law into his own hands.
Okoobo Bungonokami, Nagasaki’s governor, wrote his letter of complaint to Morrison, the Consul, on 21 February 1863. In it he accuses Glover of ‘having seized a number of coolies’ whom he suspected of stealing silk he was shipping and of binding them with cords ‘besides painting the faces of seven of them with tar’ before handing them over to the Japanese police. The Consul in reply said that it was not Glover but Edward Harrison who had been involved and that he was at present absent from Nagasaki but would be punished on return. The governor would not accept this, insisting that Glover was also involved and that both Britons should be punished for breaking the Treaty rules. He went on to say that the ‘coolies have since been examined’ and that only one had stolen the silk while another had attempted to do so – both of these had been punished according to Japanese law and the remainder set free.
According to the Consular records, Glover and Harrison were ‘severely reprimanded’ by the Consul and Harrison fined ten dollars.
But as the cherry blossom season approached and the cool of Nagasaki’s early spring was replaced with the warmer air of April, much more serious events were occupying the Consul’s mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ESCAPE OF THE ‘CHOSHU FIVE’
The late spring and summer of 1863 in Nagasaki was long and hot. For the British community in particular it was also a very dangerous time and Glover’s letters to Jardine, Matheson during the period chart the drama.
The background was the impending British retaliation against the Satsuma clan for the murder of Charles Richardson the previous September. Early in the year the British had demanded £100,000 from the shogunate in reparation. As well as this the Satsuma clan were ordered by the British to execute the samurai involved and to hand over £25,000 as their own reparation for the crime. Rear-Admiral Kuper of the Royal Navy’s China squadron was standing by with nine ships to discipline the hotheaded Japanese clan if they failed to comply. They were well aware that the shogun could not control the Satsuma clan, particularly in its distant stronghold of Kagoshima.
The anti-foreign faction urged the shogun not to give way to the British. A decree was finally issued by the shogun in Edo. The Japanese language is notoriously imprecise and the decree was read by moderates as a start to new negotiations with the West over the Treaty port arrangements. But to some fanatics in the Choshu clan it was read as approval for attacking and finally ridding Japan of all ‘barbarians’. This they quickly prepared themselves to do.
On 6 April 1863, Edwin St John Neale, the acting British Minister during Alcock’s absence on home leave, presented the shogun with an ultimatum. The Japanese had twenty days to respond to the British demands or face the consequences.
Tension mounted in Nagasaki, much closer to Satsuma country than Edo or Yokohama, where a squadron of the Royal Navy were standing by to protect the British residents there if need be. Morrison’s report from Nagasaki to the British Legation in Edo on 14 April sets the tone. He reported that he had pleaded for calm with the residents, but went on to point out the proximity of Nagasaki to Satsuma should hostilities break out. He continued:
The Prince [of Satsuma] has had agents in this port making earnest enquiry as to the measures which will be anticipated on the part of the British government, and some of his high officers are in constant association with foreigners, especially with Mr Glover of Glover & Co.
This gentleman has informed me that the Commander-in-Chief of Prince Satsuma’s forces has himself been in Nagasaki to gain information; and that another high agent wished him to be the medium of offering any sum of money that might be desired.
When Glover had pressed the Satsuma men regarding punishment for the murderer he was told that it ‘was out of the question’. He was now the only Briton with direct access to the Satsuma.
He kept Jardine, Matheson well informed, writing, for example, on 29 April:
. . . the community has been told to hold themselves in readiness to leave . . . considerable bodies of Japanese troops are . . . moving down into the forts at the entrance to the Bay.
On 6 May:
. . . we hear from native sources that Satzuma is most indignant at the British demands and declines altogether to listen to them. In such case we fear there is no alternative but hostilities.
Jardine, Matheson had replied asking him to ‘use his best endeavours’ for the protection of their property in Nagasaki. Glover wrote again on 16 May:
War now appears inevitable and the communities are leaving the port with their valuables. The Governor states that a distinction will be made between the different nationalities but the Americans, Dutch and other foreigners do not put much faith in this . . . Full particulars are forwarded for publication in the North China Herald & Recorder.
Morrison’s dispatches to Edo were on the same lines as those of Glover to Shanghai and almost certainly he was the Consul’s source of information. He wrote on 10 May:
The train is laid for civil war and the foreign question is the match to light it, and nine days later, By night the settlement forms a tempting bait to the hosts of thieves and bad characters who always abound in periods of trouble.
In the middle of May Glover, at twenty-four the leader of the community, called a meeting of the foreign residents. The British ultimatum had been extended until nearer the end of the month at the request of the shogun and this breathing space was very welcome to those trapped in Nagasaki. They discussed whether or not they should abandon their properties and take refuge on the two warships now in the harbour – at least until the crisis was over. It was finally decided that they stay put. They decided to gather each evening at the home of William Alt, presumably the residence most easy to defend, and to keep an armed watch from there.
These nights at Alt’s house must have been nerve-racking. The guards on duty would have been chosen, probably by some kind of rota system, to watch while the others slept. Peering through the blackness in the stillness and humidity of a summer night, they would have watched for a sudden movement or the glint from a sword or knife which would betray an assassin. They would have listened for the breaking of a twig above the chorus of the cicada. In the morning they returned to their homes and places of business and tried to continue with their lives as normally as they could.
Continuing normally in Glover’s case was writing a letter to Jardine, Matheson on 26 May in which he reported that the traders had been forced into taking their books and papers out to ships lying at anchor in the harbour and from there had attempted to carry on a semblance of trade. He went on:
. . . owing to the political troubles Trade is almost completely stopped . . .
. . . The extra time allowed the Japanese expires tomorrow and we shall probably learn the result on 31st.
. . . All reports agree . . . a civil war was almost inevitable . . . there is every appearance of hostile intentions on the part of the Japanese and large bodies of men are working day and night in constructing sandbags, battery and carrying guns.
. . . We have made an inventory of all our property and duly attested it at the British Consulate.
June came to Nagasaki with the penetrating heat of its bright sun and its intervals of torrential rain and still they waited for news from Edo. Morrison wrote on the first of the month commenting on the weather – ‘the beautiful foliage sparkling in the summer sun’ – producing a false sense of
