Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:29:14.142Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The British Role in the Meiji Restoration: A Re-interpretive Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Gordon Daniels
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is an historical commonplace that the renewal of Western diplomatic contact with Japan, after the Tokugawa seclusion, seriously disturbed the Japanese political system, and contributed to the Meiji Restoration. Undoubtedly foreign demands for commercial and diplomatic privileges, combined with the presence of warships and military garrisons, cut sharply into the minds of all politically conscious Japanese, and added to the bitterness of internal conflict. But in the past numerous historians have gone much further than these general statements, and drawn far more specific conclusions about the policies and impact of Britain in these crucial years.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , July 1968 , pp. 291 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See e.g., (a) Fairbank, J. K., Reischauer, E. O., Craig, A., East Asia: The Modern Transformation, Boston, Mass., 1965, pp. 222–23Google Scholar, ‘… the French Minister, Léon Roches,… worked energetically for a restoration of shogunal power under French influence. As a result of his efforts, a French school was opened at Yokohama, a naval dockyard built at Yokosuica nearby, and large quantities of weapons were imported. Not to be outdone, the British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, who had played a large role in the opening of China, supported Satsuma with information and arms’. (b) Comité Japonais des Sciences Historiques, Le Japon au XIe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques à Stockholm, Tokyo, 1960, pp. 160–61Google Scholar, ‘It has long been recognized that the Meiji Restoration was influenced and motivated by foreign relations beginning with the Opening of Japan. Most scholars, however, insisted that it was left to Japan to decide at the time of the Restoration whether she should have the Emperor or the Shogun as her sovereign. Takashi Ishii has refuted this theory arguing that the Imperial Rule was established under the strong influence of British policy toward Japan’. (c) Satow, E. M., A Diplomat in Japan, London, 1921, pp. 299–300Google Scholar, ‘On the way we met the chief, who had come out to have a look at the Tycoon, to whose downfall he had contributed as far as lay in his power’.

2 See Satow, E. M., A Diplomat in Japan, London, 1921;Google Scholar and Redesdale, Lord (Mitford, A. B.), Memories, 2 vols., London, 1915.Google Scholar

3 As an example of the suspicions of France and Russia see FO Japan 55, enclosure in no. 108, Winchester to Russell, 23 June 1865.Google Scholar

4 FO Japan 52, no. 10, Russell to Parkes, 23 August 1865.Google Scholar

5 FO Japan 52, no. 5, Russell to Parkes, 8 April 1865.Google Scholar

6 FO Japan 52, no. 10, Russell to Parkes, 23 August 1865.Google Scholar

7 FO Japan 63, no. 30, Clarendon to Parkes, 28 February 1866.Google Scholar

8 FO Japan 63, no. 66, Clarendon to Parkes, 9 April 1866.Google Scholar

9 FO Japan 63 Confidential Hammond to Parkes, 26 April 1866.Google Scholar

10 In 1865 normal despatches took two months to travel from Edo to London and the nearest telegraph was at Galle in Ceylon.Google Scholar

11 For Parkes's earlier career see Lane-Poole, S., The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, London, 1894Google Scholar, for his reaction to the Taiping Rebellion see Ibid., p. 426.

12 FO Japan 55, no. 7, Parkes to Russell, 30 June 1865.Google Scholar

13 FO Japan 56, no. 24, Parkes to Russell, 11 August 1865.Google Scholar

14 FO Japan 57, no. 51, Confidential Parkes to Russell, 30 September 1865.Google Scholar

15 FO Japan 57, no. 59, Parkes to Russell, 30 October 1865.Google Scholar

16 Beasley, W. G., Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Polity, 1853–68, London, 1955, p. 80.Google Scholar

17 The author is extremely grateful to Professor W. G. Beasley and Mr R. L. Sims of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for their valuable help in clarifying the course of the Osaka negotiations. Japanese and English versions of the talks differ drastically. For sources which cite a direct threat see Nihon Gaikö Nenpyō Nerabini Shuyö Bunsho, Vol. I, Tokyo, 1955, p. 44;Google ScholarIsshinshi, 6 Vols., Tokyo, 1939–1941, Vol. 4, p. 275;Google ScholarOgasawara Iki no Kami Nagamichi, Tokyo, 1943, pp. 344–54.Google ScholarFor the contrary view see Satow, E. M., A Diplomat in Japan, p. 151 FO Japan 57, enclosure 2 in no. 66, Parkes to Russell, 27 November 1865.Google Scholar

18 FO Japan 58, Private Parkes to Russell, 18 November 1865.Google Scholar

19 Ibid.

20 FO Japan 58, enclosure I in no. 68, Parkes to Clarendon, 28 November 1865.Google Scholar

21 FO Japan 58, no. 70, Parkes to Clarendon, 8 December 1865.Google Scholar

22 FO Japan 58, no. 70, Parkes to Clarendon, 8 December 1865; and no. 72, Parkes to Clarendon, 15 December 1865.Google Scholar

23 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, June 1866.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 FO Japan 68, Private Parkes to Hammond, 29 May 1866.Google Scholar

27 FO Japan 69, no. 123, Parkes to Stanley, 24 July 1866.Google Scholar

28 FO Japan 67, Confidential Parkes to Clarendon, 28 February 1866; and FO Japan 68, Private Parkes Memorandum on Satsuma-Oliphant Meeting, 29 May 1866.Google Scholar

29 e.g. FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 31 October 1866.Google Scholar

30 FO Japan 69, no. 110. 129, Parkes to Stanley, 2 August 1866.Google Scholar

31 FO Japan 70, no. 135, Parkes to Stanley, 1 September 1866; and FO Japan no. 147, Parkes to Stanley, 10 September 1866.Google Scholar

32 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 12 September 1866.Google Scholar

33 e.g. see Beasley, W. G., op. cit., note 2, p. 84. See also supra, p. 299.Google Scholar

34 e.g. FO Japan, 69, Parkes to Hammond, 2 August 1866.Google Scholar

35 FO Japan 72, no. 199, Parkes to Stanley, 1 December 1866.Google Scholar

36 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 12 September 1866.Google Scholar

37 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 29 September 1866; FO Japan 71, no. 180, Parkes to Stanley, 31 October 1866.Google Scholar

38 E. M. Satow, Cf., op. cit., p. 185 and FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 16 January 1867, and FO Japan 78, no. 1, Parkes to Stanley, 16 January 1867.Google Scholar

39 FO Japan 78, no. 1, Parkes to Stanley, 16 January 1867.Google Scholar

40 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 16 January 1867.Google Scholar

41 Satow, E. M., op. cit., p. 187.Google Scholar

42 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 14 February 1867.Google Scholar

43 Satow, E. M., op. cit., p. 198; FO Japan 80, no. 74, Parkes to Stanley, 26 April 1867.Google Scholar

44 FO Japan 80, Parkes to Stanley, 4 May 1867.Google Scholar

45 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 6 May 1867.Google Scholar

46 FO Japan 80, no. 92, Parkes to Stanley, 12 June 1867.Google Scholar

47 Satow, E. M., op. cit., p. 200.Google Scholar

48 FO Japan 81, no. 141, Parkes to Stanley, 18 August 1867; and FO Japan 81, no. 156, Parkes to Stanley, II September 1867.Google Scholar

49 Satow, E. M., A Diplomat in Japan, p. 252.Google Scholar

50 Ibid., pp. 265–67.

51 Medzini, M., Léon Roches in Japan in Papers on Japan Vol. 2 (Harvard East Asian Research Centre), CambridgeMass. 1963, p. 218.Google Scholar

52 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 27 July 1867.Google Scholar

53 FO Japan 82, Private Parkes to Stanley, 15 October 1867.Google Scholar

54 FO Japan 82, Confidential Parkes to Stanley, 24 November 1867; and FO Japan 82, no. 194, Parkes to Stanley, 27 November 1867.Google Scholar

55 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 16 December 1867.Google Scholar

56 e.g. PRO 33/15/2 Satow Papers. Diary. 1 January 1868.Google Scholar

57 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 5 January 1868.Google Scholar

58 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 10 January 1868.Google Scholar

59 FO Japan 91, no. 9, Parkes to Stanley, 10 January 1868.Google Scholar

60 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 30 January 1868.Google Scholar

61 FO Japan 92, nos. and 23, Parkes to Stanley, 13 February 1868.Google Scholar

62 FO Japan 92, no. 26, Parkes to Stanley, 13 February 1868.Google Scholar

63 FO Japan 92, no. 28, Parkes to Stanley, 15 February 1868.Google Scholar

64 FO Japan 92, no. 49, Parkes to Stanley, 11 March 1868.Google Scholar

65 FO Japan 92 Confidential no. 55, Parkes to Stanley, 11 March 1868.Google Scholar

66 FO Japan 92, no. 66, Parkes to Stanley, 26 March 1868.Google Scholar

67 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 14 April 1868; and FO Japan 92, no. 72, Parkes to Stanley, 9 April 1868.Google Scholar

68 FO Japan 93, no. 84, Parkes to Stanley, 18 April 1868.Google Scholar

69 FO 391/14 Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 13 May 1868.Google Scholar

70 See Daniels, G., ‘The Japanese Civil War (1868)—A British View’ in Modern Asian Studies, I, pp. 241–263.Google Scholar

71 FO 391/14, Hammond Papers, Parkes to Hammond, 10 February 1869.Google Scholar

72 FO Japan 109, no. 110, Parkes to Clarendon, 14 May 1869.Google Scholar