sion, for nothing would be more dangerous at this time than for the foreigners to supply munitions and armaments directly to Choshiu and other western daimyos.
On the 14th a second interview took place, in which two lesser officials announced that the Tycoon agreed to the justice of the representatives' demands, especially as to the ratification of the treaties, but that it would take time to convince the Mikado, and that a delay of fifteen days should be granted. In reply the representatives said that at most they would wait for eight or ten days, and in order to hasten the decision of the Shogun they added that in the interval they might visit Shimonoseki or other places in the Inland Sea, which they knew the Shogun would be most anxious to prevent.[1]
In Kyoto there was great excitement. The leading Shogunate officials urged the court to ratify the treaties, lest war between Japan and the allied powers ensue.[2] But the conservatives were not easily convinced. This proceeding would rob them of their mightiest weapon against the Shogunate. On the 19th Lord Abe and Lord Matsumai were dismissed from the roju on orders from the Mikado. This news reached the representatives, and they were convinced that a conservative reaction had set in at Kyoto. So they sent identic notes to the Tycoon, which were delivered in Kyoto on the 23d, to the effect that if a categorical reply to the proposals were not made in writing within the allotted ten days, which would expire on the 24th, they would consider "that its absence denotes a formal refusal of our conditions on your Majesty's part, and we shall, in that case, be free to act as we may judge convenient".[3]
This scarcely veiled threat produced an immediate effect. On the afternoon of the 24th a member of the roju, and other Japanese officials, came aboard the flag-ship to announce that the Mikado had ratified the treaties, that the Tycoon had agreed to the downward revision of the tariff, but that instead of opening Hiogo and Osaka, the Tycoon would pay the full amount of the Shimonoseki indemnity.[4]
- ↑ U. S. For. Rel., 1865, III. 272–274, serial 1246.
- ↑ Note the Shogun's memorial to the Mikado, in Adams, History of Japan, II. 24–27.
- ↑ Parl. Papers, 1866, LXXVI. [3615], pp. 82–85.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 86.
The above survey of the effort to secure the Mikado's ratification of the treaties indicates how carelessly Captain Brinkley has treated this question in his excellent History of the Japanese People, p. 675. "While things were at this stage, Sir Harry Parkes, representative of Great Britain, arrived upon the scene in the Far East. A man of remarkably luminous judgment and military methods,
