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:

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.