The Mikado's Empire/Catatan dan Apendiks/Bombardemen Kagoshima

THE BOMBARDMENT OF KAGOSHIMA.

ONE of the agents most prominent in bringing about the restoration, under the plea of "the renovation of the institutions created by the founder of the Tokuga- wa line," was Shimadzu Saburo (now Sa Dai Jin), brother of the next to the last, and father of the last daimio of Satsuma. On his way from Yedo, while his train was passing along the Tokaido, led by Saigo (afterward commander of the army in Formosa, and President of the Japanese Centennial Commission), " some En- glish people came riding through the head of the train at a place called Nama- mugi" (Kinse" Shiriaku — Satow's translation, p. 33). A native who would at- tempt to cross, walk, or ride into a daimio's procession would, according to in- variable custom, meet with instant death. The Yedo authorities had previously requested foreigners not to go on the Tokaido that day ; but they contemptuous- ly, and with no waste of courteous language or sympathy for national troubles, refused. Two American gentlemen, Messrs. E. Van Reed and F. Schoyer, while out riding on the same afternoon (September 14th, 1862), met Shimadzu's train, and, by filing aside, passed on without hinderance. Soon after, three English gentlemen and a lady, one of the former being Mr. Richardson, who had lived several years in China, and "knew how to deal with these people," disregarded the warnings of the discreet members of the party, and impatiently urged their horses into the procession. Some Satsuma retainers, taking this as a direct and intentional insult, drew their swords, and fell like butchers on the unarmed men. The lady was untouched. The three men were all wounded, Richardson to death. There is no proof that either Shimadzu Saburo or the train-leader gave the order to kill, as is alleged. Such heated fictions are at par with the statement that the captain of the Bombay, after sinking the Oneida, willingly allowed her crew to perish.

In the "Richardson affair" were, on the one hand, arrogant people, who de- spised all Asiatics as an inferior order of beings, disregarded their rights, and were utterly ignorant of the misery their coming had wrought on Japan. On the other hand were proud men, who considered the foreigners as sordid and cruel invaders, and the men before them as having purposely insulted them and their master. This affair led to the extortion, in presence of cannon-muzzles, of one hundred thousand pounds sterling from the bakufu, twenty-five thousand pounds from the Satsuma clan, the capture of three Satsuma steamers, and the bombard- ment of Kagoshima.

The English fleet of seven men-of-war arrived off Kagoshima, August llth, 1863, and, while deliberations were pending, began hostilities by seizing the three steamers belonging to the clan. In the British official report this hostile act is called "a reprisal;" and the sentence following declares that "suddenly and un- expectedly" hostilities were begun [assumed] by the Japanese! ! The squadron then, forming in line of battle, bombarded the forts and city. The net result of two days' bombardment were "the explosion of magazines, partial destruction of the batteries, a conflagration which reduced factories, foundries, mills — the begin- nings of a new civilization — to ashes, the sinking of five Liu Kiu junks, the firing of the palace of the prince, besides the slaughter of human beings, whose number Japanese pride has never divulged. "Having accomplished every act of retribu- tion and punishment within the scope" of their force, and believing "that the entire town of Kagoshima" was "a mass of ruins," the fleet, after severe loss, having fully vindicated the Asiatic policy of England, left the bay. The twenty- five thousand pounds indemnity was shortly afterward paid. Both parties fought with equal bravery.

NOTES AND APPENDICES. 593

The effect of this act of savage vengeance was salutary, in opening the eyes of the yet unconvinced Satsuma men to the power of the foreigners, their rifled cannon and steamers. In England, by press and Parliament, the wanton act was bitterly denounced, and by French and German writers stigmatized as a horrible act of vengeance, justified neither by international law nor even by the laws of war. It is a pity that such a storm of righteous indignation could not prevent an act of almost equal barbarity in the year following at Shimonose'kL

For a thorough study of the case, see Adams's " History of Japan," vol. i., London, 1874; Kinae Shirioku, translated by E. Satow, Esq., Yokohama, 1878; " Kagoshima," E. H. House, Tokio, 1875. I have also had the advantage of hear- ing the story from the Japanese samurai, in Shimadzu's train, from others who were in Kagoshima during the bombardment, from Mr. E. Van Reed, and from English friends.