The question now, therefore, entered on a new phase. Since reliance on the Government afforded no sense of security, the foreigners must abandon the position or find some more effective protection, not to supersede, but to supplement, that which was afforded by the Government. There was fortunately a British despatch vessel, the Ringdove, at the moment at Yokohama, to the commander of which Mr Alcock appealed for a guard of marines and bluejackets. These arrived the next day, twenty-five all told, with Captain Craigie himself at their head, and they were happily accompanied by a detachment of fifteen men from the French transport Dordogne, brought up by the French Minister, Mons. de Bellecourt, always a staunch supporter of his British colleague. That gentleman, on hearing the tragic news at Yokohama, where he had been staying, returned promptly to his post with this most welcome reinforcement for the defence of the Legations. This simple proceeding marked the beginning of a new era in the foreign relations with Japan—the era in which the Powers represented there took the law into their own hands, with highly important consequences to Japan and to the world. The British naval guard was reinforced within a few months by a mounted escort of twelve men drawn from the force then in China. This step was strongly objected to by the Tycoon's Ministers, but the answer was complete: the Government's acknowledged incompetence had forced this measure of self-defence on the Legations. The position taken up by Mr Alcock was confirmed in the most explicit manner by Earl Russell a year later, who thus addressed the Japanese envoys in London:—
Her Majesty's Government will not agree to any proposal which may be made by the Ministers of the Tycoon having for its object to preclude the representatives of the Queen in Japan from maintaining a cavalry escort for the protection of her Majesty's servants in that country. The Tycoon cannot ensure the safety of the British officers within the precincts of the capital and its immediate neighbourhood; and even if the Tycoon were to engage to do so, it is notorious that he would not have the power to fulfil his engagement.
This plain speaking defined the status of "old" Japan, and gave the clue to the remarkable train of events which followed.
Much anxiety and many sinister rumours, but no serious outrages, disturbed the peace of the Legations and the general foreign community during the remainder of the year 1861. Mr Oliphant was sent home in consequence of his wounds, and the occasion was taken advantage of to have certain private conferences with the Japanese Foreign Ministers, at which that gentleman assisted, when the "past, present, and future" were confidentially discussed. Mr Oliphant, thus thoroughly "posted," was able personally to explain the state of affairs to her Majesty's Ministers, which greatly assisted them in forming their decisions. He was also the bearer of an autograph letter from the Tycoon to her Majesty the Queen.
The Japanese Government had long been pressing the foreign representatives for the relaxation of some of the articles in the treaties, which were not to come into operation until a subsequent date. These provided for the opening of Yedo for general residence on 1st January 1862, and for the opening of the trading ports of Hiogo, Osaka, and Ní-í-gata on 1st January 1863. The Tycoon's Government was most anxious to postpone all these privileges to an indefinite period, nominally seven years, and as the foreign Ministers in Yedo had no such authority—Mr Alcock had been instructed to grant "no concessions without equivalents"—the Government prepared to despatch special envoys to the five Courts of Europe with which they had treaties. A similar mission to the United States the previous year had been so well received as to encourage the second effort. The principle involved in the Japanese plea was precisely the same as that which had kept Canton closed for so many years, notwithstanding the treaty provision opening it; but there was this difference of fact between the two cases, that whereas the danger apprehended and alleged by the Japanese was probably real, that which had been put forward by the Chinese was false, and manufactured by the authorities themselves.
The Japanese were now in full retrogression, and every point they might gain was certain to become a new fulcrum for forcing more and more concessions from the foreign Powers. This was proved in many kinds of ways. For example, the restrictions placed on the foreign envoys, by which they were kept as prisoners in their Legations, and were attended in their walks abroad by officious guards who prevented them from seeing more than could be helped, and forbade intercourse with the people, were almost tantamount to those formerly imposed on the Dutch in Deshima. Mr Oliphant frankly speaks of his "jailors." Then repression, and yet more repression—as much repression, in fact, as the foreigners could be brought to endure—was the unvarying rule. Even when they were themselves seeking favours, and had therefore every inducement to show their liberal side to the foreign Minister, the rule of repression was rigorously maintained. Mr Alcock relates how this determination prevented him from presenting the Queen's reply to the Tycoon's letter. First, the audience was delayed on frivolous grounds; then the ceremonial was varied. Among other things it was proposed to place the envoy at double the distance from the Tycoon which had been observed on a previous occasion. Being anxious to take his leave, to present his locum tenens, and to deliver the Queen's autograph, Mr Alcock waived these innovations under protest—"being reluctant at the last moment to stand upon a point of mere etiquette"; but "having found my desire was strong not to raise difficulties on any minor points, it had been resolved [by the Japanese] to profit by the circumstance to gain some further advantages derogatory to the position of the British Minister," and so after everything had been arranged according to their own wishes the Court officials returned the following day to say they had made a mistake, and that, in fact, sundry further restrictions must be observed. This was too much, and the Minister quitted the capital without his audience, March 1862.
The same tactics were observed by the envoys in Europe. When the mission reached London and had laid their case before the same Foreign Secretary who had instructed the Minister in Japan to "make no concessions without equivalents," he at once conceded the whole of the Japanese demands unconditionally, for the nominal conditions were merely that the rest of the treaty should stand. A detailed memorandum of the agreement was drawn up and formally signed by Earl Russell and the three Japanese envoys on June 6, 1862. Having succeeded beyond all expectation in their demands, the Japanese envoys evidently concluded that the Foreign Office was of plastic substance, and within two days they had formulated a list of nine further concessions which they desired to discuss. This, however, was too much for Lord Russell's patience, and as the envoys had "completed their business and taken their leave," he declined to enter on any fresh questions.
The effect of Lord Russell's concessions could not be otherwise than detrimental, the only open question being whether his insistence on opening the ports on the agreed dates would have been a greater or a lesser evil. Mr Alcock points out the family likeness between the Japanese pleas for suspension of treaty rights and those with which we had so long been familiar in China. "The time," he says, allowed to the authorities of Canton to "soothe the people and prepare the way" was deliberately used by them to "create the very difficulties which they alleged already to exist, and make it each year more and more impossible to admit the foreigners,"—a comment on the Japanese proposal which leaves little doubt as to his opinion of that transaction. Yet there were cogent reasons for the course actually adopted, if the premisses be granted that the ports could only be opened by force, and that England would have been left alone to employ the necessary force. The most that can be said, then, for the concessions to the Japanese is that they represented the choice of evils. No one was benefited by them. They did not help the Tycoon or avert the catastrophe to his dynasty. They did not lessen the friction, or the danger to foreign life and interests, or interrupt the long series of assassinations of foreigners in Japan; nor did they obviate the necessity of using force in that country, to avoid which was the principal inducement to her Majesty's Government to violate its own principle. The analogy with China was, in fact, complete; the old lesson was once more driven home, that there is no safety in doing wrong. As Sir Rutherford Alcock puts it, "To retrograde safely and with dignity is often more difficult for nations and their governments than to advance."
During the year 1861 an important improvement was inaugurated in respect to the housing of the foreign Legations. Hitherto they had been accommodated in temples neither suited to Western modes of living nor, as had been proved, adapted for defence. Independent sites were now allotted on a commanding ridge within the city, where the respective Ministers might have buildings erected on their own plans. These were promptly put in hand, and soon after Mr Alcock was able to bring his first arduous campaign—a term applicable in its double sense—to a close. Having brought the various business of the Legation into a state convenient for transfer to new hands, he left Yedo in March 1862, a few days before the arrival of the future chargé d'affaires, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward St John Neale. The Minister was accompanied to England by Moriyama, the chief interpreter to the Japanese Foreign Office, who was charged with special instructions to the three envoys then in England.
From the time that Colonel Neale took charge of the British Legation events chased each other rapidly. While the new buildings were in progress the chargé d'affaires divided his time between Yedo and Yokohama, and while in the capital continued to reside in the temple called To-zen-ji, where the Legation had been located from the beginning. The inner buildings were guarded by the mounted escort and by the naval contingent, which had been renewed as one British warship took the place of another during the year. In the outer enclosure there was a guard of 500 Japanese, the retainers of a certain Daimio who was intrusted by the Tycoon with the protection of the Legation.