This postponement of the opening of the ports was the chief reason for sending to foreign countries their first embassy. This set out from Yokohama in January, 1862, and visited the United States, then England, and the other treaty powers. They were everywhere received with the utmost kindness and distinction. The immediate object of their mission was, as we have seen, accomplished. The opening of additional ports was deferred on condition that in those already opened the obstacles which had been put in the way of trade should be removed.
But, besides the attainment of this end, the visit of the embassy to foreign capitals and countries produced a salutary influence both on the foreigners whom they met and on the influential personages of which it consisted. The former learned to their surprise that they had a cultivated, intelligent, and [pg 339] clever race to deal with, whose diplomatists,[287] although inexperienced in European politics, were not unqualified to enter the courts of western capitals. But the revelation to the Japanese envoys was still greater and more surprising. For the first time they saw the terrible armaments of western powers, and realized the futility of attempting to make armed resistance to their measures. But they encountered on every hand not hatred and aversion, but the warmest interest and kindness,[288] and a desire to render them every courtesy. Instead of barbarians, as they had been taught to regard all foreigners, they found everywhere warm-hearted and intelligent friends who were anxious to see their country treated with justice and consideration.
On the 26th of June, 1862, a year after the first, a second attack was made upon the British legation. Lieutenant-Colonel Neale was at this time chargé d'affaires, and had just removed from Yokohama and resumed the occupancy of the temple of Tozenji. The government took the precaution to establish guards, who daily and nightly made their rounds to protect the buildings. Besides this there was a guard detailed from the British fleet to render the legation more secure. The officials persisted in claiming that only one person, Itō Gumpei, was engaged in the attack, and that it was a matter of [pg 340] private revenge for an insult which one of the English guards had put upon him. Two of these guards were killed in the attack, and Itō Gumpei the assassin escaped to his own house, where he was permitted to commit hara-kiri. There was probably no plot on the part of those whose duty it was to protect the legation. But the uncertainty which hung over the affair, and the repetition of the violence of the preceding year led Colonel Neale to abandon his residence at Yedo and return to Yokohama. An indemnity of £10,000 was demanded and finally paid for the families of the two members of the guard who had been murdered.
In the meantime the relations between the courts at Kyōto and Yedo had become more and more strained. The efforts at reconciliation, such as the marriage between the young shōgun and the sister of the emperor in 1861, produced no permanent effect. The disease was too deep-seated and serious to be affected by such palliations. Shimazu Saburō, the uncle[289] and guardian of the young daimyō of Satsuma, came in 1862 to Kyōto with the avowed purpose of advising the emperor in this emergency. He was accompanied by a formidable body of Satsuma troops, and on these he relied to have his advice followed.
On his way thither he had been joined by a body of ronins who were contemplating the accomplishment of some enterprise which should be notable in [pg 341] the expulsion of foreigners. They imagined that the powerful head of the Satsuma clan would be a suitable leader for such an enterprise. They approached him therefore and humbly petitioned to be received under his standard. Not quite satisfied to have such a band of reckless ruffians under his command, he, however, scarcely dared to refuse their petition. He therefore permitted them to join his escort and march with him to Kyōto.
The emperor's court, although bitterly hostile to the liberal policy which prevailed at Yedo, were alarmed by the desperate allies which Shimazu was bringing with him. He presented their memorial to the emperor, and favored their wishes to use all the force of the country to dislodge the hated foreigner from its soil. Other powerful daimyōs were collected at the same time at the imperial capital, and its peaceful suburbs resounded with the clank of warlike preparations. The most notable of these was the daimyō of Chōshū, who at this time was joined with the Satsuma chief in the measures against the shōgun's government.
Shimazu continued his journey to Yedo in the summer of 1862, where he endeavored to impress on the bakufu the necessity of taking measures to pacify the country. It is safe to say that his suggestions were coldly received, and he was made to feel that he was in an enemy's camp. It is said that the shōgun refused to receive him personally, but referred him, for any business which he had to present, to the council. It is certain, therefore, when he left Yedo in September, 1862, with his train and [pg 342] escort, he was in no amiable frame of mind. And it was in this condition of irritation that he became the chief actor in an event which was the saddest of all the collisions between the Japanese and the foreigners.
The Satsuma train left Yedo on the morning of the 14th of September by way of the Tōkaidō, which runs through Kawasaki and skirts the village of Kanagawa. It consisted of a semi-military procession of guards on foot and on horseback, of norimonos, in which the prince and his high military and civil attendants were carried, of led-horses for them to ride when they desired, and of a long straggling continuation of pack-horses and men carrying the luggage of the train. It was said to contain not less than eight hundred samurai in attendance on their master.
The etiquette of the road for such trains was well settled in feudal Japan. The right of way was always accorded to the daimyō, and all unmilitary persons or parties were required to stand at the side of the road while the train was passing, to dismount if on horseback, and to bow to the daimyō's norimono as it was carried past. It may be supposed that the samurai in attendance upon the incensed Shimazu were in no humor to have these rules trifled with, and especially would not deal very tenderly with any foreigners who might fall in their way.
On the afternoon of the day on which the Satsuma train left Yedo, a small riding party left Yokohama for the village of Kawasaki, on a visit to the temple at that place. It consisted of one lady and three [pg 343] gentlemen, one of whom was Mr. Charles L. Richardson, who had for many years been a merchant at Shanghai, but who was visiting Japan previous to his return to England. A few miles north of the village of Kanagawa they encountered the head of the train, and for some distance passed successive parts of it. They were either ignorant of the etiquette which required them to withdraw during the passage of such a cavalcade, or underrated the danger of disregarding it.