A Diplomat in Japan / The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow
The first portion of this book was written at intervals between 1885 and 1887, during my tenure of the post of Her Majesty's minister at Bangkok. I had but recently left Japan after a residence extending, with two seasons of home leave, from September 1862 to the last days of December 1882, and my recollection of what had occurred during any part of those twenty years was still quite fresh. A diary kept almost uninterruptedly from the day I quitted home in November 1861 constituted the foundation, while my memory enabled me to supply additional details. It had never been my purpose to relate my diplomatic experiences in different parts of the world, which came finally to be spread over a period of altogether forty-five years, and I therefore confined myself to one of the most interesting episodes in which I have been concerned. This comprised the series of events that culminated in the restoration of the direct rule of the ancient line of sovereigns of Japan which had remained in abeyance for over six hundred years. Such a change involved the substitution of the comparatively modern city of Yedo, under the name of Tôkiô, for the more ancient Kiôto, which had already become the capital long before Japan was heard of in the western world.
When I departed from Siam in 1887 I laid the unfinished manuscript aside, and did not look at it again until September 1919, when some of my younger relations, to whom I had shown it, suggested that it ought to be completed. This second portion is largely a transcript of my journals, supplemented from papers drawn up by me which were included in the Confidential Print of the time and by letters to my chief Sir Harry Parkes which have been published elsewhere. Letters to my mother have furnished some particulars that were omitted from the diaries.
Part of the volume may read like a repetition of a few pages from my friend the late Lord Redesdale's "Memories," for when he was engaged on that work he borrowed some of my journals of the time we had spent together in Japan. But I have not referred to his volumes while writing my own.
ERNEST SATOW.
CONTENTS
Appointment as Student Interpreter at Yedo
Yokohama Society, Official and Unofficial
Political Conditions in Japan
Treaties—Anti-Foreign Spirit—Murder of Foreigners
Richardson's Murder—Japanese Studies
Official Visit to Yedo
Demands for Reparation—Japanese Proposals to Close the Ports—Payment of the Indemnity
Bombardment of Kagoshima
Shimonoseki: Preliminary Measures
Shimonoseki—Naval Operations
Shimonoseki—Peace concluded with Ch๔shi๛
The Murder of Bird and Baldwin
Ratification of the Treaties by the Mikado
Great Fire at Yokohama
Visit to Kagoshima and Uwajima
First Visit to Ozaka
Reception of Foreign Ministers by the Tycoon
Overland from Ozaka to Yedo
Social Intercourse with Japanese Officials—Visit to Niigata, Sado Gold Mines, and Nanao
Nanao to Ozaka Overland
Ozaka and Tokushima
Tosa and Nagasaki
Downfall of the Shogunate
Outbreak of Civil War (1868)
Hostilities begun at Yedo and Fushimi
The Bizen Affair
First Visit to Kioto
Harakiri—Negotiations for Audience of the Mikado at Kioto
Massacre of French Sailors at Sakai
Kioto—Audience of the Mikado
Return to Yedo and Presentation of the Minister's New Credentials at Ozaka
Miscellaneous Incidents—Mito Politics
Capture of Wakamatsu and Entry of the Mikado into Yedo
Enomoto with the Runaway Tokugawa Ships Seizes Yezo
1869—Audience of the Mikado at Yedo
Last Days in Tokio and Departure for Home
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Last of the Shoguns
Sir Ernest Satow—1869
Sir Ernest Satow—1903
Payment of the Indemnity for the Murder of Richardson
Kagoshima Harbour: Bombardment
The Straits of Shimonoseki