opposition to the foreigners, and the Shogunate seemed powerless to repress them.
During this year occurred one of the most celebrated cases of assaults upon foreigners. A Mr. Richardson, an Englishman, with a few friends, while riding on the Japanese highway near Yokohama, was attacked and killed by some of the followers of the prince of Satsuma, one of the most powerful daimios of the empire and a bitter opponent of the foreigners. The conduct of the Englishman which caused the assault seems to have been very foolhardy, but the British minister made a demand upon the Shogunate for $500,000 and upon the daimio of Satsuma for $125,000 as an indemnity. The Shogunate after some delay agreed to the payment of the first sum, but the prince of Satsuma refused. A British squadron was dispatched to Kagoshima, the daimio's capital, which was bombarded and burnt, after which the indemnity was paid.[1]
This lesson, however, was not sufficient to teach the anti-foreign element the futility of attempting to rid their country of the intruders. Numerous acts of violence occurred in 1863, among which was the burning of the American legation in Yedo. Hon. R. H. Pruyn, of New York, had succeeded Mr. Harris in 1862,
- ↑ A Japanese statesman, writing sixteen years after this event, says: "There were many cases where fatal collisions were purposely provoked by foreigners, the results of which were no more a matter of satisfaction to us than of regret. Such was the case of Richardson, the Englishman, who willfully tried to ride through the train of the state procession of the prince of Satsuma, and was killed by a retainer of the prince, an act which, at that time of feudalism, was entirely justifiable, because such discourtesy to a princely retinue was deemed an unpardonable outrage." Matsuyama Makoto, N, A. Rev. Nov. 1878, p. 412.
