relations, to whom I had shown it, suggested that it ought to be completed. This second portion is largely a transcript of my journals, supplemented from papers drawn up by me which were included in the Confidential Print of the time and by letters to my chief Sir Harry Parkes which have been published elsewhere. Letters to my mother have furnished some particulars that were omitted from the diaries.
Part of the volume may read like a repetition of a few pages from my friend the late Lord Redesdale's "Memories," for when he was engaged on that work he borrowed some of my journals of the time we had spent together in Japan. But I have not referred to his volumes while writing my own.
ERNEST SATOW.
Ottery St. Mary,
January 1921.
Note.—In pronouncing Japanese words the consonants are to be taken as in English, the vowels more or less as in Italian. G, except at the beginning of a word, when it is hard, represents ng.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The Last of the Shoguns Frontispiece
Sir Ernest Satow—1869 56
Sir Ernest Satow—1903 56
Payment of the Indemnity for the Murder of Richardson 80
Kagoshima Harbour: Bombardment 90–91
The Straits of Shimonoseki 106–107
Interior of a Japanese Battery after the Landing of the Allied Naval Forces 112
Daimio of Cho-shiu and His Heir 184
Cho-shiu Councillors 184
Group Photographed during a Visit to Ozaka 192
Niiro Giobu, a Satsuma Councillor 272
Katsu Awa no Kami 272
The Design on the Cover of this Book is the Family Crest of
the Tokugawa Shôguns.
A DIPLOMAT IN JAPAN
A DIPLOMAT IN JAPAN
CHAPTER I
APPOINTMENT AS STUDENT INTERPRETER AT YEDO (1861)
My thoughts were first drawn to Japan by a mere accident. In my eighteenth year an elder brother brought home from Mudie's Library the interesting account of Lord Elgin's Mission to China and Japan by Lawrence Oliphant, and the book having fallen to me in turn, inflamed my imagination with pictures verbal and coloured of a country where the sky was always blue, where the sun shone perpetually, and where the whole duty of man seemed to consist in lying on a matted floor with the windows open to the ground towards a miniature rockwork garden, in the company of rosy-lipped black-eyed and attentive damsels—in short, a realised fairyland. But that I should ever have a chance of seeing these Isles of the Blest was beyond my wildest dreams. An account of Commodore Perry's expedition, which had preceded Lord Elgin's Mission, came in my way shortly afterwards, and though much more sober in its outward appearance and literary style, only served to confirm the previous impression. I thought of nothing else from that time onwards. One day, on entering the library of University College, London, where I was then studying, I found lying on the table a notice that three nominations to student-interpreterships in China and Japan had been placed at the disposition of the Dean. Here was the chance for which I had been longing. Permission to enter myself for the competition was obtained, not without difficulty, from my parents, and having gained the first place in the public examination, I chose Japan. To China I never wished or intended to go. My age was sufficient by a few hours to enable me to compete. I was formally appointed in August 1861, and quitted England full of joyful anticipation in November of that year.
Owing to the prevalence of a belief among those who then had the direction of our affairs in Japan that a knowledge of Chinese was a necessary preliminary to the study of Japanese, my fellow-student, R. A. Jamieson, and myself were at first stationed for a few months at Peking, where we were joined early in 1862 by Russell Robertson, who also belonged to the Japan establishment. I pass over our sojourn there, which, though not without its own interest, was not long enough for me to gain any useful knowledge of China. But I learnt a few hundred Chinese characters which were of great help to me afterwards, and I even began the study of Manchu.
Our stay at the Chinese capital was suddenly cut short by the arrival of a despatch from Yedo, containing the original text of a Note from the Japanese Ministers, which it was found no Chinaman could decipher, much less understand. This was decisive of the question whether the short cut to Japanese lay through the Chinese language. I thought then, and still think, that though an acquaintance with Chinese characters may be found useful by the student of Japanese, it is no more indispensable than that of Latin is to a person who wishes to acquire Italian or Spanish. We were consequently bundled off to Japan with the least possible delay.
Of the eight students belonging to the China establishment then at Peking, three only are still (1885) in the service—H. J. Allen, C. T. Gardner, and W. G. Stronach, each of whom attained the rank of consul in 1877. They had all passed the examination at the same time as myself. The man who came out second was "allowed to resign" in 1867, three are dead, and one, the best man of the whole set, and who oddly enough was last or last but one in the examination list, passed in 1872 into the Chinese Customs Service, in which he now holds one of the highest appointments. So unequal are the results obtained by even limited competitive examination. When the competition was afterwards thrown open to the public, the results became even more uncertain, as later experience has shown, at least in Japan, and perhaps elsewhere.
The great fault of the system is that it takes no account of moral qualities. Whether a candidate has the manners or feelings of a gentleman cannot be ascertained from the way in which he will reproduce a proposition of Euclid or translate a passage from a Greek author. It does not test the intellectual powers, for a stupid young man who has been properly coached will almost always beat the real student who has not got the right "tips." Nowadays, every candidate for a public examination goes to a crammer, who trains him in a few months for the contest, and enables him to bring forth forced fruit for a moment. Show me a successful examinee, and I will show you a well-coached candidate. In the majority of cases the process disgusts the man who has undergone it, and takes away any inclination he may previously have had for study. And without serious study it is not possible to acquire such languages as Chinese, Siamese or Japanese. The scheme of examination is no test of the linguistic capabilities of the men, and sometimes sends into the service those who can no more learn to speak a foreign language than they can fly. My own success in the examination was due
