3. The Japanese Ministers treated the whole matter with apparent indifference, months having elapsed before any information was communicated to the British Minister respecting either the cause of the attack or the execution of justice on the instigators, and then it was only such information as had been common property for two months. All that the Japanese Ministers had to say by way of explanation to the foreign envoys was that the attack proceeded from the unsettled state of public feeling and from the Japanese nation clinging to the old régime; but that they, the Ministers, hoped gradually to modify this national feeling so that the foreigners might live in the country without apprehension, &c. But in the meantime? Well, they "had given strict orders to increase the protection." Tragicomedy could not well go further. Evidently matters must soon reach a climax.
As the first outward and visible consequence of the assassination of the two marines, an infantry guard of twenty-five men from the 67th Regiment was sent over from China in addition to the naval guard and the cavalry escort; and thus another step was taken towards the dénoûment of the plot. Then the word "retribution" was revived in the diplomatic correspondence, after having been launched by the Foreign Office in 1861 but arrested in transitu, so that it did not reach the Japanese authorities. It was Admiral Hope, a man who never shrank from speaking his mind or backing his opinion, who put the case in a pointed form to the British Admiralty. "Deeply as I should lament the adoption of hostile measures against the Japanese," he wrote on August 28, "after the best consideration I have been able to give to the subject I cannot avoid the conclusion that it is absolutely necessary to nip this assassination-system in the bud; and that not to take effectual measures for doing so now will be merely to postpone the evil day to a future, but not far distant, occasion."
If further impetus had been wanting to develop this idea, the Japanese lost no time in supplying it; for the next assassination which has left a dark blood-stain on the annals of the time was perpetrated on the highroad between Yedo and Kanagawa on September 14, 1862.
The victims were a party of three gentlemen and one lady from Yokohama who had crossed the bay in a boat to Kanagawa, where their horses awaited them on the tokaido. This broad road not being macadamised made an agreeable riding-course, and it was beautified with lines of old trees, one section in particular near where the tragedy occurred being known as "The Avenue." The party proceeded from Kanagawa towards Yedo, not intending to go farther than Kawasaki, which was the limit of authorised excursions in that direction. On the way they met the cortège of a Daimio, the first indication of which was several norimono (the heavy palanquin in which the nobles of Japan travel) with armed attendants, forming an irregular train with considerable intervals between. When passing these norimono the foreigners walked their horses. In the intervals where the road was clear they cantered, and this mode of alternate progression continued for three or four miles. Then a regular procession was met, preceded by about a hundred men marching in single file on either side of the road. The foreign party thereupon proceeded at a foot's pace, keeping close to the left side, until they reached "the main body, which was then occupying the whole breadth of the road." The English party halted on approaching the main body, according to one of the survivors; but according to another, they were stopped "when they had got about twelve men deep in the procession," by "a man of large stature[7] issuing from the main body," who, swinging his sword with both hands, cut at the two leading foreigners, Mr Richardson and Mrs Borrodaile, as their horses were being turned round, and then rushed on the other two. Whereupon the advance-guard, who had been described as marching in single file, closed in upon the retreating riders. They were all able by the speed of their horses to get clear of their assailants; but Mr Richardson was so terribly hacked that after going some distance he fell from his horse, dying, or, as his companions thought, dead. He lived, however, until the Daimio's procession reached the spot, when several of his retainers proceeded to butcher and mutilate the dying man in the most shocking manner. It speaks well for all three gentlemen that Mrs Borrodaile escaped substantially unhurt, though a sword-stroke aimed at her head cut away her hat as she stooped to avoid the blow. She saw Mr Richardson fall, and her two wounded companions, unable to render help, urged her to ride on. She miraculously arrived at Yokohama, bespattered with blood and in a state of very natural agitation. Mr Clarke and Mr Marshall, exhausted by their wounds, managed to reach Kanagawa, where they were properly cared for at the American consulate.
This tragedy made a more vivid impression on the world at large than previous ones had done, for several reasons. The cumulative effect of so many cold-blooded massacres was beginning to tell, and the Japanese cup was nearly full. There was a lady in the case who galloped seven miles for dear life, her horse falling twice under her. The chief victim was a fine specimen of a young Englishman, and very popular. The crime touched the general foreign community in Japan in a special manner, since the party belonged to, or were the guests of, Yokohama, where there were also newspapers and press correspondents to make literature of the event.
Some friction was created between the foreign community and the British representative by the ghastly circumstances of this murder. The community, seeing their own comrades slaughtered without mercy, were incensed, and called for vengeance, which they deemed to be within reach, for the Daimio's retinue were sleeping at Hodogaya, a station but a few miles off. There was force enough afloat and on shore to effect the capture of the murderers red-handed, and the residents called for this to be done. Reasons of policy and expediency influenced Colonel Neale in a contrary sense, in which he was fully supported by the Foreign Office when the reports reached England.
The Richardson murder, like that at the British Legation, had its special characteristics, though of a different order. The outrage was unpremeditated; the Government was not implicated: it was a fortuitous collision between the spirit and traditions of two opposed civilisations. The deed might be construed as the natural punishment of a breach of good manners—for Japanese etiquette, of which the party seemed to have been ignorant, required them to dismount—or, as the spontaneous expression of feudal Japan's deep hatred of the foreigner, concentrated in the act of a single moment. There was no need on this occasion to hazard guesses as to the responsible author of the crime, or to keep up a long train of make-believe negotiations. The cortège belonged to the Prince of Satsuma, and was escorting his father, Shimadso Saburo, who went afterwards to the Mikado and said he had been grossly insulted by the foreigners on the road, and had ordered them to be cut down.[8]
The problem was thus reduced to its simplest expression. The circumstances supplied precisely what was wanting to give shape and point to Admiral Hope's proposal to "nip this assassination-system in the bud"; and a month after the event he followed up his previous despatch to the Admiralty by a detailed scheme of reprisals, with the amount and precise distribution of the force required to give effect to it. And he concludes his despatch appropriately with the remark, that "should it be found necessary to use measures of coercion especially against Satsuma, ... the position and confirmation of his principality render him peculiarly open to attack."
There were now two reclamations on the Japanese Government—redress for the murder of the two marines at the Legation in June, and for the killing and wounding of the Richardson party in September. The British chargé d'affaires pressed both demands, without committing himself to specific threats until the mind of her Majesty's Government should be known. Lord Russell's instructions were sent on 24th December 1862, and would reach Japan some time in February. They were peremptory as to the use of force in case of need, whether against the Government or the Prince of Satsuma.