Lecture 2003-05-13
"The British Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863"
Sir Hugh Cortazzi


There was a full house at the May  meeting, when our regular attendees were augmented by by others who had come specially to have the chance to meet Sir Hugh Cortazzi and hear him speak on “The Namamugi Incident and the British Bombardment of Kagoshima, 1862-3”. To give  visual content to his talk, Sir Hugh had supplied a set of illustrations, mostly taken from The Illustrated London News,  and copies of these were handed out. Sir Hugh was accompanied by Lady Cortazzi. We were happy to have with us two of our advisers, Lady Gomersall, the wife of the present British ambassador, who unfortunately had to leave shortly before the end to host another engagement, and Fr. Neal Lawrence, who had made the journey specially from Nagano-ken. A former member of the embassy staff, Mr. Kosuke (Jerry) Matsumura, had gathered together a number of people connected with the subject of the lecture: Miss Takeda, the granddaughter of Sir Ernest Satow, Mr. Toshihiro Okubo, great-grandson of Okubo Toshimichi (who was a Satsuma man), Mr. Toyokazu Ono, great-grandson of Admiral Yamamoto Gonbei, also a Satsuma man who later became Prime Minister, Mr. Yasuhiro Hinoguchi, grandson of the founder of the Jigenryû school of swordsmanship which trained Satsuma swordsmen, Mr. Tetsurô Nakasuga, who translated Sir Hugh's book on Dr. William Willis, and Ms. Kyôko Tanaka, curator of the Anglo-Satsuma Museum.  (Before going further, let me just correct a few inaccuracies in the introduction to Sir Hugh in last month's Bulletin: he was Chairman of the Council of the Japan Society in London, not the President -- a post that is always filled by the Japanese ambassador; the volumes of the "Biographical Portraits" for which he is editor are IV and V, on the last of which he is now working, and his "biographies" of Alcock and others were some of these portraits. HW).

The port in the vicinity of Edo that was opened up under the port treaties of 1858 was not the promised Kanagawa, but the fishing village of Yokohama, the protests of the first envoys having fallen on deaf ears. However, the foreign merchants, mostly British, found it convenient although it was not a healthy spot.  The British Legation was housed in the Tôenji, near Shinagawa, and the Minister was Rutherford Alcock. In 1861 it was temporarily withdrawn to Yokohama, following an attack by rônin. In March 1862 Alcock went home on leave, and Lt. Col. Edward St. John Neale was transferred from Peking to be Secretary, the No. 2 position. The Legation had only a  small staff, who had no more than a vague understanding of the bakufu government. Communication depended on two-way translation via the medium of Dutch, which inevitably led to misunderstandings (Sir Ernest Satow only arrived in the late summer of 1862). There was no international telegraph system, and it took up to four months to get a reply from the Foreign Office in London. British warships were still made of wood, and were mainly dependent on sail-power.

Neale's first decision was to move the Legation back to Edo, but it was again attacked on the anniversary of the first attack, and two of the guards were murdered. Neale registered a strong protest with the Japanese authorities, and the Japanese Ministers of Foreign Affairs expressed their grief, but gave no assurances that the Legation would not suffer again. When the Foreign Office received news of the attack they instructed Neale to demand £10,000 in compensation. Meanwhile, Neale found it necessary to move back to Yokohama, and reported to London that the Japanese government's policy was evidently one of inaction.

On September 14th, 1862,  a British party of four riding on the Tokaido encountered the train of the daimyo of Satsuma at Namamugi and were ordered off the road. Subsequently they were attacked. One man was killed and two wounded, but the lady in the party escaped and, distressed but unhurt, brought the news to Yokohama.  The hotheads in the British community, led by the Consul, Captain Vyse,  demanded in a meeting with Neale that steps be taken to seize the daimyo or his high officials, but Neale met them and pointed out the inadvisability -- and the impracticability -- of such a move, which would invite war and, more cogently, "the stoppage of trade". He complied with Vyse's demand that a record of their meeting be sent to London, but in it he pointed out "the highly improper course" which the Consul had followed throughout.

Lord Russell, the Foreign Secretary, approved of Neale's conduct of the affair, commenting that the action proposed by Vyse would have been an act of war. He then set out the demands that were to be made for reparation. The Japanese government was to make an ample and formal apology, and pay £100,000  (in addition to the  previous  £10,000). The daimyo of Satsuma was to execute the murderers and pay £25,000. If Neale was unable to obtain satisfaction,  he was to call upon Rear Admiral Kuper, who was stationed in Yokohama, to adopt measures of reprisal or blockade.

 The Japanese authorities continued to temporize, and in February 1863, Neale reported that there were indications that the bakufu were trying to expel the foreigners, and suggested that a show of force would be useful. He continue to negotiate with the Japanese authorities, however, and eventually in June they agreed  to make full payment of the reparations, in seven instalments. It now remained for action to be taken to put pressure on Satsuma.

Neale had prepared a letter to the Satsuma daimyo in April, stating that if the British demands were not met, Admiral Kuper would adopt whatever measures he deemed expedient to obtain the required satisfaction. In the event, this letter was not delivered until after the British fleet reached Kagoshima on August 11th.

The British fleet, consisting of the flagship Euryalus and six others, left Yokohama on August 6th. Neale was accommodated on the flagship, and other members of the Legation, including Satow and Willis (who have left their own accounts of the episode), on the other ships. They reached Kagoshima on the 11th, and handed over the letter. A few hours later Satsuma officials informed them that the daimyo was not in Kagoshima,  and requested Neale and Kuper to come ashore. This they declined, suspecting (rightly) that "treachery and violence" would have followed. Two days later, a "high official" asked to be allowed to come aboard, which Kuper agreed to but placed a guard with fixed bayonets facing the gangway. Hardly had the meeting begun when the official was recalled on the excuse that there was a mistake in the reply that he was to read.  Meanwhile, the batteries on shore had their guns trained on the ships, and Kuper decided to move as far out as the depth of water would allow. In the evening the high official returned with the amended reply, which said that the bakufu's treaty with foreigners had neglected to stipulate that they should not impede passage on a road, and furthermore the bakufu had not informed them of the impending arrival of the fleet; no action could be taken until matters had been sorted out. Neale deemed the reply "utterly unsatisfactory", and he and Kuper were suspicious of Satsuma's intentions, fearing an attack on the flagship. They accordingly decided to take action.

Kuper records on August 17th that he ordered part of the squadron to go and seize three steamers belonging to the daimyo, which they did. The Japanese batteries opened fire, and the squadron advanced along the line of batteries, from north to south, returning the fire. But a gale was approaching, and they retired to an anchorage under Sakurajima. It was not clear how much damage had been done to the batteries, but half of Kagoshima was in flames. The following day the Japanese began to erect batteries near the fleet's anchorage, so they moved further out and shelled the batteries on Sakurajima, and also the daimyo's palace.

A later account of the battle, based largely on Kuper's dispatches, shows that British casualties were high for such a small operation. The Euryalus suffered severe damage, and its captain and another senior officer were killed;  Kuper himself was lucky to escape. Other ships were also damaged, with eleven men killed and 52 wounded. Clearly, Kuper had not formulated any proper plan of attack, and the squadron had also gone in too close to the batteries. Kuper realized how close to failure he had come, and he bore this lesson in mind in the subsequent attack on Shimonoseki in 1864. Satow gives it as his verdict that Neale interfered too much in the conduct of the operations.

A Japanese account by a Commander Okuda notes that the Satsuma envoy (the "high official") knew that the daimyo preferred to fight rather than accede to the demands, and repeatedly asked Neale to come ashore; but the latter prudently decided to remain on board. Being frustrated in this way, the Satsuma side then decided to send 73 desperate men, disguised as tradesmen, to divide themselves into groups and go alongside each British ship. When on board, they would simultaneously draw their swords on a given signal, and slay all the British officers and men. The batteries would then open fire, and the British ships would be captured. But this stratagem did not work, as the British were suspicious of these "tradesmen" and would not let them come on board. According to Okuda, the British fleet was taken by surprise but did their best under the circumstances. The British suffered an undreamt-of defeat, partly due to the storm, but also due to the bravery and valour of the samurai of Satsuma.

When reports reached London, Kuper's action was hotly debated in the House of Commons, with one Member introducing a motion regretting the burning of Kagoshima as an act "contrary to those usages of war which prevail among civilized nations." Palmerston, the Prime Minister, intervened to declare that the government approved of Kuper's fulfilment of the Foreign Secretary's instructions; the destruction of the town was incidental, and regrets had been expressed. But The Quarterly Review was highly critical of  the overbearing nature of British foreign policy, and this theme was also taken up by Richard Cobden, a stern critic of British sabre-rattling.

On December 9th, 1863,  envoys from Satsuma at last came to Yokohama to pay the indemnity of £25,000, and Neale had the satisfaction of being able to report the final accomplishment of his instructions. It turns out that these instructions were not drawn up solely by the Foreign Office. Even Queen Victoria was consulted and advised against demanding a reparation which the Government of Japan had no power to enforce. In the end it was decided that, if the central government in Japan was too weak to take action against the daimyo, it was Britain's responsibility to convince these daimyo that they must suffer personally for their misdeeds. The  cabinet advised a short local operation, avoiding the showing of any hostility to the State.

Satsuma, which had claimed a victory, quickly recognized that they could gain more from friendship than from enmity with Britain, and the subsequent close relations between Satsuma and Britain were important factors in the growth of the anti-bakufu forces and the eventual overthrow of the Tokugawas and the Meiji Restoration. Thus it could be said that the general results of the British action were beneficial, even if the methods chosen were to be deplored.

A few questions followed, though Sir Hugh's masterly and comprehensive handling of his subject left little need for further elucidation. The vote of thanks was proposed by Mr. Hiroshi Sakamoto, who referred to some of Sir Hugh's predecessors among our past Presidents, including Sir John Pilcher.  Sir Hugh responded by informing us of the very recent death of Lady Pilcher from a fall;  and with this reminder of the not-too-distant past, the meeting closed.