Читать книгу A Diplomat in Japan - Ernest Mason Satow - Страница 13

Payment of the Indemnity for the Murder of Richardson

The note, dated on the very day on which the indemnity was paid, in which Ogasawara Dzusho no Kami (to give him his full title) had conveyed to Colonel Neale the orders of the Tycoon to close the ports and expel all foreigners from the country, was the first on which I was called to exercise my capacity as a translator. Of course I had to get the help of my teacher to read it, but my previous practice in the epistolary style enabled me to understand the construction, and to give a closer version perhaps than either of the others which were prepared in the legation. This, to me supremely important, document ran as follows:—

I communicate with you by a despatch.

The orders of the Tycoon, received from Kiôto, are to the effect that the ports are to be closed and the foreigners driven out, because the people of the country do not desire intercourse with foreign countries. The discussion of this has been entirely entrusted to me by His Majesty. I therefore send you this communication first, before holding a Conference as to the details.

Respectful and humble communication.

It is perhaps a little too literal. The opening phrase is simply equivalent to the "Monsieur le Chargé d'Affaires," and the sentence with which the note concludes is about the same thing as the "assurance of high consideration," which we have borrowed from the French. But the rest of it is accurate, and the allusion to the Mikado which appears in the version made from the Dutch translation furnished by the Japanese (vide the Bluebook) had nothing to support it in the original text. I cannot forbear from quoting the reply of Colonel Neale, though as far as possible I intend in these "Reminiscences" not to rely on published sources of information. It ran thus:—

Lieutenant-Colonel Neale to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Yokohama, June 24, 1863.

The undersigned, Her Britannic Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires, has received, in common with his colleagues, and with extreme amazement, the extraordinary announcement which, under instructions from the Tycoon, His Excellency has addressed to him.

Apart from the audacious nature of this announcement, which is unaccompanied by any explanations whatever, the Undersigned is bound to believe that both the Spiritual and Temporal sovereigns of this country are totally ignorant of the disastrous consequences which must arise to Japan by their determinations thus conveyed through you to close the opened ports, and to remove therefrom the subjects of the Treaty Powers.

For himself, as Representative of Her Britannic Majesty, the Undersigned has to observe, in the first instance, that the Rulers of this country may perhaps still have it in their power to modify and soften the severe and irresistible measures which will, without the least doubt, be adopted by Great Britain most effectually to maintain and enforce its Treaty obligations with this country, and, more than this, to place them on a far more satisfactory and solid footing than heretofore, by speedily making known and developing any rational and acceptable plans directed to this end, which may be at present concealed by His Majesty the Tycoon or the Mikado, or by both, to the great and imminent peril of Japan.

It is therefore the duty of the Undersigned solemnly to warn the Rulers of this country that when the decision of Her Majesty's Government, consequent upon the receipt of Your Excellency's announcement, shall have in due course been taken, the development of all ulterior determinations now kept back will be of no avail.

The Undersigned has in the meantime to inform Your Excellency, with a view that you may bring the same to the knowledge of His Majesty the Tycoon, who will doubtless make the same known to the Mikado, that the indiscreet communication now made through Your Excellency is unparalleled in the history of all nations, civilized or uncivilized; that it is, in fact, a declaration of war by Japan itself against the whole of the Treaty Powers, and the consequences of which, if not at once arrested, it will have to expiate by the severest and most merited chastisement.

With Respect and Consideration.

Edwd. St. John Neale.

With the exception of the lapse from the third person to the second, in the second, third and fourth paragraphs, this note is well constructed, and its periods nicely balanced. The language is perhaps rather stronger than more modern taste would approve, but with a powerful, almost overwhelming squadron of men-of-war at one's back, the temptation to express one's feelings with frankness is not easy to resist.

What the writer meant by "rational and acceptable means" directed to the end of placing the treaty obligations of Great Britain with Japan on a more "satisfactory and solid footing than heretofore" can only be conjectured. I think it is an allusion to the plan that had been mooted of our affording material assistance to the Tycoon in suppressing the opposition of the daimiôs of the west and south to the pro-foreign policy of the Japanese Government, and perhaps to a formal agreement between the Tycoon and the Mikado that the latter should ratify the treaties. Certainly the successful execution of such a plan would have placed the Tycoon firmly in the seat of his ancestors, and have forestalled the revolution of 1868 by which his successor was upset, but it would not have been effected without enormous bloodshed, and the Japanese people would have hated the ruler who had called in foreign aid to strengthen his position. He could then only have maintained himself there by the adoption of the severest measures of repression, and the nation would have been subjected to a terrible and lasting despotism. It is certainly a thing to rejoice at that the Tycoon's council had sufficient patriotism to reject such an offer. The Japanese were left to work out their own salvation, and when the revolution did at last break out, the loss of life and property was restricted within narrow limits, while the resulting benefits to the Japanese nation in the establishment of civilized and comparatively free institutions have been such as would have been for ever precluded had the suggestions of certain Europeans been listened to.