The assassins were eighteen ronins of the province of Mito, who wished to avenge the imprisonment of their prince. They carried the head of the murdered regent to the Mito castle, and after exhibiting it to the gloating eyes of the prince, exposed it upon a pike at the principal gate.
The death of the regent was an irreparable blow to the government. There was no one who could take his place and assume his rôle. His loss must be reckoned as one of the principal events which marked the decadence of the shōgun's power.
Chapter XIV. Revolutionary Preludes.
The outrages which now succeeded each other with terrible frequency were not confined to the native members of the opposing parties. Foreigners, who were so essentially the cause of the political disturbances in Japan, were particularly exposed to attacks. On the 14th of January, 1861, Mr. Heusken, the secretary and interpreter of the American legation, when riding home at night from the Prussian legation in Yedo, was attacked by armed assassins and mortally wounded. The object of this murder is supposed to have been the desire of one of the ministers of foreign affairs to take revenge on Mr. Heusken,[281] for his activity in promoting foreign intercourse.
The weakness and the fears of the government [pg 336] were shown by the warning, which they sent to the foreign ministers to avoid attending the funeral of Mr. Heusken, lest further outrages might be committed. They did attend, however, and no disturbances occurred. It only remains to mention that Mr. Harris subsequently made an arrangement with the government for the payment of an indemnity[282] of $10,000 to the mother of Mr. Heusken, who was then living at Amsterdam in Holland.
The next circumstance which awakened universal attention was an attack made on the British legation, on the night of the 5th of July, 1861. At this time the British minister occupied as a legation the buildings of the temple Tozenji, situated at Takanawa in the city of Yedo. It was guarded by a company of Japanese troops, to whom the government had entrusted its protection. Mr. Alcock had just returned by an overland journey from Nagasaki, and with a number of other Englishmen was domiciled in the legation. The attacking party consisted of fourteen ronins belonging to the Mito clan, who had banded themselves together to take vengeance on the “accursed foreigners.” Several of the guards were killed, and Mr. Oliphant,[283] the secretary of legation, and Mr. Morrison, H. B. M's consul at Nagasaki, were severely wounded. On one of the party who was captured was found a paper,[284] which set forth [pg 337] the object of the attack and the names of the fourteen ronins who had conspired for its accomplishment.
That the government regarded such outrages with alarm is certain. They took the earliest opportunity to express their distress that the legation under their protection had thus been invaded. They assured Mr. Alcock with the most pitiable sincerity that “they had no power of preventing such attacks upon the legation, nor of providing against a renewal of the same with a greater certainty of success.” “They could not,” they said, “guarantee any of the representatives against these attempts at assassination, to which all foreigners in Japan were liable, whether in their houses or in the public thoroughfares.”[285] They pretended to punish, and yet were afraid openly to punish the persons engaged in this attack.[286] They promised to do what they could for the protection of the foreign representatives; but their measures necessarily consisted in making the legations a kind of prison where the occupants were confined and protected.
And yet, with all these assurances of danger, the foreign representatives seem to have been singularly ignorant of the real difficulties with which the government had to deal. This was due, no doubt, to the want of candor on the part of the Japanese officials in not explaining frankly and fully to them the [pg 338] political complications which existed between the governments of Yedo and Kyōto. They represented a widespread discontent to have grown up since the negotiation of the treaties, owing to the increased price of provisions, the derangement of the currency, and the danger of famine. In view of these pressing difficulties they asked for the postponement of the time fixed by the treaties for opening a port on the western coast and Hyōgo on the Inland sea, and for the establishment of definite concessions in the cities of Yedo and Ōsaka. These modifications of the treaties were finally accepted, and it was arranged that the opening of the ports named above should be postponed for a period of five years from the first of January, 1863.