The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

In 1859, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Rutherford Alcock, British representative of H.B.M. Government in China was appointed her Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan. His book, The Capital of the Tycoon (London, 1863. Longman, 2 vols.), gives one of the first authoritative accounts of Old Japan presented to the British public. During his three years in that country he was constantly in peril of assassination. In August, 1859, an officer and a sailor from one of the Russian ships lying in the harbour were cut down and slashed to pieces in the streets of Yedo, and a steward was severely wounded.

In the following year the Japanese linguist attached the British Legation was stabbed to death, and two Dutch ship-captains were cut to pieces in Yokohama. The next demonstration of the hatred of foreigners was the murder of the Gotairo, the Regent, Iko-mono-no-kami. His escort was suddenly attacked as it was leaving his castle by some twenty swordsmen, wielding the terrible Japanese two-handed weapon. The hands of the bearers of his norimon were severed on the pole and the Regent himself decapitated, his head being carried away as a trophy.

In 1861, Mr. Heuskin, attached to the American Legation, was murdered. Soon afterwards, one of the Governors (or Under-Secretaries) of Foreign Affairs, Oribeno-no-Kami, who had been especially friendly in his intercourse with the Legations, "died," in the Japanese phrase, "without the effects of medicine." To be more precise, he had committed hara-kiri.

In July, 1861, the British Legation at Yedo was attacked at night by a band of swordsmen, who passed the guards and rushed the building. Mr. Oliphant, who had recently been appointed Secretary to the Legation, was severely wounded. One of the guards, a porter, and a groom, and two of the assailants, were killed outright. One of the assailants was severely wounded, to six of the Legation party who were severely wounded and eleven slightly wounded.

Such were the beginnings of Western influence in Japan. Sir Rutherford Alcock's voluminous account of his three years' ministry reveals a gallant, honest, kindly gentleman sorely perplexed by the ethical problems involved in the forcible interference of one powerful nation in the affairs of a weaker nation, whose sole ambition was to be let alone. Hampered, on the one hand, by the greed and discourtesy of the European traders, and on the other, by the immitigable duplicity and the furtive and implacable enmity of the Japanese, yet singly determined to do his duty to his Queen and country, Sir Rutherford Alcock honourably fulfilled a task of extreme danger and incredible difficulty.

Thenceforward, until the year 1869, the duel between East and West continued with increasing ardour. The whole polity of old Japan was shaken as by the earthquakes which agitate and rend its soil. There were frequent assassinations of the foreign barbarians; the governing classes, which consisted wholly of the military caste, employed every invidious method to restrict trade with Europeans; while the Western nations, on their side, brought their armed strength to bear in the enforcement of treaty rights, which by the same means had originally been wrung from the Tycoon's government. And here it falls to distinguish between the divine prestige of the Mikado, descendant of the sun-goddess, and the temporal administration of the Tycoon, or Shogun. In that dual administration resided a main factor of the extraordinary difficulty of the situation. Both the spiritual and temporal rulers, the Imperial Court and the Bakufu, or Tycoon's Government, were equally inspired by hatred of the foreigner. But whereas the Mikado, dwelling majestically apart, could avoid all contact with the barbarians, the Tycoon was compelled by superior force to negotiate with them. He was thus placed between two fires; on the one side, the Mikado ordered him to expel the foreigner; on the other, the foreigner threatened him with war unless the treaties were carried into execution.

For long the Tycoon, or his advisers, maintained his position with singular address. But no man born of woman could have solved its complications. For the great Daimios, the feudal nobility, held allegiance primarily to the Mikado. The Tycoon could and did detach some of the clans to his side; but the great body of the western clans defied him. The influence of the Tycoon began swiftly to decline. At the same time the Imperial party began to perceive that the expulsion of foreigners had become impossible. The immediate result was the revolt of some of their adherents. Inspired as it was by hatred of the foreigner, it was directed equally against Mikado and Tycoon, and accompanied by expressions of loyalty to both parties.

In 1864 the troops of the Choshiu clan attempted to capture Kioto and to obtain possession of the person of the Mikado. They were defeated after heavy fighting. In June of the previous year, the Choshiu men had fired upon the American ship Pembroke while she was passing through the Inland Sea, and also upon the Dutch corvette Medusa. The French commander-in-chief of the station, Admiral Jaurès proceeded to Shimoseki and destroyed the batteries. In August a British naval force under the command of Vice-Admiral Kuper proceeded to Kagoshima in order to enforce the payment of the indemnity due for the murder of Mr. Richardson, bombarded the town and destroyed the batteries. It was these two actions which for the first time really convinced the ruling classes in Japan that it was hopeless any longer to endeavour to prevent the intrusion of foreign influence.

In 1866 the Tycoon Iyemochi died. In the same year a new and enlarged Convention was concluded with Great Britain, France, America and Holland. In the following year Keiki, very unwillingly, became Tycoon, an office which by this time had become exceedingly insecure. In the same year the Mikado, Komei, died and was succeeded by his son Mutsuhito, a minor. In the following year the Mikado assumed the whole administrative power hitherto vested in the Tycoon, and a new system of Government was promulgated. Followed, civil war and the defeat of the Tycoon, who retired into seclusion. In the meantime the Mikado had invited the Representatives of Foreign Powers to visit him at Kioto.

"That the Mikado of Japan, who claims to be descended from the sun-goddess, and in whose person a peculiar odour of sanctity was considered to exist, should voluntarily invite to his palace at Kioto the Envoys of nations who had hitherto been looked upon as outer barbarians, and intercourse with whom was a profane thing, was indeed a great step in advance. No foreigner had ever yet crossed the Imperial threshold, or looked upon the face of the sacred Emperor of Japan. It was a proof that a new order of things was inaugurated, and gave good hopes for the future" (Adams, History of Japan. Lond., 1875).

But although the Imperial Government perceived the wisdom of accepting the inevitable, the hatred of the foreigner, bred in the blood of the military caste, could neither be dissembled nor controlled; and the attack made upon the British Envoy, Sir Harry Parkes, while actually on his way to the Imperial Palace on 23rd March, 1868, illustrates the condition of affairs. On the road to Kioto and in the sacred city itself, the Europeans had been regarded by the people with a polite and respectful curiosity, nor was there any sign of hostility.

Sir Harry Parkes left the temple of Chi-on-in, where he lodged, to proceed to the audience, with a mounted escort of twelve ex-Metropolitan mounted police, under the command of Inspector Peacock, with whom rode a Japanese officer, Nakai Kozo. Behind these massive veterans rode Sir Harry himself, accompanied by Goto Shojiro, of the Japanese Foreign Department, and followed by Mr. Mitford, Mr. Satow, Dr. Willis, and other members of the Legation. Then came a guard of forty men of H.M.'s 9th Regiment under the command of Lieutenant Bradshaw and Lieutenant Bruce. A native guard preceded the train, and another guard followed it. Just as the policemen were turning the corner of a narrow street, Sir Harry observed signs of confusion, and the next moment a Japanese, his great sword flashing and hewing, dashed round the corner, closely pursued by two policemen. Sir Harry cried out to the soldiers behind him to stop the Samurai. Turning his head, he saw his companion, Goto Shojiro, on foot, sword in hand rushing forward to attack a second Samurai, who was already fighting hand to hand with Nakai Kozo, the Japanese officer who had been riding alongside Inspector Peacock at the head of the policemen. Behind Sir Harry, shots rang out as the soldiers fired at the first assassin. Sir Harry Parkes was suddenly aware of the wild figure of a Japanese warrior, advancing towards him through the press. His face was a mask of blood; in one hand shone a long sword, dripping red from hilt to point; in the other, the victor lifted the bloody head, shorn clean from the shoulders, of his countryman. It was Nakai Kozo. Nakai gave the following ingenuous account of his deed of arms to Mr. Adams, secretary of the Legation, who quotes it in his History, as follows: —

"I saw a man running down the line cutting at one man after another. I jumped off my horse, drew my sword, and rushed after him; he turned and we engaged; he cut me on the head. Then Goto came up and dealt him a blow which felled him to the ground. Unfortunately Goto's sword-hilt, which was of lacquer, slipped from his hands, and I had to cope with the fellow alone. I could only see out of one eye, the other being covered with blood, but I kept chopping at him, and after about ten blows I managed to cut his head off. I then took the head and showed it to Sir H. Parkes."

The soldiers bayoneted the first Samurai, who was still alive when he was finally secured by Mr. Mitford. He was afterwards beheaded by the Imperial Government. But those two desperate enemies of the foreigner wounded thirteen men and five horses ere they were cut down. One of the wounded was a soldier, another a native groom; the remaining nine, of whom two were so seriously hurt that they were invalided home, were ex-Metropolitan policeman to whom the methods of the Samurai must have been startling. These trained fighters wield their two-handed swords, heavy, perfectly balanced, razor-sharp weapons, with an appalling swiftness and dexterity. At a single blow they can cleave a man to the chin, or cut off his head, or lop off a limb.

In May, 1868 Sir Harry Parkes presented his credentials, which had hitherto been addressed to the Tycoon, to the Emperor. On the 23rd was celebrated the Queen's birthday, when many Japanese of high rank, some of whom had never before made acquaintance with a foreigner, were entertained by Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Keppel, commander-in-chief of the China Station, on board H.M.S. Rodney. It was not until November that the civil war was ended by the submission of the rebels. The Emperor then took up his residence for a time in Yedo – now called Tokio – which had been the capital of the Tycoon, and which was henceforth to be the eastern metropolis of the Emperor, as Kioto was the western capital. In the following year, after another insurrection had been suppressed, the great Daimios made their memorable sacrifice, offering their lands and servants to the Emperor; thereby deliberately exchanging their almost independent state for a condition of subservience to the central Government.

Such, in brief, was the beginning of the New Japan; and it was at this stage in its development that, for the first time in history, a foreign prince, in the person of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the Mikado.

CHAPTER XI

THE CRUISE OF H.M.S. GALATEA (Continued)

V. WITH THE DUKE IN JAPAN

The Galatea arrived at Yokohama on the 29th August 1869. The Duke with his suite, including myself, went up to Tokio (the old Yedo) and took up his quarters at Hama-go-ten, which had been the summer residence of the Tycoon. The estate marched with a piece of water opening into the bay; here were many summer-houses; and a commodious building equipped for the Duke by the orders of the Mikado. The name was changed to Yen-Rio-Kan, signifying a place set apart for distinguished foreigners.

We were entertained with the most delicate and sumptuous hospitality by this charming people whose courtesy greatly impressed us. Conjurers, acrobats and wrestlers performed for the entertainment of his Royal Highness; whenever we went abroad, thirty two-sworded Yaconins attended us.

The Duke went in state to visit the Mikado in his palace. All along the route the upper windows of the houses were sealed with paper, so that none should look down upon he royal visitor; a precaution only taken in the case of the highest nobility. The Duke, attended only by Sir Harry Parkes, Admiral Sir Harry Keppel and Mr. Mitford (afterwards Lord Reedsdale and author of the delightful Tales of Old Japan), had a private audience of the Emperor, who was presented by his Royal Highness with a diamond snuff-box. Six of us were afterwards admitted to the presence. I remember the dim figure of a young man seated behind a screen at the end of the audience chamber. Many years afterwards, when I again visited Japan, the Mikado, who remembered my former visit, graciously invited me to lunch, and entertained me with the royal sport of catching ducks in a hand-net. The ducks are preserved in the royal gardens, which are charmingly diversified with lawns and running water, and flowering shrubs. As you enter, the ducks rise suddenly, and the sport was to net them as they rose.

As we remained no longer than a week in Tokio, my recollections are few. I was tattooed by the native artificers, to the astonishment of the Japanese officials and nobles; for in Japan none save the common people is tattooed. The Japanese artist designs in white upon dark, working upon the skin round the chief ornament in his scheme; whereas the English tattooer designs dark upon white, using the natural skin as a background. Both methods are beautifully illustrated upon my person.

I witnessed the decapitation of six criminals. The victims stand in a row, their hands bound behind them: each in turn is tapped on the shoulder, when he kneels down, and bows his head. With a single half-arm stroke, the executioner slices through the neck. I also saw a crucifixion. The man's hands and feet are extended and tied to cross-bars, so that he makes a figure like an hour-glass. Then he is transfixed with a spear.

On the 8th September, the Duke returned to Yokohama by sea, taking with him as his guest in the Galatea, Hiobukio-no-Miya, Prince of the Blood, Minister of War, and other high dignitaries, who attended a ball given at the British Legation. On the 16th, the Galatea sailed for China.

CHAPTER XII

THE CRUISE OF H.M.S. GALATEA (Continued)

VI. THE HOMEWARD VOYAGE

From Japan we proceeded to China, touching at Chefoo, Shanghai and Hongkong. Nothing could exceed the princely hospitality of the great British mercantile firms in China. It was then that I learned, what subsequent experience confirmed, the remarkable integrity of the business dealings of the Chinese. The head of the Chinese Bank told me that he never had a bad account with a Chinaman. The Chinese keeps agreements to the letter, quite irrespective of documentary contracts.

From China we proceeded to Manila, then a Spanish possession. My principal recollection of Manila is the extraordinary prevalence of cock-fighting. There was a cockpit in every street; and the sole occupation of the inhabitants appeared to consist of betting upon their birds. One used constantly to meet men walking in the street with their birds under their arms. The cocks were armed with steel spurs shaped like a scythe, and sharpened to a razor edge. I have seen a bird spring up and slice the head of its adversary clean off, and I have seen the chest of a bird slashed open, almost cutting its body in two. The use of the artificial spurs affected the betting, making the fight very much more uncertain and therefore more exciting. For, whereas if a cock uses its natural spurs, the best bird probably wins, an inferior bird armed artificially might gain the victory.

From Manila we proceeded to Calcutta. Upon landing, I met my brother, Lord Marcus, and with him I rode up, together with the staff, to Government House. It is a singular coincidence that when I landed at Calcutta, six years afterwards, on the corresponding date, when I was a member of the staff of the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII), I met my other brother, Lord William, and rode up with him to Government House.

The Galatea lay alongside the wharf. It was necessary to take the most stringent precautions against cholera. Only one boy in the ship's company was taken ill during our stay. He died inside an hour. But in the merchant ships lying in the port there were many deaths. Men were employed in working parties to push off with long bamboos the corpses that were continually floating down from the Hooghli, lest they should foul the moorings. The bodies used to come floating down with the birds perching and feeding upon them.

We went up country, and enjoyed a great deal of excellent sport. We went out pig-sticking, which is the finest sport in the world; we went out tiger-shooting upon elephants; and riding upon elephants, we shot partridges – a form of sport by no means easy. I remember an irascible old colonel of artillery, who became very hot, and who missed a good many partridges, saying indignantly to the Duke:

"This is all d – d rot. I could shoot more partridges on Woolwich Common."

It was the same peppery soldier who, when one of the members of the staff had fallen ill, went with me upon a visitation to the sick. We found the invalid in a state of extreme agitation, and surrounded with books of a religious nature.

"I think – I hope – " he kept saying, "that I shall be forgiven. I think I shall – I hope so."

"What's he saying? What's he saying?" cried the colonel, who, as often happens to people in hot weather, had become rather deaf.

"He thinks he's dying," I shouted.

Whereupon the colonel, turning angrily to the invalid, shouted,

"You d – d fool, you have only over-eaten yourself!"

The sick man was so infuriated that he hurled his books of religion at the colonel, and sprang out of bed. Next day he was quite well.

Another member of the staff was mounted one day upon a red horse (they paint their horses in India), a wild, half-broken Arab steed, which was giving its rider a deal of trouble. I advised my friend to dismount, and left him. Presently I rode back to find him on foot and alone. I asked him, where was his horse?

"Gone," said he. "Whenever that d – d horse saw a mosquito, it sat down and cried like a child. So I kicked it in the belly and it ran away into the jungle."

We visited Trincomalee, where the elephants built the dockyard. They carried the timber and they carried the stones, and they lifted the stones into position and adjusted them with their feet. The remarkable thing about the climate of Ceylon is its intermittent showers of tropical violence, followed by bursts of sunshine. In the result, you actually see the foliage growing. I remember the extraordinary beauty of the native decorations, which are fabricated of palms and leaves and flowers.

From Colombo we went to Mauritius, arriving there in May, 1870. Here I climbed the famous mountain called Pieter Botte, or, more correctly, Pieter Both.

The mountain is so named after Pieter Both, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies in the early part of the seventeenth century, and the founder of Dutch power in that region. On his homeward voyage he was wrecked in the bay overlooked by the mountain, which thereafter bore his name. Previous ascents are recorded in the archives at Mauritius, from which it appears that mine was the fourteenth. Admiral Sir William Kennedy ascended Pieter Botte in 1861; he gives an account of his climb in his interesting book, Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor (London, Nash). Kennedy started with a party of fourteen persons, of whom five reached the summit.

At nine o'clock in the morning I started, together with the captain of the maintop, Edward Hele. We took with us ropes, a rope ladder, cod-line, and a small lead. These were all our appliances. We drove to the foot of the mountain and began the ascent at 11.5 a.m. Now the mountain of Pieter Botte is shaped like a church with a steep roof, from one end of which rises a spire. This pinnacle of rock is crowned with a huge, rounded, overhanging boulder.

Part of the ridge was so sharp that we were forced to sit on it and to proceed astride. Then we came to the pinnacle. The ascent was so sharp and difficult that we were obliged to take off both shoes and socks. At one point, I lost my balance, and was only saved from falling backwards by Hele's ready hand. Climbing the pinnacle was far more difficult than scaling the overhanging boulder at the top. At the top of the pinnacle there was just room to stand beneath the overhanging boulder. The only possible method of climbing the boulder was to get the rope ladder over the top of it. Accordingly, one end of the rope ladder was attached to the lead-line. In order to swing the lead, one of us was roped with a round turn round his body, while the other, lying on his back, held the rope while the leadsman, leaning right backwards and outwards over the sheer precipice of some 3000 feet fall, swung the lead. We took it in turns to swing the lead; as we leaned outwards, the rock spread over our heads like an umbrella; and it was an hour and a half before we succeeded in casting it over the boulder. Then we hauled the rope ladder over and made all fast. It was too short, and the last few yards we hauled ourselves up hand over hand. So we climbed to the top, which is a platform of about 20 feet square. It was then 1.59 p.m. We took off our shirts, and waved them to the warships lying far below in the bay, from which we were plainly to be distinguished with the aid of a telescope. The ships each saluted us with one gun. We planted on the summit a flag upon whose staff were carved our names and the names of our ships. When we returned, my brother officers gave us a dinner to celebrate the event.

Hele was eventually promoted to warrant officer. When Hele died, I was able to help his son to gain his education, and he did very well. It was in Mauritius that we went out shooting with the native population; one of the most dangerous amusements in which I have ever taken part, for the bullets used to whistle in the air all round us.

From Mauritius we proceeded to Cape Town. Here, on the 12th July, 1870, the Duke inaugurated the new harbour, breakwater and docks. I kept a team on shore, and used to drive up from Simon's Bay to Cape Town. Every now and then we stuck in a quicksand. On one such occasion I had a brother officer with me; and as he was afflicted with a cold, I took him on my back to save him from wet feet. But I fell with him, and we were both soaked to the skin. Upon another day, when we stuck, I put two of my messmates on the leaders, and they pulled the coach right through. If you want horses to pull a weight out of a tight place, put weight on their backs.

The Colonial Secretary at Cape Town was Mr. Southey. He was a most delightful and sagacious person, and became a great friend of mine. He prophesied in a most wonderful way what would be the future of South Africa.

"If," said he, "we could only get a big man, a master-mind, to come out here, all that I foresee would come true."

The right man presently arrived in the person of the late Cecil John Rhodes, and my friend's prophecies have been most singularly fulfilled.

While at the Cape, we went up country, shooting. Both Dutch and English families were most kind and hospitable to us. Upon one of these expeditions, a member of the staff went out by himself very early in the morning to shoot. Observing some ostriches in the distance, he stalked them with immense labour and patience, and presently succeeded in shooting a couple of birds. When he returned, he complained that it had been very difficult to get his sights on, owing to some high rails which were between himself and the birds. It had not occurred to him that he had been stalking tame ostriches on a farm.