CHAPTER IV
TREATIES—ANTI-FOREIGN SPIRIT—MURDER OF FOREIGNERS
The expedition of Commodore Perry to Loochoo and Japan was not the first enterprise of its kind that had been undertaken by the Americans. Having accomplished their own independence as the result of a contest in which a few millions of half-united colonists had successfully withstood the well-trained legions of Great Britain and her German mercenaries (though not, it may be fairly said, without in a great measure owing their success to the very efficient assistance of French armies and fleets), they added to this memory of ancient wrongs a natural fellow-feeling for other nations who were less able to resist the might of the greatest commercial and maritime Power the world has yet seen. While sympathising with Eastern peoples in the defence of their independent rights, they believed that a conciliatory mode of treating them was at least equally well fitted to ensure the concession of those trading privileges to which the Americans are not less indifferent than the English.
In 1836 they had despatched an envoy to Siam and Cochin-China, who was successful in negotiating by peaceful methods a treaty of commerce with the former state. In China, like the other western states, they had profited by the negotiations which were the outcome of the Opium War, without having to incur the odium of using force or the humiliation of finding their softer methods prove a failure in dealing with the obstinate conservatism of Chinese mandarins. For many years their eyes had been bent upon Japan, which lay on the opposite side of the Pacific fronting their own state of California, then rising into fame as one of the great gold-producing regions of the globe. Warned by the fate of all previous attempts to break down the wall of seclusion that hemmed in the 'country of the gods,' they resolved to make such a show of force that with reasonable people, unfamiliar with modern artillery, might prove as powerful an argument as theories of universal brotherhood and the obligations imposed by the comity of nations. They appointed to the chief command a naval officer possessed of both tact and determination, whose judicious use of the former qualification rendered the employ of the second unnecessary. Probably no one was more agreeably surprised than Commodore Perry at the comparative ease with which, on his second visit to the Bay of Yedo, he obtained a Treaty, satisfactory enough as a beginning. No doubt the counsels of the Dutch agent at Nagasaki were not without their effect, and we may also conjecture that the desire which had already begun to manifest itself among some of the lower Samurai for a wider acquaintance with the mysterious outer world was secretly shared by men in high positions. Fear alone would not have induced a haughty government like that of the Shôguns to acquiesce in breaking through a law of restriction that had such a highly creditable antiquity to boast of.
Most men's motives are mixed, and there was on the Japanese side no very decided unwillingness to yield to a show of force, which the pretext of prudence would enable them to justify. England and Russia, then or shortly afterwards at war, followed in the wake of the United States. Next an American Consul-General took up his residence at Shimoda, to look after the interests of whaling vessels, and skilfully made use of the recent events in China to induce the Shôgun's government to extend the concessions already granted. In 1858 the China War having been apparently brought to a successful conclusion, Lord Elgin and the French Ambassador, Baron Gros, ran across to Japan and concluded treaties on the same basis as Mr. Harris, and before long similar privileges were accorded to Holland and Russia. In 1859 the ports of Nagasaki, Hakodaté and Yokohama were thrown open to the trade of the Five Powers, and a new age was inaugurated in Japan.
It was not without opposition that the Shôgun's government had entered into its first engagements with the United States, Great Britain and Russia. An agitation arose when the first American ships anchored in the Bay of Yedo, and there were not wanting bold and rash men ready to undertake any desperate enterprise against the foreign invaders of the sacred soil of Japan. But at this time there was no leader to whom the malcontents could turn for guidance. The Mikado was closely watched by the Shôgun's resident at Kiôto, and the daimiôs were divided among themselves. The principal opponent was the ex-Prince of Mito, whose constitutional duty was to support the Shôgun and aid him with his counsels in all great national crises.
During the presence of Commodore Perry the reigning Shôgun Iyéyoshi had fallen ill, and he died not long after the squadron had sailed. He was succeeded by his son Iyésada, a man of 28, who does not seem to have been endowed with either force of character or knowledge of the world. Such qualities are not to be expected from the kind of education which fell to the lot of Japanese princes in those days.
In view of the expected return of the American ships in the following year, forts were constructed to guard the sea-front of the capital, and the ex-Prince of Mito was summoned from his retirement to take the lead in preparing to resist the encroachments of foreign powers. By a curious coincidence, this nobleman, then forty-nine years of age, was the representative of a family which for years had maintained the theoretical right of the Mikado to exercise the supreme government, and was at the same time strongly opposed to any extension of the limited intercourse with foreign countries then permitted. Nor can it be wondered that Japan, who had so successfully protected herself from foreign aggression by a policy of rigid exclusion, and which had seen the humiliation of China consequent upon disputes with a Western Power arising out of trade questions at the very moment when she was being torn by a civil war which owed its origin to the introduction of new religious beliefs from the West, should have believed that the best means of maintaining peace at home and avoiding an unequal contest with Europe, was to adhere strictly to the traditions of the past two centuries. But when the intrusive foreigners returned in the beginning of the following year, Japan found herself still unprepared to repel them by force. The treaty was therefore signed, interdicting trade, but permitting whalers to obtain supplies in the three harbours of Nagasaki, Hakodaté and Shimoda, and promising friendly treatment to shipwrecked sailors.
While making these unavoidable concessions, the Japanese buoyed themselves up with the belief that their innate superiority could enable them easily to overcome the better equipped forces of foreign countries, when once they had acquired the modern arts of warfare and provided themselves with a sufficient proportion of the ships and weapons of the nineteenth century. From that time onwards this was the central idea of Japan's foreign policy for many years, as the sequel will show. Even at this period there were a few who would have willingly started off on this new quest, and two Japanese actually asked Commodore Perry to give them a passage in his flagship. They were refused, and their zeal was punished by their own government with imprisonment. The residence of Mr. Harris at Shimoda and the visit which he insisted on paying to the capital created fresh difficulties for the advisers of the Shôgun. Written protests were delivered by non-official members of his council, and he was obliged at last to ask the Mikado's sanction to the treaties, in order to strengthen his own position. This invocation of the Mikado's authority may fairly be called an innovation upon ancient custom. Neither Nobunaga, Hidéyoshi nor Iyéyasu had thought it necessary to get their acts approved by him, and Iyéyasu granted trade privileges entirely on his own responsibility, without his right to do so ever being questioned. This reference to Kiôto is the first sign of the decadence of the Shôgun's power.