Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/549

Rh terms similar to the London Convention of June 6, 1862. The American consent, although the first to be given in principle, was not formally announced until January 28, 1864.

The foreign representatives were now beginning to realize vaguely that the "ecclesiastical emperor" in Kyoto was a more powerful personality than they had been led to believe. On December 13, 1859, Mr. Harris warned the Shogunate officials that if they failed to observe the treaties and a war ensued, the powers would then negotiate directly with the representatives of the Mikado. But Harris always believed that the Mikado had given his consent to the treaties. Mr. Alcock, the British minister, first realized the flaw in the ratification, in June, 1861, but when he asked the ministers for foreign affairs if the Mikado had sanctioned them he understood them to reply in the affirmative. Yet in March, 1862, he recommended to that "the sanction of treaties" be one of the conditions attached to the postponement of the opening of the ports, but Lord Russell doubtless felt that this question should not be raised. And in June, 1862, although the French minister did not believe that the treaties had been ratified, asserting that the Japanese ministers had admitted as much to Alcock and himself, yet the diplomatic corps agreed "to raise no questions which would imply a doubt as to the validity of the treaties". This became the official attitude of the foreign ministers until, the American minister, in 1863 raised the question anew.

With the successive attacks upon the foreigners, the demands for reparation rapidly increased until they reached a maximum after the Richardson murder. The Russians, the first to lose a national, had asked for no money indemnity. Mr. Harris asked for only $10,000 as a support for Mr. Heusken's widowed mother. For the first attack on the British legation $10,000 was asked for the two wounded men, but for the second attack £10,000 was demanded, and for the murder of Richardson £100,000 was demanded from the Shogun, and £25,000 and the punishment of the murderer, from the daimyo of Satsuma. The size of this demand, the assessment upon Satsuma, a feudal state with whom the British government had no direct rela-