The supremacy of the Mikado having been once admitted, his right to a voice in the affairs of the country could no longer be disputed. His nobles seized the opportunity, and assumed the attitude of obstruction, which has always been a powerful weapon in the hands of individuals and parties. One man out of a dozen, of sufficient determination, can always force the others to yield, when his position is legal, and cannot be disturbed by the use of force. On the one hand, Mr. Harris pressed for a revision of the treaty and the concession of open ports at Kanagawa and Ozaka; on the other was the Court, turning an obstinately deaf ear to all proposals. In its desperation the Shôgun's government appointed to be Prime Minister, or Regent as he was called by foreigners, the descendant of Iyéyasu's most trusted retainer, the daimiô Ii Kamon no Kami of Hikoné, and Mr. Harris, as has already been said, skilfully turning to account the recent exploits of the combined English and French squadrons in the Chinese seas, obtained his treaty, achieving a diplomatic triumph of the greatest value purely by the use of "moral" pressure. The English, French, Russian and Dutch treaties followed. The Shôgun stood committed to a policy from which his new allies were not likely to allow of his receding, while to the anti-foreign party was imparted a consistency that there had previously been little chance of its acquiring.
Scarcely was the ink of these engagements dry, when the Shôgun, who had been indisposed for some weeks past, was gathered to his fathers, leaving no heir. According to the custom which had been observed on two previous occasions when there had been a break in the direct line, a prince was chosen from the house of Ki-shiû to be his successor. The ex-Prince of Mito, and several of his sympathisers among the leading nobles, namely, Hizen, Owari, Tosa, Satsuma and the Daté of Uwajima, a man of abilities superior to the size of his tiny fief in Shikoku, had desired to choose a younger son of Mito, who had been adopted into the family of Hitotsubashi. But the Prime Minister was too strong for them. He insisted on the election of his own nominee, and forced his opponents to retire into private life. Thus to their disapproval of the political course adopted by the Shôgunate, was added a personal resentment against its chief minister, and this feeling was shared in a remarkable degree by the retainers of the disgraced nobles. A bloody revenge was taken two years later on the individual, but the hostility to the system only increased with time, and in the end brought about its complete ruin.
Mito was the ringleader of the opposition, and began actively to intrigue with the Mikado's party against the head of his own family. The foreigners arrived in numbers at Kanagawa and Yokohama, and affronted the feelings of the haughty samurai by their independent demeanour, so different from the cringing subservience to which the rules of Japanese etiquette condemned the native merchant. It was not long before blood was shed. On the evening of the 26th August, six weeks after the establishment at Yedo of the British and American Representatives, an officer and a seaman belonging to a Russian man-of-war were cut to pieces in the streets of Yokohama, where they had landed to buy provisions. In November, a Chinese servant belonging to the French vice-consul was attacked and killed in the foreign settlement at Yokohama. Two months later, Sir R. Alcock's native linguist of the British Legation was stabbed from behind as he was standing at the gateway of the British Legation in Yedo, and within a month more two Dutch merchant captains were slaughtered in the high street at Yokohama. Then there was a lull for eight or nine months, till the French Minister's servant was cut at and badly wounded as he was standing at the gate of the Legation in Yedo. On the 14th January, 1861, Heusken, the Secretary of the American Mission, was attacked and murdered as he was riding home after a dinner-party at the Prussian Legation. And on the night of July 5 occurred the boldest attempt yet made on the life of foreigners, when the British Legation was attacked by a band of armed men and as stoutly defended by the native guard. This was a considerable catalogue for a period of no more than two years since the opening of the ports to commerce. In every case the attack was premeditated and unprovoked, and the perpetrators on every occasion belonged to the swordbearing class. No offence had been given by the victims to those who had thus ruthlessly cut them down; they were assassinated from motives of a political character, and their murderers went unpunished in every instance. Japan became to be known as a country where the foreigner carried his life in his hand, and the dread of incurring the fate of which so many examples had already occurred became general among the residents. Even in England before I left to take up my appointment, we felt that apart from the chances of climate, the risk of coming to an untimely end at the hands of an expert swordsman must be taken into account. Consequently, I bought a revolver, with a due supply of powder, bullets and caps. The trade to Japan in these weapons must have been very great in those days, as everyone wore a pistol whenever he ventured beyond the limits of the foreign settlement, and constantly slept with one under his pillow. It was a busy time for Colt and Adams. But in all the years of my experience in Japan I never heard of more than one life being taken by a revolver, and that was when a Frenchman shot a carpenter who demanded payment for his labour in a somewhat too demonstrative manner. In Yedo I think we finally gave up wearing revolvers in 1869, chiefly because the few of us who resided there had come to the conclusion that the weight of the weapon was inconvenient, and also that if any bloodthirsty two-sworded gentleman intended to take our lives, he would choose his time and opportunity so as to leave us no chance of anticipating his purpose with a bullet.
In the spring of 1862 Sir Rutherford Alcock returned to England on leave of absence, and Colonel Neale was left in charge. As I have said before, disbelieving in the validity of the reasons which had led the Minister to remove his official residence to Yokohama, the Chargé d'Affaires reestablished himself at the temple formerly occupied as the British Legation. On the anniversary, according to the Japanese calendar, of the attack referred to on a previous page, some Commissioners for Foreign Affairs in calling upon Colonel Neale, congratulated him and themselves on the fact that a whole year had elapsed since any fresh attempt had been made on the life of a foreigner. It was not unnatural, therefore, that in the first impulse of indignation at the savage and bloody slaughter of the sentry and corporal almost at his bedroom door, he should have conceived the suspicion that the visit of the Commissioners and their language in the morning, had been intended to put him off his guard, and that consequently the Japanese government, or rather the Shôgun's ministers, were implicated in what looked like a barbarous act of treachery that deprived the Japanese nation of all right to be regarded as a civilized community; more especially as the native watch had been recently changed, and fresh men substituted for those who had fought so well in defence of Sir Rutherford Alcock the year before. But on reflection it will easily be seen that there was no real justification for such a belief. The assassin was one of the guard. After the murder of the two Englishmen he returned to his quarters and there committed suicide by ripping himself up in the approved Japanese fashion. We may be sure that if his act had been the result of a conspiracy, he would not have been alone. Ignorant as the Shôgun's ministers may have been, and probably were, of the sacred character of an envoy, it was not their interest to bring upon themselves the armed vengeance of foreign powers at a moment when they were confronted with the active enmity of the principal clans of the west. I think they may be entirely absolved from all share in this attempt to massacre the inmates of the English Legation. But on the other hand it seems highly probable that the man's comrades were aware of his intention, and that after his partial success they connived at his escape. But he had been wounded by a bullet discharged from the pistol of the second man whom he attacked, and drops of blood on the ground showed the route by which he had made his way out of the garden. As his identity could not be concealed, he had to commit suicide in order to anticipate the penalty of death which the Shôgun's government could not have avoided inflicting on him. The apparent cognisance of the other men on guard (who were what our law would call accessories before the fact), and the fact that nevertheless they took no share in his act, is consonant with the statement that he was merely accomplishing an act of private revenge. His selection of the darkness of night seems to indicate that he hoped to escape the consequences. Willis said that when he arose and looked out, the night was pitch dark. It was the night before full moon, and in the very middle of what is called in Japan the rainy season. He informed me that there was a high wind and that heavy black clouds were drifting over the sky. The stormy weather and the lateness of the hour (11 to 12 o'clock) might perhaps account for the native lanterns which were hung about the grounds having ceased to give any light, but even under those circumstances it is a little suspicious that the guard should have neglected to replace the burnt out candles.
It was at Taku on our way down from Peking that Robertson, Jamieson and I heard of this new attack on the legation. I believe our feeling was rather one of regret that we had lost the opportunity of experiencing one of the stirring events which we had already learnt to regard as normally characteristic of life in Japan. It certainly did not take us by surprise, and in no way rendered the service less attractive. But Jamieson had found a better opening in Shanghai, and the remaining two went on to Yokohama as soon as they could get a passage.
CHAPTER V
RICHARDSON'S MURDER—JAPANESE STUDIES
The day after my arrival at Yokohama I was taken over to Kanagawa and introduced to the Rev. S. R. Brown, an American Missionary, who was then engaged in printing a work on colloquial Japanese, and to Dr J. C. Hepburn, M.D., who was employed on a dictionary of the language. The former died some years ago, but the latter is at this moment (1886) still in Japan, [2] bringing out the third edition of his invaluable lexicon and completing the translation of the Bible on which he has been occupied for many years. In those days we had either to take a native sculling boat for an ichibu across the bay to Kanagawa or ride round by the causeway, the land along which the railway now runs not having been filled in at that time. Natives used to cross by a public ferry boat, paying a tempô (16-1/2 to the ichibu) a-piece, but no foreigner was ever allowed to make use of the cheaper conveyance. If he was quick enough to catch the ferryboat before it had pushed off, and so seize a place for himself, the boatmen simply refused to stir. They remained immovable, until the intruder was tired of waiting, and abandoned the game. It was only after a residence of some years, when I had become pretty fluent in the language and could argue the point with the certainty of having the public on my side, that I at last succeeded in overcoming the obstinacy of the people at the boathouse who had the monopoly of carrying foreigners. There was in those days a fixed price for the foreigner wherever he went, arbitrarily determined without reference to the native tariff. At the theatre a foreigner had to pay an ichibu for admittance, and was then thrust into the "deaf-box," as the gallery seats are called, which are so far from the stage that the actors' speeches are quite indistinguishable. The best place for both seeing and hearing is the doma, on the area of the theatre, close in front of the stage. On one occasion I walked into the theatre, and took my place in one of the divisions of the doma, offering to pay the regular price. No, they would not take it. I must pay my ichibu and go to the foreigner's box. I held out, insisting on my right as one of the public. Did I not squat on the floor with my boots off, just like themselves? Well then, if I would not come out of that, the curtain would not rise. I rejoined that they might please themselves about that. In order to annoy a single foreigner, they would deprive the rest of the spectators of the pleasure they had paid to enjoy. So I obstinately kept my place, and in the end the manager gave way. The "house" was amused at the foreigner speaking their language and getting the best of the argument, and for the rest of my time in Yokohama I had no more difficulty in obtaining accommodation in any part of the theatre that I preferred.