The was an incident involving the murder of two

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

sailors in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, in 1867, leading to increased diplomatic tensions between the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and the

Bakumatsu period was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji govern ...

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

. On 5 August Robert Ford and John Hutchings, from the British

screw sloop A screw sloop is a propeller-driven sloop-of-war. In the 19th century, during the introduction of the steam engine, ships driven by propellers were differentiated from those driven by paddle-wheels by referring to the ship's ''screws'' (propelle ...

HMS ''Icarus'', were killed by an unknown swordsman in the Marayuma entertainment precinct of Nagasaki, which had been opened to trade and port calls by British ships since the

Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce The was signed on 26 August 1858 by Lord Elgin and the then representatives of the Japanese government (the Tokugawa shogunate), and was ratified between Queen Victoria and the Tycoon of Japan at Yedo on 11 July 1859. The concessions which Jap ...

of 1858. The men, both aged 23, had been drinking, and were sleeping near the entrance to a "

tea house A teahouse (mainly Asia) or tearoom (also tea room) is an establishment which primarily serves tea and other light refreshments. A tea room may be a room set aside in a hotel especially for serving afternoon tea, or may be an establishment whic ...

". The British Consul in Nagasaki, Marcus Flowers, blamed the Tokugawa shogunate for failing to protect the men and believed that the ''

Kaientai The was a trading and shipping company and private navy, considered to be the first corporation in modern Japan. Kaientai, originally named Kameyama Shachū (亀山社中, "Kameyama Troupe"), was founded by Sakamoto Ryōma in Nagasaki in 186 ...

'' led by

Sakamoto Ryōma was a Japanese ''samurai'', a '' shishi'' and influential figure of the ''Bakumatsu'' and establishment of the Empire of Japan in the late Edo period. He was a low-ranking ''samurai'' from the Tosa Domain on Shikoku and became an active oppon ...

was behind the killings. This belief was based on rumours that the men had been seen in the area, combined with the departure of Tosa steamers ''Yokobue'' and ''Wakamurasaki'' from Nagasaki soon after the incident. ''

Shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

Tokugawa Yoshinobu Prince was the 15th and last ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He was part of a movement which aimed to reform the aging shogunate, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He resigned of his position as shogun in late 1867, while aiming ...

was pressured by

Sir Harry Parkes Sir Harry Smith Parkes (24 February 1828 – 22 March 1885) was a British diplomat who served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and Consul General of the United Kingdom to the Empire of Japan from 1865 to 1883 and the Chinese ...

, head of the British Legation in

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

, to find the culprit. The shogunate was not disposed to dispute the evidence, since it conveniently weakened a

feudal domain A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. The concept or ...

whose loyalty was increasingly uncertain.Jansen. ''Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration'' (1961) page 305 An agreement was reached that the governor of Nagasaki would be dismissed and 500 men would be sent to police the foreign quarter. Subsequently, Parkes sailed to Tosa aboard , arriving in

Kōchi Kochi is a city in Kerala, India. Kochi or Kōchi may also refer to: People * Kochi people, a predominantly Pashtun nomadic people of Afghanistan * , a Japanese surname: ** Arata Kochi (born 1948 or 1949), Japanese physician and World Health Org ...

on 3 September 1867. There he was met by shogunate commissioners who had arrived earlier, to demand reparations from Tosa ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'',

Yamauchi Yōdō Yamauchi Toyoshige , also known as , was a Japanese ''daimyō'' in the Shikoku region in the late Edo period. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Yamauchi Toyoshige"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 1045. He was usually referred to as “Lord Yōdō” ...

. Tosa official

Gotō Shōjirō Count was a Japanese samurai and politician during the Bakumatsu and early Meiji period of Japanese history.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Gotō Shōjirō" in He was a leader of which would evolve into a political party. Early life ...

led negotiations on the Japanese side, and after several days it was evident that the British lacked sufficient evidence to convict the ''Kaientai''. It was decided to reconvene the investigations in Nagasaki, where more evidence was presumably available, and Parkes's assistant

Ernest Satow Sir Ernest Mason Satow, (30 June 1843 – 26 August 1929), was a British scholar, diplomat and Japanologist. Satow is better known in Japan than in Britain or the other countries in which he served, where he was known as . He was a key fig ...

was delegated to accompany the Tosa delegation (which included

) back to Nagasaki on 9 September. Once back at Nagasaki, the charges against the ''Kaientai'' were dropped on 4 October. It was revealed one year later that a

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

of the

Fukuoka Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Chikuzen Province in modern-day Fukuoka Prefecture on the island of Kyushu. The domain was also sometimes referred to as Chikuzen Domain, or as Kuroda Domain, after the ruling Kuroda ...

had murdered the men, and shortly after committed

ritual suicide A suicide method is any means by which a person chooses to end their life. Suicide attempts do not always result in death, and a nonfatal suicide attempt can leave the person with serious physical injuries, long-term health problems, and brai ...

. The Fukuoka clan subsequently paid compensation to the sailors' families in England. The affair diminished British trust and confidence in the shogunate and their control over

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...

, one of many factors leading to British support of the

Satchō Alliance The , or was a powerful military alliance between the feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū formed in 1866 to combine their efforts to restore Imperial rule and overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. History The name ''Satchō'' () is an ...

during the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

of the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

the following year.

References

{{reflist 1867 in Japan Diplomatic incidents History of the foreign relations of Japan Foreign relations of the Tokugawa shogunate Japan–United Kingdom relations 1867 in the United Kingdom

See also

References