THE MURDER OF BIRD AND BALDWIN
IT was about this time that Sir Rutherford Alcock received Lord
Russell's despatches recalling him to England. Ostensibly for the
purpose of consulting with him on the situation of affairs, this summons
to London was accompanied by the expression of an opinion that the
passage of the inland sea was not necessary to foreign commerce, which
amounted to a censure upon his conduct. It is seldom that an agent of
the Foreign Office is told in so many words that he is recalled because
his conduct of affairs has not given satisfaction, but inasmuch as leave
of absence is usually granted upon the application of the ambassador,
envoy, or whatever the title of the head of a mission may be, an
invitation to return home is equivalent to the removal of a diplomatic
officer from his employment. But arriving just at the moment when his
policy had been successful in every direction, and when all the
foreigners in the country were united in a chorus of gratitude to him
for his energetic action, he and all the members of his legation felt
that the displeasure of Lord John Russell was not a matter of much
moment. The crushing defeat of Chôshiû by the foreign squadrons coming
so immediately after the repulse of his troops from the gates of the
palace at Kiôto restored confidence to the Tycoon's government, and
enabled them to declare firmly to the Mikado that the idea of expelling
foreigners from the country and putting an end to trade was utterly and
entirely impracticable, while on the other hand the demonstrated
superiority of European methods of warfare had converted our bitterest
and most determined foes into fast friends. The vindication of his
proceedings was no difficult task, and the despatch in which he
justified the course he had taken was conceived in a style at once calm
and convincing. It is only fair to Lord Russell to say that he lost no
time in acknowledging that his agent had been in the right, and in
conveying to him the Queen's full approbation of his conduct. But this
solatium to his feelings did not reach Yokohama until he was already on
his way to England.
The Shôgun's government voluntarily undertook to be responsible for
whatever sum might be fixed upon as the indemnity to be paid by the
Prince of Chôshiû. On the 22nd October a convention was signed by a
member of the Shôgun's second council and the four foreign
representatives by which three millions of dollars were to be paid in
satisfaction of all claims, or as an alternative the opening of
Shimonoséki or some other port in the inland sea, if the Tycoon
preferred to offer it and the Powers were willing to accept. The
division of this sum of money among the different Powers was reserved
for adjustment between the four governments. Advantage was also taken of
the desire to conciliate foreign Powers now manifested by the Tycoon's
ministers to obtain the promise of various improvements at Yokohama
calculated to add to the comfort and well-being of the foreign
residents, and Sir Rutherford, having thus reaped all the fruits of his
courage and perseverance was preparing to quit Japan in obedience to the
instructions of Lord Russell, when a fresh and totally unforeseen event
occurred which for a time delayed his departure.
After our successes at Shimonoséki, and the frank admission by the
Tycoon's government of the necessity of maintaining the treaties, the
confidence of foreign residents in the safety of the neighbourhood had
so completely revived that they no longer feared to make excursions
within the limits marked out by the treaties. But they received a rude
shock on the night of the 20th November when the governor of Kanagawa
came to Mr. Winchester, the British Consul, and informed him that Major
Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird of the xxth regiment had been barbarously
murdered at Kamakura, a well-known resort some twelve miles from
Yokohama. Baldwin was killed on the spot, but according to the testimony
of the inhabitants, Bird had lived for some hours after he was disabled.
The two officers had visited the famous colossal Buddha, and riding
along the road towards the temple of Hachiman, were just about to turn
the corner into the avenue when a couple of men sprang out upon them
with their keen-edged swords and inflicted such ghastly wounds as
brought them to the ground almost unresistingly. The horror of the
foreign community can be more easily imagined than described, and it was
further deepened when as the result of the inquest it came to be
suspected that the mortal wound to which Bird had succumbed had been
inflicted some hours after the assassins had left the spot. This, in the
opinion of the surgeons, was a wound in the neck completely dividing the
spinal cord between the second and third cervical vertebrae, which
clearly must have been followed by instant death. Now all the evidence
went to show that the younger victim had lived until ten o'clock in the
evening. If so, by whom was this wound given, and with what motive?
Those who implicitly relied upon the report of the regimental surgeons
jumped to the conclusion that it was the act of one of the officials
despatched to the scene of the murder by the governor as soon as the
news was brought to him, which was no doubt some three or four hours
before he himself went to communicate it to Mr. Winchester, and the
motive was suggested to be a desire to prevent the wounded man from
giving such information to his countrymen as might have led to the
identification of the murderers. But I cannot believe that any Japanese,
official or not, could ever have compassed such a treacherous deed. I
believe on the contrary that the surgeons who dissected out the wound,
not using sufficient care, themselves divided the spinal cord with a
probe or some other instrument, and that Bird's death was caused in
reality by the loss of blood from his numerous wounds. And this was the
view taken by Dr Willis of our legation and Dr Jenkins, then established
as a general practitioner in Yokohama, neither of whom was invited to
assist at the _post mortem_.
The two surgeons having made a hurried examination and enunciated
certain views as to the nature of Bird's wounds, without foreseeing the
inferences that might be drawn, would naturally, and probably with
entire good faith, adhere to those views afterwards, especially as it
would not appear to them at all incredible _à priori_ that the
countrymen of the men who had committed such a foul assassination should
be capable of a deed, dastardly enough in itself, but no doubt
justifiable in the opinion of any foreigner-hating Japanese official.
There are many additional considerations suggested by the reports
contained in the Parliamentary papers which would corroborate the view
here put forth, if I had space to discuss them. But as this book is
intended to be a record of my own experiences and memories, and not a
compilation from published materials, it is not the place to go into all
these particulars at length.
The Tycoon's government made all the exertions in their power to trace
the assassins, and before a month was over they had arrested one of the
guilty persons, named Shimidzu Seiji. Already on the 16th two of his
associates named Gamaiké and Inaba, accused of combining with him in a
plot to murder foreigners, and of extorting money from a rich farmer,
had been executed, though they were not actual accomplices in the
Kamakura crime.
I was present at the execution of these two men, which took place in an
enclosure outside the Japanese gaol in the afternoon of the 16th
December 1864. There was a large concourse of spectators, both foreign
and native. A little after three o'clock a whisper ran round that the
condemned were being brought out. A door opened, and a man blindfolded
and bound with cords was led through the crowd. He was made to kneel
down on a rough mat placed in front of a hole dug in the ground to
receive his blood. The attendants drew his clothes downwards so as to
lay the neck bare, and with the hand brushed his hair upwards, so as to
give full play to the sword. The executioner secured a piece of cotton
cloth round the handle of his weapon, and having carefully whetted the
blade, took up a position to the left of his victim, then raising the
sword high above his head with both hands, let it fall with a swoop that
severed the neck completely. The head was held up for the inspection of
the chief officer present, who simply remarked: "I have seen it," and it
was thrown into the hole. The second man being then carried in, the
attendants seemed to have a little trouble in getting him to kneel in
the proper position, but at last the arrangements were completed to
their satisfaction. The neck having been bared as before, a fresh
executioner advanced, took his place at the prisoner's left side, and
raising the sword with a flourish, let it descend with the same skill as
his predecessor. It was a horrible sight to see the attendants holding
the headless corpse down to the hole, and kneading it so as to make the
blood flow more readily into the hole, and I left the spot in all haste,
vowing that mere curiosity should never induce me to witness another
execution.
Capital punishment was much commoner in Japan in those days than it has
been since the promulgation of the present humane penal code, and
included transfixing with spears. Many of the foreign residents must
have been present at such sanguinary spectacles, merely impelled by
curiosity, and without the natural excuse of desiring to see the
sentence of the law fulfilled upon an offender against their own blood.
The night before Sir Rutherford embarked for England news was brought to
him of the arrest of Shimidzu Seiji, one of the actual murderers of
Baldwin and Bird. Owing to the reputed excellence of the native
detective police, which under a despotic government is usually
efficient, it was believed by us that the Japanese Government could
always have procured the arrest of the assailants of foreigners, if they
had been determined to do so. The names, _e.g._, of many of those who
were engaged in the attack on our legation in 1861 were, as I learnt
some years afterwards, matter of common notoriety, but in the difficult
political position that the Tycoon's advisers had created for
themselves, they did not dare to convict the murderer of a foreigner.
This then was the first instance of such a crime being brought home to
its perpetrators. The British minister had good reason to feel gratified
at this proof that his policy had been the right one, and it was a very
natural movement that induced him to take off his watch and chain and
throw them over the neck of the messenger of good tidings.
Shimidzu Seiji was executed on the 28th December at ten o'clock in the
morning, in the presence of a detachment of the English garrison.
Whatever doubts may have existed as to the complicity of Gamaiké and
Inaba in his designs against the lives of the foreign residents, there
is none as to the fact that this man was one of the actual murderers of
Baldwin and Bird. I was instructed to accompany Mr. M. O. Flowers, the
acting consul, to the prison on the preceding day to hear the sentence
pronounced. We waited some hours till he arrived from Yedo in custody of
a strong guard, and he was at once confronted with the witnesses, who
examined his features in silence. They were then separately
interrogated, and one and all recognized him, the most important witness
being the boy who had seen the attack. Afterwards we proceeded to
another room and questioned the prisoner, who acknowledged his guilt in
the clearest manner possible. He was proceeding to say something more,
but was ordered by the Japanese officers to be silent. But the best
evidence of his identity was obtained by another member of the consular
service, who after the murderer had been paraded round the town preceded
by a banner on which his sentence was inscribed (this was part of his
punishment), accompanied the procession back to the execution ground.
Here Mr. Fletcher overheard him say: "When I killed the foreigners, I
expected one of them might be a consul," and every one who knew our
colleague will acknowledge that he was a man of the most exact
truthfulness, who was not in the least degree likely to make a mistake
in such a matter, or over anxious to believe that the Japanese
Government were in this instance departing from the bad faith which is
the usual refuge of Asiatics in a difficult position.
On the morning of the 28th the garrison was marched over to the
execution ground, and drawn up on one side. The prisoner was brought out
about ten o'clock. The first words he uttered were a request for some
_saké_. Being again questioned, he frankly acknowledged his guilt. I
asked him what it was that he had been prevented from saying to us on
the previous day, to which he answered that if Bird and Baldwin had got
out of his way he would not have attacked them. Whether this was true or
not I have no means of judging, but it does not accord with his written
deposition. That, it must be recollected, is not in Japan a simple
record of everything a prisoner says, but is a reduction in writing by
an officer of the court of the final result of all the statements made
by him on the different occasions when he was examined, and resembles
much more the summing up of the evidence on a criminal trial in England
by the presiding judge. He begged the Japanese officials not to bandage
his eyes, and began to chant a verse which might be thus translated:
"I do not regret being taken and put to death,
For to kill barbarians is the true spirit of a Japanese."
As the attendants were drawing back the clothes from his neck to prepare
it for the executioner's stroke, he bade them loosen his cords so that
they might do it with greater ease, adding: "In after ages they will
say, what a fine fellow was Shimidzu Seiji." He also remarked, "I don't
think the sword that cut off Gempachi's head will do for me," alluding
probably to the thickness of his own neck, and begged that the blade
might be well whetted. Then saying, "Cut neatly if you please," he
stretched out his neck for the stroke. These were the last words he
spoke, but just as the sword began to descend he turned his head to the
left as if to address some further observation to the officials, so that
the cut partly missed its purpose, and the executioner had to hack the
head off--a most horrible sight. Simultaneously with the delivery of the
first blow, a gun fired by the battery of Royal Artillery announced to
all that the assassin had received the punishment of his crime, and we
dispersed as quickly as possible. The head was taken to the bridge at
the northern entrance of Yokohama and there exposed on a gibbet for
three days. Copies of the sentence were posted up at Totsuka and at the
scene of the murder, and a few days later I accompanied the Legation
mounted guard to see that this part of the undertaking given by the
Japanese authorities had been duly performed. We found that they had
fulfilled their promises to the letter, and thus ended one of the most
dramatic incidents in the whole of my experience in the country.
It was impossible not to hate the assassin, but nevertheless, looking at
the matter from a Japanese point of view, I confess that I could not
help regretting that a man who was evidently of such heroic mould,
should have been misguided enough to believe that his country could be
helped by such means. But the blood of the foreigners who fell under the
swords of Japanese murderers, and the lives which were sacrificed to
avenge it bore fruit in later days, and fertilised the ground from which
sprang the tree of the national regeneration.