The motives of these powerful feudatories were not free from ambiguity, for they might be animated by a bonâ fide desire to expel the foreigners, or they might be plotting to embroil the Government with the Western Powers. It was evident that the authority of the Tycoon over the great Daimios was far from absolute, and that at any rate he dared not enforce it in defence of the hated foreigners.[6] Thus the Legations were left to the mercy of a ferocity which has known no parallel. The midnight attempt on the British Legation on July 4, 1861, typified the whole situation. The inmates were ignorant whence the several attacks on them came, the imperial and Daimio's guard were asserted to have slept through the crucial stage of the assault, and the provoking cause of the attempt to exterminate the English was unknown. In such a maze of occult forces it was almost as difficult to adopt precautions as against earthquakes.
What lay at the root of all these troubles, according to the deliberate opinion of Mr Alcock, was that the foreign treaties had been forced on the Government against its will and in violation of the fundamental laws of the empire. He says the treaties were not sanctioned by the Mikado, and that therefore the opposition of the Daimios was on strictly legitimate lines. Also that the law of the seventeenth century which made it a capital offence for a foreigner to land in Japan had not been repealed. The Tycoon's Ministers had been scared into signing even Commodore Perry's almost platonic treaty; for though that officer had strict orders to use no force, he did not impart this information to the Japanese, and they could not otherwise interpret the naval demonstration than as an intimation that the ship's guns would support the commodore's demands. The case of Mr Harris's treaty of 1858 was even clearer. It had been drawn up, but the signature postponed sine die until the great nobles should have been gained over, and Mr Harris retired to his retreat at Shimoda to wait events. The news of the forcing of the Peiho forts by the Anglo-French squadron and the imposing of a treaty on the Emperor of China was conveyed express to Mr Harris by the steam frigate Mississippi. Another vessel, the Powhattan, arrived fortuitously at the same time, in which Mr Harris proceeded to Kanagawa, where commissioners were sent down at once to meet him, and in three days the treaty was signed. Of course the Allies who had forced the door of China, having no quarrel whatever with Japan, had no more thought of coercing that country than the United States had in 1853 and 1854; but it was perhaps scarcely conceivable to the oriental mind that any nation should deny itself the exercise of a power it consciously possessed. Naturally, therefore, the Japanese were predisposed to believe in the aggressive purposes of the invaders of China. No less natural was it that subsequent evidence of the self-imposed limitation of their pressure on China should lead the Tycoon's advisers to deplore the panic-haste with which they had been hustled into making treaties against the will of the great council of the Empire. In the interval between the signing and the execution of the treaties the Government had time for reflection on all that: the malcontent majority of Daimios had also time to consider what resistance they could offer to innovations which they detested.
The reactionary policy that had set in was also clearly shown in the obstacles thrown in the way of the negotiation of the Prussian treaty. Count Eulenberg had been six months at work, and as his treaty was but a copy of those already signed there was no reason in the thing itself for the obstruction. But Prussia was not then a nation from which there was much to be feared at such a distance, and therefore the true disposition of the Japanese Government had free play.
The Tycoonate itself was a perpetual cause of jealousy among the three great families, one of which was Mito, who had themselves pretensions to the honour; and the combination of their private grievances with a quasi-patriotic and probably sincere hatred of foreign intruders raised a storm against the Tycoon with which his advisers found it hard to cope. The Government being committed to the protection of foreigners, massacres of the latter offered a ready means of gratifying the double passion of hatred of them and of the Tycoon.
But although the foreign representatives and the Tycoon were thus to an unknown extent the objects of a common enmity, it was yet impossible for them to make common cause, for they were not in harmony. The Government would willingly have got rid of the treaties or reduced them to a dead letter. The foreign Ministers, on the other hand, had no choice but to insist on the fulfilment of the engagements into which the Government had entered. Not for them to count the cost, the difficulties, or the danger: relaxation of their demands would have aggravated all three. So there was nothing for it but the "rigour of the game."
The British Minister held decided views on the importance of keeping alive all rights and privileges by exercising them. China would have taught him, if the knowledge did not come by nature, the value of the modern principle of "effective occupation" as the only valid sanction of an abstract title. The treaties of 1858 conferred upon the representatives of Foreign Powers the right of travelling throughout Japan. The Tycoon's Government desired to restrict or nullify the privilege, no doubt for reasons quite sufficient from their point of view. Mr Alcock on his part saw good reasons for opposing this tendency from the outset. Consequently, as a first experiment, he organised a journey by the tokaido to the "matchless" mountain, Fujiyama, distant about eighty miles from the capital. Every effort was made by the Government officials to dissuade him from the undertaking; dangers natural and supernatural were conjured up, a more convenient season was recommended. At length their pleas for the abandonment or delay of the expedition having been exhausted without any effect on the resolution of the Minister, the officials became helpful in the preparations and most careful to provide for the success of the journey. The party—eight Europeans in all with a large native contingent—set out on September 4, 1860, rather late in the year for the ascent, which was, nevertheless, successfully accomplished, and for the first time the foot of the stranger trod the sacred summit, the object of constant religious pilgrimages. The whole journey, including a detour to the hot springs of Atami, occupied one month: it was fruitful in first-hand information, and replete with agreeable experiences.
A more important journey was undertaken eight months later, on the occasion of a return voyage from China and Hongkong, whither the Minister had gone on certain legal business. Being at Nagasaki, Mr Alcock arranged to travel in the company of Mr de Wit, the head of the Dutch mission, across the island of Kiusiu, then by junk up the Inland Sea to Hiogo, thence by the highroad to Yedo. The proposal met with the same kind of opposition from the Japanese authorities as the going to Fujiyama the previous year had done: the dangers of the journey were depicted in strong colours, and the unsettled state of the country was alleged as a cogent reason why a foreigner should not trust himself on the highroad. When these arguments proved unavailing, and the journey was finally resolved upon, the authorities endeavoured to minimise both its pleasure and its usefulness by an attempt to extort from the two Ministers an undertaking in writing never to go in advance of the escort or to leave the highroad. The plea for the latter restriction was that the road alone was under imperial control, the land on either side belonging to the Daimios. The feudatories on their part took effective measures to enforce the condition by supplying guards through their respective domains, who blocked up every byway, and in the towns and villages where the party rested screened off the side streets even from view by means of large curtains stretched on high poles, emblazoned with the Prince's arms. When the party landed at Hiogo to resume the journey by the tokaido, they were met by a "Governor" of Foreign Affairs, sent expressly from Yedo to warn the foreign Ministers once more of the dangers of the road, and to persuade them to complete their journey by sea. This had become such a stereotyped formula that the two diplomats paid no attention to the warning, though they had some reason afterwards to think that on this single occasion the cry of wolf was genuine; for the assassins who attacked the English Legation on the night of the return of the party to Yedo were said to have tracked the foreigners the whole way from Hiogo.
These two interesting and—the second one especially—arduous journeys, each of one month's duration, settled the question of the right of the foreign representatives to travel through the length and breadth of Japan. They also afforded much insight into the state of the country and the real feeling of the general population. But they were only interludes in the drama of sensational diplomacy, which had now to be resumed with redoubled energy. The Legations had been two years located in Yedo, and no progress whatever had been made towards establishing a state of security for foreign life. Matters were, indeed, going from bad to worse. One point had been gained after the murder of the American secretary in January—the Government had formally assumed the responsibility for the protection of the foreigners. Moreover, strong guards of the Tycoon's men were posted in the different Legations; but, as we have seen, they added nothing to the sense of security. The demonstration of the inadequacy of all these precautions left the conditions of foreign life in the capital in worse plight than ever. The attack on the British Legation therefore called for a fresh review of the position.
IV. NEGOTIATIONS AND RENEWED ASSASSINATIONS, 1862-64.
British and French guards brought to Yedo—Marks a new era—Decided position of British Government—Concessions asked by Japanese, refused by Mr Alcock, granted by Earl Russell to Japanese envoys—Retrogression—Position of foreign Ministers assimilating to that of the Dutch at Deshima—Mr Alcock's departure for Europe, 1862—Bad effects of Lord Russell's concessions to Japanese—Encouraged them to make fresh demands—The building of a British Legation in Yedo—Chargé d'affaires resides mostly in Yokohama—Colonel Neale's account of the system of guarding the Legation—Midnight attack on the guards—British sentries murdered—Suspicious behaviour of Government—British guard increased—Admiral Hope's opinion—Attack on an English riding party and murder of Mr Richardson on highroad—Admiral Hope's proposal to "nip assassination in the bud."