "brass caps," the military train escort of twelve men under their gorgeous lieutenant, and a flock of about forty Japanese guards hovering about us before, behind, and on either flank. In these days a foreign representative may often be detected approaching the office of the minister for foreign affairs without any suite, and in the humble jinrikisha drawn by one scantily clad coolie. The interview took place in a long room in the house of one of the rôjiû. A row of small black-lacquered tables extended down each side, and chairs were set for the Japanese as well as the foreigners. On each table stood an earthen brasier, a black-lacquered smoking-stand, with brass fire-pot and ash-pit, and two long pipes, with a supply of finely cut tobacco in a neat black box. Three of the ministers sat on the right side of the room, and with them an ometsuké, whose title was explained to me to mean spy. I suppose "censor" or "reporter" would be nearer. Below them sat eight gai-koku bu-giô, or commissioners for foreign affairs. We used to call them governors of foreign affairs, probably because the governor of Kanagawa was also a bu-giô. In the centre of the room sat a "governor" on a stool, while two interpreters (one of whom was Moriyama Takichirô) squatted on the floor. The four higher Japanese officers alone were provided with tables and chairs, the "governors" sitting on square stools, with their hands in the plackets of their trousers. After some complimentary talk about the weather and health, which are de rigueur in Japan, a double row of attendants in light blue hempen robes (we used to term the upper part "wings") came in bearing aloft black lacquer boxes full of slices of sponge cake and yôkan (a sweetened bean paste), and afterwards oranges and persimmons. Then tea was served in two manners, simply infused, and also the powdered leaf mixed up with hot water and frothed. The conversation proceeded at a very slow pace, as it had to be transmitted through two interpreters, ours who spoke Dutch and English, and theirs who spoke Japanese and Dutch. This gave rise to misunderstandings, and the Japanese ministers seemed every now and then to profit by this double obstruction to answer very much from the purpose, so that Colonel Neale's observations had to be repeated all over again, interpreted and re-interpreted. Often the ministers would seem at a loss, whereupon one of the "governors" would leave his stool and glide up to whisper something in his ear. This proceeding reminded one of the flappers in Laputa. The principal topic was the murder of the sentry and corporal at Tô-zen-ji which has already been related. To all the demands made by Colonel Neale, in accordance with the instructions he had received from Lord Russell, the rôjiû objected, and when he informed them that the British Government required the payment of £10,000 in gold as an indemnity to the families of the two murdered men, they opened their eyes very wide indeed. They offered $3000. Colonel Neale at last lost all patience, which no doubt was what they were aiming at. He gave them a piece of his mind in pretty strong language, and the interview came to an end, after, I suppose, a sitting of about three hours length, without anything having been settled. I forget whether it was on this occasion that Siebold literally translated the epithet "son of a gun" by teppô no musuko; the adjective that preceded it he did not attempt to translate, as it has not even a literal equivalent in Japanese. The way in which the ministers contradicted themselves from time to time was something wonderful, and the application of the good unmistakeable Anglo-Saxon word for him who "says the thing that is not," was almost venial.

Of course Colonel Neale did not omit to complain of the ferryman and the guards at Kawasaki, who had run away instead of putting us over the river, and Eusden in translating used the words zij sloopen alle weg, which excited my risible muscles kept at too great a stretch through these tedious hours. I whispered to my neighbour, "they all sloped away"; a terrible frown from the old gentleman rebuked my indecorous behaviour, and I was afterwards informed that I should never be allowed thenceforth to be present on one of these solemn occasions. That was a relief to me, but I confess I ought to have felt more contrite than I did. At the age of nineteen and a half a boy is still a boy, but I ought to have manifested more respect for my elders.

Early in February we received news that the legation buildings in Gotenyama had been destroyed by fire on the night of the 1st. Many years afterwards I learnt on the best possible authority that the incendiaries were chiefly Chôshiû men belonging to the anti-foreign party; three at least afterwards rose to high position in the state. These were Count Itô, Minister President of State (1886); Count Inouyé Kaoru; who the third was I forget. It need scarcely be said that they long ago abandoned their views of the necessity of putting an end to the intercourse of their country with the outside world, and they are now the leaders of the movement in favour of the introduction into Japan of whatever western institutions are adapted to the wants and wishes of the people.

Willis and I were now living together in a wing of the legation house at No. 20 on the Bund, and a young Japanese samurai named Kobayashi Kotarô messed with us. He had been placed under Willis' charge by the Japanese Government in order to acquire the English language, and was a nice boy, though perhaps not endowed with more than average abilities. He disappeared to his home about the time that the ultimatum of the British Government was presented to the Council of the Tycoon in the spring of 1863, and we never heard of him again. I had the teacher Takaoka Kanamé now all to myself, and was beginning to read Japanese documents. Across the hills south of the settlement lived a priest who knew something of the Sanskrit alphabet as used in Japan, and I used to go once or twice a week to him for instruction, but these studies were interrupted by the rumours of war that began soon to prevail; and the lessons from the American missionary, Mr. Brown, also came to an end, as I was now able to get on alone.

CHAPTER VII

DEMANDS FOR REPARATION—JAPANESE PROPOSAL TO CLOSE THE PORTS—PAYMENT OF THE INDEMNITY (1863)

A very complete account of the murder of Richardson, and the failure of the Japanese Government to afford satisfactory redress either for that injury or for the attack on the Legation in June, had been sent home to the Foreign Office, and in March 1863 Colonel Neale received instructions to demand ample reparation from both the Tycoon and the Prince of Satsuma. On the 6th April he sent Eusden up to Yedo on board the gunboat "Havoc" to deliver a Note, demanding the payment of £10,000 in gold for the wives and families of Sweet and Crimp, an ample apology for the other affair, and the payment of £100,000 as a penalty on the Tycoon for allowing an Englishman to be murdered in his territory in open daylight without making any effort to arrest the murderers. He warned the Council that refusal would be attended with very deplorable consequences to their country, and gave them twenty days to consider their reply. This lengthened period was allowed on account of the absence of the Tycoon and his chief advisers, who had left for Kiôto on the 3rd. If at the conclusion of the term allotted no answer was returned, or an unsatisfactory one was given, coercive measures would immediately be taken. It was also intended that on the return of the "Havoc" from Yedo, the "Pearl" should be despatched to Kagoshima to demand of the Prince of Satsuma the trial and execution of the murderers of Richardson in the presence of one or more English officers, and the payment of £25,000 to be distributed to the relatives of Richardson, to Marshall, Clarke and Mrs Borradaile.

On the 10th Eusden came back from Yedo, bringing a receipt for the note and a refusal on the part of the Council to send an officer down to Kagoshima to advise the Prince of Satsuma to admit the demands to be made upon him. So the idea of despatching the "Pearl" was abandoned for the moment, as it was impossible to foretell whether the Council would give in. If they were obstinate, reprisals would at once, it was thought, be commenced, and all our available force would be required to coerce the Tycoon's people. Satsuma must be left to be dealt with afterwards. So the Colonel waited until the 26th. By the 24th April we had in the harbour the "Euryalus," 35 guns, bearing the flag of Admiral Küper, the "Pearl," 21 guns, "Encounter," 14 (commanded by the brave Roderick Dew), "Rattler," 17, "Argus," 6, "Centaur," 6, and 3 gunboats. The despatch boats "Racehorse" and "Ringdove" were employed in travelling backwards and forwards between Yokohama and Shanghai with the mails, and the "Coquette" was daily expected from Hongkong.

But as was to be anticipated, the Council begged for further delay. They asked for thirty days, and Colonel Neale gave them fifteen.

My teacher Takaoka, who had private relations with the yashiki of the Prince of Ki-shiû, said they had never expected to get more than a fortnight, and as they felt certain the English Chargé d' Affaires would cut down their demands, they asked for double. He believed that the only motive for the delay was to gain time for preparation, and that war was certain. In the native quarter it was rumoured that the English had asked for the delay, which had been graciously granted by the Council; otherwise we should have been attacked the very day after the term elapsed. The inhabitants of Yedo expected war, and began to remove their valuables into the country. Young Kotarô had been carried off by his mama about the 20th. At Uraga, the little junk-port just outside the entrance to the bay of Yedo, there was a panic, and the people were said to have decamped with all their movable property to Hodogaya on the Tôkaidô. On the other hand, there was some alarm felt in the foreign settlement. Meetings were held at which resolutions were passed to the effect that it was the duty of the executive to provide for the safety of the European residents. At the same time the merchants declared their intention of not leaving the settlement unless specially called on to do so by Colonel Neale, as they believed that if they deserted their property without such an order, they would not be able to recover its value afterwards in the event of its being destroyed. The precedent of the opium surrendered to Captain Elliot, the British Superintendent of Trade at Canton in 1839, was of course in their minds, and they acted prudently in throwing the responsibility on the authorities.

On the 1st May the Council asked for another delay of fifteen days. Eusden was sent up to Yedo with a message to the Council that before the Colonel could grant their request they must send down to Yokohama one of their number to receive an important communication which he had to make to them. The native population now began to be seriously alarmed, and the shopkeepers of Kanagawa removed their effects to Hodogaya so as to be out of reach of a bombardment, and to secure a further retreat into the interior, if necessary, by the cross-country paths. The 2nd of May was the last day on which the Yokohama people were permitted by the native authorities to send away their property to Yedo. The government circulated a sensible proclamation from door to door telling them not to be alarmed as there would be no war. At the same time notice was served on the peasants within two miles of Yokohama to be prepared to give up their houses to the troops, but as yet no soldiers had appeared on the scene.

On the 4th and 5th May long conferences took place between the English and French representatives and Admirals and two Commissioners for Foreign Affairs, Takémoto Kai no Kami and Takémoto Hayato no Shô, who had been deputed by the Council to explain the reasons why a further delay was necessary. They probably represented that the difficulty in acceding to the English demands arose from the opposition of the daimiôs, for it seems that an offer was made to them that the English and French forces should assist the Tycoon to quell the resistance of the anti-foreign party, in order to enable him to carry out the promises to which he was bound by treaty. They offered, it was reported, to pay the money indemnity, disguising it under the ingenious fiction of payment for a man-of-war ordered in England, and wrecked on its way out. Finally an extension of time was accorded until the 23rd of May, in order that the personal consent of the Tycoon, who was expected to return by that date, might be obtained to the English ultimatum.

I rode out to Hodogaya on the afternoon of the 5th and met the train of the wife of a daimiô going westwards, but saw very few armed men other than those who accompanied her. A rumour had got about that 10,000 men were in the village and its neighbourhood, but the report was obviously without foundation.

During the night of the 5th May there was a general exodus of all the native servants employed in the foreign settlement. Many of them took advantage of the occasion to "spoil the Egyptians." When Willis and I rose in the morning and called for "boy" to bring breakfast, there was a dead silence. I descended to the pantry and found it empty. Servants and cook had gone off, carrying with them a revolver, a Japanese sword, several spoons and forks which they doubtless imagined to be silver, and the remains of last night's dinner wrapped in a table-cloth. This theft was the more curious, as I had the day before entrusted my servant with a considerable sum of native money to change into Mexican dollars, which he had faithfully delivered to me. But we ought to have suspected their intentions, as they had asked for an advance of half a month's wages, and had contentedly received wages up to date. Takaoka and my groom were faithful, so was also the messenger who went off into fits of congratulation on learning that the petty cash-box, of which I had charge, had not disappeared. It is much to the credit of the latter class that they have often stuck by their masters on occasions of trouble and even danger, when every one else has deserted the foreigner.

With some difficulty we procured some eggs and sponge cake, and I went off to the customhouse to report the robbery. The officials, of course, promised to find the thieves, but we never heard anything more of them or of our property. All day long the townspeople continued to depart at a great rate. I went down to the native town, where I found many of the houses shut up, and at others everything ready packed for removal. Among the rest my friend the bookseller, at the corner of Benten-dôri, had taken to his heels. But during the afternoon a proclamation was issued by the customhouse to tell the people that there would be no fighting, and many of them returned. The excitement was great throughout the town, both among foreigners and natives, and a lamentable instance of hastiness occurred on the part of a Frenchman. A native merchant, accompanied by two others, went to ask payment of a small debt that he claimed, and on its being refused, tried to obtain the money by force. Thereupon the Frenchman shot him, and two others, including the vice-consul, also fired their revolvers. Four bullets passed through the body of the unfortunate man, but without killing him. The French Admiral was excessively angry. He at once arrested the merchant and had him conveyed on board the flagship. Two Americans were likewise attacked, and one of them was carried off halfway across the swamp by eight men, who frightened him with a spear and an iron hook which they held over his head. He was rescued by the tall sergeant of our legation guard, or else he would probably have been severely beaten, if not killed, for the Japanese were unable to distinguish between foreigners of different nationalities.

On the 11th my teacher told me that a messenger had come to him from Yedo, sent by a personage of high rank, who desired to learn confidentially the intentions of the English Chargé d'Affaires, and whether he was disposed to await the return of the Tycoon, which would not be for three or four months, before taking hostile measures. In that case the high personage, who was superior in rank to the Council, would agree to issue a proclamation that a delay of a thousand days had been agreed upon, which would have the effect of restoring tranquillity at Yokohama. That if Colonel Neale, getting tired of these repeated delays, should change the seat of the negotiations to Ozaka, the high personage would have to perform hara-kiri, which he rather wished to avoid, as a penalty for failing to induce the foreigner to listen to his representations. I communicated this to Colonel Neale, and the reply sent was that he could not consent to wait so long as three months.

The Council had announced the return of the Tycoon for the 24th May, and Colonel Neale had replied that under the circumstances he would give time for "His Majesty's" settling down again at home, but on the 16th a note was received from them stating that circumstances had arisen which prevented their fixing any date whatever for his arrival at Yedo. This seemed to point to an indefinite postponement of a settlement, but the Colonel's patience was not even yet exhausted. This accorded with what my teacher had told me. The high personage turned out to be the Prince of Owari. Takaoka now said that having transmitted Colonel Neale's answer to Kiôto, he would no longer be under the necessity of committing suicide, as he had been able to show that he was not responsible for the foreigner's obstinacy.

Up to the 16th the general feeling was that the Council would give way, but the demand for a further postponement of the Japanese answer did not tend to encourage the hope of a peaceful settlement. A Japanese friend told me that the Tycoon could not by any means accept the assistance of foreign powers against the daimiôs, and that the abolition of the Mikado's dignity was impracticable. If we attacked Satsuma the Tycoon and daimiôs would be bound to make common cause with him. I suppose the idea of the foreign diplomatic representatives at that time was to support the Tycoon, whose claim to be considered the sovereign of Japan had already been called in question by Rudolph Lindau in his "Open Letter" of 1862, against the anti-foreign party consisting of the Mikado and daimiôs, and if necessary to convert him into something more than a mere feudal ruler. For we had as yet no idea of the immense potency that lay in the mere name of the sovereign de jure, and our studies in Japanese history had not yet enabled us to realize the truth that in the civil wars of Japan the victory had as a rule rested with the party that had managed to obtain possession of the person of the Mikado and the regalia. There has probably never been any sovereign in the world whose title has rested upon so secure a basis as that of the ancient emperors of Japan.

On the 25th another conference took place between the English and French diplomatic and naval authorities on the one side, and Takémoto Kai no Kami and a new man named Shibata Sadatarô on the other. The latter began by thanking the foreign representatives in the name of the Tycoon for their offer of material assistance, which he was, however, compelled to decline, as he must endeavour to settle the differences between the daimiôs and himself by his own unaided forces and authority. As to the indemnity, the Tycoon's government recognized that the demand was just, but they were afraid to pay immediately, as their yielding would bring the daimiôs down upon them. But they offered to pay the money by instalments in such a manner as not to attract public notice, and the further discussion of the details was put off to a future occasion. Probably Colonel Neale did not care very much how the matter was arranged, provided he could show to Her Majesty's Government that he had carried out his instructions. So the basis of an understanding was arrived at, and it was further conceded that the foreign representatives, that is those of England and France, should take measures to defend Yokohama from attack by the anti-foreign party.

Colonel Neale had written to Major-General Brown, who was in command at Shanghai, applying for a force of two thousand men, but a despatch now arrived from the general stating his inability and objections to furnishing any troops. It was said that he had ridiculed the idea of a military expedition against Japan long before Colonel Neale proposed it to him. Nevertheless the establishment of a garrison of English troops at Yokohama was merely delayed by this refusal, and after Sir Rutherford Alcock's return to Japan in the spring of 1864 good reasons were given to the same general why he should change his mind.

All this time there existed considerable alarm with respect to the aims and intentions of a somewhat mysterious class of Japanese called rônin. These were men of the two-sworded class, who had thrown up the service of their daimiôs, and plunged into the political agitations of the time, which had a two-fold object, firstly, to restore the Mikado to his ancient position, or rather to pull down the Tycoon to the same level as the great daimiôs, and secondly, the expulsion of "the barbarians" from the sacred soil of Japan. They came principally from the south and west of the country, but there were many from Mito in the east, and a sprinkling from all the other clans. About the end of May there was a rumour that they designed to attack Kanagawa, and the Americans still living there were compelled to transfer their residence to Yokohama, not, however, without "compensation for disturbance."

The Tycoon's people were naturally desirous of doing all that was practicable to conciliate their domestic enemies, and turned such rumours to account in the hope of being able to confine the foreigners at Yokohama within a limited space, such as had formed the prison-residence of the Dutch at Nagasaki in former times. Incidents, too, were not wanting of a character to enforce their arguments. One of the assistants of the English consulate was threatened with personal violence by a couple of two-sworded men as he was entering a tea-house on the hill at Kanagawa. He pulled out his pistol, and pointed it at them, on which they drew back. Taking advantage of the opportunity he ran down to the landing-place, where he got a boat and so returned in safety to Yokohama. It was reported that the officials at the guardhouse tried to prevent the boatmen from taking him across the bay, but however this may be, they pacified his assailants, one of whom had half-drawn his sword; and in those days we were always told that a samurai might not return his sword to the scabbard without shedding blood, so that the affair was entitled to be ranked as very alarming.

At the beginning of June, in consequence of a report that half-a-dozen rônins were concealed in the place, the betté-gumi (a body from which the legation guards at Yedo were supplied), together with some drilled troops, came down to Yokohama, and took up their quarters at some newly erected buildings under Nogé hill, and from that date until long after the revolution of 1868 we had constantly a native garrison. I recognized among the former several men with whom I had become friends during the visit to Yedo already narrated. Fresh additions were made to the British squadron in the shape of two sloops, the "Leopard" and the "Perseus." The rumours of warlike operations had died away, and it was given out that the intention of directly enforcing our demands on Satsuma had been abandoned, as the Tycoon had undertaken to see to that part of the business, and it was believed also that to insist upon them at present would give rise to a civil war.

On the 14th June there arrived at the legation in Yokohama Kikuchi Iyo no Kami and Shibata Sadatarô, Commissioners for Foreign Affairs, to complete arrangements for paying $440,000 (representing £110,000) in seven instalments extending over six weeks, the first to be delivered on the 18th. But on that day came a note of excuse from one of the Council stating that unavoidable circumstances had arisen which prevented the agreement being carried out, and that he himself would in a day or two arrive at Yokohama to discuss matters with the English Chargé d' Affaires. Colonel Neale very properly refused to hold any more communications with the Tycoon's ministers, and after a couple of days' consideration, finally placed the solution in the hands of Admiral Küper. The latter, it was said, did not know what to do. He had never seen a gun fired in action, and hardly appreciated the Colonel's suggestion that he should at once proceed to seize the steamers lately purchased in such numbers by the Japanese. The Council at Yedo now became thoroughly frightened; they had temporized as long as possible, and had worn out the patience of the English authorities. But they left no stone unturned to avoid openly giving way, and Ogasawara himself came down to Yokohama to bring the French Chargé d'Affaires and Admiral to intercede. The latter, however, refused; insisted on the demands of Great Britain being satisfied, and claimed that the defence of Yokohama should be entrusted to them. Ogasawara had just returned from Kiôto with an order from the Tycoon, dictated to him by the Mikado and the anti-foreign element in the ancient capital, to make arrangements with the foreign representatives for closing all the ports! For himself he seemed to dislike his instructions, and even gave hints to the French Chargé d'Affaires as to the nature of the reply which had best be given. A pageful of notes of exclamation would not be sufficient to express the astonishment of the foreign public of Yokohama when this extraordinary announcement was made, but the presence of the combined squadrons in the harbour relieved them from any anxiety as to the manner in which the diplomatic representatives would reply to it.

The Japanese Government, having completely failed to persuade the French authorities to intervene on their behalf, which would have indeed been impossible when the request was accompanied by the preposterous demand that foreigners should forthwith clear out of Yokohama, sent a message to Colonel Neale at one a.m. on the morning of the 24th June to say that the money should be paid, and requesting to be informed at what hour he would receive it. The reply was that the original agreement to pay in instalments, having been broken by the Japanese Government, was now null and void, and that the whole must be delivered in the course of the day. This was accordingly done; at an early hour carts laden with boxes containing each a couple of thousand dollars began to arrive at the legation. All the Chinese shroffs (men employed by merchants and bankers in the Far East to examine coin to see whether it is genuine) were borrowed to do the shroffing and counting. The chancery was crowded with the intelligent Chinamen busily employed in clinking one coin against another, and putting them up into parcels, to be replaced in the boxes and carried off on board the squadron. The process occupied three days. But already on the 24th Colonel Neale had addressed a letter to the Admiral relieving him of the unwelcome task of undertaking coercive operations.

Payment of the Indemnity for the Murder of Richardson

The note, dated on the very day on which the indemnity was paid, in which Ogasawara Dzusho no Kami (to give him his full title) had conveyed to Colonel Neale the orders of the Tycoon to close the ports and expel all foreigners from the country, was the first on which I was called to exercise my capacity as a translator. Of course I had to get the help of my teacher to read it, but my previous practice in the epistolary style enabled me to understand the construction, and to give a closer version perhaps than either of the others which were prepared in the legation. This, to me supremely important, document ran as follows:—

I communicate with you by a despatch.

The orders of the Tycoon, received from Kiôto, are to the effect that the ports are to be closed and the foreigners driven out, because the people of the country do not desire intercourse with foreign countries. The discussion of this has been entirely entrusted to me by His Majesty. I therefore send you this communication first, before holding a Conference as to the details.

Respectful and humble communication.

It is perhaps a little too literal. The opening phrase is simply equivalent to the "Monsieur le Chargé d'Affaires," and the sentence with which the note concludes is about the same thing as the "assurance of high consideration," which we have borrowed from the French. But the rest of it is accurate, and the allusion to the Mikado which appears in the version made from the Dutch translation furnished by the Japanese (vide the Bluebook) had nothing to support it in the original text. I cannot forbear from quoting the reply of Colonel Neale, though as far as possible I intend in these "Reminiscences" not to rely on published sources of information. It ran thus:—

Lieutenant-Colonel Neale to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Yokohama, June 24, 1863.

The undersigned, Her Britannic Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires, has received, in common with his colleagues, and with extreme amazement, the extraordinary announcement which, under instructions from the Tycoon, His Excellency has addressed to him.

Apart from the audacious nature of this announcement, which is unaccompanied by any explanations whatever, the Undersigned is bound to believe that both the Spiritual and Temporal sovereigns of this country are totally ignorant of the disastrous consequences which must arise to Japan by their determinations thus conveyed through you to close the opened ports, and to remove therefrom the subjects of the Treaty Powers.

For himself, as Representative of Her Britannic Majesty, the Undersigned has to observe, in the first instance, that the Rulers of this country may perhaps still have it in their power to modify and soften the severe and irresistible measures which will, without the least doubt, be adopted by Great Britain most effectually to maintain and enforce its Treaty obligations with this country, and, more than this, to place them on a far more satisfactory and solid footing than heretofore, by speedily making known and developing any rational and acceptable plans directed to this end, which may be at present concealed by His Majesty the Tycoon or the Mikado, or by both, to the great and imminent peril of Japan.

It is therefore the duty of the Undersigned solemnly to warn the Rulers of this country that when the decision of Her Majesty's Government, consequent upon the receipt of Your Excellency's announcement, shall have in due course been taken, the development of all ulterior determinations now kept back will be of no avail.

The Undersigned has in the meantime to inform Your Excellency, with a view that you may bring the same to the knowledge of His Majesty the Tycoon, who will doubtless make the same known to the Mikado, that the indiscreet communication now made through Your Excellency is unparalleled in the history of all nations, civilized or uncivilized; that it is, in fact, a declaration of war by Japan itself against the whole of the Treaty Powers, and the consequences of which, if not at once arrested, it will have to expiate by the severest and most merited chastisement.

With Respect and Consideration.

Edwd. St. John Neale.

With the exception of the lapse from the third person to the second, in the second, third and fourth paragraphs, this note is well constructed, and its periods nicely balanced. The language is perhaps rather stronger than more modern taste would approve, but with a powerful, almost overwhelming squadron of men-of-war at one's back, the temptation to express one's feelings with frankness is not easy to resist.

What the writer meant by "rational and acceptable means" directed to the end of placing the treaty obligations of Great Britain with Japan on a more "satisfactory and solid footing than heretofore" can only be conjectured. I think it is an allusion to the plan that had been mooted of our affording material assistance to the Tycoon in suppressing the opposition of the daimiôs of the west and south to the pro-foreign policy of the Japanese Government, and perhaps to a formal agreement between the Tycoon and the Mikado that the latter should ratify the treaties. Certainly the successful execution of such a plan would have placed the Tycoon firmly in the seat of his ancestors, and have forestalled the revolution of 1868 by which his successor was upset, but it would not have been effected without enormous bloodshed, and the Japanese people would have hated the ruler who had called in foreign aid to strengthen his position. He could then only have maintained himself there by the adoption of the severest measures of repression, and the nation would have been subjected to a terrible and lasting despotism. It is certainly a thing to rejoice at that the Tycoon's council had sufficient patriotism to reject such an offer. The Japanese were left to work out their own salvation, and when the revolution did at last break out, the loss of life and property was restricted within narrow limits, while the resulting benefits to the Japanese nation in the establishment of civilized and comparatively free institutions have been such as would have been for ever precluded had the suggestions of certain Europeans been listened to.

CHAPTER VIII

BOMBARDMENT OF KAGOSHIMA

Thus one portion of the instructions sent out from home had been carried into effect, and there now remained only the exaction of reparation from the Prince of Satsuma. The demands to be made included, it will be remembered, the trial and execution in the presence of English officers of the murderers of Richardson, and the payment by the Prince of an indemnity of £25,000 as compensation to Richardson's relatives and to the three other members of the party who had been attacked. Marshall and Clarke had recovered from their wounds, which in the case of the latter were serious enough, as he had received a dangerous sword cut in the shoulder, and Mrs Borradaile, who was not wounded, had returned to China. The Tycoon's people were naturally desirous of having the settlement with Satsuma left in their hands, but I suppose Ogasawara, when pressed on the point by Colonel Neale, acknowledged that the government were impotent in the matter, and the British Chargé d'Affaires consequently assumed the responsibility of requesting the Admiral to convey him and his staff to Kagoshima, in order to present the demands he had been instructed to formulate.

The Admiral had at first been unwilling to send more than a couple of ships, but it was finally determined that the squadron should consist of H.M.S. "Euryalus," "Pearl," "Perseus," "Argus," "Coquette," "Racehorse," and the gunboat "Havoc." The whole staff of the legation, from Colonel Neale down to myself, embarked on board the various ships, Willis and myself being in the paddle-sloop "Argus," Commander Lewis Moore. The weather on the voyage down was remarkably fine, and the squadron arrived at the mouth of the Bay of Kagoshima, where it anchored for the night, on the afternoon of the 11th August. Early on the following morning we proceeded up the bay, and came to an anchor off the town.

A letter had been prepared beforehand stating the demands, which had somehow or other been translated into Japanese by Siebold and his teacher; it was a difficult document, and I fancy the Japanese version did not read very well. A boat at once came off from the shore with two officers, to whom the letter was delivered. In the afternoon of the following day some other officials visited the flagship, and stated that it was quite impossible to say when the answer would be given. The name of the principal official who visited Colonel Neale on this occasion was Ijichi Shôji. I knew him very well afterwards in Yedo. He and his retinue of forty men came on board, after having exchanged a parting cup of saké with their prince, with the full design of making a sudden onslaught upon the British officers, and killing at any rate the principal ones among them; they intended in this way to make themselves masters of the flagship. It was a bold conception, and might have been successful but for the precautions taken on our side. Only two or three were admitted into the Admiral's cabin, while the marines kept a vigilant eye upon the retinue who remained on the quarter deck. While they were still on board another boat arrived, whether with reinforcements or orders to countermand the intended slaughter I do not know, but Ijichi, after communicating with the men who came in her, said he must return to the shore. In the evening a written reply was received, the bearer of which was told to return on the following morning to learn whether it was considered of a satisfactory character.

The letter on examination proved to contain a fin de non recevoir; it said that the murderers could not be found, blamed the Tycoon for having made treaties without inserting a clause to prevent foreigners from impeding the passage of the prince along the highroads; spoke of delay until the criminals could be arrested, captured, and punished, after which the question of an indemnity could be discussed, and practically referred the British Chargé d'Affaires back to the Yedo Government. When the messenger arrived on the morning of the 14th, he was informed that the reply was considered unsatisfactory, and that no further communication would be held with the Japanese except under a flag of truce. The Admiral then made a little trip up the bay to reconnoitre some foreign-built steamers lying at anchor off Wilmot Point in the plan, and take some soundings at the head of the bay beyond. On his return in the afternoon the commanders of the various ships were summoned on board the flagship to receive their instructions from the Admiral. There was no intention on our part of immediately attacking the batteries, but the Admiral probably supposed that by adopting reprisals, that is taking possession of the steamers, he would induce the Satsuma men to give some more satisfactory reply than that already received.

In pursuance of this plan, Captain Borlase in the "Pearl," with the "Coquette," "Argus," and "Racehorse," proceeded to seize the steamers at dawn of the 15th. We were, of course, very excited, and busily engaged, as we approached, in estimating the probability of their offering resistance; but as the "Argus" was laid alongside the "Sir George Grey," we saw the crew rapidly disappearing over the other side into shore boats with which they had already provided themselves. No attempt was made by us to take any prisoners, but two remained on board the "Sir George Grey," who gave their names to me as Godai and Matsugi Kôwan. On being transferred to the flagship they adopted the aliases of Otani and Kashiwa. The former was a remarkably handsome man, with a noble countenance, and was, I believe, the captain of the steamer. The profession of the second was that of a physician; he had been to Europe with the first Japanese embassy in 1862, and had in fact only just returned. Both of them were afterwards well known, the first as a rather speculative man of business who established indigo works at Ozaka with capital borrowed from the Mikado's government, the second was for a short time prefect of Yokohama in 1868, and afterwards Minister for Foreign Affairs under the name of Terashima Munénori, and he still (in 1887) holds office at Tôkiô.

We returned, with our prizes lashed alongside, to the anchorage under the island of Sakura Jima, whither the squadron had removed on the afternoon of the 12th in order to be out of range of the guns in the forts before the town, the "Euryalus" and "Pearl" lying about mid channel, between us and the forts. Here we awaited the development of events, which came sooner than was expected. The Japanese made no sign, and we could not divine their intentions from the slight glimpses obtainable of the movements on shore. But at noon the report of a gun was suddenly heard, and immediately all the batteries opened fire upon the squadron. Although it was raining and blowing like a typhoon, the Admiral at once gave orders to engage, and made a signal to us and the "Racehorse" and the "Coquette" to burn the prizes. On this we all rushed on board our prize and began to plunder. I secured a Japanese matchlock and a conical black war-hat (jin-gasa), but some of the officers found money, silver ichibus and gilt nibus. The sailors seized hold of everything portable, such as looking glasses, decanters, benches and even old pieces of matting. After about an hour of this disorder the steamer was scuttled and set on fire, and we went to take up our order in the line of battle. The plan shows how the line was formed.

Some time elapsed before we returned the fire of the Japanese, and it was said that the tardiness of the flagship in replying to the first shot of the Japanese (two hours) was due to the fact that the door of the ammunition magazine was obstructed by piles of boxes of dollars, the money paid for the indemnity being still on board. The "Perseus," which was lying close under fort No. 9, had to slip her cable, and the anchor was months afterwards recovered by the Satsuma people and returned to us. Owing to this delay she had to take the last position in the line. It was a novel sensation to be exposed to cannon shot, and the boisterous weather did not add at all to one's equanimity. The whole line went a little way up the bay, and then curving round to the left returned along the northern shore at a distance of about 400 yards, each vessel as she passed pouring her broadside into the successive forts. About three quarters of an hour after the engagement commenced we saw the flagship hauling off, and next the "Pearl" (which had rather lagged behind) swerved out of the line. The cause of this was the death of Captain Josling and Commander Wilmot of the "Euryalus" from a roundshot fired from fort No. 7. Unwittingly she had been steered between the fort and a target at which the Japanese gunners were in the habit of practising, and they had her range to a nicety. A 10-inch shell exploded on her main-deck about the same time, killing seven men and wounding an officer, and altogether the gallant ship had got into a hot corner; under the fire of 37 guns at once, from 10-inch down to 18 pounders. The "Racehorse" having got ashore opposite fort No. 8, the "Coquette" and "Argus" went back to tow her off, which we succeeded in doing after about an hour's work. During this time she kept up a constant cannonade, and the gunners in the fort were unable to do her any mischief. But at one moment it was feared that she would have to be abandoned and set on fire. I shall never forget the interest and excitement of the whole affair, from the bursting of the shells high in the air against the grey sky all round the flagship as she lay at anchor before we weighed, till we came into action ourselves and could see first the belching forth of flame from the middle of a puff of smoke, and then, strange to say, a round black thing coming straight at us. This black thing, however, suddenly rose high into the air just as it seemed about to strike us, and passed overhead. The "Argus" was struck only three times, first in the starboard gangway, then by a shot which went right through the mainmast, but left it standing, and thirdly by a round shot near the water line which penetrated about three inches, and then fell off into the sea. By five o'clock we were all safely anchored again under Josling point, except the "Havoc," which went off to set fire to five Loochooan junks that were lying off the factories. Probably the latter were set on fire by sparks from the junks, but credit was taken for their wilful destruction. Under the impression that a large white building in the rear of the town was the prince's palace, every effort was made to destroy it, but it turned out afterwards to be a temple, and we learnt that during the engagement the prince and his father had not been within range. Rockets were also fired with the object of burning the town, in which we were only too successful. The gale had increased to such a height that all efforts on the part of the townspeople to extinguish the flames must have been unavailing. It was an awful and magnificent sight, the sky all filled with a cloud of smoke lit up from below by the pointed masses of pale fire.

Our prize was still burning when we came back to our former anchorage, and as she had 140 tons of coal on board she made a good bonfire. At last she gave a lurch and went to the bottom. It was no doubt a great disappointment to the sailors, for the steamers alone were worth $300,000, and everyone would have had a good share of prize money if we had been able to carry them off. It was rumoured that the prizes were burnt at Colonel Neale's instance, who was very anxious, like the old warrior that he was, that every ship should go into action unhampered. It was also said that poor Captain Josling urged the Admiral against his better judgment to fight that day, in spite of the adverse weather.

On Sunday morning the 16th August the bodies of Captain Josling, Commander Wilmot and of the nine men who had lost their lives in the action were buried in the sea. In the afternoon the squadron weighed anchor and proceeded down the bay at slow speed, shelling the batteries and town at long range until we left them too far behind. We anchored for the night at some distance from the town, and on the 17th proceeded to return to Yokohama. Most of us on board the "Argus," and I believe the feeling was the same on board the other ships, came away bitterly discontented.

The Japanese guns still continued firing at us as we left, though all their shot fell short, and they might fairly claim that though we had dismounted some of their batteries and laid the town in ruins, they had forced us to retreat. Had we maintained the bombardment until every gun was silenced, and then landed, or even lain off the town for a few days, the opinion was that the demands would have been acceded to. Rumour said that Colonel Neale was very anxious that the Admiral should land some men and carry off a few guns as trophies of victory, but that he declined to send a single man on shore. And men said that he was demoralized by the death of his flag-captain and commander, with whom he was talking on the bridge when the shot came that took off their heads. But none of this appears in the official correspondence. I believe the real explanation to be that differences had arisen between the diplomatist and the sailor, the former of whom interfered too much with the conduct of the operations. No doubt the etiquette was for him to remain silent after he had placed matters in the hands of the Admiral, but this the impetuosity of his nature would not permit him to do. It is also possible that insufficiency of the supply of coals, provisions and ammunition may have been a factor in the determination that was come to. The Admiral in his report, which was published in the London "Gazette," took credit for the destruction of the town, and Mr. Bright very properly called attention to this unnecessary act of severity in the House of Commons; whereupon he wrote again, or Colonel Neale wrote, to explain that the conflagration was accidental. But that I cannot think was a correct representation of what took place, in face of the fact that the "Perseus" continued to fire rockets into the town after the engagement with the batteries was at an end, and it is also inconsistent with the air of satisfaction which marks the despatch reporting that £1,000,000 worth of property had been destroyed during the bombardment.

KAGOSIMA HARBOUR

After the return of the squadron to Yokohama we settled down quietly again, and the trade went on pretty much as usual; there were some complaints that the Tycoon's council were laying hands on all the raw silk destined for exportation, with a view doubtless of forcing up the price and so recouping themselves out of foreign pockets for the indemnities they had been forced to pay to the British Government. But on a strong protest being made to them by Colonel Neale, the embargo was removed. Rumours reached us of disturbances at Kiôto, where the retainers of Chôshiû had been plotting to take possession of the palace, and seize the person of the Mikado. Failing in their plans, they had been dismissed from their share in guarding the palace, and had departed to their native province, taking with them seven court nobles who had been mixed up in the plot. Amongst them were Sanjô Sanéyoshi, Higashi-Kuzé and Sawa, who afterwards held high office in the government of the restoration.

The ill-success of the Chôshiû clan, which had been one of the foremost in demanding the expulsion of the foreigners, was a turn of luck for the Tycoon, and the result was the withdrawal of the circular of Ogasawara proposing the closing of the ports. Ogasawara himself was disgraced. Foreigners at Yokohama began to breathe freely again, and to renew their former excursions in the neighbouring country.

But on the 14th October a fresh outrage completely upset our tranquillity. A French officer of Chasseurs named Camus, while taking his afternoon's ride at a distance of not more than two or three miles from the settlement, and far from the high road, was attacked and murdered. His right arm was found at a little distance from his body, still clutching the bridle of his pony. There was a cut down one side of the face, one through the nose, a third across the chin, the right jugular vein was severed by a slash in the throat, and the vertebral column was completely divided. The left arm was hanging on by a piece of skin and the left side laid open to the heart. All the wounds were perfectly clean, thus showing what a terrible weapon the Japanese katana was in the hands of a skilful swordsman. No clue to the identity of the perpetrators of this horrible assassination was ever discovered, but it made a profound impression upon the foreign community, who after that were careful not to ride out unarmed or in parties of less than three or four. Not that we were able to place much confidence in our revolvers, for it was pretty certain that the samurai who was lying in wait to kill a foreigner would not carry out his purpose unless he could take his victim at a disadvantage, and cases of chance encounters with peaceably inclined Japanese were not known to have occurred. Excepting perhaps the Richardson affair, from the very first all these murders were premeditated, and the perpetrators took care to secure their own safety beforehand.

It was an agreeable surprise to us a month later, when there appeared at the legation two high officers of Satsuma, who undertook to pay the indemnity of £25,000 and gave an engagement to make diligent search for Richardson's murderers, who upon their arrest were to be punished with death in the presence of British officers, in accordance with the original demand. We may give Colonel Neale credit for knowing that there was no genuine intention on the part of Satsuma to carry out this promise, but on the other hand there was strong reason to suppose that Shimadzu Saburô himself had actually given the order to cut down the foreigners, and it could hardly be expected that the Satsuma men would ever consent to do punishment upon him. The actual doers of the deed were merely subordinate agents. We could not with justice have insisted on their lives being taken, and at the same time suffer the principal culprit to go scot-free. In order to succeed therefore in enforcing the whole of the demands made by Her Majesty's Government, it would have been necessary to invade Satsuma with an overwhelming force and exterminate the greater part of the clan before we could get at their chief; and we may be sure that he would never have fallen alive into our hands. We had bombarded and destroyed the greater part of the forts and town, probably killed a good many persons who were innocent of Richardson's murder, and had thereby elevated what was in the beginning a crime against public order into a casus belli. There would indeed, it seems to me, have been no justification after that for taking more lives by way of expiation. The Satsuma envoys, however, formally acknowledged that their countrymen had been in the wrong, and they paid the fine demanded by the British Government. No one therefore can blame the British Chargé d'Affaires for having made peace on these terms. It should be mentioned, however, that the Satsuma men borrowed the money from the Tycoon's treasury, and I have never heard that it was repaid.

CHAPTER IX

SHIMONOSEKI; PRELIMINARY MEASURES

Sir Rutherford Alcock returned from Europe early in March 1864, and Colonel Neale took his departure. The members of the legation gave him a farewell dinner, at which he delivered himself of prognostications as to the future of those who had served under him. For me he prophesied a professorship of Japanese at an English University, but so far his words have not come true. The new chief was liked by everyone, and he was particularly gracious to myself, relieving me from all chancery work, so that I could devote the whole of my time to my Japanese studies. Willis and I occupied a wooden house in a back street between the native town and the foreign settlement, and there I worked industriously with my three teachers. Sir Rutherford had brought with him very ample powers, which he determined to make use of to chastise the Chôshiû clan for its hostile attitude. We had, it might be said, conquered the goodwill of Satsuma, and a similar process applied to the other principal head of the anti-foreign party might well be expected to produce an equally wholesome effect. In the summer of the previous year the Chôshiû people, acting upon the orders which they had extorted from the Mikado for the "expulsion of the barbarians," had fired upon an American merchant vessel, a Dutch corvette and a French despatch-boat as they passed through the straits of Shimonoséki. The corvette had returned the fire, and in the other two cases satisfaction of an incomplete kind had been obtained by the United States sloop "Wyoming" and the French squadron under Admiral Jaurès respectively. The batteries had been destroyed, but as soon as the foreign men-of-war quitted the scene, the Chôshiû men set to work to rebuild the forts, to construct others, and to mount all the guns they could bring together. So the hornet's nest was after no long interval in good repair again, and more formidable for attack and defence than before. That no foreign vessels could take their way through the straits of Shimonoséki, which they had been in the habit of passing from time to time after touching at Nagasaki in order to make a pleasant and easy passage to Yokohama, instead of encountering the stormy Cape Chichakoff, was felt to involve a diminution of western prestige. Nothing but the complete subjugation of this warlike clan, and the permanent destruction of its means of offence, would suffice to convince the Japanese nation that we were determined to enforce the treaties, and to carry on our trade without molestation from anybody, irrespective of internal dissensions.

Sir Rutherford Alcock therefore lost no time in diligently setting to work in order to bring about a coalition with the representatives of France, Holland and the United States. In this he completely succeeded. The Tycoon's government were warned that if they did not within twenty days give a satisfactory undertaking to re-open the straits, the foreign squadrons would be despatched thither to bring the Prince of Chôshiû to reason. By a curious coincidence there had just returned to Japan two out of a band of five young samurai of Chôshiû, who the year before had been smuggled away to England to see the world, and learn something of the resources of foreign powers. Their names were Itô Shunsuké and Inouyé Bunda. The other three who remained in England while their companions, armed with the new knowledge, set forth on their journey to warn their fellow clansmen that it was no use trying to run their heads against a brick wall, were Endo Kinsuké, Inouyé Masaru and Yamao Yôzo. They made themselves and the object of their return known to Sir Rutherford, who promptly seized the opportunity thus offered of entering into direct communication with the daimiô of Chôshiû, and while delivering a sort of ultimatum, of affording him the chance of abandoning his hostile attitude for one more in accordance with the treaties. He obtained the consent of his colleagues to the despatch of two men-of-war to the neighbourhood of Shimonoséki in order to land the two young men at a convenient spot, and delivered to them a long memorandum for presentation to their prince.

A French officer (Commandant Layrle) and a Dutch naval officer, besides Major Wray, R.E., were sent at the same time to gain what information might be obtainable as to the present condition of the batteries, and to my great joy I was lent as interpreter, along with my colleague, Mr. J. J. Enslie. On the 21st July we left in the corvette "Barrosa," Captain W. M. Dowell, and the gun vessel "Cormorant," Commander Buckle, and passing up the Bungo channel, anchored off Himéshima Island after dark on the 26th. We ran ashore, but managed to get off again, smashing the jib-boom of the "Cormorant" as we did so. Early on the following morning we landed our two Japanese friends Itô and Inouyé (who at that time went by the name of Shiji), after promising to call for them on the 7th August at the island of Kasato, off the coast of Suwô. On the way down I had talked a good deal with them, and between us, with the aid of my teacher, Nakazawa Kensaku (a retainer of Ogasawara, who had to seek his livelihood in consequence of his master's disgrace), we had managed to put Sir Rutherford's memorandum into Japanese. They were to cross over in an open boat and land at Tonomi in Suwô. At eight o'clock we saw them leave the shore. In Nakazawa's opinion the chances were six or seven out of ten that their heads would be cut off, and that we should never see them again.

We landed later on in the day at Himéshima and found the people very friendly. They sold to us a plentiful supply of fish, but there were no vegetables, beef or chickens to be had. Cattle were pretty plentiful and fat, but the people looked poor and half starved. The population was about 2000. The island was not fertile. I tried to buy some beef, but the pretext that it was wanted as medicine for sick sailors (a Japanese idea) was useless. Half the population was engaged in salt-burning; 1/2d and 1d banknotes were current, and very little coin was to be seen. At one place we gave a man an ichibu, worth say 10d. He pretended to turn it over and look at it carefully, and then said "these are very rare things here."

Next day we went round to the north side of the island and anchored there. Here we again landed to visit the salt pans, and met with the same friendly reception as before. On the 29th we crossed in one of the ship's boats to Imi in Iyo, where the villagers refused to have anything to do with us, but at Takeda-tsu, a mile or two further west, they made no difficulties, and we were able to lay in a supply of pumpkins and brinjalls. On the 1st August we weighed anchor before sunrise, and stood away towards the straits. The "Barrosa" anchored about ten miles on this side of Shimonoséki, and we went on in the "Cormorant," steaming towards the coast of Buzen and then up to Isaki Point. When half-way across the mouth of the straits we saw signal guns fired all along the north coast from Chôfu to Saho. After going nearly up to Tanoura, keeping carefully out of the range of the batteries, and cruising backwards and forwards for a while, in order that the situation of the batteries and the number of guns might be accurately noted, we finally returned to Himéshima. We used to go on shore there for a walk every day, and found the people inquisitive but friendly. On one occasion, however, as we were returning through the village to our boats, we met a party of four samurai, who appeared to form part of a detachment sent over from Kitsuki in Buzen to protect the island against a possible attack from us. I spoke civilly to them, and asked where they had come from, but they answered in a surly manner, "from a distance." They looked as villainous a set as one could wish to see, and remained at the water's edge watching our movements until we got on board.

On the 6th August we made another trip to Shimonoséki in the "Cormorant" to reconnoitre, going in a little further than before in the direction of Tanoura. On this occasion, in addition to the signal guns, the batteries fired a round shot and a shell as a warning, which fell in the sea about a mile ahead. When we got back to the "Barrosa" at half-past ten in the evening we found Itô and Shiji had already returned. After dinner we had a long talk, and received the prince's answer. They brought with them a single retainer, but said they had been accompanied down to the coast by a guard of soldiers given them by their prince. They commenced the delivery of the communication with which they were charged by saying that they had found him at Yamaguchi, and had handed over the letters of the four foreign representatives to him in person. He had then consulted with his chief retainers and come to the following conclusion: that he entirely acknowledged the truth of what was stated in the letters, and was conscious of his own inability to cope with the forces of western nations. But he was acting under orders which he had received, once from the Tycoon, and oftener from the Mikado, and not on his own responsibility, and it was out of his power to reply to the foreign representatives without first receiving permission. It was his intention, therefore, to proceed to Kiôto in order to impress his own views on the Mikado, which he calculated would take about three months. He begged therefore that the powers would postpone operations for that period.

They brought no written documents with them, not even a letter to certify that they were the accredited agents of their prince, but told us they could procure one if the vessels were delayed for two or three days. They were informed that a mere verbal reply such as they had brought could not be expected to satisfy the foreign representatives. They then inquired whether they should send a written reply to Yokohama with copies of the orders of the Tycoon and Mikado, but Captain Dowell replied that their prince might do as he liked about that. His instructions did not go so far as to enable him to express an opinion.

In private conversation they afterwards told me that their prince had originally been favourable to foreigners, but had gone too far now in the opposite direction to be able to retract, and they did not believe that the matters at issue could be settled without fighting. They suggested that it would be a good measure for the foreign representatives to throw over the Tycoon, and proceeding to Ozaka, demand an interview with the Mikado's ministers in order to conclude a direct treaty with him. They spoke with great bitterness of the Tycoon's dynasty, accused them of keeping all the trade, both foreign and native, in their own hands, by taking possession of every place where trade was likely to develope, such as Nagasaki and Niigata, and they said these feelings were shared by most of the people. The way in which they delivered their message made me suspect that it was couched in far more uncompromising terms than those which they made use of in communicating it. This was the first occasion on which I had been in full and frank communication with men belonging to the anti-Tycoon party. Their proposal that we should at once try to enter into negotiations with the Mikado was a bold one, and calculated, if it had been adopted, rather to injure than help their cause. The time was not yet ripe, for the Shôgun's authority, though much weakened, was still admitted and obeyed by a large majority of the daimiôs. His troops had not as yet exhibited their inferiority in arms, and as a matter of fact almost at this very moment the forces of the Prince of Chôshiû were suffering an overwhelming defeat in their attack upon Kiôto, which was defended in the Tycoon's interest by Aidzu and Satsuma. By the time we returned to Yokohama, and before the idea could have been even considered by the foreign representatives, Chôshiû's principal men were either fugitives or dead, and the Tycoon was temporarily master of the field.

Itô and his companion left again during the night. I could not help feeling sorry for their failure to impress on their prince the warning which they had come all the way from Europe to impart. But there was no help for it. We weighed anchor early on the following morning and arrived at Yokohama on the 10th.

As soon as it became known that Chôshiû would not give way preparations were actively made for carrying out the resolutions previously agreed upon by the representatives of the four Powers. They held a conference with the ministers of the Shôgun, in order to impress on them that the moment had now come when the naval forces must be charged with the duty of opening the straits, but before the meeting had separated there came like a thunderbolt on their deliberations an announcement of the return from Europe of a mission that had been despatched in the month of January to treat with Great Britain and France. They brought with them a convention concluded with the latter Power which provided for an indemnity in respect of the attack on the French gunboat, for the removal by the Shôgun's government within three months of the impediments to the navigation of the straits of Shimonoséki, for a modification of the import tariff in favour of French manufactures, and for the payment of an indemnity of $35,000 to the relatives of Lieutenant Camus. This news seemed to Sir Rutherford Alcock to threaten an utter collapse of his plans, for if the convention were ratified, the French at least would be compelled to withdraw from the coalition. But it was of course clear to those on the spot that the second article could not be possibly carried out by the Tycoon's government, and never could have been seriously intended, at least on the Japanese side. Pressure was therefore put on the council to make them declare that they would not ratify the convention, and a note from them to this effect reached the foreign representatives on the 25th August. On the same day they signed a memorandum declaring the necessity of a resort to force, which was then communicated to the naval commanders-in-chief, and four days later the allied squadrons put to sea to carry into execution the plans decided on before the return of the envoys had for a moment seemed to threaten the disruption of the diplomatic union so strenuously worked for by our chief. It was an immense responsibility that he had assumed. There was no telegraph in those days to any point nearer than Ceylon, but a despatch dated 26th July was already on its way to him positively prohibiting the adoption of military measures in the interior of Japan, and limiting naval operations against the Japanese Government or princes to defensive measures for the protection of the life and property of British subjects. By the time it reached his hands, his schemes had already been accomplished with the happiest possible results, and he was able to console himself with the conviction that he had done the right thing, even though he might be censured for acting contrary to the wishes of Lord John Russell, and have incurred the penalty of a recall from his post.

The United States steamer "Monitor" had been fired at as she lay at anchor in a bay on the north coast of Nagato on July 11. This afforded fresh justification of the action adopted by the foreign representatives.

CHAPTER X

SHIMONOSEKI—NAVAL OPERATIONS

To my great satisfaction I was appointed interpreter to Admiral Küper, and, packing up a few necessaries, embarked on board the "Euryalus." I was messed in the ward room, and as there was no cabin available, slept on a sofa. The officers were a very pleasant set of fellows; among them I especially remember Tracey and Maclear, both of them now post-captains. The former is a very distinguished officer, but what particularly attracted me towards him was his love of books, and his wide knowledge of modern languages, acquired by dint of sheer perseverance amid all the noisy distractions of life on board ship.

The "Coquette" was sent off to Nagasaki to bring up Sir Rutherford's stepson, Fred. Lowder, to be additional interpreter. The only other civilian on board the flagship was Felix Beato, the well-known photographer, who, making his first start in life with a camera in the Crimean war, had also accompanied the Anglo-French expedition to North China in 1859, and had subsequently settled in Japan, where his social qualities had gained him many friends. My teacher Nakazawa had been secretly taken away from me by the Tycoon's government as a punishment for having accompanied me on the visit to Himéshima; many years afterwards I was made acquainted with the treachery of the foreigner who had denounced him to the Commissioners for Foreign Affairs. But Willis lent me his Japanese instructor and pupil in medicine, Hayashi Bokuan, and I was able to make shift with this faithful man, though as a scholar he was greatly inferior to Nakazawa.

The English squadron consisted of the flagship "Euryalus," 35, commanded by Captain Alexander; the corvettes "Tartar," 21, Captain Hayes; "Barrosa," 21, Captain W. M. Dowell; the two-decker "Conqueror," 48, Captain Luard; the paddle-sloop "Leopard," 18, Captain Leckie; the paddle-sloop "Argus," 6, Commander Moresby; the "Coquette," 14, Commander Roe; and gunboat "Bouncer," 2, Lieutenant Holder. The French frigate "Sémiramis," 35, bearing the broad pennon of Admiral Jaurés, and the American chartered steamer "Takiang," carrying a Parrot gun and its crew from the United States corvette "Jamestown," under the command of Lieutenant Pearson, accompanied us. The French corvette "Dupleix," 10, and despatch boat "Tancrède," 4, with the Dutch corvettes "Metalen Kruis," 16, Captain de Man; "Djambi," 16, Captain van Rees; "Amsterdam," 8; and "Medusa," 16, Captain de Casembroot, left the bay of Kanagawa on the 28th August, and the remainder of the ships on the following day. We had calm weather and a smooth sea on the way down, sighting the south-west corner of Shikoku on the 1st September. About 5 p.m. we fell in with the "Perseus," 17, Commander Kingston, towing a collier, and bringing the Admiral's mail. The "Perseus" had met Commander Buckle in the "Cormorant" on his way to Shanghai for the mail, who, having started from Yokohama about the time of the return of the Japanese embassy, reported that the expedition was indefinitely postponed; she had therefore cast off the collier and steamed away at full speed for Yokohama, but falling a little later in with the "Coquette" on her way to Nagasaki, learnt a very different tale, and turning round, had picked up the collier again and brought her on. On the following day we reached Himéshima and anchored a little after noon; here we found the "Djambi" and "Metalen Kruis." Shortly afterwards the "Medusa" and the three French ships appeared, and by midnight every ship of the allied squadron had arrived. We had still to wait for the "Coquette," and either the "Cormorant" or "Osprey."

In the afternoon the Admiral, Captain Alexander, with other officers, went ashore for a walk, and I acted as their guide. The poor village mayor made his appearance in a great state of alarm. He was indeed in an uncomfortable position, uncertain of the disposition of the strangers, and sure of punishment from his own countrymen if he manifested too great friendliness towards us. He promised, however, to send us off some fish, "quite privately," but was positive that he could sell no bullocks. He had despatched a messenger to Kitsuki to inquire whether the islanders might hold intercourse with the squadron and furnish us with what supplies they had.

During the night we took in 150 tons of coal, and the 3rd of September was spent by the rest of our squadron in replenishing their bunkers. In the afternoon I went ashore to the mayor's house, where I found three of the garrison from Kitsuki. They were very reticent, not to say sulky, and only one of them, who was evidently afraid of his companions, could be induced to open his mouth. It was a grand sight to see the master of the collier and his wife parading along the beach with a couple of dirty little village urchins running ahead of them. The common people were friendly enough, except when the eyes of the two-sworded men were upon them.

On the 4th September we weighed anchor at nine o'clock and proceeded towards the straits of Shimonoséki, the eight British ships in the centre, with "Euryalus" leading, the French squadron and the "Takiang" in a line on the left, and the four Dutch vessels on the right. It was a beautiful show as the allied squadrons steamed in the consciousness of irresistible strength calmly across the unruffled surface of this inland sea, which lay before us like a glassy mirror in its framework of blue hills. Towards half past three we anchored at a distance of about two miles from the mouth of the straits, and prepared for action. Everything was in readiness by the time we had got half-way through our dinner, but to the disappointment of the more eager spirits, we remained where we were without firing a shot. Every one was naturally very anxious that no new complication should arise to delay the longed-for encounter with the enemy. Early on the following morning two Chôshiû men, common soldiers, came on board to inquire why all these men-of-war had come to the straits, but the Admiral refused to hold any parley with men of evidently inferior rank, and they were told to return on shore at once. One of them told me very innocently that if we intended to go through he must go on shore to make preparations for us, and when I asked what preparation, he said "for fighting."

I was then sent in a boat to overhaul a couple of junks that in the meanwhile had been stopped as they were entering the straits. One was the "Isé Maru," of Matsuyama in Iyo, going to load coals at Hirado, the other belonged to Kurumé in Chikugo, and was returning from Ozaka with a miscellaneous cargo. As they did not belong to the enemy we let them go.

About two p.m. the two men who had previously visited the ship came on board again to announce the arrival of a bugiô or commissioner of some sort, accompanied by Inouyé Bunda (he had now laid aside his alias of Shiji). But signals had already been made to the captains to take up the positions allotted to them for shelling the batteries, and when my friend Inouyé and his companion reached the flagship the only answer they received to their request that hostilities might be deferred with a view to negotiation was that the time for a peaceable arrangement had passed.

We went into action at ten minutes past four. The "Barrosa," "Tartar," "Djambi," "Metalen Kruis," "Leopard," and "Dupleix" moved along the southern coast of the funnel-shaped entrance to the strait, and took up their station in front of Tanoura, as shown in the annexed plan, while a light squadron consisting of the "Perseus," "Medusa," "Tancrède," "Coquette," and "Bouncer" passed along the northern shore, the "Amsterdam" and "Argus" being held in reserve. The "Euryalus," "Sémiramis," "Conqueror," and "Takiang" anchored out of range of the enemy's batteries, at a distance of about 2500 yards from the central cluster at Maeda mura, and consequently near enough to reach them with our 110-pounder breech-loading Armstrong gun on the forecastle. The first shot was fired from the "Euryalus," and the whole of the Tanoura squadron then followed her example. The light squadron speedily silenced the three-gun battery on Kushi Saki Point, but not before it had managed to pitch a shot pretty near the British flagship. Then the "Sémiramis," which had been occupied in getting springs on her cable, opened fire from her quarter-deck guns with terrible effect, scarcely a shot falling short. The "Takiang" did her best with her single gun, and the "Conqueror" fired three shells, one of which burst beautifully among the great cluster of batteries. The "Euryalus" fired only sixteen rounds between 4.10 and 5.10 p.m. from her 110-pounder, which was pretty good work, considering that the vent piece got jammed once and a considerable time was lost in digging it out with handspikes. Another time the vent piece was blown up into the fore-top owing to its not having been screwed in tightly enough. The six vessels anchored south were soon engaged in a sharp conflict with the batteries opposite, while the light squadron, having silenced the batteries on the north, came to their aid, enfilading the 4, 7, and 9-gun batteries. The furthest shot fired from the "Euryalus" was at 4800 yards, and it went plump into a battery.

THE STRAITS OF SHIMONOSEKI

By 5.10 the principal batteries had been silenced, and a signal was made to discontinue firing. A fire now burst out among the buildings in the Maeda mura batteries and a magazine exploded, making the third "blow-up" during the afternoon. We continued firing a shot now and then up to six o'clock. The quarter-deck 40-pounder Armstrongs were fired once only, as their range proved to be too short, and none of the smooth-bore guns on the main deck were brought into action, to the great disappointment of the bluejackets, who had probably not forgotten the slaughter made amongst their comrades at Kagoshima, and burned to avenge it. It must be admitted that the Japanese fought well and with great persistence, for I attach no value to the story that was told that the gunners were only allowed to fire once, and were then replaced by fresh men. At first many of our shot fell short, but when the range was found, they struck the batteries every moment, as we could see by the clouds of dust that were knocked up. After the signal to discontinue firing had been made, Kingston of the "Perseus" and De Casembroot of the "Medusa" landed and spiked fourteen guns in the Maeda mura batteries. At the small battery on Kushi Saki Point two out of the three guns had been dismounted by our fire. The entire casualties on our side this first day were six men wounded in the "Tartar," which bore the brunt of the fire.

Early on the following morning one of the Maeda mura batteries re-opened fire on the squadron anchored off Tanoura, but was replied to with such effect that it was speedily silenced, and the barrack behind was set on fire. The "Dupleix" lost two killed and two wounded, while the first lieutenant of the "Tartar" was struck by a round shot on the posteriors and severely wounded. He recovered, however, contrary to the expectations of the surgeons. I slept through the noise, but was woke by somebody with a message that I had to land with Captain Alexander, who was to command the small-arms party of the "Euryalus," 200 strong. From the "Conqueror" there landed the battalion of 450 marines under Colonel Suther, besides her own complement of 100, and some bluejackets, small detachments of marines being added from the other ships of our squadron. The French landed 350, and the Dutch 200. Another calculation showed that 1900 men were put ashore, of whom we furnished 1400.

We rowed straight for the nearest land, followed by a string of cutters and pinnaces so full of men that there was only just room to work the oars, and got on shore at nine o'clock exactly. The task assigned to Captain Alexander's party was to scale a bluff immediately to the east of the Maeda mura batteries, and take a one-gun battery. It was a stiff pull up the steep grassy hill, but up went the bluejackets pell-mell, as if they were out on a picnic, every man for himself. On climbing over the earthwork we found that the gun had been either carried off or concealed. There were a score or so of the enemy on the platform, who retreated as soon as the first of our people showed his nose above the parapet, but they kept up a dropping fire from the other side of the hill. Here one of our men received a bullet wound in the leg, and a second was accidentally shot through the body by the sailor immediately behind him. Passing through the battery, we clambered up the hill behind, through a tangled brake of ferns and creepers. The heat was intense. It was a difficult job to keep one's footing on the narrow path cut through the slippery grass. Our bluejackets were very eager to get at the enemy, but not a single one was to be seen. Descending the other side of the hill, we at last found ourselves in a sort of covered way, which ran along the side of a narrow valley. It was reported that the enemy were posted further up the valley in considerable numbers, but instead of pursuing them we turned to the left along the covered way, which brought us down past a magazine into the central battery of the principal group. It turned out afterwards to be a fortunate counter-march, for if we had proceeded in the other direction we should have stumbled on a stockade defended by three field guns, which would have played "Old Harry" with our small force.

The first battery we entered was already in the possession of the French landing party and some of our marines, who, having disembarked below the bluff, had marched along the beach, meeting with no opposition. This work was of earth, having a parapet about twenty feet wide, armed along the edge with a chevaux-de-frise of pointed bamboo stakes. In battery No. 7 the guns were mounted en barbette, on carriages with enormous wheels, and worked on pivots. They were of bronze, very long, and threw a 32-pound shot, though marked as 24's. They bore a Japanese date corresponding to 1854, and had evidently been cast in Yedo. Besides these, there was a short 32-pounder, and on the other side of a traverse, containing a small magazine, was a single 10-inch gun, also of bronze. We upset them all, broke up the carriages, threw the shot and shell into the sea, burned the powder, and even dragged a couple of guns down on to the beach. This occupied us till three or four o'clock in the afternoon. During this time our men were perpetually firing musketry at the enemy on the hill, who every now and then showed themselves to give us a shot or two. In the 9-gun battery were a couple of heavy 11-inch bronze guns. Afterwards we proceeded to the next battery, which was almost à fleur d' eau. It was divided into two by a traverse containing a magazine, on one side of which were one 10-inch howitzer, two 32-pounders, and one 24-pounder; on the other side were the same number, with the addition of a single 24-pounder. These likewise were overturned, and the carriages and ammunition disposed of as before. The Japanese field battery up the valley, which had been advanced some little way from the stockade along a path leading towards Maeda mura, Dannoura and Shimonoséki annoyed us considerably during this operation, firing shells over us and at long ranges into the sea, while their musketeers kept up a pretty constant fire, though no one was touched on our side. Part of our men were told off to keep them in check, but our aim was not much better than that of the enemy. The great thing in war, until you come to close quarters, seems to be to make as much noise as you can to put your foes in a funk, or in other words to demoralize them. You can't do much harm, and it was laughable to see how many of our men ducked to avoid the shot, and I confess I followed their example until reason came to my aid.

The "Medusa" moved up and threw a few shells in among them, while the "Perseus," "Amsterdam," and "Argus" fired over the hill from their station before Tanoura. This quieted the zeal of our warrior foes for a while, and we returned to the first battery we had dismantled, for the men to have their dinners. Crowdy of the Engineers, McBean the assistant-surgeon of the flagship and I divided a loaf of bread and a tin of sardines, which we opened with Crowdy's sword. There were no knives or forks handy, but that did not hinder us from satisfying our well-earned appetite as we sat on the steps of the magazine in the traverse. After dinner we helped the French to overturn the guns in their battery, which were four in number, very long 32-pounders, mounted on field carriages. The enemy still continued annoying us from their position up the valley, while some of our men kept up a fitful musketry fire in reply, without much damage on either side.

The afternoon being already far advanced, the signal to re-embark was made from the "Euryalus," and the French and Dutch detachments, some of the marine detachment, and the "Conqueror's" small-arms men, were already in their boats, when about six o'clock we saw Colonel Suther's battalion of marines returning from the Maeda mura 15-gun battery through a heavy fire from the Japanese. The Japanese on perceiving them threw a round shot in among them, but without doing any harm; our men replied, and for fifteen minutes there was nothing but ping, ping, ping on both sides. At last the Colonel came up to Captain Alexander and said:—"Where are these men who are annoying us. I've enough men to take any battery." "All right," replied Alexander, "I'll take the left side of the valley and you the right." So the marines clambered up into the French battery (the eastern-most one) and proceeded up the covered way, while the "Conqueror's" men disembarked again, and the advance commenced. Beato and I stuck close to Alexander, and followed the bluejackets across the paddyfields by the narrow "bunds," and then along the path on the western side of the valley. How the bluejackets shouted and cheered, each man running on by himself, now stopping to take aim at an enemy from behind one of the pine trees that lined the edge of the road, and then on again. There was no order or discipline. Some of them wasted their ammunition on imaginary foes on the hillsides. I passed several wounded men as I went up, some seriously hurt, and the corpse of a sailor who had been killed by an arrow.

At last we reached the battery, whence the gunners had been driven by our fire, dismounted the guns and threw them into the paddyfield close by, after destroying the carriages. Here Alexander was wounded by a ball which passed through the ankle-joint of his right foot, and he had to be carried to the rear on a stretcher. From this point the valley contracted rapidly, while immediately in front of us was a stockaded barrack into which most of the Japanese retreated, turning back repeatedly to fire. But I saw others in black armour and white surcoats retreating with great rapidity along the road to the left. Lieutenant Edwards and Crowdy of the Engineers were ahead with a middy named D. G. Boyes, who carried the colours most gallantly; he afterwards received the V.C. for conduct very plucky in one so young. When I got up to the front of the stockade there were three or four dead Japanese lying about and one of our men, shot through the heart. He presented a most ghastly sight as he lay there, getting visibly bluer and bluer, without any exterior signs of blood to show how he had come by his death. Having directed some of the men to put his corpse into a huge oblong basket which was on the ground close by and carry him off, I passed on into the stockade whence the Japanese had already fled. In retiring they had set fire to some houses close to the magazine, with the amiable intention of blowing us up, but the train was discovered and the explosion prevented.

After ranging over the whole place and removing whatever was worth carrying off as trophies, such as armour, bows and arrows, spears and swords, and bayonets bearing a foreign maker's name, we set fire to the buildings and retired in good order. The loss of the enemy was about twenty killed, but they had carried off all their wounded. We had five killed and thirteen or fourteen wounded, two mortally. What the marine battalion was doing all this time I cannot say, for the excitement about what was going on ahead left me no disposition to look elsewhere, but I rather think that having marched along the covered way with great steadiness they managed to arrive just as the more active and impetuous "jacks" had finished the business. And no blame to them either for going about their work in a business-like manner. If we had met with a check in our heedless, headlong advance, the marines would have saved us from destruction. It was lucky for us that the skirmish terminated as it did, for our loss in small-arms' men would have been much greater if the Japanese had been strong enough to stand to their guns, or had posted marksmen on the hills to take us in flank as we hurried up the valley. They had the advantage in position, besides possessing seven small field pieces, while on the other hand we had at least a couple of hundred men in excess of their number, which it was supposed was 600. But I fancy I remember having heard since from a Chôshiû man who was present that their force was only one half of that. The bluejackets bore the brunt of the business, as they had to cross the line of fire and to advance along the outer edge of the horn-shaped valley, which curved away to the east out of sight of the shipping. The Japanese could not stand our advance, the sharp musketry fire threw them into disorder, and they had to run for it. In only one case was an attempt made to come to close quarters. One fellow had concealed himself behind a door with uplifted sword in both hands, ready to cut down a man just about to enter. But contrary to his expectation, his intended victim gave him a prod in the belly which laid him on his back and spoilt his little game. Our French companions in arms were disgusted at not having been present at the affair, and turned up their noses at it, as pas grand chose après tout. It was the fortune of war, and we commiserated them sincerely.

Interior of a Japanese Battery after the landing of the Allied Naval Forces

The marines who in the first instance marched on Maeda mura had one man killed and two wounded. They dismantled fifteen guns in the battery there.

During the day a boat belonging to one of the Dutch men-of-war, with two men in her, got loose and drifted down with the tide towards the town. They were immediately shot, though quite defenceless. Fred Lowder and his brother George, who had come up with him from Nagasaki "to see the fun," had a narrow escape as they were paddling about in a Japanese boat, which became unmanageable and was drifting off in the same direction; they jumped into the water and swam ashore, or they would probably have encountered the same fate.

The eastern end of the town of Shimonoséki (more properly speaking, I believe, Akamagaséki) was set on fire, but the number of houses burnt was extremely small. It was alleged that this was done by the French because some Japanese soldiers had fired thence on their men, but I do not know whether this is a fact. The "Perseus" ran ashore opposite the nearest batteries, and as the tide ebbed her bow was high out of the water, nor did she get off again until the following day.

I found myself on board again at half-past seven o'clock, very dirty, very tired, very hungry and very thirsty.

On the 7th September working parties of bluejackets landed under the protection of some marines to take possession of the guns, ten of which they got into the boats. Others went up to the stockade and found some field pieces, which they destroyed, hove down wells, or brought away. We got together sixty, all but one of bronze, with two mortars and six cohorns. We blew up all the powder and threw the shot and shell into the sea. There was not a single hostile Japanese to be seen. The "Perseus" had to be lightened by discharging all her guns and coals, and so managed to get afloat by noon.

Our list of casualties during the two days' operation was eight killed and thirty wounded, of whom one or two were not expected to live. We landed at half-past one on the Tanoura side to bury our dead, the French having already buried two in the forenoon. In digging the graves our men found particles of a glittering substance which was at first taken to be gold dust, but turned out to be mica. I met a party of Ogasawara's two-sworded men, who asked how many dead we had, and how we had fared on the previous day. On learning what a complete thrashing we had given the enemy at the stockade, they expressed great satisfaction, and recounted how the Chôshiû people had crossed over the straits in the previous year, cut down their crops, carried off their live stock, and driven the peasants away, after which they held possession of Tanoura for some time, until public opinion and the necessity of providing for the defence of Chôshiû's own territories had compelled them to withdraw. Ogasawara's men feared that when Chôshiû came to find out that communication had taken place between us and the Buzen folk, he would visit them again after the withdrawal of the squadron, but I boldly assured them that they need not alarm themselves, as we intended to destroy the batteries, and deprive Chôshiû of his territory. For I knew that part of the plan entertained by Sir Rutherford and his colleagues was the seizure of a sufficient piece of territory near Shimonoséki as a material guarantee for the payment of an adequate indemnity, and to hold it until it could be conveniently handed over to the Tycoon's government.

Sir Rutherford contemplated nothing less than the complete subjugation of the Chôshiû clan, and he had enjoined upon the Admiral the necessity of attacking Hagi, which was supposed to be the stronghold of the daimiô. The Admiral, however, who was a prudent commander, and by no means disposed to take orders from the civil representatives of Her Majesty further than he was obliged, came to the conclusion that the resources at his disposal did not permit of a permanent occupation of any portion of Chôshiû's territory, and considered that as soon as the forts were destroyed and the straits opened, his task was accomplished. Fear had made the Ogasawara samurai wondrously polite. The villagers were also friendly enough, and I made them laugh good-humouredly with some commonplace jokes, but did not succeed in inducing them to sell any supplies. The officials, after hunting all through the village, as they assured us, produced eight or ten eggs, which they said was all they could find. Our bluejackets brought me some papers which they had picked up in the stockade, and which appeared to contain evidences of plots by Chôshiû against the Mikado, also quantities of pills made, or said to be made, from bear's gall, and banknotes for small sums, such as were commonly used in the territories of all the daimiôs. I believe that silver coin was current at that time in the dominions of the Tycoon alone.

On the 8th, fatigue parties landed again to bring off more guns; we got all but two from the group of batteries, which made nineteen, besides fifteen from Maeda mura and an equal number from the batteries on Hikushima, the large island in the western entrance of the straits. I went on shore to Maeda mura, and found a well built battery, with a parapet twenty feet wide cased with stone towards the sea, and divided into four sections by traverses, between which the guns were planted in unequal numbers. In the rear stood a stone-built magazine, the roof of which had been smashed by a round shot that went right through it. The powder magazine, also of stone, which stood on one side of the valley behind, had been blown up the previous day. Further up was a stockaded barrack, which the French had burned. I went towards the advanced guard near the town, but as the enemy began to show themselves and fire at us, I made a prudent retreat.

CHAPTER XI

SHIMONOSEKI; PEACE CONCLUDED WITH CHÔSHIÛ

Returning to the ship at noon, I found there my acquaintance Itô Shunsuké, who had come to say that Chôshiû desired peace, and that a karô or hereditary councillor, provided with full powers, was coming off to treat. A boat was accordingly despatched to meet the great man, who shortly afterwards stood on the quarter-deck of the flagship. He was dressed in a robe called the daimon, which was covered with large light blue crests (the paulownia leaf and flower) on a yellow ground, and wore on his head a black silk cap, which he took off on passing the gangway. His queue was then seen to be loose, hanging over the back of his head like a tassel, and his white silk underclothing was a marvel of purity. His two companions, who bore a rank next only to his own, wore their hair in the same fashion, but were without mantles. They were conducted into the cabin, and presented to the Admirals, the Abbé Girard, Lowder and myself acting as interpreters. They began by stating that the Prince of Chôshiû acknowledged his defeat, and desired to make peace with a view to the establishment of friendly relations. The Admiral thereupon asked to see their credentials, and finding they had none, intimated that he would give them forty-eight hours to provide themselves with a letter from their daimiô. They were told that the letter must contain the substance of what they had said, acknowledging that he had committed a grievous wrong in firing upon foreign ships, and begging for peace, that it must be signed with his own hand and sealed with his seal, and that a copy must be addressed to each of the four senior naval officers in command.

The conditions imposed were—first, that we should continue to remove the guns and destroy the forts; second, that we would discontinue hostilities, they on their side doing the same, but that if they fired another shot we should burn everything we could lay our hands on in Chôshiû's territories; third, they must deliver up intact the Dutch sailors and boat which had fallen into their hands on the 6th; and fourth, that they should endeavour to induce the villagers to bring off poultry and fresh vegetables for sale. In order that they might have a token of a peaceable disposition on our part, a white flag should be hoisted at the main until the expiration of the time fixed for their return. They gave as their names Shishido Giôma, adopted son of Shishido Bizen, minister of Nagato; Sugi Tokusuké and Watanabé Kurata, councillors. They then returned on shore, leaving communications addressed to each of the commanders of the allied squadron, which they had been charged to deliver at Himéshima before the bombardment. They handed these over at the Admiral's desire, remarking that we should perceive from the contents that the documents were useless now.

Itô gave me also transcripts of the orders received from the Mikado and the Tycoon to expel foreigners from Japan, which Shishido certified with his own hand to be true copies. The translations made of these papers were afterwards published in the bluebook on Japan, where the curious can consult them. There is no doubt that they were perfectly authentic. It was amusing to observe the change which manifested itself gradually in the demeanour of the envoy, who was as proud as Lucifer when he stepped on board, but gradually toned down, and agreed to every proposal without making any objections. Itô seemed to exercise great influence over him. After the truce was agreed to, the country people ventured freely along the road near the batteries, and passed on into the town, no doubt heartily pleased at the termination of hostilities. It must be said to their credit that the terms were faithfully adhered to by the Chôshiû people, none of whom, except Itô and Inouyé, had supposed Europeans to be any better than mere barbarians.

On the 9th September the "Coquette" took the two Admirals through the straits to visit the batteries on Hikushima, and as usual I accompanied them to interpret. From the eastern side the strait contracts rapidly, between lofty well-wooded hills, to a width of no more than six cables' lengths, and then as quickly opens out again, with the long line of houses forming the town of Shimonoséki on the northern shore, while to the left the coast trends away southwards past the village of Moji and the town of Kokura. In front lay the broad undulating Hikushima. Passing right out through the strait till we reached the north-west corner of the island, we turned back again and came along its coast, passing a little cove crowded with junks, till we came to Lime Point. Here we disembarked to inspect the site of the batteries, from which the guns had already been removed by our people. One of the batteries, which originally had six guns mounted, was cut out of the cliff, and there had evidently not been time to complete it. Immediately below the parapet was a single gun in a pit. A little further east was a battery of eight guns mounted à fleur d'eau, and close by was a smaller battery with four embrasures which had never been armed. The only other sign of a battery on this island was an old earthwork to the west of Lime Point, also without guns. Kokura appeared to be strongly fortified, and it was reported that the Chôshiû people had demanded, but unsuccessfully, to be allowed to work the batteries against us. The "Tartar," "Dupleix," "Djambi," and "Metalen Kruis" had been stationed here since the 7th, chiefly for the purpose of dismantling the batteries.

Leaving them we steamed up to Kushi saki Point, where three brass and four wooden guns had been taken. The latter were about four feet long, and were constructed of single logs with a bore about eight inches in diameter, having a chamber behind capable of holding about a pound and a half of powder. Bamboo hoops surrounded the gun from breech to muzzle, then came a layer of boards, and then more bamboo hoops; the wood itself was only about 3-1/2 in. thick. The shot consisted of a small bag of pebbles fastened to a wooden disk, and was intended to act like grape at close quarters against a landing party. These curious weapons were simply laid on the earthen parapet, and were not calculated to be used more than once.

The Japanese had shown themselves very friendly to the working party, and had themselves carried down the guns for delivery. They were not improbably glad to get rid of the toys that had brought them into so much trouble. On returning to the flagship we found a couple of boats laden with fowls and vegetables which Shiji Bunda had sent on board as a present. There was a note from him saying that the common people were much too frightened to come near us to sell supplies, and complaining that one of the ships had been firing again, an action which, he said, would tend to endanger the friendly relations so recently established. But this was a mistake on his part, for no incident of the kind had occurred. The bumboatmen were shown over the ship, and expressed themselves much delighted with the novel and wonderful sight. We sent half of Shiji's present to the French Admiral, and our share was divided among the officers and men of the flagship.

On the following day the envoys of the Prince of Chôshiû arrived punctually on board the "Euryalus." Shishido and Sugi, however, did not make their appearance, their absence being explained to be caused by illness from want of sleep and the hot weather in combination. Admiral Küper observed that it was singular how often this sort of thing happened, and ironically begged that if the negotiations were not concluded in one sitting, the delegates would take care of their health until everything was settled. Their names were Môri Idzumo, Minister (Karô) 'Yamada Uyemon, Hadano Kingo (Hadano was afterwards better known as Hirozawa Hiôsuké) and Watanabé Kurata, councillors (sansei), and Isota Kenzô and Harata Junji of Chôfu, councillors, with Shiji Bunda. We had looked up the Japanese "blue-book" in the meantime, and fancied we had reason to suppose the previous envoy had given an incorrect account of his position, but they were able to clear up the discrepancy in a satisfactory manner. The officer there called Shishido Mino had recently changed his name to Shishido Bizen, and retired from public life in favour of Giôma, who now represented the family. They produced a letter from their prince which, on being read, was found to declare in satisfactory terms that he sued for peace. The Admiral then said: "We quite agree with your prince in desiring peace. It was never our intention to fight your countrymen. We solely desire to cement amicable relations between Japan and foreign countries, and to carry on trade."

Môri replied that these were entirely the views held by the prince.

Ad. Küper—"Do you wish us distinctly to understand that you will offer no further opposition to the free passage of the straits?"

Môri—"We do."

Ad. Küper—"We should like very much to have an interview with the prince, for we could concede much to him that we could not perhaps concede to you. We are ourselves of high rank in our own country, but will come on shore to meet him at Shimonoséki."

After consulting among themselves they named the 14th September as the date on which he should come down from his capital to receive the two Admirals in the town.

Ad. Küper—"We will first state our demands, which can be ratified by the prince when he comes. We shall then be able to explain to him many matters connected with the customs of foreign countries which will prevent mistakes arising in future. In any case the transaction of business will be facilitated and time will be saved by the prince's coming, as in any case his ratification has to be obtained to the terms agreed on."

"In the first place, no batteries must be constructed in the straits until all questions between foreigners and Japanese have been settled by the Tycoon's government and the foreign ministers at Yedo."

"Secondly, according to the custom of foreign nations in time of war, a ransom for the town of Shimonoséki must be paid, because we spared it when we had a perfect right to set it on fire, for our people had been fired on from the houses. The amount shall be communicated to the prince himself at the conference which is to take place."

"Thirdly, when foreign vessels passing through the straits are in need of coals, provisions, or water, they shall be permitted to purchase what they want."

These conditions were readily accepted by the envoy, who said that as the tides were very strong in the straits, and both wind and waves sometimes violent, persons in distress should be permitted to land.

The Admiral then informed him that during our stay we should go on shore at Shimonoséki to buy whatever we required, and requested him to tell the townspeople to bring together for sale what they could, in fact to start a market for the fleet. To this they at first objected, on the ground that the town had been completely abandoned by its inhabitants, but eventually agreed to do what was desired. Then Môri got up, and leaning over to me said confidentially that there was one thing about which he was very anxious. The peace they had obtained was a most precious and valuable thing, and they would greatly regret if any untoward event were to injure our present friendly relations. It might happen that an ill-disposed person would lie in wait to attack foreigners, and, to prevent anything of this kind occurring, he begged that those who went ashore would be on their guard. This was interpreted to Admiral Küper, who at once replied that we had no fear of any such evilly disposed persons, but that if a single European were hurt, the whole town should be burnt to the ground. The Japanese authorities, he added, were in the habit of saying this sort of thing, solely to prevent our landing, and it looked to him a little suspicious.

Môri answered that he feared the purity of his intentions in giving this warning was not understood. He was sure the Japanese authorities would on their part take every precaution to prevent mishaps, and he had only mentioned this to prevent mistakes.

Ad. Küper—"Very well. We shall not go into the country at all. No doubt there is a governor in the town. You can give orders to him to keep out the ill-disposed, and if he cannot defend the place, we will land and do it for him."

Môri—"We will give orders to the governor."

This finished the business part of the conference, but the Admiral was curious to know the details of what had recently taken place at Kiôto, where it was reported there had been fighting between the Chôshiû and Aidzu men. Thereupon Shiji told us a long story, the gist of which was that after Chôshiû had received the orders of both the Mikado and Tycoon for "the expulsion of the foreigners," and had acted upon them to the best of his ability, he got a great deal of abuse for having done so. Being both surprised and hurt at this treatment, he sent several times to Kiôto to inquire the reason, but his people were driven out of the capital, and he was forbidden to present himself there again. He became indignant at this injustice, and his retainers sympathized with him very strongly. At last a band of them, who could bear it no longer, set out for Kiôto to demand an explanation from the Mikado's ministers. They took swords, spears, and other warlike weapons in their hands. For why? On a former occasion, nay twice, Aidzu had put to death every Chôshiû man to be found in Kiôto. So, said they, "Aidzu may attack us also, and then we must defend ourselves; we will not be killed for nothing." The prince, happening to hear of their departure, sent three of his ministers (karô) to recall them, but they refused to return. Then the governor of Kiôto summoned Chôshiû's agent at the capital to send the men home again, "for if you don't," said he, "I shall attack them." However, the agent refused, and a battle ensued. When the "Barrosa" came the first time to Himéshima with the letters of the foreign representatives, the prince despatched his son to communicate with the Mikado, but owing to the disturbed state of affairs he was unable to effect anything. Shiji hoped we would not believe that the Chôshiû clan harboured any treasonable intentions towards the Mikado, and the whole truth was that they had simply tried to get an explanation of the manner in which they had been treated. He added that we ought not to put any trust in what was told us by the Kokura people or the junk sailors, who came from Yedo and Hizen and all parts of the country, and were enemies of Chôshiû.

Our visitors were then conducted over the ship, and after being entertained with some music by the band they went over the side, and we parted on very friendly terms.

A comparison of dates with the account given in Adams, chapters 25 and 26, of what had passed at Kiôto during the summer, shows that the Chôshiû clansmen were marching from Ozaka to Kiôto at the very time that Itô and Shiji landed from the "Barrosa" and reached Yamaguchi to convey the messages of the foreign representatives to the princes. From time to time other bodies of Chôshiû men reached the capital, and the accumulated elements of civil war finally exploded on the 20th August, before the younger prince of Chôshiû, who seems to have really started from home to calm the excited spirits of the clansmen with news of a new enemy in their rear, had time to arrive. The best fighting men were consequently absent when the allied squadron appeared at the straits, and our victory was therefore a much easier affair than it would otherwise have been. I doubt whether any of the fugitives from Kiôto got home in time to take part in the defence of the place.

Next day Captain Hayes of the "Tartar," Major Wray, R.E., and I went ashore for a walk through Shimonoséki. The eastern end of the town had received a good many round shot on the 6th September, and some of the houses were almost knocked to pieces. I believe the Chôshiû men had brought out a field piece or two and fired from that point against the squadron lying in front of Tanoura. This had drawn on them our heavy artillery. The townspeople were flocking back, and had commenced to settle down again, but very few shops were open. The common people followed us in crowds, and appeared very friendly, but the prices asked by the shopkeepers were exorbitant. We were somewhat surprised, though of course without reason, to find that the proportion of curio shops was very small as compared with Yokohama. We saw several soldiers, some armed with rifles, others carrying swords and spears; they of course could not be expected to look very amicably at their late foes.

On the 12th, Hadano and the two governors of the town came off to tell the Admiral that a market would be opened at a wharf called Nabéhama from ten to twelve in the forenoon for the sale of fresh provisions. We of course suspected them of having made this arrangement in order to have everything under their own control, and to keep the prices as high as possible. The Admiral demanded a market from six to eight o'clock, to which after much discussion they agreed. I learnt through my teacher that the people were told to sell dearly to us, in spite of the promise given to us by the officials that they would not interfere. The latter had begged that our men might be ordered not to purchase anything in the shops, on the ground that we should buy up all the provisions intended for the townsfolk.

On the 13th, Captain Dowell transferred to the "Euryalus" as flag-captain, vice captain Alexander invalided. Next day I accompanied the two Admirals on shore to the clean little village of Moji. On asking some Kokura men whom we met to show us the way up to the battery on the point where the strait sweeps round, they inquired whether we had permission from the guard established at a temple close by. The answer to this astounding query was that we were not in the habit of asking leave. "Was that the path?" "Yes, that's the path." So we toiled up a hill through the pine trees, turned to the left, and descended into the battery, which was constructed for three guns. It commanded a view right up and down the straits, from Manshiû to Hikushima. It was a splendid position for guns, though a shell pitched in the line of the work would of necessity have fallen into it, unless passing very high, as it was cut out of the hillside. All about it there were places cleared for guns which would have a powerful effect against ships. The thick brushwood would prevent any attempt at escalade, and a single gun is not easily hit. I do not know what might be done with modern artillery, but it was the opinion of all our engineer officers that if the Japanese of that day had known the advantages of the position, they could easily have rendered it impregnable.

At two o'clock in the afternoon arrived the Chôshiû delegates, who by agreement made earlier in the day were to represent the prince. The story they told us was that he had voluntarily shut himself up in order to await the will of the Mikado, or as they phrased it, he had placed himself in an attitude of respectful attention (tsutsushindé oru). Lest it should be supposed that this is merely a joke, I must explain that in the old times, whenever a member of the samurai class had committed an act in person or vicariously which might be expected to bring down upon him the wrath of his political superiors, he at once assumed a submissive posture, and as it were delivered himself up, tied hands and feet, to the pleasure of his lord. It was a sort of voluntary self-imprisonment as a first-class misdemeanant. We did not accept the excuse, which it was natural to suppose had been invented to save him the trouble of travelling to Shimonoséki, but I now incline to think that horrorstruck at the violent proceedings of his followers who had dared to fight against the defenders of the palace (and also repenting of their failure), the old prince had hastened to atone for the crime of treason, as far as lay in his power, by declaring his readiness to undergo any penalty that might be decreed by the sovereign—if his retainers would let him, being understood.

Their names were Shishido Bizen, Môri Idzumo, Shishido Giôma and Ibara Kazuyé, ministers; and Nawozaki Yahichirô (metsuké, a secretary), Itô Shunsuké, Hadano Kingo and another whose name I did not note down. Bizen, it appeared, had after all not completely retired from public affairs. Both the Admirals were present. As soon as the conference was formed, Admiral Küper asked why they had not let him know earlier that the prince was in seclusion, as the truce had been granted solely that there might be time for him to reach Shimonoséki. They answered that the boat was slow, and they had only arrived late on the previous day. They had spent a long time arguing with the prince and using their best efforts to persuade him to come, but he always answered that it was an old custom from which he could not depart. He was in disgrace with the Mikado, and was not able to see even his own confidential retainers, much less could he see the Admirals. They regretted it very much, but it could not be helped. The prince would have greatly liked to meet the Admirals.