This double machinery of a titular sovereign who only reigns, and a lieutenant of the empire who only governs and does not reign, from generation to generation, is certainly something very curious; and by long continuance it seems to have led to a duplicate system such as never existed in any other part of the world, carried out to almost every detail of existence. Every office is doubled; every man is alternately a watcher and watched. Not only the whole administrative machinery is in duplicate, but the most elaborate system of check and countercheck, on the most approved Machiavellian principle, is here developed with a minuteness and perfection as regards details difficult at first to realise. As upon all this is grafted a system of more than oriental mendacity, we feel launched into a world of shadows and make-believes hard to grapple with in the practical business of life. Of their mendacity and cynical views respecting it I had many illustrations. One of the official gentry upon a particular occasion having been found by a foreign Minister in deliberate contradiction with himself, was asked, somewhat abruptly perhaps, how he could reconcile it to his conscience to utter such palpable untruths. With perfect calmness and self-possession he replied, "I told you last month that such and such a thing had been done, and now I tell you the thing has not been done at all. I am an officer whose business it is to carry out the instructions I receive and to say what I am told to say. What have I to do with its truth or falsehood?"...
To return to the Tycoon and the governors of the early middle ages, with its suzerain and feudatories, its fiefs and a phantom king, with hereditary mayors of the palace and chiefs with 10,000 retainers, each one holding himself as good as the Tycoon, who must live in constant dread of open revolt or secret assassination, what a pleasant state of existence for all parties it reveals! Each of these territorial magnates or great Daimios is practically independent of the Tycoon when within his own territory, with power of life and death over all his subjects and dependants; ... even an imperial passport will not secure an intruder's life....
Power has passed in no small degree from the Tycoon's hands, as it formerly did from the Mikado's, and now remains chiefly in an executive Council of State, consisting of five Ministers, and these again held in no small check, if not in subservience, by the Daimios and feudal chiefs of the higher order, amounting to some 360. Although these do not actually form a Chamber of Lords nor assemble in a body at stated periods, nothing legislative, it is said, can be done without their assent obtained.... They hold themselves too high to demean themselves by taking part in the administration, or holding office, under the Tycoon. But neither the Tycoon nor the Ministers, separately or collectively, can venture upon a change in their laws and customs without their sanction and a further confirmation by the phantom sovereign of Miaco....
In the mean time, between the Mikado who nominally wields the sceptre—the Tycoon, a youth who no less nominally governs the kingdom, and is but fourth in rank in the Japan red-book, for three of the Mikado's officers take precedence—and the Daimios great and small, ... the administrative machinery of the realm seems to be kept in order.
Another incident of the year was Sir Rutherford Alcock's second marriage to a friend of the earlier Shanghai days, the widow of the Rev. T. Lowder, first consular chaplain of that settlement. They had been both widowed about the same time. They were about the same age too, and the union, based on a deep-rooted and matured affection, proved an exceptionally happy one during thirty-five years, till death divided them. Lady Alcock accompanied her husband on his return to Japan, where they arrived in March 1864.
During the two years of the Minister's absence affairs in Japan had, as we have seen, been advancing rapidly—whether towards a reasonable solution or to a catastrophe was as yet doubtful. The agitation against the foreign treaties had been gathering force and consistency; the Tycoon's position was becoming more and more precarious, his existence being pledged to the annulment of the hated treaties. Encouraged by the success which had attended his mission to Europe in 1862, he despatched another in the beginning of 1864, to represent to the European Governments that the public feeling in Japan was growing worse every day, that the Tycoon would not be able to protect foreigners in Yokohama, and that, in short, the port must be closed and foreign trade confined to Hakodate and Nagasaki. The mission, already on its way, was met by Sir Rutherford Alcock in Shanghai, where he had an opportunity of personal conference with the envoys. The situation was thus summarised by the Minister in a despatch to the Foreign Office, 31st March 1864:—
It is just two years since I left Japan in order to be present in London when the first mission sent by the Tycoon to the treaty Powers in Europe should arrive. Returning to my post a month ago, I met a second mission on its way to the same Courts. These two embassies seem to me to form very significant events in the history of Japan and its relations with foreign States.... I consider the signing of the protocol of June 1862 (afterwards adopted with unimportant modifications by all the other Powers), freely granting without abatement all that the Tycoon asked, was the culminating act and fitting end of the conciliatory policy so consistently adhered to from the beginning. It was impossible to concede more without abandoning the treaties altogether. Thenceforth it only remained to gather the promised fruit of greater security to life, and freer intercourse within narrowed limits, which, for the moment at least, appeared unattainable in the wider range of five ports and two cities.... The avowed object of the second mission is to declare that all the hopes held out by the Tycoon of the probable results of the first concessions have been illusory.... The only fruit has been indiscriminate aggression, increased insecurity, calling for measures of coercion on the part of all the treaty Powers; finally, a decree for the expulsion of foreigners, with a mission from the Tycoon to declare his utter inability to maintain the treaties, and to suggest a surrender of all the rights and privileges they were framed to secure in perpetuity.
The mission was not successful in its main purpose, and soon returned to Japan to report progress.
VI. THE CRISIS.
Foreign rights must be sustained by force or definitively abandoned—Organises a retaliatory demonstration against Nagato—Forts at Shimonoséki attacked by international squadron, after delays—Satisfactory results—Nagato claims authority of Mikado for his attacks on foreign ships—His defeat gave courage to Tycoon—Anti-foreign measures promptly withdrawn—The treaties of 1858 ratified by Mikado—Sir R. Alcock's recall—Lord Russell's amende.