Into that rare atmosphere, surcharged with perilous elements, sailed Commodore Perry of the United States Navy in the year 1853. Some fifty years later, Pierre Loti entered Japanese waters in a French warship. "Et nous entrions maintenant dans une espèce de couloir ombreux, entre deux rangées de très hautes montagnes, qui se succédaient avec une bizarrerie symétrique – comme les 'portants' d'un décor tout en profondeur, extrêmement beau, mais pas assez naturel – on eut dit que ce Japon s'ouvrait devant nous, en une déchirure enchantée, pour nous laisser pénétrer dans son cceur même" (Madame Chrysanthème).
It was Commodore Perry who rent open the heart of Old Japan, and her blood flowed. The gallant commodore, anchoring off Cape Idzu on 8th July, 1853, with two steam frigates and two sloops of war, demanded no more than a treaty securing help and proper treatment to sailors shipwrecked on the coasts of Japan. The Japanese Government said neither yes nor no; whereupon Perry gave them a year to consider the matter, promising to return at the end of it with a "larger fleet." And on 12th February, 1854, there was Commodore Perry in the Bay of Yedo with three steam frigates and four sloops of war. After long negotiations, a treaty of amity was signed, including a promise to succour ships in distress, and (above all) opening two new ports. From that moment the isolation of Japan was ended. The door opened but a crack; but into that crack the wedge of commerce, driven by the lust of gain, was thrust by America (1854), Russia (1857), England and France (1858).
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