So far so good. But the slow mail service of those days, and the entire absence of the telegraph, admitted of wonderful interpolations in correspondence with such far-off countries as Japan. Events marched quicker than the course of post could follow them, and despatches were sometimes written which the writer would have given a good deal to recall. Such was the case here. We have said that soon after Sir Rutherford Alcock's return to Japan he addressed some weighty despatches to the Foreign Office on the situation, undoubtedly leading up to the ultimate employment of force in vindication of the foreign treaties. This was in full accord with the spirit of Earl Russell's instructions dated December 17, 1863. These were—

• 1. To require from the Tycoon and the Daimios the execution of the engagements of the treaty.
• 2. To consult the admiral and any military officer who may be sent to Japan as to the means of strengthening and holding our position in Yokohama.
• 3. To endeavour to procure from Hongkong the services of a regiment of infantry.
• 4. The admiral to be authorised to land marines and destroy the batteries which have been erected for the evident purpose of interrupting the passage of our merchandise, &c.; but he must take care that no unarmed and peaceable town should be bombarded.

But when the Foreign Secretary received the Minister's despatches of May, following the terms of these instructions to their only logical conclusion, he became alarmed at the prospect of active measures, and by despatch of August 8 he recalled the Minister under the pretext of the need of a personal consultation on the state of affairs. This was followed up by some temporising despatches, saying the Inland Sea was of no consequence; that the Tycoon was professing an intention to do all that was necessary; and that the Tycoon and Mikado, seeing the British forces strong though passive, would gradually drop all hostile policy. How were these vacillating utterances to be reconciled with the position so decidedly taken up eight months before?

A disturbing influence had intervened, causing Lord Russell to see Japan at an oblique angle. Certain other brave words of the Foreign Secretary in that year, 1864, in connection with the Danish Duchies, had also had their current turned awry and lost the name of action. Japan was but an echo. Of course, after the definite energetic policy of the Queen's representative in Japan had proved a brilliant success, had involved no complications, had, in fact, been the means of temporarily uniting four of the treaty Powers, Lord Russell was ready enough to make the amende to Sir Rutherford Alcock, though to have cancelled his order of recall would have been too frank an admission of error to expect from any statesman. In this manner was the career of Sir Rutherford Alcock in Japan brought to an abrupt, but highly honourable, conclusion. He received his letter of recall while in the act of completing the final convention with the Tycoon respecting the affair of the Prince of Choshiu. The announcement was heard in Japan almost with consternation. The Tycoon's Ministers were particularly grieved about it, and they sent a strongly-worded letter to Earl Russell to be laid before the Queen, dwelling on the important services the envoy had rendered to their country, and begging that he might be sent back to them as soon as the urgent affairs that required his presence in England had been settled. The mercantile communities of the treaty ports were no less warm in their commendation of the services rendered to them and to general commerce by the decided measures adopted by the Minister, and in their regret at his departure. "The principal triumph of your success," they said in a farewell address, "lies in the fact that you have accomplished all this not only without causing a collision between her Majesty's Government and that of the Tycoon, but by actually strengthening the Government from which you obtained the concessions, as well as by acting in such a way as to secure the cordial co-operation of the foreign Ministers resident at this port."

Admiral Kuper took so serious a view of the loss of a representative of such unrivalled experience and virility, that he took it on himself to address to the Minister privately a weighty appeal, on public and patriotic grounds, to postpone his departure until at least he had time to refer again to the Foreign Office, which on subsequent information must certainly take a different view of the action of their Minister. That the admiral correctly appreciated the attitude of the Foreign Office is sufficiently shown by Lord Russell's despatches already quoted, and by that dated January 31, 1865, which concludes, "I shall wish you to return at once to Yokohama, to perform in Japan such additional meritorious services as may be expected from your tried ability and long experience." But Sir Rutherford Alcock did not consider that the episode would have left him the prestige necessary for further useful service in Japan, and he declined to return to that country.

Sir Rutherford remained at his post long enough to secure the fulfilment of the primary objects of the Allied expedition against Choshiu: the reopening of trade, which had been practically closed both at Yokohama and Nagasaki, and a number of most important improvements in the conditions of foreign residence in Yokohama. These comprised a parade-ground and racecourse, hospitals, slaughter-houses, filling in of swamp, a clear and convenient site for consular buildings, a good carriage-road seven miles in circuit, away from the town, and various other extensions of the comforts of foreign residents.

The ratification of the treaties, too, by the Mikado was virtually arranged. The very day before Sir Rutherford Alcock embarked for England he was enabled to report to his Government that the law interdicting intercourse and putting all foreigners under the ban of outlawry had been modified, and its hostile provisions repealed. This was considered tantamount to the Mikado's acknowledgment of the Tycoon's treaties, and thus the vice of illegality which had attached to them from their origin was at last removed. A year later the Mikado distinctly and in so many words approved of the treaties. This, therefore, may fairly be considered Sir Rutherford Alcock's last service to his country in Japan. It was not, however, till 1868, after the attack on Sir H. Parkes while on his way to the palace of the Mikado, that an edict was published, over the imperial sign manual, decreeing that the lives of foreigners in Japan were thenceforth to be deemed as sacred as the lives of the subjects of the empire.

But it would not have been Japan without an assassination to mark the close of the Minister's eventful career. Two officers of the British garrison, Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird, on an excursion on horseback to the romantic district of Kamakura, and near the celebrated bronze statue of Buddha, were stealthily attacked in broad day by a couple of two-sworded men, and mercilessly cut down. One of them lived late into the night, spoke, and drank tea, when the assassins, or accomplices in the crime, paid another visit to the dying man and, as in the case of Richardson, despatched him with ghastly ferocity. The Tycoon might truthfully say, "An enemy hath done this"; but the position of the Government had been so much strengthened by the collapse of Choshiu that the Tycoon's officers were no longer afraid of pursuing the criminals and bringing them to justice, especially as they happened to be ronin, or masterless men. "Twelve similar onslaughts," wrote Sir Rutherford, "have been made on foreigners, and in no one instance has justice had its due." For "even in the only case where men were executed, the Government did not venture in exposing their heads to declare their crime, or admit that it was for an attack upon foreigners." The present case was to prove an exception to the hitherto unbroken rule. Within a month certain accomplices in the crime were brought to punishment in Yokohama, and there one of the principals, who was executed in presence of British officers, died boasting of his crime and claiming the highest patriotic sanction for it.

Sir Rutherford and Lady Alcock took their departure from Yokohama on December 24, 1864.

VII. THE BIRTH OF NEW JAPAN.

"Is this the commencement of a civil war?" wrote the British Minister during his first year of residence in Japan. When he left the civil war was well advanced. Feverish energy was being displayed by every party in the State. There was a race for foreign ships and armaments among the Daimios; the Tycoon was involved in a struggle for existence; the legitimate sovereign was asserting his authority, and the feudatories were rallying to his support. Neither the immediate nor the remote issues were clear, but the sword was out of the scabbard, and would not be sheathed again until a new order of things should be established.

The civil strife, which ended within four years in the abolition of feudalism and the assumption by the Mikado by divine right of all administrative functions, may be called revolution, restoration, or merely evolution, according to the point of view from which we regard it. The hand of the foreigner had loosened the stone from the mountain-side, but it rolled down by its own laws. The introduction of foreigners into the country brought down vengeance on the Tycoon as the responsible agent. To abase him and transfer the sceptre to another house was perhaps as far as the views of the hostile princes in the first instance extended. The consummation of the movement in the unification of the State, though its natural fruit, grew and ripened with a rapidity which bewildered the lookers-on. From the moment when the goal was descried a profound unanimity of sentiment urged the leaders towards it, the territorial magnates being themselves the first to propose the abolition of the privileges, titles, and responsibilities of their order, which stood in the way of nationality in the larger sense. But wide and manifold as were the issues raised in the course of the brief but fierce struggle, it concerns us chiefly to remember that the avowed impulse which gave the first impetus to the whole was the passionate purpose of expelling the foreigner. This was the rallying cry that brought the entire nation into line. The presence of the foreigner on the soil sacred to the gods was an insult and a deep humiliation. The manifestoes of the Daimios, their invective against the Tycoon, the distress of the Mikado and his constant imploring appeals for help to purge the land of its defilement, testify to the sincerity and universality of the feeling. In that sentiment there was no difference between Tycoon and Mikado, the Daimios attached to the one and those attached to the other: they were only divided as to the time and the means, the risks and the consequences.

From the first the foreigners had evidence of the tenacious character of the Japanese: their persistency in face of difficulties and discouragements, and, above all, their readiness, not only to risk, but deliberately to sacrifice, their lives in the pursuit of an object. Such a spirit would render any people formidable,—most formidable when united in a common purpose; and their genius for combination is one of their most typical characteristics. What these qualities have already led to the world has partly seen; what they will hereafter lead to is perhaps as much hidden from our generation as the phenomena of the present were from the preceding one. But from the earliest days of the new intercourse it was hardly possible to misconstrue the seriousness of the Japanese people, though their refinement of taste, especially in art, their pleasant vices, and their addiction to light and frivolous recreation, often masked their more solid qualities. One word may possibly reconcile the seeming contradiction. They are an intensely vital people, living every part of their lives earnestly, which, however, is no synonym for solemnly. The gravest and the gayest have their appointed place in the social system, whose parts appear to be co-ordinated as if the whole were a direct inspiration of nature itself, elastic, accommodating, ever renewing itself, and yet so highly organised that there is no unemployed surplus, no waste material, nothing that does not find an effective place in the great cosmic product. That many practical men have misjudged the Japanese is beyond doubt. Indeed it is the so-called practical men who are the most apt to misjudge human phenomena, seeing that their system leaves out of account all they do not understand, which is usually a good deal. It was long thought that the Japanese were mere copyists and imitators, and disparaging epithets have been applied to them under that misapprehension. But, rightly considered, their very imitation was the clearest proof of their depth. They had been overcome by the foreigner, therefore they would help themselves to his weapons—all his weapons, educational, scientific, ethical, and not merely the machinery of war. This was not imitation, but adaptation and assimilation. It was no more imitation than what is seen every day among Americans, for instance, who so successfully "exploit" the ideas of Europe, and improve on them. It gradually dawned upon the intelligent few who watched the process from the beginning that the adaptation of European customs and costume was nothing but a strict application of the laws of evolution. The Japanese began spontaneously to appropriate ideas from the dress of Europeans; modifications, scarce perceptible, were adopted at first by servants. Certain malefactors advertised for by the Yedo police as early as 1862 were described as wearing "riding trousers and coats of tight foreign fashion." Each article of attire was adopted on its merits, for convenience and for no other reason, one of the first items being buttons. Strange combinations were sometimes seen, such as a billycock hat, or policeman's cast-off coat with a few buttons left on, surmounting a pair of bare legs shod with wooden clogs. Such bizarre combinations were not uncommon during the time of transition. The growing habits of travel necessitated a revolution in the coiffure. The ancient custom of shaving part of the head and training the truncated queue required a staff of skilled barbers to accompany every travelling party. The expense and inconvenience were intolerable, and so the old head-dressing had to go the way of obsolete things.

The Japanese deliberately resolved to learn every secret thing that any foreign nation possessed. To do this they had to be conciliatory, so as to gain access to schools, laboratories, arsenals, factories of every kind. Japanese swarmed in the workshops of Europe and America; they took military, naval, mercantile, and industrial service wherever they could get it.[10] In such pursuits an outlandish costume would have been a severe handicap, not merely marking them as strangers, but hampering them for the mechanical work they might be engaged in. To be the comrades of the foreign workmen they must dress like them, and minimise all personal peculiarities. It is often said by those who regret the change that the native dress was so becoming, and that the Japanese looked ever so much nicer in their own than in foreign garb—which may be true, though irrelevant. To look nice was not what they were aiming at. They had to join the family of nations, to become men of the world, to comply with all civilised observances, and as much as in them lay to avoid attracting notice to their nationality. Such a programme necessitated adoption of the common costume of the Western nations, and if we do not accuse German, French, English, and Americans of being imitators, who for similar reasons adopt a uniform society habit, why should the Japanese be imitators when doing the very same thing? Let the world not deceive itself,—there is something more serious than copying in the development of the Japanese nationality. Borrowers they have undoubtedly been, and that on a grand scale. Religion, philosophy, language, literature, art, and artistic manufacture they took bodily from China, apparently through Korea. But who shall say they have not improved upon their teachers? That is a kind of borrowing which may yet carry Japan very far. We should not forget that even a Shakespeare may be an incorrigible borrower.

From the first appearance of Commodore Perry's "black ships" in 1853 one idea took complete possession of the Japanese ruling classes, and inspired all their manifestoes. How far the common people were in sympathy with their rulers there was no evidence available to show. The idea was that their nation was weak, and in its seclusion had been outstripped by the nations of the West, and that they must make every exertion to arm themselves in order to be able to cope with and to expel the barbarians. All their temporising with the enemy had this end in view, and they followed it up with such zeal, intelligence, and national harmony, as to excite both wonder and admiration. In the building up of their nation, and giving it a status among the military and industrial Powers, the Japanese freely and extensively employed foreigners in all capacities, dispensing with their services when done with as naturally as a builder dispenses with his temporary scaffolding. They used foreigners from the outset, but have never allowed foreigners to use them. They have thus remained the masters in their own house, and therein has lain their strength, present and prospective. Teaching they have recompensed with coin; and though confidences have been received with courtesy, their own plans and purposes have been veiled from the most honoured of their tutors. Their attitude has remained what it was in the days of the Dutch monopoly, when instruction in Western lore, including naval and military science, was freely imparted to them, while the uses to which it was applied were studiously hidden from the teachers. Though the Dutch, for example, taught the Japanese mathematics and triangulation so successfully that the pupils were able to make accurate surveys and construct maps of the country and charts of its sea-coasts, yet the Dutch were never permitted to see the finished result.

In looking back on the work of those foreign Governments and their agents who by their interference shook this new nation into life, it is obvious that they did not, any of them, know what they were doing. There was a divinity shaping their ends which they, with their conventional concessions to the modern spirit, had no idea of. If we are to pass judgment at all on those men, it must not be by the ulterior consequences which they did not and could not foresee, but on the merits of the problem which immediately presented itself to them. The demand for free intercourse with Japan being shared by all the nations of Christendom was bound to be satisfied one day: it was but a question of a favourable opportunity. Commodore Perry and the United States Government made their opportunity. Townsend Harris had his opportunity made for him, and with great adroitness, and not too much scruple, he took advantage of it to force the half-open door. Lord Elgin, in his turn, did a smart thing in sandwiching in a full treaty with Japan between his earlier and later negotiations with China. Each in his degree contributed to the general result without any apparent sense of responsibility for unsettling an ancient polity of which they were ignorant, and to which they were blind. Lord Elgin was indeed visited by the qualms of conscience which were as natural to him as they were honourable, but the particular consequences of which he had a passing dread were not those which followed. In any case, his act was momentary: its results remained to be dealt with by those who came after. The heat and burden of the day fell upon those who had to "stub the Thurnaby waste" which the cavaliers had gaily cantered round,—to reduce theories and compliments to everyday practice. Here was not only a labour but a responsibility, not of the attenuated abstract order, but one which was apt to knock violently at their door every morning and every night. For whatever might be the remote effects, the immediate issues were always urgent, and what a conscientious man had to do was to shape a daily course among unknown rocks and whirlpools such as would eventually lead to a successful ocean voyage. It is surely a test of good pilotage in such emergencies that no step need be retraced; that to whatever extent temporary exigencies may hasten or retard, they should never deflect the general movement from its true direction; that the years achievement should be homogeneous with the day's doings. It is a test which would eliminate the time-server from political life, but it was in all important particulars well responded to in the short career of Sir Rutherford Alcock in Japan.

It would be idle to conjecture the probable course of events had a different spirit prevailed among the first diplomatic representatives in Japan. Had they been a weak and yielding body, or had they been connected with the bureaux of their respective Governments by electric wire; still more, had each step taken by them formed a bone of contention between opposing factions in their legislatures, all alike ignorant of the situation, the proceedings of the Ministers would not only have been deprived of all initiative, but would have been liable to paralysis at every critical moment. Under such conditions foreign policy in Japan would have been like driftwood in a whirlpool; the forces of reaction must have gained courage; the position of foreigners would have been rendered untenable; and what might have happened in the country itself it would, as we have said, be quite idle to imagine. In those days no Power would have interfered to maintain order or to defend treaties had England held aloof. There is no need to carry hypothesis further than this in order to appreciate the good fortune not only of Great Britain herself, but of Japan and the world, in having as pioneer representative a man so alert, so capable, so clear, and with such unshakable nerve as Sir Rutherford Alcock; for it is the man on the spot in distant countries who shapes the policy of his Government, if it is to have a policy at all, and this historic service the first Minister sent to Japan did effectually render to his country. Amid difficulties unprecedented, emergencies incessant, and an elemental strife ever raging, the terms of which were inscrutable, two immutable principles guided the Minister to a clear issue. The first was duty, at all costs and hazards; the second, the integrity of the treaties. Whatever might be argued about the policy or the ethics of making them, once made, retreat from their engagements was impossible and compromise futile. Matters had to be pushed to an issue. The whole term of Sir Rutherford Alcock's service in Japan was filled up with a warfare against the temptation to temporise in the hope that things would be better,—a temptation to which, as we have seen, her Majesty's Government for a time succumbed. In perplexing situations the best solvent is simplicity, and the Minister found his safety in directness of aim and inflexibility of purpose. Standing on that rock, the mystifications with which he was surrounded lost their power to disturb him. "Fortunately," he wrote to Earl Russell, "whether the Tycoon was playing a comedy or not, the course plainly indicated is the same, the assertion of a fixed determination not to be driven out, and to maintain the rights secured under treaties, by force, if all other means fail."

To the man who perceived and successfully carried out this simple rule of action his countrymen owe no common debt.

As it is proverbially the busiest people who have the most leisure, the British Minister found time in the midst of his harassing labours to employ his æsthetic gifts for the benefit of the public. It fell to his lot, as the reader may remember, while consul in Shanghai, to contribute samples of the art, industry, and natural products of China to the Great Exhibition of 1851, neither the native Government nor the foreign mercantile community being sufficiently interested to assist in the work. A similar service was asked of him in Japan for the Exhibition of 1862, and it was performed under similar conditions, neither the native Government nor the foreign residents taking any part in it. The task had a special fascination for Sir Rutherford, for Japanese art was a new and rich field for the student as for the dilettante. The Japanese had originally borrowed their whole art, with their literature and religion, from China, but they had improved or at least transformed it so much as to make it their own, though it is contended that in ceramics they had never succeeded in overtaking the Chinese. For five hundred years they had worked on the Chinese idea; but at last in the eleventh century A.D. native schools sprang up, and thenceforth Japanese artists followed their own inspiration, which was that of nature, producing, in the fulness of time, the exquisite results with which the world is now so familiar. The introduction of this Japanese work to the connoisseurs of Europe through the London Exhibition of 1862 was effected through the personal exertions of Sir Rutherford Alcock, who added immensely to the obligations under which he laid his countrymen by the publication in 1878 of a short but comprehensive work on 'Art and Art Industries of Japan.' Like the collecting of objects for the Exhibition, the writing of this book was evidently a labour of love. It reviews with a sympathy which almost rises to enthusiasm not only the finished product, but the stages of the evolution of Japanese art, having its origin in a loving fellowship with nature and in a special affinity with what may be called its humorous side. The genius of Japan has taken a different form from that of the West, where "the great works of the sculptor and the painter are seen by but few," whereas the art work of Japan, "which is always in sight, tends to cultivate the taste of the million by bringing constantly before their eyes objects of taste, not less effective because they are unconsciously felt and enjoyed." It is art pressed into the service of the life of the people "which can give a priceless value to the commonest and least costly material by the mere impress of genius and taste, ... which is the most precious, tested by any true estimate of value and utility." The volume is well worth perusal by those who are interested in art, not only for its philosophical yet simple analysis of the subject generally, but for the instructive way in which universal principles are adapted to the popularised art of Japan. To read this book, one would imagine the writer had devoted the whole of the three years and a half he spent in Japan to the cultivation of the industrial fine arts.

The Japanese language, too, attracted the interest of the busy Minister, who during his stay in Yedo brought out a grammar and phrase-book in Japanese and English. They have, as a matter of course, been superseded by the more recondite studies of later students; but as a first step towards familiarising the language to visitors and strangers these introductory works cannot be denied their meed of merit.

VIII. THE DIPLOMATIC BODY—TSUSHIMA.

During the first few years there were four representatives of the Western Powers resident in or near the Tycoon's capital: they were the Ministers of Great Britain, the United States, France, and Holland. Russia had accredited no Minister, but intrusted her interests to the very capable hands of M. Goskavitch, consul at Hakodate, the treaty port in the northern island of the Japanese group. What was no doubt deemed of at least equal importance, she maintained a powerful squadron on the western coast of Japan, whose actual strength was magnified to the view by their incessant activity, which had the character of a continuous demonstration on the coast both of China and Japan; and the principle of direct action by naval officers without the medium of diplomacy, at the ports of Nagasaki and Hakodate, was so different from that of any other Power, that the Daimios declared to the Tycoon that any of the foreigners could be safely insulted except the Russians. Their manœuvres in force round Hongkong, meaningless to the ordinary professional or political eye, played probably a corroborative part in the impressions they were making on the rulers of the neighbouring countries. Prussia had not yet come effectually on the scene when the decisive operations against the two great Daimios, which really determined the future course of events, were undertaken.

The relations of the resident foreign Ministers among themselves were marked by substantial harmony, in some instances rising to great cordiality. The foreign diplomatic body thus presented a united front to the forces, open or covert, that were opposed to them. Such differences of opinion as arose in the course of business either were not of a nature, or were not allowed, to interfere with the pursuit of the national interests of each, which were inextricably bound up in the common interests of all. United, the influence of the Powers was practically irresistible; divided, they would have fallen an easy prey to the devices of what, for want of another term, must be spoken of as the common enemy, Japan. It is not pleasant to think of Japan in this way, since she was on her defence in a position forced upon her; yet overruling circumstances had, in fact, placed the parties in temporary antagonism—the world against Japan.

The key to the success of European diplomacy of the earlier period was without doubt the Anglo-French alliance, which had culminated in the coercion of imperial China, and was spending its ebbing strength in suppressing the great Taiping insurrection against that empire. Being possessed of mobile forces within call, the two Powers were always in a position to act when circumstances called for action, and they had become accustomed to co-operation. Hence the potency of their united counsels.

The Minister of France as well as the admiral on the station had the instructions of the Imperial Government to support England in her Far Eastern policy,—"for," said the calculating Emperor Napoleon III., "though our interests in that part of the world are trivial, we may find our account in the friendship of England in quarters where our interests are vital." That the Ministers of the two countries, therefore, should be on terms of official intimacy and mutual confidence was only natural, and it was a tower of strength to them both. But we gather from the despatches that personal respect and attachment went hand in hand with the official liaison; and whether it was Sir Rutherford Alcock or Colonel Neale on the one side, or M. Duchesne de Bellecourt or Leon Roche on the other, their expressions towards their colleagues were always of the warmest. So completely confidential were their relations, that when something was insinuated by third parties which, if credited, would have necessitated explanations between the two, it was simply dismissed as unworthy of consideration. There were not wanting those who would have regarded with equanimity a little more coldness between the Allied colleagues.

For, notwithstanding their good fraternal relations, it cannot be said that the foreign officials in Japan were uniformly successful in resisting the besetting sin of diplomacy, the common temptation to intrigue. In certain cases it was resorted to as the natural means of advancing the solid interests of a particular country; in other cases, where no national interest could be served by it, it would appear that intrigue was its own allurement, followed for the mere pleasure of the game. The political situation in Japan was sufficiently complicated to afford occasion for both these motives of action. The unstable Government of the country, oppressed by conflicting obligations and consciously struggling for existence, offered an ideal theatre for volunteer experimentation by those on whom no ulterior responsibility rested.

Be that as it may, however, secret communications did pass between certain foreign officials and the Japanese Government of a kind which betrayed the design of undermining the interests of other Powers and frustrating their policy, presumably for the benefit of those whose zeal in the cause of international honour impelled them to adopt the rôle of international informers. It need hardly be said that Great Britain was a principal object of these occult practices; neither need it be denied that she suffered from their effects in the estimation of the Japanese Government, which was naturally credulous of any disparagement of the Powers it dreaded so much. In the incandescent condition of the intercourse of those earlier years, had any of the foreign agents spoken well of his neighbours he would have obtained no hearing for his praise; but given vilification for its motive, the representation would find its way straight to the Japanese heart, since nothing could be too vile to be believed of the intentions of any of the foreign nations. The spy system was congenial to the Japanese, woven into their whole administration; while as regards foreigners, they had had ample experience centuries before of the lengths Christian nations would go in traducing each other for the sake of gaining a little favour of the rulers of Japan. It was entirely in keeping with their medieval experiences that these dastardly barbarians should now be ready to stab each other in the back. Whatever reception, therefore, on other grounds, might be accorded to gratuitous information conveyed through prejudiced channels, no surprise was occasioned by it, and as little doubt of its truth, so long as its burden was evil. This much has to be borne in mind as a tribute to the intelligence of the writers of letters such as the following, addressed to the Gorogiu, or Bureau of Foreign Affairs, and conveyed to them with ostentatious secrecy. In 1860 one Government agent wrote—

And a year or two later, when the intercourse between the British Minister and the Tycoon was charged with contentious, almost with explosive, matter, missives were passed in from philanthropic onlookers of a tenor which excited no surprise, but a good deal of genuine exultation, in the minds of the Japanese Ministers. It was well known some time before that it had been sought to prevent a settlement of outstanding difficulties between the two countries by the assurance volunteered to the Tycoon's Government that Great Britain was quite unable to make war on Japan, and the following letter is only one of a series of such international amenities which shunned the light of day:—

But in vain was the snare set by these fowlers in the sight of the bird. The notion of setting a thief to catch a thief was not uncongenial to Japanese habits of thought, but a generous offer of armed assistance against a foreign Power savoured too much of the wooden horse even for such inexperienced internationalists as the New Japan. Having expressed their appreciation—had it been the Chinese Government it would have taken the form of praise for their loyal obedience—the Government intimated that they would exhaust their own resources before putting these friendly foreign Powers to the trouble of intervening on their behalf. The Japanese have always been wary about accepting help unasked for. The United States frigate Niagara, which brought back the envoys in 1860, brought also a staff of artillery officers whose services were tendered to the Tycoon, but declined. And it was said the American officers were rather astonished by the proofs afforded them in Yedo of the efficiency of armament and proficiency of the gunners which Japan was already able to show.

One of the vigilant observers of political portents about that time became convinced that the French had designs upon Tsushima, a belief which was no doubt in some way also communicated to the Japanese Government; but by that time—1863—it was too late for any Power to flirt with that "excellent little island," for since the first warning given the Japanese in 1860, above cited, the island had been made the subject of definitive arrangements. The incident itself, though of brief duration and leaving no visible trail behind it, nevertheless deserves to be remembered as a landmark of history.

When Count Mouravieff was in Yedo in 1859, he took the trouble to warn the Tycoon's Government that the English harboured aggressive designs against the island of Tsushima, which is a long double or "twin" island, possessing wonderful harbours, and situated midway between the main island of Japan and the southern coast of Korea. On March 13, 1861, the Russians landed from the corvette Possadnik in Tsushima, and saying their ship wanted repairs, began to build houses on shore. Captain Birileff had forced the Prince of Tsushima to receive him at his capital, which created an intense feeling of indignation, especially in the ranks of the nobles, who each saw himself exposed to similar intrusions. The Daimio repeatedly requested the Russians to leave, but was always told the ship required further repairs. In consequence of reports from his own officers and the Japanese Government, Vice-Admiral Sir James Hope looked in at Tsushima himself in the month of August, and observing what was going on there, he addressed a letter to Captain Birileff, of which the substance was as follows: The prolonged stay of his Imperial Majesty's corvette Possadnik, the erection of buildings, &c., having created alarm in Yedo, the admiral had the intention to communicate on the subject as early as possible with Commodore Likatchoff. Would Captain Birileff meantime facilitate this correspondence by replying to the questions—(1) Should the Japanese Government appeal to the treaty, which conveys no right either to create establishments ashore, to survey the Japanese coast without Government sanction, or even to enter a non-treaty port except in case of necessity, would Captain Birileff's orders admit of his leaving Tsushima immediately on the request of the Japanese authorities? (2) Was it Captain Birileff's intention to leave Tsushima in October as previously stated to Commander Ward, leaving the buildings to whomsoever wanted them?... (3) Had the captain orders to create a permanent establishment there?

The reply of Captain Birileff was to the effect that the officers of his Imperial Majesty were accountable only to their own chiefs; ... that he was quite astonished to hear of the alarms in Yedo, seeing that only two months before the Prince of Bungo had been sent to Tsushima expressly from Yedo to grant permission to the corvette to remain there; that the same prince gave him the opportunity of visiting the Prince of Tsushima, who was instructed to supply workmen and all that might be necessary for the construction of the buildings in question; that if the Japanese Government were annoyed by the surveying operations, they should address their complaint to the Russian diplomatic agent; that he had no orders for the occupation of the island, and the nature of the buildings which the admiral had done him the honour to visit would not show any such intention; and finally, that when he spoke of leaving in October it had referred only to himself personally. So far Captain Birileff.

It was no "Prince of Bungo," but a Governor of Foreign Affairs named Bungo, who had been despatched in haste from the capital to endeavour by any means to induce the Russians to leave Tsushima, and was, for his want of success, disgraced.

Sir James Hope forthwith proceeded in search of Commodore Likatchoff to Olga Bay, whence he addressed to him a letter dated September 5, pointing out the irregularity of the proceedings at Tsushima, the bad effect they were having on the relations of foreigners generally in Yedo, and that he could not recognise any establishment on Japanese territory not sanctioned by treaty—which resolutions he would make known to the authorities concerned.

To this the Russian commodore courteously replied from Hakodate, September 23, excusing himself from entering on any international questions, and pointing out that in their hydrographical labours the Russians were only following the excellent example set them by the British surveying officers whom they met on their respective missions, and that no complaint had ever been made by the Japanese Government. As for the "absurd rumours" alluded to, the Possadnik had already received orders for another destination, before receipt of the admiral's letters, and nothing consequently need be said to calm the doubts and alarms, "si même elles auraient véritablement raison d'exister."

Admiral Hope acknowledged this letter, "with much satisfaction," from Chefoo, October 22, and remarked that, so far as the surveying operations of the ships in his squadron were concerned, they were carried out with the full consent of the Japanese Government, at whose special request Japanese officers and interpreters were accommodated on board during the whole of the cruise. He added that it was not so much the surveying operations of the Possadnik as the preparation for a permanent settlement on shore that disquieted the Japanese Government; and, moreover, that the Japanese Ministers had distinctly stated that the matter had been the subject of remonstrance to the commodore, through M. Goskavitch, the consul at Hakodate, and to Captain Birileff by an officer specially deputed for the purpose (Bungo).

The question extended itself to St Petersburg, where Prince Gortchakoff had remarked to Lord Napier, then British ambassador, on the tone of Admiral Hope's letter to Commodore Likatchoff, which, he said, but for the conciliatory disposition of the latter, might have led to serious misunderstanding. Lord Napier, in reply, observed that "Admiral Hope was a man of a frank, downright, energetic character, who used the language natural to him without any intention of giving offence."

As the Russians had abandoned the island, Prince Gortchakoff called on Lord Napier to declare that the English would never take possession of Tsushima, whereupon the ambassador reminded his Excellency that the English had "offered to sign a treaty binding ourselves and the other Powers having engagements with Japan to make no acquisitions in those seas." "I think," concludes the ambassador in his letter to the Foreign Office, "that Admiral Hope will do well to assure himself that the buildings have really been evacuated." This precaution had already been taken, and the admiral reported on November 10 that the Russians had evacuated on September 29.

There the incident ended, but not its historical significance.

IX. TRADE AND TRADERS.