A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885 [1 ed.] 9781912961177, 9781912961160

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Copyright © 2020. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved. A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

Copyright © 2020. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

A LIFE OF SIR HARRY PARKES

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

Copyright © 2020. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

From the Illustrated London News, 24 August 1867. ‘OFFICIAL RECEPTION OF SIR HARRY PARKES BY THE TYCOON OF JAPAN AT OSACA’

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865–1885

™

By

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Robert Morton

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

A LIFE OF SIR HARRY PARKES BRITISH MINISTER TO JAPAN, CHINA AND KOREA, 1865–1885

First published 2021 by RENAISSANCE BOOKS P O Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP Renaissance Books is an imprint of Global Books Ltd ISBN 978-1-912961-16-0 [Hardback] ISBN 978-1-912961-17-7 [eBook] © Robert Morton 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Set in Bembo 11 on 11.5pt by Dataworks Printed and bound in England by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd., Chippenham, Wilts

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

Contents ™

Plate section faces page 142

Preface Introduction List of Illustrations 1 2

3

4

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5 6 7 8 9

vii xi xvii

‘Watch Therefore for Ye Knows Not’ Birmingham, 1828–1841

1

‘A Sharp Intelligent Lad’

Macao – Hong Kong – Shanghai – Nanjing, 1841–1842

10

‘Not Sufficient to Satisfy Me’

Zhoushan (Chusan) – Guangzhou (Canton), 1842–1843

23

‘Here I Am Now Perfectly Alone’ Amoy (Xiamen), 1844–1845

29

‘A Continuous Settled Life Has No Charms for Me’ Fuzhou – Shanghai, 1845–1849

37

‘I Saw a Good Deal’

India – Britain, 1849–1851

45

‘I Distinctly Declined to Accede’

Formosa – Guangzhou, 1851–1854

49

‘Hasty Love-making’

Bangkok – London – Bangkok, 1855–1856

57

‘It Is the Cause of the West Against the East’ Guangzhou, 1856–1857

73

10 ‘Never Sparing Himself in Any Way’ Guangzhou, 1857–1860

83

v

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

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A LIFE OF SIR HARRY PARKES

11 ‘The Executioner Stood by with Uplifted Sword’ Beijing, 1860

96

12 ‘I Do Not at All Like Being in a Great Man’s Train’ Nanjing – Hankou (Wuhan) – Shanghai, 1860–1862

108

13 Sir Harry Parkes

Britain, 1862–1864

118

14 ‘The Drudgery of the Service’ Shanghai, 1864–1865

123

15 ‘The Appointment is Particularly Gratifying to Me’ Yokohama, 1865–1866

128

16 ‘The Most Superior Japanese’

Osaka – West Coast – Nagasaki – Mt. Fuji, 1867

144

17 The Meiji Restoration

Osaka – Kyoto – Tokyo, 1868

158

18 ‘We of Course Hope for Improvement’ Tokyo, 1869–1871

177

19 ‘This is Becoming Civilised with a Vengeance Britain,1871–1873

197

20 ‘I Arrived Too Late’

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Tokyo – Britain, 1874–1881

205

21 ‘I Am Deeply Sensible of the Services You Have Rendered’ Tokyo, 1882–1883

224

22 ‘The Last Semi-civilised State’ Seoul, 1883

234

23 ‘I Can Find No Rest’ Beijing, 1884–1885

245

Epilogue

257

Bibliography Acknowledgements Notes Index

267 281 285 313

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

Preface ™

Andrew Hughes Hallett

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King’s College, University of London

MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER, SIR Harry Parkes, died in 1885 – long before any members of my immediate family had the chance to speak with him. More important perhaps, I never met my grandparents or anyone else of the generation of Sir Harry’s children in person. So the house was never full of anecdotes or the exploits of his life in the nineteenth century of the Far East as it opened up to engagement with Europe; his way of working, his understanding of the strategies he needed to follow to further British interests; what those interests were and why; the quality of life at that time; and his relationships, private as well as professional, with those with whom he had to work at this high, and possibly controversial point in the colonial era. These are all important questions and worth pursuing for their insights into the workings and influence of the colonial system and its principle agents. However, the existing literature tends to treat them in piecemeal fashion. Either one has to rely on ‘official’ accounts or histories of the period that offer different interpretations of imperialist thinking and events. Examples in Harry Parkes’s case would be Lane-Poole & Dickins or Loch.1 The trouble with that type of analysis is that it is always subject to a prospective bias or agenda that the author may have. In particular, the evaluation may change, and often does, with popular perceptions of what may be justifiable or acceptable in a more modern era – and this includes cases where the (perceived) relative importance of the costs vs. benefits of an imperialist system for different sections of the population shift. On the other hand, an evaluation of a regime’s performance and outcomes must depend to a significant extent on the individuals responsible for its implementation and how they interact with the political and economic environment within which they are working. For that sort of information and an evaluation, vii

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we are dependent on personal papers, personal observations or more anecdotal evidence from those involved in the process. The problem here is those papers or observations are often not available, or are only partially available, because they have been destroyed or become lost over time. This is clearly the case with Harry Parkes’s legacy. As a result we have, until now, been unable to contrast the ‘personal’ aspects of the story – and in particular how they interact with the ‘official’ accounts. But when we get to making those comparisons, the story becomes a good deal more nuanced. So it would be a big mistake to leave them out, especially the components that give rise to the interactions. The beauty of this new biography by Robert Morton is that it contains both material from the official accounts, and from personal accounts so that you can see how each part will vary under different circumstances; and, perhaps more important, you can understand how the decision-making process and outcomes will vary when the variables in one part change (but not in the other part); and vice versa when they change in the second part but not the first. This kind of evaluation is not available in other biographies. But it will contain exactly the kind of insights we need to see. This is therefore the power of this new biography. I recommend it to you. That said, there are two further points made that immediately stand out. First, Harry Parkes comes in for a lot of criticism, in some sources at least, for having no social or managerial skills – with the result that he is reputed to have treated his staff, and even his family, very poorly. But when such papers and personal observations as exist are added in, a more sympathetic and nuanced picture emerges. Especially with respect to treating his family with kindness and concern; and with respect to his staff because his rather Lutheran upbringing led him to adopt a rule that he would never ask another to do something that he would not do himself. Second, there is a curious asymmetry in the Harry Parkes’ reputation (or regard with which he is held) in the countries where he worked. From my own experience, I can attest that he is fondly remembered in Japan and Korea. But his reputation and reception in China is distinctly frosty. This was the result of the second opium war period (he was too young to have participated in the first war). The Chinese insistence on control of trading conditions and pricing of the opium trade when they already controlled three-quarters of the opium supply suggests that China was in

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PREFACE

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a ‘make China great again’ phase, rather than a moral crusade against unfair Western influences. The real complaint was the fear of financial losses from a reducing trade surplus. This provides an interesting insight, albeit with roles reversed, into modern trade policies.

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Introduction

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™

IN 2010, SOON after his appointment as Japanese Ambassador to the UK, Hayashi Keiichi laid a wreath at a grave in a churchyard in north London. Those locals who observed him arriving in the ambassadorial car must have wondered what on earth he was doing there. And there would have been very, very few Japanese who would have understood his action. He was paying his respects at the grave of Sir Harry Parkes, honouring, he said, his role in promoting industrial development in Japan.1 Although Parkes spent longer in China, and is now much better known there than in Japan, it is safe to say that no Chinese Ambassador will ever do the same thing. But for all the understandably negative feelings about Parkes in China today, nobody can deny the central role he played in the relations between East Asia and Britain (and indeed the West as a whole) from the 1840s until the 1880s, as he rose from a humble assistant, all the way up to Minister – the equivalent of today’s Ambassador – to Japan, China and Korea. He started early: at the age of fourteen, he was present at the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), which officially ended the First Opium War. At twenty-eight, a dispute he had with a few Chinese officials triggered the Second Opium War, leading to the collapse of a British government and the deaths of something in the order of 30,000 Chinese. In Japan, he played a key role in the revolution which saw the end of the feudal regime of the Shoguns and the beginning of a modern nation, ruled by a constitutional monarch. Although he was not seen as such a friend of Japan by the end of his eighteenyear stint there, he would always be remembered and appreciated for his crucial support of the Emperor’s regime in 1868 when they really needed it. Feelings about Parkes were mixed everywhere, but everyone saw him as a ‘big beast’ – indomitable, fearless and incorruptible, entirely different from later diplomats who had to be the smoother, blander, less abrasive types we associate with the profession today. * xi

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In my 2017 biography of A.B. Mitford, who worked under Parkes at the British Legation in Japan from 1866 to 1870, I was criticised by reviewers for not acknowledging the strengths of his boss.2 Sir David Warren, in a generous piece, wrote that ‘Sir Harry Parkes, slightly caricatured in this book as no more than a belligerent brute … was a harder-headed and ultimately shrewder judge of where Britain’s interests lay and how to promote them.’3 I made the mistake of seeing Parkes through the eyes of my subject. Fundamentally, Mitford respected Parkes, but he did not like him and saw him as a bully who often blundered into situations. Because I was so focused on Mitford, I overstated his contribution, and understated Parkes’. So, this book is partly an effort to redress the balance. One of the perils of writing a biography is that it is only after it is published that you finally get the chance to stand back a little from it, and then you find yourself adjusting your view of your subject. I was very hesitant about taking on Parkes, viewing him as unrelenting, obsessed with work, with no life or interests outside. There is a good deal of truth in this, but I came to see that he was a more complex, even sympathetic personality. Probably the real trouble was that I became so fond of Mitford by the end of working on his biography, I thought that I would never find a subject who appealed to me as much. Charles Dickens put the feeling of becoming attached to (in his case, fictional) characters in a way that reminds me of how I felt about finishing with Mitford: It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world … to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create … friends, and lose them in the course of art.4

Mitford was clever, witty, charming and courageous. He hated the commonplace, meaning that his writing, even of the most trivial letter, was always carefully crafted. He worked hard at being interesting. Parkes on the other hand was a much less fluent writer, especially in his official despatches, which were what I mostly read when working on the Mitford book. He admitted it, saying, ‘Oh that I had the pen of a ready writer’.5 But being an entertaining personality would have been a definite disadvantage for a Minister at that time. The Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, said that Britain, being an ‘insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen’. Ministers had to be

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INTRODUCTION

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completely focused and in command of the facts in their official despatches because they would be read by both the Foreign Secretary and the Queen, and could be subsequently collected and made available to Parliament. They were not the place for clever asides. Less hung on Mitford’s letters so he could make them more interesting.

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*

I am not the first to attempt a biography of Parkes. Immediately after his death the guardians of his flame, his eldest daughter Minnie and his sister Catharine, set themselves to finding someone who could author an official life worthy of the man. They ended up with two: Stanley Lane-Poole, who would write about Parkes’ childhood and time in China, and F.V. Dickins who was responsible for his life in Japan. In many respects it was a dream assignment for these men. They were given access to all the papers Parkes’ family could find, and there were many people around who had known Parkes (including Dickins himself) and were happy to share their memories of him. The trouble was that it had to be adulatory. The family expected Parkes to be portrayed as a hero and The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. did not disappoint them. Lane-Poole and Dickins came up with two volumes of almost a thousand pages in total, essentially of hagiography.Where failings are mentioned, they are couched in the most generous way possible. Ernest Satow, Parkes’ long-suffering interpreter in Japan, wanted people to be more honest about him, telling Dickins, ‘I wish you had not taken up the defence of Sir Harry as you have done.’6 But the era of the frank biography was some years away – it would not be until 1918 that Lytton Strachey would start knocking Victorian heroes off their morally superior perches with his Eminent Victorians. Having said this, in many ways the Life, particularly Volume I, is good. The Quarterly Review certainly thought so, commenting that ‘We have seldom read a biography which has pictured more clearly and faithfully the subject of its pages’.7 Lane-Poole, who was responsible for writing about Parkes’ early life and time in China, was a respected author and academic, although his area of expertise was the Arab world. He knew little of China, but this did not matter because he based the book on the letters and other documents he had at hand.

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A LIFE OF SIR HARRY PARKES

Dickins, on the other hand, was an expert on Japan. He had gone to the country as a naval medical officer and became fluent in the language, producing respected translations of classical Japanese works. Unfortunately, this makes Volume II a lot less interesting. As one critic put it, Dickins’ ‘knowledge of Japan is so portentous that he does not find time to tell us so much as we should like of Sir Harry Parkes’.8 In comparing the volumes, we can see the distinct advantage of coming to a subject with less expertise and a more open mind. What is good about Volume I in particular is that so many of Parkes’ letters to his family and associates, along with excerpts from his and his wife’s journals, are included in it. This is significant because unfortunately, after it was written most of their personal papers were destroyed – the family wanted the official biography to be the last word. That said, further research resulted in the discovery of some surprising documents, including a very frank review by Parkes’ wife of her marriage, children and battles with depression, which one would have thought they would have most wanted to make sure nobody saw. But the cull of material was very determined – I have not found a single original letter to or from Parkes and any of his immediate family. It is annoying that so much has disappeared, but the personal correspondence reproduced in the Life is better than nothing. Academics may not like my using this source as much as I have – the material is already ‘out there’ – and being the authorised account, it only includes material that shows Parkes in a good light – but a biography needs to be a blend of the subject’s personal and working lives, and in the absence of much in the way of personal papers, it had to be much used. Of course, there is no such problem with Parkes’ official correspondence, which has basically survived intact. My fear that he would be a dreary subject to write about turned out to be unfounded. I realised that his writing style is not bad – he actually had a very good turn of phrase when he was writing to his loved ones. And there was always plenty happening, his life being full of incident and adventure. It would be idle to pretend that he was a delightful, fun-loving figure, although he did have a softer side. His life certainly had plenty of heartache, and he inflicted a lot of it on those around him. I do not think that I would have wanted to work under him, but I have come to admire him and, I think, understand why he was the way he was. His is a tangled and involved tale, although every effort has been made to make it as easy to follow as possible. However, in any

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INTRODUCTION

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biography which features three people called Harry Parkes (and a Harry Parkes McClatchie), two called John Parkes, two called Fanny Parkes, a Thomas Plumer and a Thomas Hall Plumer, a Sir James Hope and an unrelated Sir James Hope Grant (who is one of two General Grants), two Walter Medhursts, two John Bowrings and two Thomas McClatchies, not to mention Japanese and Chinese names that are far more confusing to most English speakers, it is inevitably going to be a little hard to keep track of who is who.The biographer has to envy novelists who can choose distinctly different names for their characters. In the course of researching this book, I came across a collection of essays by John Foster which had inspired Parkes. After the first edition had been published, Foster decided that the book had ‘at least five thousand faults: and two or three thousand I have felt it necessary to try and mend’.9 I have not dared to guess at the number of faults in this book, but I hope it is fewer than five thousand. All I can say is that if you read this biography, it at least means that you do not need to work your way through the thousand pages of the official one. And, because it was not subjected to the constraints of biographical writing in Victorian England, it can be a more honest picture of an extraordinary life, the like of which can never be lived again. NOTE Chinese words are given in pinyin followed, when it seems helpful, by them romanised as they were at the time in brackets. Indian place names are likewise given in their modern forms, with what they were called by the British at the time in brackets. Although Amoy is known in standard Chinese as Xiamen, it is still called Amoy by locals and was called that by Parkes, so that name is used in this book. Japanese words are rendered according to the Hepburn system, with macrons indicating extended vowels, apart from place names that are well known without (such as Tokyo). Chinese and Japanese words have not been altered in quotations, but pinyin or Hepburn renderings have been added, when needed, in square brackets.

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List of Illustrations ™

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

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12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Ink-wash drawing of Parkes as a young man Rare picture of Parkes’ wife Fanny Catharine Lockhart, Parkes’ older sister The ‘classic’ photograph of Parkes, with his signature, dated July 1883 Rutherford Alcock William Lockhart, Catharine’s husband Harry and Fanny Parkes, with staff including Satow, photographed in the Legation garden British Legation buildings at Sengakuji, Edo Woodblock print of the British Minister’s residence at Yokohama, completed in the summer of 1867 by Hiroshige II, 1870 ‘Review of British and Japanese Troops at Yokohama’, The Illustrated London News, 7 January 1865 Iwakura Tomomi and colleagues while in Britain on a factfinding tour How Japan Punch saw Parkes when he arrived in Japan in 1865 and when he left in 1883 ‘Steam locomotive on the Yatsuyamashita shore, Tokyo’, by Utagawa Hiroshige III One of the fashionable houses in Phillimore Gardens, London, which Parkes rented Bust from the memorial to Parkes in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Unveiling of the statue to Parkes on the Bund in Shanghai by the Duke of Connaught, 8 April 1890 Parkes in the last year or so of his life with his daughters Minnie and Mabel Parkes’ grave at St. Lawrence’s Church, London

xvii

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1

‘Watch Therefore For Ye Knows Not’ Birmingham, 1828–1841 ™

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SACRED To the memory of HARRY PARKES Of Birch Hill Hall Who was accidently Killed 3rd Aug 1833 Ætat 42. Also to that of Mary Ann his Wife who died 19th Sept 1832 Ætat 42 Leaving three Children to deplore their early loss. ‘Watch therefore for ye knows [sic] not What hour your Lord doth come’ Mattw Chr 24th V. 42nd

THIS INSCRIPTION ON a gravestone outside All Saints’ Church, Bloxwich, near Walsall in the West Midlands, gives us a snapshot of the state of our subject’s life at the age of five, one of the three children left to ‘deplore’ the early loss of both parents. Compared to most orphans at the time, his situation was not terrible. He had relatives prepared to take care of him and his father had been wealthy – self-made, as he would be. In the official biography, Lane-Poole describes Harry senior as a man of ‘energetic and self-reliant character … full of life and spirit, bright of eye and short of stature’.This would have been a good description of Harry junior, who seems to have taken after the father he had barely known. That said, Harry senior was also ‘a social favourite, appreciated for recitation and song’, which were not really attributes of his son (he could be social when he wanted to be but 1

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usually was not, and he had no musical talent).1 More relevant to our story was Harry senior’s wealth, which could be understood by looking at his fine house: Birchills Hall. The area around Birchills was very deprived. In 1886, it was described as ‘the poorest part of the poorest parish in Wallsall’.2 It was an industrial area, surrounded by pits and ironworks. The hall must have looked like an island of affluence in a sea of poverty, and the Parkes family surely stood out there, a world away from the ‘shoals of little ones at the entrance of court after court, making mud pies in the gutters or prying down the gullies of the common sewers in the streets’, as the vicar of St. Peter’s, Stafford Street, described the area’s children in 1879.3 Birchills Hall, built on what turned out to be coalfields, gradually fell into disrepair. Writing in 1910, a local historian described what had happened to it:

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For upwards of sixty years that has stood on the Bloxwich side of Walsall, tenantless and in ruins, Birchills Hall, once a pleasant family residence … but now gaunt, desolate, and wrecked by mining operations, amidst a wilderness of collieries and iron-works.4

In losing his father at a very young age, Parkes was going through the same experience that Harry senior had; they both lost their fathers at five. However Harry senior would have been much worse off than his son. His father, Rev. John Parkes, had been a lowly curate in Halesowen. Curates assisted a vicar and their wages were very low, as little as £50 per year, which would have felt like today’s minimum wage. In spite of this, curates had learning and were seen as ‘gentlemen’, so they had some social standing (‘expensively educated and wretchedly paid’, as Dickens put it in Our Mutual Friend ). Unless they had other income, the family’s situation would have been precarious before John Parkes died, on 29 February 1796, and afterwards, his widow and two young sons would have experienced immense financial hardship. Harry senior started his professional life modestly, as a clerk at the Stourbridge Old Bank. But he was ambitious, and left the bank to enter into a series of partnerships in the iron business, allying himself with Thomas Otway, forming Parkes, Otway and Co.They took control of the Caponfield Ironworks in Bilston sometime after 1825. He also entered into a partnership with Otway and a Henry Wilkinson Wennington to take over control of the Goscote Ironworks. We can only speculate how coming from such a modest background, Harry managed to find the capital to do this.

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‘WATCH THEREFORE FOR YE KNOWS NOT’

3

The details are murky, but it seems safe to say that we are looking at a resourceful and go-getting character. Both of these partnerships were dissolved by Harry senior in 1831, and it is not clear what interests he had after that, but he was still wealthy enough to live at Birchills. He married Mary Ann Gitton, the daughter of a stationer, bookseller and postmaster from Bridgnorth, in 1821. According to Lane-Poole she had a ‘sweet and judicious character and personal charm’.5 Parkes’ relatives are all presented in glowing terms in the official biography. Unfortunately, his parents’ generation is mostly lost in the mists of time, and as we have few other sources of information about them, we are dependent on what this book tells us. It was not a whirlwind romance: Mary and Harry senior’s engagement lasted three years, a sign, Lane-Poole tells us, of Harry’s ‘constancy of purpose’, another quality that would be possessed in generous measure by his son.6 They went on to have three children, the eldest, Catharine, born on 7 December 1823, then Isabella, and lastly Harry junior, who was born at Birchills Hall on 24 February 1828 – a Thursday, for one who truly had ‘far to go’. One of the few concrete things we know about their mother is that she was a deeply religious woman, and she made sure her children were as well, making little Harry memorise entire chapters of the Bible.They lost her to a sudden illness when Parkes was four, so he was just old enough to remember her; he still, he said fifty years later, could vividly recall the room where his mother prayed with him.7 These faint, yet precious memories affected him deeply and he remained devout throughout his life, conducting family prayers every morning before breakfast. As we saw from the gravestone, the Parkes children lost both parents within the space of a year. Harry Senior was killed in an accident, described like this in the Staffordshire Advertiser: On Saturday last as Mr. Parkes, iron-master of Birchills … was travelling in a four-wheeled carriage with his clerk, Mr. Arrowsmith, on the road about six miles from Hinckley, the horse, which was a spirited animal … set off at full speed. Mr. Parkes, aware of the extent of the danger, gave the whip to his companion in order that he might have the command of the reins with both hands, and probably they might have escaped, had not a waggon blocked up a sudden turn of the road which they had to pass. They called out to the waggoner to make way, but he … barely left room for the carriage to go by. The consequence was … the carriage was

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A LIFE OF SIR HARRY PARKES

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upset, and Mr. Parkes was pitched on his head out of the gig over Mr. Arrowsmith, and received so dreadful a contusion that he died almost immediately … Mr. Arrowsmith fortunately escaped with a few bruises. The unfortunate deceased was in the prime of life, and we are sorry to add has left a young family to deplore his untimely loss. It is a melancholy addition to the distressing tale that his children were bereaved of their mother’s care only about ten months ago.8

Harry’s will left everything to his wife, leaving no provision for what would happen if she predeceased him, as she did.The administrators of the will decided that his money would be entrusted to his brother, John Parkes, who would act as guardian to Catharine, Isabella and Harry junior. He had gone into the navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant, the lowest-ranking commissioned officer and, crucially, another ‘gentleman’ and was now living in Birmingham. The pay of a naval lieutenant was a little over £100 a year at the time, so much better than a curate, but he was not necessarily better off, being expected to pay around £60 a year into the common mess funds of the Officers’ Club on a ship. They would only receive their full pay while they were serving; when they did not have a ship or were retired, which John seems to have been, they were on half-pay. Given that John had five daughters and a son, we can only hope that the family had another source of income. Probably the three orphaned children from the wealthy side of the family brought a fresh injection of badly-needed money. There is no indication of how much there was, apart from the fact that Harry senior’s life had been insured for £1,000. Still, this amount on its own should have been enough to see Catharine, Isabella and Harry junior to adulthood if it was carefully managed. Unfortunately it was not. Perhaps John and his wife did not handle the money very well – perhaps they got greedy – but one way or another the inheritance would run out well before the children stopped needing it. We do not really know how well Harry Parkes’ children fitted into their new family. It is easy to imagine, however, that they would have noticed that their style of living was dramatically different to the comfort of Birchills Hall. They were experiencing one of the fluctuations of fortune that could suddenly hit even wealthy families in Victorian times, moving from the biggest house in the locality, to what was probably one of the poorer ones. Lane-Poole, as we may have guessed, puts a positive gloss on the

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situation, telling us that Harry’s ‘chief delight was … to listen to his Uncle John’s stories of England’s victories at sea, and above all of the sailor’s hero, Nelson’. It is a cosy image, giving the impression that Harry was comfortable and loved in a household which was, Lane-Poole thought, ‘a fitting exordium for a career which was devoted heart and soul to the cause of England’s imperial greatness’.9 In fact, Harry did not spend a lot of time there, being sent to a boarding school at Balsall Heath, in Birmingham. There were no major schools there (and Lane-Poole would surely have told us if it was at all well-known), so we can assume it was a small place, probably run by a family, very likely with a strong religious element. Charles Dickens in Nicholas Nickleby, published around this time, paints a dire picture of a not dissimilar kind of school as a cruel dumping ground for unwanted children. Hopefully, this one was different and the five-year-old was treated kindly there. Uncle John’s only son went to the school as well, so probably it was the best the family could afford and they believed the two boys would be all right there. Unfortunately, in this disaster-prone family, another calamity befell them when John Parkes died in 1837. Lane-Poole describes the family’s circumstances as ‘straitened’ after this death which, given the fact that he tried to be as upbeat as possible about Parkes’ childhood, must have meant real poverty. Parkes was now nine and, presumably because the family could no longer afford the boarding school, he had to be shunted around again. However, this move was a good one, to King Edward VI Grammar School in Birmingham. It was not the choice of social climbers at the time, but rather the serious, pious middle classes. Religion played a big part in the life of the school and it produced a remarkable set of Anglican luminaries. The headmaster, James Prince Lee had been ‘one of the most distinguished classical scholars ever known’ at Cambridge university, and an inspirational teacher, particularly of the Greek New Testament.10 He went on to be the first Bishop of Manchester. Two of Parkes’ contemporaries that particularly came under his influence were Joseph Lightfoot and Brooke Foss Westcott, who became successive Bishops of Durham and just after Parkes left, the school educated Edward White Benson, who went on to be Archbishop of Canterbury. King Edward’s was expanding, as was Birmingham. A new main building was opened in the year Parkes entered, designed by Charles Barry in the Gothic style, with the interior decoration

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and fittings by the 23-year-old Augustus Pugin, the combination that was responsible for the Houses of Parliament (unaccountably, it was demolished in 1935). The ethos had recently changed too; sport was becoming an important feature, and mathematics and science were introduced, shifting the emphasis from the Classics. Parkes was in the English department, meaning that he studied the new curriculum. We do not know how Parkes fared at the school, but it is tempting to speculate that this energetic and dynamic place was character-building, giving him, by the standards of the day, a practical and modern basic education, while inculcating in him the importance of religion. However, Parkes was not to enjoy this remarkable place for very long because after four years there, at the age of thirteen, he encountered the key turning point in his life. In 1832, a cousin of his father’s, Mary Wanstall, had gone to Malacca (in present-day Malaysia) to help at the native missionary schools there. Adventurous young women sometimes would go east to find a husband, there being a surfeit of eligible bachelors and very few unmarried women there. Any British man who managed to marry an even remotely suitable British woman while in Asia at this time would have counted himself lucky.To be fair to Mary, there is no indication that she had made this calculation, but she did find herself a brilliant (and, as it happened, thanks to a large inheritance from his first wife), rich husband: Charles Gutzlaff. Gutzlaff had been the first German Lutheran missionary in China. Born in Pyritz (now the Polish town of Pyrzyce) in Pomerania, he had become naturalised British. He was an utterly remarkable man, who combined being an accomplished diplomat, a staggeringly good linguist, a man of overwhelming religious convictions, and a none-too-scrupulous trader. He was deeply involved in the opium trade, handing out Bibles from the deck of a ship carrying the drug. Arthur Waley memorably described him as ‘a cross between a parson and pirate, charlatan and genius, philanthropist and crook’.11 Gutzlaff had been one of the first Protestant missionaries in Siam, going there in 1828. He learnt the language, and with his first wife translated the Bible into Siamese, although this was not one of his stronger languages. When he met a British missionary working among overseas Chinese, Gutzlaff felt God calling him to China so strongly that he sought adoption into a Chinese family, mastered several Chinese dialects, and adopted Chinese styles of dressing and eating. He imitated the Chinese so well that one

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hostile official told him, ‘I know you to be a native of this district traitorously serving barbarians in disguise’.12 In 1840, he became part of a team of four men who worked together to translate the Bible into Chinese, Gutzlaff working on the Hebrew. Mary married him in 1834, and soon afterwards, he was appointed interpreter to the Chief Superintendent of Trade, the highest British official in China at the time, in effect the Ambassador to China and responsible for the country’s interests in the area from Siam to Japan. At the same time, Mary found a purpose in life, turning their large Portuguese-style house in Macao into a refuge for local blind girls. Hong Kong was not yet a British colony and Macao was the only European settlement in the whole of China. It was a lovely, almost idyllic, place. On arrival, you would be rowed from your ship to the Praia Grande, an elegant waterfront street of Portuguese buildings beyond which could be seen the towers and domes of the churches and seminaries, all of which created an attractive Mediterranean feel. The climate was very hot and humid in the summer but winters were mild, dry and pleasant. When Mary heard of the death of John Parkes she invited her two older orphaned cousins to live with her. Catharine, now fourteen, at once accepted the invitation and she and Isabella set off for China in August 1838, on the George IV. It was a strange time for two English girls to go to China, the country being a turbulent and unwelcoming place at the best of times, and in a year, Britain and China would be at war.They were somewhat insulated from the ups and downs of Chinese life in Macao, but found themselves having to leave in 1839, when the Chinese forced a showdown over the opium trade. Although we now tend to be censorious about British traders acting, in effect, as drug dealers (and modern Chinese certainly are), it did not necessarily seem like that at the time. Opium was not illegal in Britain – Sherlock Holmes smoked it, as did Samuel Taylor Coleridge – although it was not much used. Most Chinese users had only a modest habit, and in places where diseases like dysentery and malaria were rife, it could soothe pain, relieve diarrhoea and repel mosquitoes. The doctor and missionary, William Lockhart, who is about to enter our story, was against the trade, but considered alcohol worse: ‘opium is personally hurtful to individuals. Alcohol is a much greater social evil.’13 Parkes must have been conflicted about the drug – as an evangelical Christian he would have found it difficult to condone the trade, but also difficult to condemn what had become an economic necessity for

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India. His only mention of it that I have found was in 1883, when he gave the opinion that it should never be taken as an indulgence, ‘though as a medicine it was simply invaluable’.14 He noted that by that point, China had become the largest opium-producing country in the world, thus puncturing Chinese claims that supplying the drug was immoral. It does indeed seem that what they really did not like about the trade was that it was taking money out of the country. In 1839, Queen Victoria was told that ‘the great profit made by barbarians is all taken from the rightful share of China’.15 Like other British families, the Parkes sisters took refuge on ships lying in Hong Kong harbour for six weeks before moving to Manila. The outbreak of war, in December 1839, actually aided their security, because it meant the arrival of a substantial British military force. Fifteen men-of-war and 4,000 troops arrived in June 1840 and occupied the island of Zhoushan (Chusan) about 150 kilometres from Shanghai. It was now the safest place in China for Westerners, and Gutzlaff took his wife there, along with Catharine and Isabella. His language skills were invaluable and he acted as interpreter between British and Chinese officials. At this point it was decided that Harry would go to join them. We do not know who chose this for him, but Catharine was not part of the decision (she wrote that it was a ‘thing we had long almost hopelessly wished for’).16 Knowing what we do of the overbearing Gutzlaff, very likely he decided it on his own. Gutzlaff however did not provide the money for the passage, which would have been about £150.17 If we recall that Lieutenant John Parkes’ annual income may only have been about £50 and that Harry senior’s inheritance had been run through, it would have seemed an unbelievably huge sum to the Parkes family in England. The money was advanced by a Rev.Vincent Stanton, who lived in Macao. Stanton’s life in China typified the risks and opportunities that being there created for British people. Soon after he made his offer, he was kidnapped while taking a bath, and taken to Guangzhou where he was kept in chains for five months. On his release, he returned to England, but was appointed Colonial Chaplain at Hong Kong in 1843, where he founded a free school for British children and St. Paul’s Anglican training college, which is still going strong. Impressively, Parkes managed to return the money, with interest, to Stanton two years later, from a far-fromlarge income. Whoever made it, it was an odd decision to have Parkes come out to China at this point. Having not had him go with his sisters

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in the first place, the normal thing would have been to have him finish his education in Britain and then let him decide for himself what he wanted to do. His going to China would be the making of him, and it would turn out that the lack of much formal education would not hold him back. But it was still a gamble for a thirteen-year-old to make the trip on his own.

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‘A Sharp Intelligent Lad’ Macao – Hong Kong – Shanghai – Nanjing, 1841–1842

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™

IT WOULD BE wonderful to know what Parkes’ thoughts were on 13 June 1841, when he set sail from Portsmouth on the Foam. It must have been uncomfortable; being a small vessel – there were only twenty crew – it would have moved around quite a bit. He quickly discovered that he was not a good sailor, although he never let that stop him going anywhere. There may have been some trepidation but he probably also felt that he had nothing to lose – he had experienced such devastating losses in his short life, China could surely be no worse. We have no idea how happy he had been with his aunt and cousins, but he must have felt something of an outsider in their house. Worse, they seem to have completely lacked the Parkes drive – it is hard to imagine anybody on his side of the family settling for the limited, ‘straitened’ life they were leading. The Foam is logged as arriving in Hong Kong on 4 October 1841, after a voyage of 113 days, and reached Macao on the 8th, where Parkes was reunited with his sisters. Catharine was now Mrs Lockhart, having married the missionary and doctor, William Lockhart, on 13 May 1841, at the age of seventeen. They had met on the voyage out from England in 1838. William thought she was ‘of a most level and amiable temper … is good looking and pleasant and cheerful … she has acquired a very good knowledge of the language and surpasses me in this respect’. He added in a way that may make us wince, ‘I am tremendously satisfied with having obtained her for myself ’.1 He had good reason to be glad, because few women would have contemplated marriage to someone so intense and driven. In a letter to his father and sister written a few days before the wedding, 10

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he made no bones about Catharine coming a distant second in his priorities. He assured them that she would

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[…] not care for the trifling inconveniences that … accompany journeying movements so that she can be useful among those of her own sex in this land … I trust that should I go to the north I shall be protected by Him in whom I trust who hath kept me hitherto and that He will watch over me in all my way, I rely on Him only and look to Him.2

Catharine knew from the start this was how it would be and embraced it, seeing them as being ‘honored in becoming the instruments of making known the Blessed Gospel’, adding, ‘oh that we might constantly bear this in our minds, and thereby be kept humble’.3 It looks like getting married did not make much difference to William’s life. In his personal expense book for the month of his wedding, there is nothing to suggest he had done anything special, apart from ‘barber, 25 cents’ – he did not usually go. If he was stingy with himself, he was exceptionally generous to others. We see him temporarily taking over a medical practice soon after his marriage to save the London Missionary Society his salary of £300 (they were heavily in debt). When he got a small windfall of £15, he used it to order medical books and instruments from England. Money had to be an obsession for him, as he needed so much of it to fund his projects. Among many achievements, one that stands out is his founding of the first hospital for Westernstyle medicine in Shanghai in 1844 – now it is known as the Renji Hospital and its website tells us that it treats more than 2 million patients a year. In Lockhart’s day, the hospital gave medical treatment free of charge (patients were all told about Christianity and given tracts), and not surprisingly it was mobbed – he saw 100 to 150 people a day. Catharine was happy with her choice of husband, telling William’s father two weeks after their wedding of the ‘boon which God my Father above has conferred on me’ in ‘such a partner as … my beloved William’.4 The marriage turned into a fulfilling and enduring one, lasting fifty-five years. And she was certainly no doormat. Catharine was a formidable character and the model in Parkes’ mind for how a woman should be: educated and engaged, unfazed by danger, managing multiple pregnancies and child-raising (three sons and three daughters), loyally supporting

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her husband with his work, able to cope uncomplainingly with anything. Her obituary in the British Weekly describes how during the Taiping Rebellion, her home was ‘often hit by cannon shot and rifle bullet, while for months she lived with the dead and wounded round about her. Dr Lockhart ministered incessantly to the sick and wounded, and found in his wife a helpmeet indeed.’5 She was also intellectual and serious – it is easy to forget when reading her letters from this time that she was still a teenager. She writes of Gutzlaff having her correct Chinese books that he was printing, telling her father- and sister-in-law, ‘So this takes from my study hours in some degree but then I hope it is turning what I have learnt to some use.’6 William immediately warmed to Harry, thinking him ‘a fine boy of 13, very like Kate and a sharp intelligent lad, I am very glad he has come out and hope that he will be happy and useful in China and that he will grow up a pious active man’.7 They remained close friends for life, each hugely admiring the other. When they met after a long gap in 1861, he told Catharine:

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Harry and I are like two schoolboys, rejoicing over each other immensely. We have talked over heaps of things and have always much to say to each other … [H]e has been made the instrument of great good to this people … He is truly one to be proud of and to rejoice in.8

Catharine and William could now be the nearest thing to parents Parkes would have, and their house, the nearest thing to a home. He had people he could depend on. Catharine felt anxious about Harry in a motherly way, although compared to most boys that age, he gave her precious little to worry about. ‘Oh that he might grow in grace,’ she lamented to her father- and sisterin-law, ‘and feel its power, not only know the truth but live by it … Of course he is well inclined but not seriously so – and that will not do.’9 Lockhart needed courage, not so much for dispensing medical care, but for his proselytising activities. When he and some colleagues were distributing tracts in Qingpu, near Shanghai, they were robbed, beaten, stripped and dragged through the streets. But Lockhart was not the type to be put off by an experience like this, being so immersed in his God-directed mission, that he did not think about what it was costing him.

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As well as finding a secure family base in Macao, Parkes also found a mentor, John Robert Morrison. Morrison was another of those exceptional people that we keep coming across, who combined official work with remarkable scholarly achievements, being one of the collaborators with Gutzlaff on translating the Bible into Chinese. He was the son of the first Protestant missionary in China and at the age of only twenty, took over from his father the critical job of Chinese secretary and interpreter to the Chief Superintendent of Trade. Tragically, Morrison would die at the age of twentynine, of ‘Hong Kong fever’ in 1843. At this time Hong Kong had no public sanitation to speak of, and epidemics of dysentery, malaria and various unidentified tropical fevers were very common. 1843 was an exceptionally bad year: of the 1,526 British and Chinese troops there then, 440 died.10 It truly was the survival of the fittest. The Parkes siblings were very fortunate that their family’s bad luck had ended and that they would survive, indeed thrive, in a vastly more perilous place than Birmingham.With death literally all around him, Parkes was aware that life was something that could be taken away at any moment. He knew that you had to seize the day. Morrison had great plans for him. On Harry’s arrival, he told Catharine and Isabella:

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Knowing how your hearts were set on meeting again your dear only brother, I cordially rejoice with you. I have already mentioned how much pleasure it will give me to bring him forward, if you should like to see him pursuing my line of life.We are sadly in want of interpreters … and the moment he can speak a little Chinese we shall be right glad to have his services.11

Certainly not all boys of Parkes’ age could have risen to this challenge. But Parkes’ sisters knew that their brother was someone of unusual practical ability, industry, and, above all, tenacity. He would not let them down. After six months in Macao, Parkes moved with Morrison to Hong Kong. Morrison modelled the kind of existence that Parkes would follow much of his life, mixing hard work with vigorous physical activity. Parkes got into the habit of starting every day with a swim in the sea and learned horse-riding which would be essential for his professional life, as well as his main source of recreation. He would also sail in the harbour and climb Mount Victoria. For all his concentration on his studies, he loved the beauty of the island:

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Wednesday 1 June 1842 Set out for Major Caine’s at about half-past four o’clock [am] … Our way lay over the high hills … [W]e began to ascend, and after two hours’ good tugging we reached the top … The sun now began to rise. It was a very good thing we had started so early, or else it would have been terrible climbing the hill with the sun beating down upon us … The valley … was very beautiful …; oh! the different views that we saw this morning were really splendid, by far the most beautiful that I have ever seen.

He notes that at the end of the day, Major Caine was tired, ‘but I was not, though it is the longest walk since I left England that I have done, being about fifteen miles, and besides such hills to climb; but I enjoyed myself exceedingly’.12 When Parkes moved there, Hong Kong had just a few European houses. ‘I have no comforts to offer,’ Morrison wrote, ‘but we will manage somehow to knock up a bed, and having that and clothes of his own, he will be able to hold life together.’13 At the time, this was the norm in Hong Kong – nearly all the buildings were little more than shanties that would be blown down in typhoons and have to be put up again. There were only a small number of non-Chinese – even by the late 1840s there were estimated to only be around 400 Europeans, Americans and Parsees there.14 Parkes was in a narrow social milieu that was almost entirely adult and male. He had to accept its norms and get along with everybody. His days in the office were a mixture of work and study; the mornings were spent on Chinese, ‘very difficult and rather disheartening’, followed by Latin and French. He would accept any task given him, which was usually the copying of official documents. This was the bane of the lives of everybody who worked in the service below the senior ranks because everything had to be neatly copied out. Parkes’ later subordinate in Japan, A.B. Mitford, wrote of how some despairing clerk in the Foreign Office in London had engraved on a window the following lines: Je suis copiste, Affreux métier! Joyeux ou triste, Toujours copier!15

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Morrison was trying to fill in the gaps in Parkes’ education, although Morrison’s own formal education was not that much more extensive, having lasted until he was sixteen. But the lesson of the people in Hong Kong was that classroom learning did not matter much. Fluency in Chinese was vital, as was an energetic, enterprising spirit. That said, Lane-Poole tells us that it was later a ‘constant subject of regret’ for Parkes that he had not had more of an education.16 His failure to master French, for example, made little difference to his actual effectiveness in China or Japan, but put him at a distinct disadvantage in a profession where speaking it was expected. He certainly tried to learn it: in his papers are notes of French phrases with their English equivalents, although they are mangled, as with this sentence: ‘Les Anglais l’a soutenu dans cette affaire la beaucoup plus que son propres compatriotes.’17 (He received much more support from the English than his own countrymen.) Had Parkes not, in effect, been entering the service by the back door, this would have been a much bigger problem. Under the 1856 regulations for the diplomatic service (which he was transferred to in 1865), he would not even have made it to unpaid attaché, because they had to understand French ‘well’, although if he had really needed it, he would have studied it harder.18 They also had to have ‘a high degree of honour’ and be able to write in a ‘good bold hand forming each letter distinctly’ – this latter requirement may also have been difficult for Parkes to fulfil as his handwriting, though fairly legible, was scrappy.19 However, this is all theoretical, because he would have failed to meet the £400a-year income qualification – a way of keeping out riff-raff that lasted until 1919. Later, he would sometimes be looked down on by his subordinates for his lack of learning. Mitford, who had been to Eton and Oxford, wrote that while Parkes was an ‘admirable oral interpreter’ of Chinese, his knowledge of the language suffered from his not having had a classical education. He noted that the great scholars of Japanese had ‘brought the training and literature of the West to their studies of the East’, while anyone without it (so, Parkes) was a ‘mere parrot’ who, ‘however clever’, was ‘held in little more esteem than a head waiter’.20 To Parkes’ modern biographer, Gordon Daniels, his failing was a lack of intellectual sophistication: Not surprisingly, the achievements of China’s civilization rarely moved him, for they were too subtle for his practical and impatient

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nature. He preferred the steamship to Confucius and judged China by her politicians and poverty, not by her arts or cultural splendour.21

Several of Parkes’ colleagues commented that he had no intellectual interests outside work. For example, Dr Willis, who worked under him in Japan wrote that he ‘never reads or studies anything. He is shallow to a degree on every subject’.22 His lack of intellectual breadth was a deficiency which Parkes had neither the time nor the right kind of intelligence to make up and anyway, in China practical skills were far more needed than the ability to philosophise. Having said this, we will later see a bit of evidence that he was capable of scholarly work when he applied himself to it, supporting Lane-Poole’s claim that ‘he had both the will and the ability’ for it, but not the time.23 Really, the most important thing to Parkes at this point was the connections he was making. One such was Major William Caine, mentioned earlier. He was the head of the Hong Kong police force at the time and would go on to gain other senior appointments, including acting as Governor for five months in 1859. Parkes was discovering that in the tiny bubble of colonial China, he was able to meet, and win over, important people in a way that he could never have done had he stayed in England. Caine was taken with this boy who had good manners, excellent working habits and that most admired trait, ‘steadiness of purpose’. A more important early acquaintance was Sir Henry Pottinger, the Superintendent of British Trade in China and Governor of Hong Kong. Pottinger’s own story was not very different from that of Parkes’. He was not an orphan, but his fairly posh but impecunious family could not afford to keep all their three daughters and eight sons in Ireland, and five of the sons, including Henry, travelled to India to make their careers. He went at the age of thirteen, after a truncated education at Belfast Academy. Like Parkes, he would learn most of what he needed to know at the university of life. Also like Parkes, he would apply himself to language study and enjoy quick promotion; at the age of fifteen, he became an ensign, and three years later, a lieutenant. The Cambridge History of China calls him ‘stolid’, but this is not how the early part of his career reads.24 In 1810, when Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt and Syria was seen to be threatening India, the British government needed information about the people between Persia and India. Pottinger and a friend volunteered to undertake a mission of enquiry and

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intelligence to the area. Disguised as horse-traders they set off on a journey of 2,500 kilometres, which only Pottinger returned from. It was just the sort of mission that Parkes would have relished and Pottinger very likely saw some of himself in the fearless boy. Another thing they had in common was their relatively lowly origins for senior positions – in Pottinger’s case, his strong Ulster accent immediately gave him away as not being from the class that usually secured them. Pottinger and Parkes met because Parkes happened to be the one to bring him the message that the British had attacked Zhapu (Chefoo) on 18 May 1842. Pottinger invited Parkes to stay for dinner and took to him so much that he told him to come whenever he wanted. ‘I like Sir Henry very much,’ Parkes wrote, ‘he always talks, and is kind, to me.’25 It is striking how carefully placed the commas are for a fourteen-year-old. Parkes would always be careful with his grammar as, it must be said, the Victorians generally were, even when he was busy. (He never made spelling mistakes, although like many of his contemporaries he spelt words like ‘favo(u)r’ in what is now considered American style. The only error, rather than a slip, he would make was confusing the pronoun ‘its’ and the contraction ‘it’s’.) Hong Kong was proving to be a useful staging post for troops that would be going to fight further north. On 5 June, Parkes watched as nine transports sailed in a convoy, accompanied by the North Star, Dido, and Serpent. Anxious to see some action, he was keen to go with them, but he could not just drop everything in Hong Kong and leave. However, he did not have to wait long, only eight days in fact, before he set off for the fighting on the Queen, in the company of Pottinger and Morrison, as an odd-job boy. He had spent the day before packing Morrison’s boxes and putting them on board the ship – feeling tired afterwards, he fell asleep on the boxes. He later lamented spending that day in so ‘unprofitable’ a way. ‘Even then’ Lane-Poole reflected, his writing was marked by a tone of ‘simple unostentatious piety’.26 On the 20th, they reached Wusung (Woosung), which had been captured four days earlier.Twenty-three kilometres from Shanghai, it is now a suburb of the city, but then was a separate port. The following day he went on shore and no effort was made to spare him horrific sights – he counted fifteen corpses. ‘This is my first sight of the horrors of war’, he told his journal. ‘One young fellow was quite sick at the sight, and said he had had enough; but I was

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far from being so chicken-hearted as that.’ There was, it seems, no reason to let a few dead bodies spoil a pleasant walk, so Parkes kept going: ‘We had a good stroll through the country, which is very beautiful and well watered. It is quite flat and is richly cultivated, yielding a beautiful produce, of which fruit was in great quantities, though not yet ripe.’27 We may feel that Parkes is being coldhearted here, but he was surely taking his lead from the adults. He was anxious to prove that he could do anything that was asked of him. And squeamish people simply could not live in the China of the time. He had to be this way. When Parkes arrived in Shanghai on 22 June 1842, after steaming up the Huangpu river in a storm, his first priority was to find Gutzlaff, whom he calls his uncle, but who was actually related to him much more tenuously, being the husband of his father’s cousin. Probably he felt the need to trade on the only useful family connection he had at this point and perhaps he wanted a male relative he could look up to. The thirty-eight-year-old Gutzlaff fitted the bill. As languages came easily to him, he was sure that if others applied themselves like he did, they would acquire them as quickly. Unfortunately, Parkes does not seem to have had any particular gift for learning them, studying a number, but not mastering any other than Chinese. Gutzlaff became deeply dissatisfied with his progress in that language and told him so. If he wished to stay in China and be useful there, he simply had to learn it, along with all the other subjects thought to be important. Gutzlaff was being cruel to be kind. Parkes responded by redoubling his efforts, laying out a systematic plan of study, working on Chinese for two hours before breakfast; then from 10.00 a.m. until midday studying history, geography and arithmetic. He then had a break until 1.00 p.m., and would study Chinese until 3.00, and then take a Latin lesson until 5.00. ‘I cannot help’, he told his journal, […] feeling my backwardness in Chinese, and I can see that my uncle perceives it. He has promised Sir Henry [Pottinger] that I shall know it pretty well in six months, and has also told me that if I do not know it in that time, I shall not stop with him.28

Making the challenge more difficult was the fact that his life was full of distractions. The plan of study had been devised when he was travelling up the Yangtze towards Nanjing (Nanking) and experiencing the most extraordinary excitement. Everything was

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new to him: the sights, the sounds and the feeling of being treated as part of a high-level group. He was also busy, being given a range of jobs. The endless copying of despatches was easy, if boring, but tasks like obtaining provisions on land were very challenging. This was where Parkes came into his own and nobody was as successful as he was at obtaining food, charming market vendors into selling him what they needed. This bright, slight, blond, intense British boy, speaking basic Chinese, must have been quite a curiosity. He was resourceful; when even he absolutely could not buy anything to eat, he improvised:

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Upon seeing three ducks, I darted after them; one I soon caught, and another was caught by one of the men; but the other fled into some water, in which I dashed after it, and after a long chase succeeded in capturing it, but of course I was covered with mud from top to toe.29

They reached Zhenjiang (Chinkiang), about 250 kilometres upstream from Shanghai, on 21 July. This was the first place that Parkes saw action, a costly assault on the city. He writes of casually entering it the following day, with apparently no concern that a visit to a place that the British had extensively damaged, and where they had killed many of its inhabitants, including any soldiers they could capture in reprisals, might not be welcomed by the local populace: ‘We had rather a hot walk, and the streets were beastly dirty, and there was a dead man lying in almost every other house, which together with broken jars of oil and samshu made the stench almost unbearable.’30 Five days later, after doing an errand for Pottinger, he got a horse and cantered around on the walls, making him late back. He returned to discover that a search party was trying to find him because they thought he might have been captured. By 14 August, they were in Nanjing and Parkes discovered that he might have the chance to witness a moment of history: the formal ending of the First Opium War. Pottinger met senior Chinese officials on board the Cornwallis and Parkes was introduced to them; ‘I tried to talk as much as possible, but could only stammer out a few words, while I could not understand Kiying [Qiying – the senior Chinese negotiator] in the least, who speaks the northern mandarin very broadly’.31 This was not an excuse; a problem for all the foreign interpreters and the Chinese themselves was that the spoken language varied so much around the country.

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Parkes was told that he could not attend the actual signing of the treaty – there was limited space on the ship and everybody wanted to be there for this historic moment. However, it happened that he was holding some official papers and the officer in charge of the boats thought they may be important, so let him go on board. It became an unforgettable moment in his life: On the quarter-deck and poop there was a splendid sight. An immense number of officers were assembled there, all in their full-dress uniforms, which made a very showy appearance. There was also a company of marines drawn up, together with a good band … When I got on board the Commissioners … had been … shown into the aftermost cabin. I then went there and had a beautiful place from where I could see and hear everything that went on. I was standing close by the Admiral [Sir William Parker] and General [Sir Hugh Gough], who gave me his terrible large cocked hat and feathers to put down in some place for him.32

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Parkes was also able to attend the ceremonies hosted by the Chinese side. When objections were raised, Pottinger said, ‘He is my boy, and must come.’33 On the morning of 24 August 1842, Parkes walked with Gutzlaff to the temple they were being held at. He wrote: When we got there we found everything in readiness, and their Excellencies Kiying, Elepoo [Yilibu] and Niukien waiting for the arrival of our party. In two large open courts, through which you have to pass before you come to the rooms of the temple, there were on each side drawn up single ranks of Chinese soldiers with flags etc., and at each corner there were a few miserable men playing pipes and beating gongs, which made an horrible noise. In two rooms there was a tiffin laid out of all kinds of sweetmeats, cakes, fruit, tea, etc. etc. … We were received by the Commissioners in a very kind manner … My uncle was soon in earnest conversation with them all. Kiying took me by the hand and seated me by him. I sat by him for full half an hour, during which time he had been amusing himself with me, and I had been amusing myself with the sweetmeats etc. which he gave me. About ten Sir Henry with the Admiral and General, with a very large party of officers, landed and were saluted with three guns. When they approached the court, Kiying etc. rose to receive them.

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‘A SHARP INTELLIGENT LAD’

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I ran into the second court and had a good sight of the whole. First came Sir Henry with the Admiral and General walking arm in arm … They were in full uniform and looked exceedingly well.34

In Nanjing, Parkes found much to enjoy. His comments on what he saw there were in the standard style for British travellers at the time, with no hint of knowledge about the history and background, but nonetheless were not bad for a boy of his age: All round the walls there are images moulded and gilt all over, and in the middle of each story there is a large idol, also gilt. This gilt is in an exceeding good state of preservation … All round about it was ornamented with moulding and carving of the most fantastical and beautiful shapes, painted, etc.35

When Parkes saw damage done by a party of soldiers and sailors to the Porcelain Tower, he wrote:

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Such an act as this is shameful … Really some of the sailors and officers belonging to some of these transports are a lawless set of beings, and they may well be styled “barbarians” who could wantonly destroy a building of such celebrity.36

So – we see Parkes not knowing much about Chinese artefacts, but appreciating that they were of value and not wanting to see them damaged. He never showed much more interest in Chinese culture than this but cannot perhaps be called a complete philistine. The Treaty of Nanjing is most famous today for ceding the island of Hong Kong to Britain ‘in perpetuity’. In addition, China agreed to open five ports to British traders and residents: Guangzhou (Canton), Amoy, Fuzhou (Foochow), Ningbo (Ningpo) and Shanghai. British Consuls would be established in each of them, overseen by the Superintendent of Trade. British residents would be exempted from Chinese law and subject to the jurisdiction of the new Consuls. ‘Fair and regular’ customs tariffs were to be introduced and the Chinese agreed to pay an indemnity of $21 million; $6 million to reimburse the cost of the destroyed opium and $12 million to pay for the cost of the war. The British would hold on to two islands, Zhoushan and Gulangyu (Koolangsoo), until the full sum was handed over. The treaty was ‘unequal’ because it imposed no obligations on Britain. If we are fair however, it perhaps over-righted a situation

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that was very much tilted in China’s favour before. The East India Company had traded profitably with the country since the beginning of the eighteenth century, but the terms were restricted to the point of being humiliating. They were confined to a tiny part of Guangzhou known as the ‘Thirteen Factories’ (called ‘factories’ because they were the residences of ‘factors’ or merchants) and allowed to stay during the trading season only, from October to January. Parkes had achieved much: he had wangled his way into witnessing the key moment in British-Chinese relations, when Britain got its foothold in China. It was hardly a place for a child, but he had somehow convinced very senior men that he was worthy of being there. He was now rubbing shoulders with Generals, Admirals and Ministers.

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‘Not Sufficient to Satisfy Me’ Zhoushan (Chusan) – Guangzhou (Canton), 1842–1843

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™

PARKES KNEW THAT the privilege of being at the top table had a price: the uncomplaining copying of despatches and reports, the relentless study of Chinese, and the running of difficult errands. He was spending most of his time on the Queen, docked on the river at Nanjing, studying and working. Going on shore was unpleasant: the city was flooded and he would have to wade through water up to his shoulders to fulfil his tasks. He avoided falling down holes by sending a Chinese servant ahead of him and not treading in the places where the servant fell over. The swamps were breeding grounds for disease and he had his first bout of the dreaded ‘China fever’, experiencing a great deal of pain in his limbs and chest and had difficulty breathing. It was the kind of illness that carried people off and he was fortunate to get through it. At the end of September, Parkes went to the island of Zhoushan, which had been captured the year before. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, had expected that Charles Elliot would choose this island over Hong Kong. He famously called Hong Kong, in a letter written in April 1841, ‘a barren island with hardly a house upon it’, and it was alleged that the Chinese had only given it up because it was so out of the way. Montgomery Martin, who visited in 1844, titled a book chapter, ‘Hong Kong: Its Position, Prospects, Character, and Utter Worthlessness in every point of view to England.’1 Although the Treaty of Nanjing is seen as a catastrophe to the Chinese today, by the standards of the time, they actually got off lightly, losing a fairly small island that was unimportant to them. Pottinger appointed Gutzlaff as Civil Magistrate in Zhoushan, and Parkes decided to stay with him, settling down to studying 23

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Chinese there and learning the business of managing such a place. He explained his decision to his sisters: I am now taken into the Chinese part of the office as some kind of assistant to the interpreters, for which I receive as a salary $30 per mensem. As I am therefore under Mr Morrison’s control, he could, if he had liked, perhaps [have] prevented me from staying up here; but when I came to consider that I should certainly make more progress in Chinese under my uncle’s tuition than anybody’s else; for though I know very well that Mr Morrison would do all in his power to get me forward, yet the quantity of business that he always has on his hands, while holding so many offices besides that of head interpreter, must hinder him from paying so much attention to me as my uncle could…; and knowing that my future prospects in life depend upon my progress at this time, added to this my uncle’s wish that I should stay with him: when I thought on all these things I came to the conclusion that I had better wait a little longer without seeing you, and so said that I should prefer staying up here to going down to the southward.2

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This meant that he would be parting from Pottinger as well as Morrison, who would both be returning to Hong Kong. It was a big decision to separate himself from them as well as his sisters. Morrison, Parkes told them, ‘says I am foolish, but he does not know my reasons for so doing’.3 As Pottinger’s protégé, Parkes had been remarkably indulged – Morrison, he would never see again. Parkes put the feeling of leaving the two men like this to his sisters: I was very sorry indeed to part with Sir Henry, whom I can never call a master, for he has always acted towards me with the greatest kindness, and so much advanced my prospects in this world proving himself rather to be a father … It was also not without feelings of deep regret that I parted with Mr Morrison and the others.4

There were many advantages to being with Gutzlaff, who completely involved Parkes in his working life. He would take him on tours of inspection on horseback into the interior of Zhoushan: ‘Two or three times a week,’ he told Lockhart, ‘we take a long ride into the country, which trips, as you may imagine, I like exceedingly.’ Parkes would always be taken with natural (but not manmade) beauty and in the case of Zhoushan, wrote, ‘I must say that

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‘NOT SUFFICIENT TO SATISFY ME’

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I think some of the spots in the interior … are as beautiful places as I have ever beheld.’5 However, as we have seen, Gutzlaff was a stern taskmaster. He forced Parkes to apply himself to studying not just standard Mandarin, but insisted that he learn several dialects. On top of this, he had him read texts which were ridiculously difficult. One was San Kwo Chi or ‘The Romance of the Three Kingdoms’, a classic work of fiction, based on the history of the civil wars in China from the years 168 to 265. It has 800,000 words and introduces a thousand characters. Mao is said to have read it almost obsessively in his youth, although it was banned under his rule. Parkes was also struggling through Yu Jiao Li, ‘The Two Fair Cousins’, by Zhang Yun, chosen for him because it consisted of conversations among the higher classes. He was also going to study the Four Books which are classic texts laying out the values and beliefs of Confucianism. They formed the core of the official curriculum for the fantastically difficult civil service exams that selected those who would enter the state bureaucracy. More usefully for him, he was also reading diplomatic correspondence between British and Chinese officials and mingling with ordinary Chinese which Gutzlaff thought would help him learn their customs. Not surprisingly, Parkes was struggling, telling his sisters that, ‘though I think I make some progress, which I ought to do under such good tuition, still it is not sufficient to satisfy me’.6 Making Parkes feel worse was the widespread feeling that Chinese was not so hard – it was not only Gutzlaff who believed this. For example, A Handbook of the Chinese Language by James Summers, published in 1863, cheerfully asserts that ‘The task to the foreign student is trifling’, ‘when he considers that’ the ‘four thousand characters [which Summers thought it necessary for an educated person to know] are systematically derived from two hundred and fourteen simple figures, and that when these are mastered, all other difficulties vanish entirely.’7 Parkes’ intensive study was absolutely necessary because he needed to pass the exam to qualify as an interpreter, without which there seemed to be no future for him in China, certainly not in the consular service. He arrived in Hong Kong for the ordeal on 1 September 1843. Parkes was not the type to fail to achieve distinctly defined goals, and he did pass. It was no small achievement. He told a Parliamentary select committee in 1872: ‘A young man with due diligence may acquire a great deal in the course of

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two years, and in the course of four or five years he may acquire considerable proficiency, sufficient for all ordinary purposes.’8 The ridiculously high expectations of those around him had inspired him to do in two years (that is to reach the level at which he could interpret officially), what took most people much longer. While he was in Hong Kong, he made the acquaintance of Robert Thom, who was in his twenties and another talented linguist and adventurer. Thom had started a business career at fourteen, which had taken him to Venezuela, Mexico, France and then China, where he arrived in 1834. Since 1840, he had been working in government service, seeing action in the First Opium War. A Chinese mistress, with whom he had a son and a daughter, helped him to become fluent in the colloquial language. He would write a number of textbooks for students of Chinese and published a translation of Aesop’s Fables. In his preface to this book, he was reassuringly frank about the difficulties of learning Chinese and humble about his own abilities, stating that he had ‘no wish’ to persuade his readers of the ‘superiority of our attainments, or induce them to believe, that, the difficulties we propose helping them over, we have entirely mastered ourselves. Such we feel sorry to confess, is very far from being the case!’9 It is easy to warm to Thom, in a way that is much more difficult with the almost super-human Gutzlaff. He was refreshingly laid back and cheerfully casual about making arrangements. He suggested that Parkes accompany him to Guangzhou to learn how a Consul’s office worked. Pottinger agreed, and so Parkes was off the following day. As he put it in his journal, ‘Here one day, there the next … Friday finds me in Hongkong, Saturday in Macao, and Monday at Canton … I gain something by it – the art of packing and travelling.’10 Parkes would discover that the job of Consul was not much fun. As Douglas Hurd put it, ‘nothing could have been more lonely or uncomfortable than the life of a China Consul. He was hemmed in by hostility and difficulty of every kind.’11 As for the work, the Consul’s main role was facilitating trade. There was a lot of dull paperwork: he had to decide on the fees for the harbour pilots, receive a ship’s papers and notify Chinese customs of its arrival and issue certificates of trans-shipment from one vessel to another. He also had to keep the Superintendent of Trade informed of everything that was happening, manage his staff, submit annual trade reports and keep accounts. Then there was overseeing the activities of British subjects in the port, hearing grievances and

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‘NOT SUFFICIENT TO SATISFY ME’

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making judgments, punishing British criminals and handing Chinese ones over to the Chinese authorities. In addition, he had to enforce port limits, supervise the renting of houses and prevent smuggling. He had to make sure that the Chinese authorities protected the British communities and obeyed the terms of the treaties, and also that British residents behaved well and likewise obeyed the treaty provisions. It sounds like a lot of responsibility, but it was mostly routine administrative work, which Parkes did not much like. His early experiences, with all their excitements and diversions, had been unrepresentative of the reality of life in the consular service in China. ‘I daresay’, he told his journal after his arrival, ‘I shall be able to make myself comfortable, although Canton is such a dull place.’12 In spite of the Treaty of Nanjing providing that consular staff and merchants should be able to live in the city, the Chinese were still insisting that Europeans had to remain in the narrow strip of land where they had always been, because the population of Guangzhou was so hostile to Westerners that it would not be safe for them to live there. There was truth in this, but officials whipped up the hostility of the locals to make it so. In 1847, the Superintendent of Trade got a promise that the city would be opened to foreigners in two years, but when that time came, his successor was again told it would stay closed. He could do nothing about it because Palmerston had decreed that entry into Guangzhou was not worth fighting a war for. Although Parkes had passed his interpreter’s exam, he was not resting on his laurels and quickly found a teacher of Mandarin, albeit an expensive one, costing $15 or $16 a month. His job as assistant to the interpreters at Zhoushan had only earned him $30 a month, so this was a great deal of money to him. Probably the man was not a teacher at all; at the time, they tended to put an emphasis on knowledge of the Chinese classics, rather than actual experience teaching the language. But such people, especially ones who spoke Mandarin were hard to find in Guangzhou, hence the cost. Parkes is now fifteen, but he sounds middle-aged when he describes his evening routine: I generally walk out in the American garden … Though small it is neatly laid out and the walks are kept in excellent repair, but it is not frequented so much as the English, whither most of the merchants and young men repair, as in the former they are restricted

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playing at quoits etc.; but this only makes it the more agreeable for those who merely go out for the purpose of taking a quiet walk.13

He probably avoided the company of the ‘young men’ because he was worried (or had been warned) of the dangers of being led astray. A missionary wrote of Japan what was not less true of China, that the ‘temptations in this country are fearful … [and] very few indeed … have not fallen.’14 But Lane-Poole was able to write of Parkes that ‘no breath of scandal touched his blameless life’, adding that he seemed ‘insensible to vice, and conversation became purer in his presence.The piquant story of the jovial messroom somehow appeared out of place when he was by.’15 His seriousness was soon to receive its reward as opportunities started opening up for him. In October he was at Pottinger’s side at the signing of the Treaty of the Bogue, a supplement to the Treaty of Nanjing, with more detail about the terms of British residence and trade. This gave Pottinger the chance to see Parkes’ interpreting skills in action and, perhaps as importantly, how he comported himself in such a setting. It seems remarkable that they would employ a child to do such responsible work, but there were very few suitable people available. Thom wrote that ‘scarce a dozen Englishmen in the world care a straw about the Chinese’.16 In addition, the turnover of staff was high because so many succumbed to illness, meaning that almost any reasonably competent man would have a chance (employing a woman was out of the question, although someone like Catharine would have been perfectly able to do the job). And Parkes had the distinct advantage of not being a missionary. They usually had the best Chinese but were disapproved of by the Foreign Office because they would see their missionary work as more important than their consular. In spite of his religious convictions, Parkes always put his job first. For all these reasons, the fifteen-year-old got his first responsible position, as interpreter in Amoy. As Mitford put it, he ‘was doing important work … at an age when other boys are yet wondering whether they will get into the school eleven’.17

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‘Here I am Now Perfectly Alone’ Amoy (Xiamen), 1844–1845 ™

THE DAY PARKES set out on his journey to Amoy, 24 June 1844, he decided was ‘an important day in the annals of my life’, for

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though I have twice or thrice set out much in a similar manner upon my own crook and hook, I have either not filled any important post, or have had some person or other to superintend my movements. But here I am now perfectly alone, holding a situation of some responsibility, but which suits me well, – at least I like it – sent forth by myself, – or having cast away the apron-strings, as some would say, but which I think are at times comfortable things for one to nestle under, – to battle against the potent and overpowering stream of the world, but which, if a higher Hand upholds me, I hope to oppose.1

Parkes was marking the new beginning by starting a new journal, setting out for himself at the start what he hoped to accomplish by doing so: I do not intend writing it as an amusement, or to give it away after having filled a book for anybody’s pleasure or perusal, but always to keep it by me to serve as a reference. I think I shall also put down any information that I may pick up, thus making it also serve the office of a Memorandum Book: as far as matters relating to trade, it will be official, and in fact I mean to make something useful of it, a regular multum in parvo [much in a little]. It will doubtless be dry and stiff enough, and of no use to anybody but myself, but that will be a good fault.2

In spite of writing this, he does also put down some feelings in it, one of which is that he thinks the post of interpreter in Amoy 29

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is a bit beneath him. It was something he had ‘been expecting for some time’, adding ‘I think I shall have an easy berth enough, but that by no means pleases me, for so much the less chance of distinction.’3 Catharine was concerned about his over-confidence: ‘He is so much liked by all – and gains the good opinion of all around him so soon – and these clever amiable youths run much danger from this, of getting well satisfied with themselves – I hope this is not the case with him.’4 Amoy – or Xiamen as it is known in the rest of China – was one of the five ports to be opened to foreign trade in the Treaty of Nanjing. It had a population of about 250,000. Today it is a very pleasant place and has been called China’s most liveable city, surrounded by water and with what, before land reclamation, was one of the world’s great natural harbours. However, Parkes was not at all impressed with it, telling his journal, ‘Never do I recollect seeing a more dirty place, the streets being narrow and filthy to an extreme.’ The people were a

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most obstreperous race, caring nothing for their mandarins, but actually rising in rebellion against them … Cases of police and soldiers being killed are of repeated occurrence … The whole coast … is completely lined with pirates … Even in Amoy they are not quiet but quarrel fiercely with each other. For some time the coolies have been in the habit of firing at one another from the wharves …[;] this is by no means pleasant as it interferes with the foreigners.5

Pottinger had intended to make Parkes interpreter in Fuzhou, which was the capital of Fujian province and had double the population of Amoy. However, he had now left China and had been replaced by the much less friendly John Davis, who sent Parkes to the less important Amoy instead. This perhaps explains why he was so down on the place. Parkes regretted the departure of Pottinger, writing, […] in him I have lost a good master. Mr Davis I have not seen much of, as he lives much more secluded, but I am certain that he does not possess many of the frank, generous, kind and endearing qualities of his predecessor – but I forget I have now left Hongkong and all these high people, and am here alone … in Amoy.6

Pottinger had known nothing of China when he was appointed Superintendent, but Davis came to the job as an expert on the

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country, being a translator of the literature and writer of highly regarded works about it. He had received his first appointment there as a ‘writer’ in the East India factory in Guangzhou in 1813, at the age of eighteen. To Parkes it seemed that his manner was ‘rather cold and distant, and [he] likes great deference to be paid to him’.7 Parkes was not the only one to dislike him and he managed to offend virtually every European in Hong Kong. A later writer said that his ‘unexampled career of oppression had rendered miserable the existence of his subordinates … and he had left these parts without having a single friend’.8 Parkes’ immediate boss in Amoy was Britain’s first Consul there, Henry Gribble. He had no experience of that kind of position, having been captain of an ‘Indiaman’, a trading ship owned by the East India Company, and had subsequently become a merchant in Macao. He was described as a ‘tall, well-made man’, and was accompanied by his pregnant wife, four daughters, and three servants.9 He spoke no Chinese, so was completely dependent on Parkes. They lived on the island of Gulangyu and would shuttle across to the Consulate daily in a small boat. A little British community had settled down there, including seven missionaries. There were also about three hundred men in its British garrison, necessary, not because the island particularly needed defending, but because the British were holding on to it until the indemnities set out in the Treaty of Nanjing had been paid. Parkes was lodged in a ‘fine and airy’ house there with three rooms. Its previous occupier, the first clerk, had kept a farmyard with a good garden which Parkes intended to keep up. He had the time to do so, having very little work as there was hardly any trade at this point. This meant that he could also keep working on his Chinese. He had a fixed routine: Rise at daylight …; walk for an hour; dress by eight, read Chinese till ten. Breakfast and go to office. Be back by four. Dine and take exercise. Spend evening in light Chinese or English reading.10

Unfortunately, the island of Gulangyu was extremely unhealthy and every member of Gribble’s household fell ill within three months of their arrival. The Vice-Consul seemed at the point of death but recovered well enough to become Consul, dying in the post at the age of 44. Both of the assistants caught the fever which killed a Chinese servant. Much of the garrison was suffering as well – the year before, eighty of them had died.

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The trouble in Gulangyu was they were living at the bottom of a valley. Usually, the British in such places sought out hilltops, which were breezier and healthier, avoiding swamps which were breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Gribble would actually take a tent and sleep on nearby islands, thinking they were safer. The British inhabitants could hardly have had a positive view of Gulangyu, but it is a truly lovely place, now a major tourist attraction, indeed a World Heritage Site, lauded by UNESCO as ‘an exceptional example of … cultural fusion’. Parkes moved into a house that was in a more elevated position, but he too eventually succumbed to the deadly fever. He managed to keep his spirits up until a clergyman ‘thinking my end was approaching, unwisely … came and told me of it, which much alarmed and agitated me, for though sorry to say so, I felt and knew that I was quite unprepared to die’. He recovered, but by the time the ordeal was over, he was ‘reduced to a mere skeleton’.11 Davis had no confidence in Gribble and replaced him after only a year. You have to feel some sympathy for Gribble who had had little chance to succeed, never having a full complement of staff and being debilitated by sickness. Unfortunately, being unlucky was no excuse for failure. However, after his dismissal, Gribble got a better job, becoming superintendent of a large fleet of steam ships for P&O, so things worked out well for him in the end. Parkes was on his way even sooner. After less than three months there, much of it flat on his back, he was moved, temporarily, to Fuzhou, which is where he had originally been intended to go by Pottinger. He liked it much better than Amoy, indeed it seemed to be every Westerner’s idealised image of China: ‘the bold outline of mountains and wooded heights, the winding river covered with numerous gaily-painted junks, the green rice-fields, and the busy swarming population’.12 Fuzhou had claims to be the finest of the five ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing; Martin thought it was vastly superior to Amoy, had larger shops and finer streets than Shanghai, and its main street was better than any thoroughfare in Ningbo.13 Unfortunately, the British consular officials had little chance to enjoy these delights, living in a dingy part of the city.The local Governor had been opposed to them being there and ‘by intrigue rather than by any open show of unfriendliness’, according to Davis, consigned the consular staff to what Parkes described as ‘wretched’ lodgings in an ‘upper storey of a small Chinese house overlooking the river, accessible only by a filthy little alley’.14 The hope was

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that making the British as uncomfortable as possible would drive them away. However, the discomfort was not the main problem with the otherwise pleasant Fuzhou. As Davis put it, the ‘picturesque beauties of the stream are as remarkable as its commercial unfitness’.15 The Min was a nearly impossible river to navigate, there being sunken junks in it which had been left there during the First Opium War, and it was very shallow. The Consul in this unpromising place was George Tradescant Lay, a naturalist who had travelled all around the Pacific collecting plant specimens. He then became a missionary, learned Chinese, and entered the consular service. His time in China had been rocky: during the First Opium War, a man standing next to him had been killed by a cannon shot, and he himself was wounded. His luck ran out in 1845, when he died of fever in Amoy. Parkes did not think much of Lay who, he complained to Lockhart, succumbed ‘very much to Chinese manners and customs’. Lay did not hoist the Union Jack over the Consulate, thinking that it might offend the Chinese, which Parkes thought was unconscionable. Even when he did raise it, it was done ‘after the Chinese fashion on a small transverse pole which does not reach more than half-mast high.’16 A British steamer captain, seeing the flag like that, thought that somebody had died. Parkes was not needed as an interpreter by Lay and returned to Amoy on 15 October, where he had the intimidating task of interpreting for the tetchy Davis, who knew the language well, but obviously not quite well enough to fully operate in it. Parkes wrote in his journal, ‘I began to wish myself out of my shoes, as it is a real ordeal to interpret for your superior who knows the language himself.’17 Soon after Davis left, Parkes gained a new boss as Consul in Amoy, and this time it was someone he could both like and respect: Rutherford Alcock. Alcock had originally been a surgeon, but following a bout of rheumatic fever, had lost the full use of his thumbs and had to find a different career. He entered the consular service and went to China. Parkes described him as ‘tall but slimly made, standing about six feet in his boots … very gentlemanly in his manners and address, and exceedingly polite’.18 He looks slightly ineffectual in photographs, with his huge Victorian sideburns and placid gaze. But he was a tough character, believing that ‘a salutary dread of the immediate consequences of violence offered to British subjects … seems to be the best and only

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protection in this country for Englishmen’.19 He went on to become the first British Consul-General in Japan and subsequently Minister to China. He survived the hazards of both countries, living to eighty-eight, one of the few people in this book to last into old age. Alcock later wrote down his first impressions of Parkes: ‘small of stature for his age, with fair hair, a bright blue eye, and a fresh colour, with a quick and eager intelligence’. He added that even to the end of his life,

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[…] there was always something of a nervous eagerness, both in speech and manner, reminding one of the straining of a dog at his leash in sight of the quarry; and the peculiarly slow and deliberate circumlocutions and mode of conducting business with foreign officials in China must often have sorely tried his powers of control whilst acting as interpreter. This and his quickness of apprehension, whatever work he might be called upon to undertake, and his capacity for labour in mastering it, were all eminently characteristic.20

Alcock knew no Chinese and was entirely dependent on Parkes, a much easier situation for him than working with someone who understood the language. For Alcock it was a relief to have someone who was competent to interpret for him, and who he could get along with so easily. Parkes and Alcock would work together for five years and be friends for life. Mitford thought that Alcock was a ‘kind and considerate chief ’ but had one terrible flaw: he was very long-winded. His despatches contained ‘excellent stuff ’, but ‘they were spoilt by being spun out to interminable lengths of impossible verbiage’. The people who suffered most were the junior staff who had to make copies of his despatches – Mitford complained that when it was hot, doing so felt like ‘being private secretary to Satan in the nethermost regions’.21 Parkes would have gone through this, but he never complained about it. Another difficult Alcock trait was to set very challenging assignments that were not essential: his first task for Parkes was to translate all the Chinese correspondence that had been received at Fuzhou since the port had been opened. Parkes must have struggled with this, but he never ducked out of anything because it was too hard. Alcock’s wife, Henrietta, set other challenges for him, thinking that he should be studying French (again) and German. Both the Alcocks were cultivated: he was interested in and knowledgeable about art, having studied it for a year in Paris,

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and going on to publish respected works on Japanese arts. As for Henrietta, ‘she is quite literarily-inclined’, according to Parkes, ‘and writes poems, sketches beautifully, and is expressly alert with her needle.’ The Alcocks allowed him free use of their library, but he thought a lot of it was worryingly ‘light’ and in the case of Byron’s poems, some were ‘very licentious and immoral, but these I shall not study, whilst some possess much purer sentiment and fine pathos’.22 It was fortunate that Parkes and the Alcocks got along so well because there were very few other Britons in the area. Living with them, Parkes’ life seemed as happy as it had ever been. He was working hard and was appreciated by his boss, but he certainly had no intention of relaxing. On New Year’s Eve 1844, he set down how he intended to live his life: My spare time, of which I have daily about five hours at command, I intend employing in the improvement of my mind by study … for I conceive that to be unemployed or have nothing to do may be productive of much evil… Regarding my income, it is my intention [not] to be niggard or profuse, so that I may be enabled to save and put by some portion for future wants, never forgetting however that charity which I consider an especial duty to attend to. To take plenty of exercise, and allow eight hours for rest. To observe a somewhat rigid diet, and to abstain as much as possible from wine or intoxicating drinks, conceiving an excess in either to be not only hurtful to the body but decidedly wrong. To avoid all backbiting and slandering, and to constantly keep in mind and try to act up to the golden rule, ‘Do unto others as you would be done by’ … Pride and vanity are some of my great faults, but with grace from above I need not despair of repressing them.23

Did Parkes follow these precepts? I think he did. He was certainly never lazy. He was careful with money while conscious that he had to ‘maintain his position’ when he was a Minister, and was generous to good causes. He would take physical exercise when he could and remained slim all his life, suggesting that he ate sensibly. He liked alcohol but I have not found evidence of him ever being drunk. As for the golden rule, he probably did obey it in that while he dished out rough treatment to others when he was in a position to, he never complained when he was on the

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receiving end of it. (He would complain about unfairness.) With respect to backbiting, I have not found anything that could fit that description in anything he wrote, or indeed anything remotely gossipy. Dickins claims that ‘in his conversation he never spoke harshly of anyone’, which is a little difficult to believe, although it may have been true in that if he had something nasty to say about people, he said it to their faces.24 In his reports to the Foreign Office, he was much more loyal to his colleagues than, say, Alcock, who once described the Governor of Hong Kong to the permanent under-secretary as ‘the most uncouth and uncourteous of men, and so thoroughly coarse and bumptious’.25 Alcock was much more emollient than Parkes in person, but Parkes never used this kind of language about anybody in writing. However, this is looking into the future. For now, he was an exceptionally resourceful sixteen-year-old. A sign of this was his handling of the building of consular residences in Amoy. With the payment of the fifth instalment of the indemnity from the Opium War, the British garrison could be withdrawn from Gulangyu, which would have been an immense relief to them all, as their main occupation was sitting around wondering who was going to be the next to die of the fever. This meant that the consular staff would move from Gulangyu to the mainland and so new residences would have to be built there. It was no simple task to find a suitable site, the local authorities doing nothing to make things easy, but Parkes managed to secure one. Then it was necessary for British architects to draw up plans and have Chinese builders follow them – Parkes had to communicate an entirely alien style of building to these men. ‘How the Interpreter’s part’, wrote Alcock years later, ‘was achieved or by what tour de force or légerdemain he ever succeeded in bringing to the Chinese builder’s comprehension the details of plans and specification I have never understood’.26

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‘A Continuous Settled Life Has No Charms for Me’ Fuzhou – Shanghai, 1845–1849

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A LCOCK WAS ONLY in Amoy temporarily, waiting until a house that was suitable for a married couple was available in Fuzhou. Then he would exchange positions with Lay, who was single. Lay had managed to secure a better site for the Consulate: on a hilltop reached by a fairly strenuous climb. It was a collection of temples, rented from their priests for a reasonable sum. Parkes was not impressed by them, thinking they were ‘small and inconvenient’ and ‘really afford very little room adapted to English tastes’.1 Surprisingly, for someone who lived four-fifths of his life in China and Japan, he never adopted their living styles and always insisted on Western comforts. The fact that there was virtually no commercial activity in Fuzhou meant Parkes suffered financially because they received emoluments according to the amount of trade done at a port. There were, however, a few perks. He had to accompany Alcock to meet the local officials and he described the procession they made to Catharine: Mr Alcock,Walker [the first assistant] and myself have each a splendid chair, very large, covered with blue cloth, with tassels and braid to correspond, the lining and furniture inside of light blue silk, cushions violet. We are carried by four coolies, each in a kind of uniform, with the usual official cap, and before the first chair and after the last two police walk, whilst two of our private servants, all dressed out officially, attend each chair. Mr. Alcock had a large umbrella carried before him, made of red silk with treble folds.2 37

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Lay had adopted this last custom and Alcock continued it; unlike most of Lay’s ideas, Parkes thought it was sensible ‘as it raises one in the ideas of the people’.3 Henrietta Alcock became a great attraction, being the first Western woman to enter the city. When she arrived, such crowds gathered to see her pass along in her chair that it was nearly impossible for them to move. Fuzhou was not always so enthusiastic about foreigners, and there are many accounts of Westerners being pelted with stones and being pushed and shoved there. When General D’Aguilar, the British Commander-in-Chief and his party were at the city gates and were refused entry because it was after sunset, crowds leapt onto their chairs and men exposed themselves; ‘there was not the slightest respect or decency of demeanour in the people’.4 It took some courage to walk alone through the city, but Parkes was not one to allow fear to prevent him from doing something.The worst moment for him came on 4 October 1845 when, having woken early, he had decided to take a long walk. Passing through the area occupied by Tartars – ‘who have always shown themselves to be the most turbulent and ill-disposed’ – a hundred of them climbed the walls, and twelve of them started throwing stones and blocks of granite at him.5 He remonstrated with them in Chinese but ended up having to run for it. They were punished for this: three of the younger assailants were severely flogged and the older men were exposed for a month with a cangue (portable stocks) around their necks. When he was in a position to, Parkes would always go to great lengths to ensure that anybody who attacked a Westerner would be tracked down and suffer for it, the thinking being that if they let it go, it would make the country more dangerous for all of them. Not surprisingly, Parkes’ views of the Chinese were hardening. Martin recorded meeting him in 1845 and conversing with him about China. He quotes Parkes, whom he thinks ‘intelligent far beyond his years’, telling him, ‘Mandarins pretend friendship, but hate us, – they use all sorts of duplicity – and not a word they say can be believed. Does not agree in the high opinion expressed of Keying – thinks him very artful … they seem to take a delight in deception.’6 However, one has to spare a thought for Keying (Qiying), a senior official Parkes had met at the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing. If a British official upset a superior, the worst that could happen to them would be being recalled, but it was very different for their Chinese counterparts. It happened that both the men who

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negotiated the British possession of Hong Kong, Qishan for the Chinese side, and Charles Elliot for the British, seriously upset their superiors by doing so. Qishan was summoned in chains and sentenced to death (later commuted to exile) while all that happened to Elliot was to receive a sharp note from the Foreign Secretary: ‘Throughout the whole course of your proceedings, you seemed to have considered that my instructions were waste paper’ and being dismissed.7 Actually Qishan was very fortunate. When Qiying made ‘mistakes’ in 1858, the Emperor, being ‘just and gracious’, told him he could kill himself rather than be executed. They had to be both devious and lucky to stay alive. The summer of 1845 saw Parkes attacked by fever again but this time he had the former doctor taking care of him, recording that ‘under Providence’, Alcock’s ‘very skilful treatment brought me round without resorting to any violent remedies, which are sometimes as bad as the disease’. Henrietta helped by reading to him from the Bible, ‘which when I am ill I am always particularly desirous to hear, so much comfort is to be derived from it’.8 Parkes was entitled to leave after his attack of fever but decided not to take it – he did not want Davis to think he was the type to get sick. And he was not terribly busy with his official work, although, as may be imagined, he was not idling his time away. Rather, he started studying Manchu which, according to UNESCO, is now ‘critically endangered’, but was significant at the time because it was the language of the Emperor’s Court in Beijing. He was also trying Tibetan and plugging away with his French, of course. It seems amazing that Parkes never seemed to think he would be so much better off if he focused on Chinese and French, the only two languages he actually needed, rather than trying to learn very difficult ones which were very unlikely to be of any use to him. (He was almost certainly never going to be invited to the Imperial Court or travel to Tibet.) Life was monotonous; he told Catharine that he was ‘at a loss how to fill a note … for of news – what am I writing? News, such a word not known in Foochow [Fuzhou].’9 His relative inactivity there enabled him to engage in one of his favourite activities at this point in his life, reflecting on his failings. He told Catharine: I find I possess few or no acquirements on which vanity would be permissible, but on the other hand much cause presents itself for shame. Indolence is my besetting sin, a most dangerous fault that everybody that indulges in will rue. Circumstances have

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so brought it about that apathy has laid hold of me, rendering voluntary exertion painful to me.10

Probably, according to most people’s standards, he was pretty occupied, but his own were high. Not making absolutely maximum use of your time was, to Parkes, the ultimate crime. On New Year’s Day 1845, he had described time as a ‘pearl of ineffable value’, and he vowed ‘not to neglect that the time will come when I shall be called upon to render up an account of how I have used it’.11 Parkes needed an all-consuming job which made him feel useful and the sense that he was progressing. Without such an occupation he was becoming listless: ‘A continuous settled life has no charms for me’.12 He need not have worried. In August 1846, Alcock was promoted to be Consul at Shanghai, a much busier port than Fuzhou, but it did not follow that Parkes would go with him.The interpreter there was Walter Medhurst, who was six years older than him and an exceptionally capable linguist, so Parkes could hardly have expected to supersede him. However, luckily, Medhurst was due for leave and this meant that Parkes could go with Alcock to Shanghai as acting interpreter. Medhurst and his family knew Catharine and Isabella very well because they had been on the George IV together (along with William Lockhart, who would marry Catharine) sailing out from England, so they had had plenty of time to get to know each other. Walter had been fifteen at the time and Catharine had taught his younger sisters music and singing on the voyage. Meanwhile their father, who was a Congregationalist missionary, spent the journey composing an English-Chinese dictionary, preaching to the passengers and crew on Sundays, supervising William’s study of Chinese and teaching Chinese and natural sciences to Walter. Such prodigious activity was typical of him: he published thirty-four Chinese and sixty-two Malay works, in addition to translations from Chinese and writings in English. He and William would go on to become a missionary team, working closely together for twelve years. There were times when the Lockharts were living in the Medhursts’ house and others when the Medhursts were living in the Lockharts’. However, according to his Dictionary of National Biography entry, the older Medhurst was ‘by no means genial, or an easy man to get on with, and was the object more of respect than affection’, which may help to explain why there was a major falling out between the families when Isabella Parkes and Walter

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Medhurst got engaged in 1844.13 The Lockharts did not approve, thinking Isabella was too young and Walter too sickly. Before he heard of the engagement, William had been very positive about Walter, writing ‘I esteem him highly and consider it a privilege to be with him and work with him for the cause of Christ’ but this high opinion changed, and he came to think that Walter acted ‘dishonourably in every way’.14 When Catharine heard the news of the engagement, she wrote, ‘they are very well delighted, and write love notes every morning etc – This is all very well – but I hope they will wait awhile for the conclusion until Walter is better’.15 However, five days later we see her writing: W.H.M. [Walter Medhurst] has withdrawn his addresses from Isabella, and she is in grief and despair and misery – the reason this – He and his mother and father insisted on their being married on the 14th of October. W.H.M. was but just recovering from a severe attack of Rheumatism of the spine, and William said he could not give his consent to their being married so soon – we must wait and see the effects of another winter on W.H.M.’s health – which certainly was very reasonable, and a small demand if he loved Isabella to wait 6 months – he threatened if consent was not given to do what he has done and thus we are – he is dreadfully angry with William – never speaks to him, has never thanked him for attendance and has called in other advices and Isabella considers that William and I have been unkind. Makes herself wretched and of course it has spoiled the happiness and cheerfulness of our circle – I consider that W.H.M. has acted a most unworthy part – but he is too proud – Were it any one but Isabella I would say send back his presents and think no more of him, but to her I dare not mention such a thing.16

It seems unbelievable that some kind of compromise could not have been reached between two families with such deep ties.Why did the Medhursts so insist they had to get married in October? Why did the Lockharts so insist that Walter’s health meant the marriage had to be delayed? It is easy to imagine Isabella being furious at being blocked by her brother-in-law William, as Catharine had been two years younger than her when she had got married to him and had not needed anybody’s permission to do so. Walter was certainly unlucky in love, going on to marry two women who both died a year after the wedding. Alcock, who attended his next one, told Parkes that ‘all his friends must very

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earnestly hope he will be more fortunate with his third venture’.17 He was, but still outlived this wife as well, living to a respectable sixty-three, making the Lockharts’ concerns about his health seem unfounded (rheumatism, by the standards of China, was a very mild complaint). The fact that there were many more Western men than women in China meant there was little danger of someone like Isabella being left on the shelf, and two years later she married an Irishman, Rev.Thomas McClatchie. McClatchie has left much less of a footprint on history than Medhurst, Lockhart or Parkes, but he was remarkable in his own way. He had gone to Shanghai in 1844 as one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society in China and went on to be a canon of Hong Kong Cathedral and then of Shanghai. He became very proficient in Chinese, able to preach fluently in Shanghai dialect by the end of 1847. A report he made to the Church Missionary Society in 1852 gives a flavour of his energetic activity:

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I have, during the year, printed the Gospels of St. Mark and St. John [in Shanghai dialect]. May the Lord make them a blessing to this people!... I am now engaged in the laborious task of compiling a vocabulary of this dialect for the use of Missionaries. My class of blind afford me much comfort … I give each individual 100 cash a week … about fourpence. If a few friends of Missions at home would each subscribe £1 per annum to this object, I could increase my class considerably … If I had funds I should certainly build an asylum for these poor creatures, who are frequently left to starve in the streets.18

In his intellectual output, McClatchie was quite daring, especially for a missionary in a small community, publishing the essay ‘Phallic worship’ in the China Review in January 1876. The journal distanced itself from the piece, prefacing it with the comment: ‘It is scarcely necessary to warn the reader that … Canon McClatchie stands entirely alone’.19 He also made the first English translation of The Book of Changes, the Chinese classic dating from the late 9th century BC.20 In that, he drew attention to the phallic elements in the book and mentioned sexual organs (in Latin, not English) which so offended those around him that his work was declared to be of no use. His obituary in the North China Herald gives a flavour of his scholarship while skirting around its more controversial aspects:

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Canon McClatchie based his views upon the principle that no one system of paganism can be understood alone; comparative mythology must be called in, and one system – say that of China – explained by other systems – say those of Babylon and Greece. Chinese cosmogony was Canon McClatchie’s favourite subject, and the radical impurity of the system was his favourite hobby. The Canon’s theories did not, we believe, find general acceptance among sinologues: but his profound scholarship and wide learning were always beyond dispute, and however much other scholars may have differed from him, no one ever ventured to treat his writings with disrespect.21

We know virtually nothing about his and Isabella’s life together, other than from brief death notices, which paint a grim picture of Isabella’s life in particular, as she not only outlived her husband (he died in 1885), but at least three of their children: Arthur, who died aged twenty-four in 1874, Harry at thirty-six in 1883, and Thomas at thirty-four in 1886. We also do not know what kind of relationship Parkes had with him – there is only a single brief mention of McClatchie in the official biography, which contrasts with the countless times his other sister’s husband, William Lockhart, appears. On the other hand, Parkes left Isabella (and therefore him) £1,000 in his will – about the same amount that each of his children got – and the McClatchies named one of their sons ‘Harry Parkes’, which suggests they were close. Perhaps it was the decision of Catharine to airbrush McClatchie out of the official biography because he was something of an embarrassment. Both personally and professionally, Shanghai was a much more stimulating place for Parkes to live than Fuzhou, especially as his sisters were there as well. Its population was only about 200,000, less than half that of Fuzhou, but it was a bustling place which merchants were flocking to, and there were around one hundred British residents. The Chinese officials there were much more cooperative than in Amoy and Fuzhou, and the British managed to acquire a hundred-acre site on the riverfront, just outside the city, for a settlement. Another major point in its favour was that Shanghai was a healthy place to live. In a report written in 1848, Alcock pointed out that among the British residents there had been only three deaths in four years, none of them, Alcock thought, attributable to their having lived in Shanghai (ironically it was in that city that his wife, Henriettta, would die).22

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Parkes was gaining in confidence and being praised to the skies by his superiors. He was not just translating for them, but taking initiatives in an imaginative and effective way. Brooke Robertson, the Vice-Consul in Shanghai admired the way Parkes engaged with the Governor of Nanjing on the subject of whether a Provincial Treasurer could be appointed. The Governor said one could not, but Parkes ‘adduced precedents to prove the contrary’. Brooke Robertson went on: ‘I have now the pleasing duty to convey my deep sense of the services rendered during this mission by Mr Parkes, to whose exertions, tact, and zeal its successful termination is chiefly due.’23 Parkes was coming to the notice of the Foreign Office in London. In the same month as Brooke Robertson’s report was written, April 1848, Parkes received the appointment of interpreter in Shanghai (not merely acting) and then in July 1849, he was named to the same position in Amoy. But before he could take it up, he was given leave to go back to Britain.

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6

‘I Saw a Good Deal’ India – Britain, 1849–1851

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PARKES WAS NOW twenty-one and had not been to Britain for eight years, so had not seen it as an adult. He was determined to make up for lost time and take a voyage of discovery. As we may have guessed, he approached it with vigour. The journey back was itself an opportunity to discover new places and he made a particular effort to experience India. His first significant stop was Galle, from where he toured Ceylon, whereupon he attacked the sub-continent travelling overland from the east to the west coasts: starting in Chennai (Madras), he went to Kanchipuram (Conjeveram), Arcot, Bengaluru (Bangalore), Srirangapatna (Seringapatam), Kozhikode (Calicut), from where he took a steamer up the coast to Mumbai (Bombay). The overland stage of the journey was about seven hundred kilometres, undertaken in a ‘transit-coach’ drawn by bullocks (there were no trains in the country at this point). He probably walked and the transit-coach took his baggage. The trip gives an interesting insight into his priorities – most people were satisfied with visiting the Indian ports, coupled with easy excursions inland, but Parkes wanted more from the experience. He probably thought he would never have the chance to spend an extended period in the country again (if so, he was right), so he took the opportunity. Pottinger had given him letters of introduction so he was welcomed wherever he went, and in Mumbai he was received by the Governor, Lord Falkland. After India, he sailed on to Suez, rode on a camel from there to Cairo and then went along the Mahmudiya canal to Alexandria. He finally reached Marseilles on 18 March 1850, from where he took the train through France before arriving at Folkestone, where he ‘hurried to the best chop-house’ he could see ‘and ordered 45

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an English beefsteak with potatoes and ale as concomitants’. Unfortunately, the beef was badly-cooked and the potatoes underdone. The accompaniment however was a treat: ‘There is no resemblance I declare’ between British ale and the ‘bottled-up fermentation that we get in China.’1 As is common for those used to the life outside Britain, London was a shock. Lord Dufferin once remarked that twenty-five minutes in Pall Mall would take the conceit out of any Viceroy.2 Parkes discovered that China had actually been convenient in many ways: ‘One of the few China comforts that I have missed in England’, he told Catharine, ‘is the room that our houses there afford us.’ He also found that the ‘constant packing is a slight drawback to the pleasure of my travel. Then no coolies to help pack or to walk off with the packages when packed with merely a chit – no, the attendance of waggons and of self to every particular is necessary here, and becomes very tedious.’3 Parkes was invited to the Foreign Office to meet Edmund Hammond, then senior clerk there, who would have been interested to meet this energetic and, by the accounts he had received, very able young man. Although they never exactly became friends, his relationship with Hammond would be the most important professional one for him in the years to come. Hammond was Foreign Office blue blood, his father having been the first British Minister to the United States. His mother was the daughter of the attorney-general of Pennsylvania. His entire career was spent in the civil service, rising through the ranks, reaching the most senior level a non-politician could manage: permanent under-secretary in the Foreign Office, in which post he served from 1854 to 1873. On his retirement, he received a peerage, the highest possible reward for the remarkable service he had given in that job. Hammond was a conservative force and implacably resistant to almost any reform. When it was suggested that copying clerks might be introduced to free up junior staff for higher-level work, he declared that this ‘would be utterly ruinous’ and would tend ‘very much to impair the future efficiency of the service’.4 Mitford, who worked under him at the Foreign Office wrote, ‘Mr. Hammond was the Foreign Office: he kept all the strings in his own hands … his colossal industry and retentive memory enabled him to direct, single-handed, the whole current work of the department.’5 Foreign Secretaries would change but Hammond’s position was permanent, enabling him to build up an immense amount

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of knowledge and therefore power. Being Foreign Secretary was a demanding job; in 1854, for example, nearly 50,000 despatches were sent and received by him, so he could not pay much attention to the more distant parts of the world, like China and Japan, meaning that Hammond was particularly influential with respect to policy and appointments there. That did not mean that China was not of critical importance to Britain. In 1852, Sir John Bowring reminded the Foreign Secretary that trade with China contributed nearly £9 million to the British and Indian Treasuries. If we remember that the national budget in Britain (aside from interest payments) was less than £25 million, it is clear that the British government had become as dependent on opium as its users. More exciting for Parkes was an invitation to meet the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston. He was a legendary figure in the Foreign Office having at that point served in the job a total of fifteen years. Parkes was impressed by how well Palmerston understood China. For all his louche ways, he was a conscientious minister, who had carefully read all the despatches he received from the country. Palmerston presented Parkes to the Queen at a levée at St. James’s Palace on 3 July 1850. It was a big moment for him, but her mind was probably on other things, as the East India Company used the occasion to give her the Koh-i-noor diamond to mark the 250th anniversary of their royal charter. Parkes then set off on a two-month trip around the British Isles where he must have noticed the way that the phenomenal growth of the railways since he had last been in the country meant that most of the travelling was easy. It would be a constant theme of his that Japan needed to improve its infrastructure. Being Parkes, he also went to places that still had no train connection: Cornwall and Edinburgh, as well as Dublin. He then attacked the continent, improvising his own ‘Grand Tour’ itinerary, travelling to Belgium (he visited the site of the Battle of Waterloo), then through Germany and to Switzerland where he managed to walk forty kilometres a day; ‘I found the exercise a little severe at first’. He crossed the Simplon Pass into Italy, where he traversed the north of the country, stopping in Milan, Como, Verona and Venice, before going on to Vienna, Prague, Dresden and Berlin. It is perhaps surprising that he did not take the opportunity to see more of France. It was the world’s second power and he could have done with practising the language. The whole trip was completed in two months. He told William Lockhart:

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I had an exceedingly pleasant time of it, rather lonely though at times from want of companions and ignorance of the languages. Still I saw a good deal … My fourteen days in Switzerland were the pleasantest time. Such a noble country! The air of the mountains is so invigorating … Such glorious fun scrambling over the snows and glaciers … I was several times at an elevation of upwards of 10,000 feet. When the trips were at all perilous the excitement was doubled.6

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He set off back to China in January 1851, but just before he went, he sent a ‘memorandum respectfully submitted to the Right Honble. Viscount Palmerston … by Mr. H.S. Parkes’. In it, he gave a long account of his services in China, along with an extract from a despatch by Alcock which, he said, showed his boss’s confidence in him. However, he went on, he had ‘greater reason to feel proud of the notice conferred upon him by The Right Honble. Viscount Palmerston who lately granted him “in consideration of his industry and attainments”, a higher rate of salary than that usually attaching to the appointment he now holds’. Mr Parkes therefore trusted that these testimonials gained by the experience of eight years of constant personal communication with Mandarins of all grades, may prove him to be qualified for the performance of more important duties than those appertaining to his present appointment [interpreter]. He prays therefore that the circumstances of his previous active service may be favoured with His Lordship’s kind consideration and that when opportunity hereafter offers he may be entrusted with employment of greater responsibility.7

This approach seems audacious, and the promotion Parkes was angling for, to Vice-Consul, was a push for a twenty-two year old, however much he thought that he deserved it. But such importuning letters were a standard way to get noticed at the time, and Palmerston would not have been at all surprised to have received it. Furthermore, he had become Secretary at War at the age of twenty-five, so he knew how it felt to be young yet deserving of a responsible position. Promotion could seem quite random and Alcock advised Parkes not to get too worked up about it: ‘The gratitude and rewards in our service are so much a matter rather of favours or chance, that we have all need to work from higher motives.’8

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‘I Distinctly Declined to Accede’ Formosa – Guangzhou, 1851–1854

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PARKES WAS STILL a lowly interpreter in Amoy on his return, his letter to Palmerston having made no difference to his immediate situation. However, he spent little time there, being too useful for tackling difficult matters that nobody else could handle. One tricky assignment was connected with a ‘very melancholy’ incident in Formosa (Taiwan). On 12 September 1850, the British ship Larpent had foundered off the south of the island. When the survivors reached the nearest beach they were immediately attacked with matchlocks and knives. Nineteen of them had their heads cut off and their bodies were thrown in a heap. Two men, a joiner called William Blake, and a nineteen-year-old ordinary seaman, James Hill, managed to escape by swimming – Hill, pursued by a shark. Eventually they managed to find some villagers who gave them something to eat. This seemed like kindness, but they would become slave labourers, forced to work for their food and shelter. Another man, Able Seaman Alexander Beris, who had escaped separately, joined the other two in the village. After five months, the villagers sold the three men for six dollars a head. Fortunately, their purchasers were less mercenary and they got back to Shanghai seven and a half months after their ship had sunk. There were loud calls for vengeance among the Shanghai community, as the crews of two other ships had been murdered in similar circumstances. However Parkes’ mission was not to get revenge but to investigate what had happened and reward those who had helped out. So, on 11 August, the Salamander left Amoy with Parkes, Beris and Blake on board. On their arrival, Parkes met with the civil magistrate of the island and after painstaking negotiations, obtained the services of a pilot, who could guide 49

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them to where the men had been held. They managed to find the spot, and in stormy weather, Parkes and a Lieutenant Lambert of the Salamander walked onto the beach where most of the men had been murdered – apparently not at all concerned that they might suffer the same fate. Indeed, locals crowded round them, but they managed to free themselves and found a military officer who suggested they speak to Lin Wanchang, who had influence with both the locals and the Chinese. Lin agreed to see them and sent sedan chairs for Parkes and Lambert, on which they were transported the eight kilometres to his house. It turned out that Lin knew all about the Larpent. Parkes told him that theirs was a peaceful mission, which Lin said he regretted because the tribe who had murdered the crew were a menace to everybody. He hoped the British would kill them and could provide four hundred men with matchlocks to help with this. Agreeing to combine forces to exact vengeance was beyond their orders and Parkes and Lambert decided to simply reward those who had helped the survivors, having obtained $275 from the ship owners for this purpose. Beris and Blake were allowed to allocate the money as they saw fit and handed it over themselves; ‘in some cases they were received with anything but gratitude’ but ‘generally speaking, the majority were thankful for the sums given them’.1 Parkes undertook a similarly tricky mission when the Amoy Consul got embroiled in a dispute with the Taotai, who managed civil law and order in the Intendancy. The Taotai had allegedly refused ‘justice’ in a dispute over a Chinese refusal to allow the British to secure a plot of land to build houses for their residents. He would not meet with the Consul in Amoy to resolve the situation and moved to the furthest town in his Intendancy, Hinghua (now known as Putian), Parkes believed, to get out of discussing it. ‘Now’, Parkes self-righteously told Catharine, ‘such a case of humbug could not be endured’, and he was the man to straighten it out. He had to overcome every possible obstacle that could be put in his way. He was asked not to enter Hinghua, because there was no accommodation for him. ‘To this request’, he wrote in his report to the Consul, I distinctly declined to accede, being well aware that so derogatory a step would not only deprive me of all access to the city, but might probably prevent my interview with the acting Taotai,

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upon which depended the success of my mission. I therefore insisted upon passing the gates, stating that, in the event of failing to meet with suitable accommodation, I should demand it at the residence of one of the authorities.2

Parkes was then told that the Taotai was ill, whereupon he said that he would wait however long it took for him to recover. It turned out that the Taotai was able to see him the following morning and ‘the matter was settled, very satisfactorily’, three days after his arrival. Parkes was very pleased with himself: ‘I … was very well received both by mandarins and people – probably because I insisted upon being so.’3 The Amoy Consul was very glad that Parkes had been around to deal with this. In his report he wrote ‘the removal of Mr Interpreter Parkes to the Canton Consulate convinced me that if I did not succeed in getting this matter adjusted before his departure, I had little hope of accomplishing it after he left’.4 Guangzhou was the most important of the five Treaty ports because it was the base of the Imperial High Commissioner who administered them although, as we have seen, it was the least comfortable because the foreigners there were so confined. Parkes explained the situation like this:

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[…] although we have a perfect right to take jaunts into the country … few attempt to avail themselves of it on account of the risk they incur by so doing; for it is no uncommon thing here to be attacked, stoned, or fired at by villagers.5

He was not usually put off by such things, so the situation must have been very bad. That said, we know that he walked around in Guangzhou itself because in 1854, he wrote of having visited many of the Chinaware shops in the city.6 Nevertheless, Parkes found life there constraining, telling Catharine, ‘the long summers and the confinement we are subjected to will always make a residence there appear irksome and wearisome’.7 But he was resourceful and started going out in a wherry, a light rowing boat, every evening, finding a Chinese boy to help him to become good enough to be able to form part of a crew. For mental stimulation, he wrote a number of papers between 1852 and 1854 that went far beyond his brief. In the Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society he published academic papers, which challenges the view that he never exhibited

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any intellectual interests. One was on Chinese porcelain bottles found in Egyptian tombs – he asserted that the style of poetry on them indicated that they were not as ancient as had been claimed. The extent of esoteric knowledge he displays on the topic makes the paper feel like it could hardly have come from his pen. In it he argues that the bottles could not be older than the second century BC because ‘lines of five characters or feet were not known in Chinese poetry before that period’. Indeed, they could not even be that old because ‘the formation of the characters composing the inscriptions … partake of the characteristics of ⲡ᭩ Tsaoushoo and ⾜᭩ Hing-shoo, but … these said modes began to be employed, two centuries after the Christian era.8 And so it goes impressively on. The intellectual level of the Society was high, but Parkes was clearly not intimidated, reading papers in front of men there with vastly superior academic credentials to him (as we know, he basically did not have any). At around the same time, he also wrote an official report on Russia’s caravan trade with China which was read on 13 March 1854 to the Royal Geographical Society. The strange thing about it is that it was on a topic he had no first-hand knowledge of – he had never been north of Shanghai in China, much less to the Russian border. Indeed, he admitted in it that ‘Canton, from its position in the extreme south of the empire, can only be slightly influenced by a trade which is conducted on the Siberian frontier’.9 He gives no clue as to where he got the information. It leaves us asking why the Society would accept a paper by someone of no scholarly standing and no direct knowledge of the topic he was writing about, or indeed why Parkes would submit it. But it does suggest that he wanted to be noted for more than his practical abilities. He was known in London as a man of decisive action. He now wanted to be known as a man of intellectual capacity as well. Parkes’ status suddenly, if temporarily, rose, as often happened in China.The Superintendent of Trade was on leave, meaning that the Consul in Guangzhou had to deputise for him.The Vice-Consul there was sick, so, as Parkes put it, ‘consular authority devolves upon your humble servant’. He added that the position ‘is by no means a subject of pleasure to me, as the complication of duties I have to attend to … will only take up all my time and interfere with my other pursuits’.10 He was telling this to his friend John Patteson, whom he had got to know when both were travelling in Europe in 1850, which is probably why he was sounding less happy about the promotion than he could with, say, Catharine or

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William Lockhart.We know from his approach to Palmerston that he wanted more responsibility. Patteson had the same combination as Parkes of an adventurous spirit and single-minded determination, going as a missionary to the south Pacific and becoming Bishop of Melanesia. He was murdered in the Solomon Islands in 1871 and today there is a Bishop Patteson Theological College there. Parkes was making it sound like he was working hard in Guangzhou, but the schedule he describes to Patteson does not sound too onerous. He was up at six – walked for an hour round and round the garden – then did his Chinese for two hours with an ‘old fusty mal-odorous teacher …, who strives hard to make me believe that Confucius … was, and is at present … the ruling genius of the world.’11 His official work was from 10 until 4 or 5, after which he went out on the river, and then dined at 7. He had little social life, the other Britons there almost all being merchants, and ‘consequently the prevailing themes of conversation are mainly limited to the staples of their trade’.The one person he could really talk to was the chaplain, John Gray, whose doctrine, ‘I am glad to observe, is deeply evangelical’.12 Gray went on to become Archdeacon of Hong Kong and later became well known in Britain for his books on China. In the spring of 1853, Parkes found himself acting Consul again in Guangzhou because the Superintendent of Trade had returned from leave, but had fallen ill (so again the Guangzhou Consul had to stand in for him), while the Vice-Consul, Adam Elmslie, was going on leave to England with the aim of getting married. Parkes told Catharine, ‘if I acquitted myself creditably, I should gain something in point of character which might be of advantage to me hereafter’. He is not talking about advancement but selfimprovement here. He was thinking that he was ‘miserably weak and deficient’ and resolved on his twenty-sixth birthday to read a very popular self-help book written in the form of a series of letters to a friend by a clergyman, John Foster, called ‘Decision of Character.’13 ‘A man without decision’, Foster intoned, ‘can never be said to belong to himself … He belongs to whatever can make capture of him.’ Foster recommended dedicating your ‘whole being’ to your office, and the ‘abjuration of all the quiescent feelings’; you needed ‘the courage that rises invincible above the derision not only of the multitude, but of the proud and elevated’.14 Nothing here feels like an area Parkes was at all deficient in, but he clearly thought he needed to make improvements.

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One duty that devolved on him in Guangzhou was marrying the first English couple to wed in the city: Augusta Fischer and John Williams, a tea-taster for Jardine Matheson. Williams had achieved the nearly-impossible feat of finding a Western bride there. Parkes told Catharine:

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You can never meet a young lady alone at home, and if you walk with her in the garden it must be in the face of 275 witnesses, the number of the whole community. How Williams therefore managed the business I can’t conceive.15

A less pleasant duty was trying cases in the Consular Court. He had no legal training to speak of and basically had to rely on common sense (if Consuls made mistakes, their judgments could be corrected by the Supreme Court in Hong Kong). Parkes was very unlucky that the first case in which lawyers were ever admitted to a Consular Court was in front of him – he told Catharine, ‘although I assumed a bold front, inwardly I felt exceedingly small’.16 He would later tell the Foreign Secretary that the position of junior officers suddenly being expected to act as judges was like him being appointed to ‘the post of chief surgeon to a London hospital’.17 However, these courts were necessary because the British would not allow their subjects to be tried by what they saw as a Chinese system which was very random, there being no proper legal code, no rules-based judicial courts, and the liberal use of torture and beheading. Li Chen has argued that in fact ‘the formal judicial system in serious cases was generally regulated by codified laws and procedures’ and that ‘legal institutions, knowledge, and instruments … were widely utilized by ordinary people to serve their interests in everyday life’.18 However, justice did not look much like that in Guangzhou: Parkes observed a ‘band of thirty or more criminals’ being ‘tried by the Governors, sentenced, fed, marched to execution, and killed between the morning hours of 8 and 10’.19 Parkes clearly coped well in Guangzhou, but when there was a shuffle of jobs, he found himself passed over both for Consul and Vice-Consul there. Appointments were made on an ‘acting’ basis by the Superintendent of Trade, who was now Sir George Bonham, and would only be permanent if they were confirmed by the Queen – in effect the Foreign Secretary. Bonham was the son of an East India Company ship captain and had risen quickly, becoming Governor of Penang, Malacca and Singapore at thirty-three.

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His reputation for ‘practical common sense’ made Palmerston appoint him Superintendent in 1848. He was as smooth and emollient as Davis had been aggressive and authoritarian and was the first Hong Kong Governor who was actually popular. A French official described him as a bon vivant who did his job tranquillement.20 However, Parkes was unhappy with him. He accepted that the Vice-Consul at Shanghai, Brooke Robertson, was an exceedingly ‘proper appointment’ as acting Consul in Guangzhou, but he was seriously upset at Horace Oakley being made acting Vice-Consul instead of him. Oakley was older than Parkes but had not distinguished himself at all, had made no effort to learn Chinese, and in fact would have to hastily leave the service four years later because he was an alcoholic. Parkes asked Bonham to forward a protest to the Foreign Office and then resumed his duties as interpreter without demur. It seems that the reason that Bonham had overlooked Parkes was that he had the strange idea that only assistants should be promoted to Vice-Consul, and interpreters to Consul. Bonham had another odd idea, which would have counted against Parkes in his mind, that the study of Chinese warped the intellect and undermined the judgment.21 However, in a long letter to Parkes, Bonham explained that he was motivated by a desire to be fair rather than appoint the best man: Mr. Oakley has been nearly upwards of nine years in the service, and until within the past nine months has only received a salary at the rate of £324 per annum, while you have for some years past enjoyed a salary of £700 per annum. I thought, therefore, as I consider Mr. Oakley competent to the discharge of the duties of Vice Consul under present circumstances, that it would be only fair to him, during Mr. Elmslie’s absence, to allow him the advantages that some one would derive from acting as Vice Consul, and even now Mr. Oakley will only receive £555 per annum, being less than your own Salary by £145. If I therefore had nominated you to be Vice Consul, and then added to your allowances, I should have made them £950 per annum, and left Mr. Oakley on a salary of £405, and this I feel would have been an injustice to him. In conclusion, I may remark that … I by no means consider his appointment as a supersession of yourself, and to prevent the possibility of any misapprehension on this head when I am no longer in China, I have no hesitation in saying that were a vacancy in the office of Consul to occur, and Her Majesty’s Government desire me to recommend any of the present Consular Servants to fill the

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vacancy, I should consider your claims, in consequence of your standing, knowledge of the Chinese Language, and other circumstances, superior to those of Mr. Oakley.22

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In China, you never had to wait very long for a situation to change. Things opened up again when Brooke Robertson left for an extended period, and Bonham was faced with the problem of who to leave in charge of the Guangzhou Consulate. The normal thing would have been to make the acting Vice-Consul temporary acting Consul, but Parkes was clearly far more up to the job than Oakley, and so he ended up taking the position. Parkes’ protest was taken seriously in London and the Foreign Secretary decreed that after Brooke Robertson returned, Parkes would become Vice-Consul. In fact, Parkes did not have to wait long to become a full Consul, a few months later achieving the position at Amoy, raised to it ‘as a special mark of the satisfaction with which Her Majesty’s Government have watched your conduct in the public service’.23 It was something to reach this post at the age of only twenty-six. The lesson in this was that it did not matter too much how your local bosses rated you – the crucial thing was to be thought well of in London.

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‘Hasty Love-making’ Bangkok – London – Bangkok, 1855–1856

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SIAM WAS THE next place to attact British attention, following the accession of King Mongkut, who was seen as friendly, in 1851. As ever, Britain wanted to expand its trade and influence, a terrifying prospect for most Asian potentates – many an Indian one had engaged with the country on this basis, only to find their lands taken over. But Mongkut believed that by voluntarily opening Siam to foreign trade, he could maintain its independence while taking advantage of Western expertise to modernise it. He was completely unlike most other Asian rulers, especially those of China and Japan, in that he was open to and knowledgeable about the world outside his own country. Like Sakyamuni (who became Buddha), he had abandoned the grand life of a palace for the austere one of a monastery, living as a monk for twenty-seven years. He shared a simple life with people from all strata of society, from nobles to the most humble. Each morning he went into the streets to receive alms and he chanted the Pali sutras, studied and meditated. It was a life of abstinence, devoid of any luxury, but it was not enclosed and because of his intellectual curiosity, he was able to learn about the outside world. He made the acquaintance of a French priest, Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix, who taught him French and Latin, and about Christianity – in exchange, Pallegoix learned Pali and was taught about Buddhism. Mongkut was interested in what religions could learn from each other and invited Pallegoix to preach at his monastery. He was not, however, converted to Christianity, saying,‘What you teach people to do is admirable but what you teach them to believe is foolish.’1 He also met a different kind of Christian, American Presbyterians, whose leader Rev. Dr. Beach Bradley became Mongkut’s English 57

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tutor. He loved learning, especially geography, mathematics and astronomy, and he worked at reconciling Buddhism and science. When Mongkut became king, the role he inherited was as an absolute monarch in which the people were forbidden to look at his face. He decided to change this, telling them to look at him and even to petition him if they had a problem, which he would personally look into. He continued his own studies, particularly of astronomy, and acquired telescopes and other scientific equipment. Ten years after becoming King, he did the thing that would make him most remembered outside Thailand, employing a foreign woman, Anna Leonowens, as a tutor to his wives and children. Her relationship with the King would inspire the musical The King and I. In one respect, Mongkut saw no reason to diverge from tradition. Making up for lost time, he had thirty-two wives and at least eighty-two children. Anna was kept busy. Siam was fertile ground for British influence and John Bowring was appointed to gain it. Although he was supposedly a diplomat, he was an extraordinary polymath, more distinguished in other fields. He was a phenomenal linguist, claiming to speak 100 languages and read a further 100. Although he was in his late fifties when he went to China, he learned the language well enough to translate a novel, The Flowery Scroll. Thomas Hood wrote this about him:

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All kinds of gab he knows, I wis – Servian, Slavonian, and Scottish As fluent as a parrot is, But far more polly-glottish.2

Bowring had also been a radical member of Parliament from 1835 to 1837 and 1841 to 1849, and was years ahead of his time, campaigning for, among other things, universal male suffrage, the abolition of the death penalty and decimalisation. He wrote hymns, including ‘In the cross of Christ I glory / Towering o’er the wrecks of time’ which is still in the hymnbooks. He led the development of a large ironworks in Maesteg, South Wales, and it was only after the failure of this venture in 1848 and the loss of his parliamentary seat in 1849, that he accepted the post of Consul in Guangzhou. This extraordinary man had been corresponding with Mongkut for several years and so was in an excellent position to ‘open’ Siam. It was conventional wisdom that European powers had to overawe less developed countries with their power in order to force

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them to trade, but Bowring approached Siam with only two naval ships in early 1855. Walter Medhurst (the one who had broken Isabella’s heart) had been chosen as secretary to the Mission but had had to drop out when his wife became ill. Parkes took his place and it turned out to be an unrepeatable opportunity. Bowring and Parkes had nothing in common apart from their religious beliefs, but Parkes had not gone into the service to make friends and he got his head down, working with Bowring’s son, another John (Mongkut referred to the young men as ‘Mr. Parkes andYour Excellency’s upspring’), on the details of the negotiations.3 Mongkut enjoyed himself, receiving Bowring in royal audience and privately, to which he would ‘always come as a friend’.4 He wrote a personal letter to Queen Victoria and gathered elaborate gifts for her. There were ceremonies and banquets. Bowring was offered two elephants of any age or size he desired, which he tactfully declined. At the same time, Parkes was on the constant lookout for any signs that they were not being treated with full respect. For example, when they were going to a state audience in the royal barges, Parkes noticed that Bowring’s had scarlet and gold curtains, but the others did not. Parkes sent them back in what looks like a really small-minded gesture, but Bowring’s comment was: ‘he understands the art of managing Orientals marvellously well’.5 Probably they were so on their guard about being done down by the Chinese, they did not know how to cope when genuinely being treated with honour and respect. Bowring describes going to one of the audiences like this: From the moment we entered the precincts of the palace, an unbroken line of soldiery, dressed in a great variety of costumes, and bearing every species of weapon … and uniforms of every colour and shape, fantastical, farcical, fierce, amusing … I was carried in a gaudy, gilded chair, with a scarlet umbrella over me, borne by eight bearers with a crowd of attendants … We passed through rows of caparisoned ponies and elephants mounted for war … Soft and exceedingly pleasant music welcomed our arrival, and it thundered forth a loud peal as we approached the grand hall of the audience.

The British insistence on doing things their way continued when they entered the hall. The King had told Bowring privately that no one in the ‘sacred presence’ was allowed to be armed. Bowring said that ‘the officers of Her Majesty’s navy would not consent to

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have their swords taken from them … as it was an honour to wear it, so it would be a disgrace to have it taken from them, and I could not order them to surrender their swords.’6 They could, he said, change out of their dress uniforms, in which case they would not need the swords, but that would dishonour the King. He carried his point, but was it worth it? It took less than a month to conclude a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce which was signed on 18 April 1855. It was agreed that a British Consul, who would have jurisdiction over British subjects, would live in Bangkok. Other Britons would be able to live there and buy or rent property there, or within a distance from the capital measured by how far a local boat could travel within twenty-four hours. British ships could sail about thirty kilometres beyond Bangkok, but no further without special permission. Monopolies were abolished and British merchants could freely trade. There was a ‘most favoured nation’ clause, ensuring that no country could trade on better terms than the British. Parkes was sent to Britain to obtain the Queen’s approval and to deliver the King’s letter and presents to her. He was instructed by Bowring to get there as quickly as possible, so there was no stopping in India or Egypt, and he managed to reach the Foreign Office in London on 1 July. On the 9th, he was received at Buckingham Palace by the Queen and Prince Albert and explained the treaty. Judging by her journal entry of that day, the Queen was not much interested in the treaty, but she was very taken by what she heard of the Kings (Mongkut’s younger brother Pinklao was also King, although the government was, as Parkes put it, ‘under the sole control’ of Mongkut),7 and Parkes himself: We saw … a Mr Parkes, Consul at Amoy, who brought some presents from the 2 Kings of Siam, (there is a greater and a lesser King, both reigning together!) with whom a Treaty has been concluded. The presents consist in some specimens of workmanship in gold, in complete imitation of European workmanship. There were also 2 letters written in English by the Kings, and their own composition. They must be wonderfully intelligent, particularly the 1st King [Mongkut], for they know Latin & are very learned in Sanscrit & other Oriental languages. Mr Parkes is a particularly intelligent young man.8

Although he had only returned from home leave four years earlier, he was allowed to stay in Britain for six months. It was not,

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however, a holiday and he was constantly consulted by the Foreign Office on Chinese affairs, knowing them better than anybody else in the country at the time. He was also responsible for buying the presents for King Mongkut that would reciprocate his gifts to the Queen. Fortunately, the King was easy to buy for, being interested in science, so any piece of recent equipment would be of interest to him, especially if it was connected to astronomy – Parkes received the expert help of Charles Wheatstone, one of the most renowned scientists of his age. His problem was contending with the parsimony of the Foreign Office; Parkes gently noted that ‘it may be important to bear in mind the liberality shewn by Siamese Government in entertaining, at their own expense, Her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary and all the officers of his suite’.9 As always, the Foreign Office worried about creating expectations that would be impossible not to disappoint in the future, but they accepted that this was a special case and he got a budget of £1,750. Parkes still had plenty of drive, but already at twenty-seven, he was starting to show signs of the ill health that would become much more of a problem later. This was common among those who had been in east and south-east Asia and had caught various diseases which would recur: he had had another dose of tropical fever in Singapore while he was on his way to Siam. Perhaps also his hard driving was catching up with him. Whatever the case, Catharine, who was now living in England, thought he had ‘altered much’ and ‘looks so fair and white and bleached’.10 He complained of being always tired and had backache. In September he received permission from the Foreign Secretary to leave London for ‘eight or ten weeks for the benefit of your health’ and went to Scotland with Catharine, visiting the Isle of Arran and the Highlands.11 Lest we think that Parkes was simply there to recuperate, he attended the twenty-fifth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Glasgow and gave a paper entitled ‘Notes on the Hindo-Chinese Nations and Siamese Rivers with an Account of Sir John Bowring’s Mission to Siam.’ A more intimidating gathering for him to address was the Royal Geographical Society in London, which attracted the best minds in the country. He did not attempt to wow them but delivered information he had gleaned from merchants and missionaries in a straightforwardly careful and factual ‘Geographical Notes on Siam’, which was published in the Society’s Journal.12

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In October, he went to Malvern to receive the Dr Gully treatment, the equivalent of a celebrity cure today (Gully also treated Dickens, Darwin, Carlyle,Tennyson and Florence Nightingale). The morning regime sounds thoroughly Parkesian: patients were woken at 5am, wrapped in wet sheets and then covered with blankets. An hour later, they had buckets of water thrown upon them, whereupon they went on a five-mile walk, stopping at wells for the spa waters. The rest of the day was spent in a range of baths. The food was deliberately kept very plain, especially breakfast, which after all the morning exertion was only dry biscuits and water. As ever, Parkes did not switch off, continuing to write official letters while there. The end of the year saw a crucial turning point in Parkes’ life. Among the upper drawer acquaintances he was gathering were Robert and Ellen Hollond, Ellen being a friend of the Alcocks. They were both extraordinary; in 1836, Robert had flown in a hot-air balloon for 18 hours, covering six hundred kilometres (they got to Weilburg in Germany) setting a distance record that was not beaten until 1907. He was in fact a lawyer at the time, but in the following year he entered Parliament, where he was a very inactive member until 1852. Ellen was a writer who spent part of the year at her salon in Paris, attracting the leading liberals of the day (according to the preacher and political orator, Edmond de Pressensé, it was the most distinguished circle in Europe). She was generous, giving Boucher’s ‘Pan and Syrinx’ to the National Gallery in London where a painting of her looking pensive, almost saintly, by Ary Scheffer also hangs. The Hollonds were an attractive couple, ‘he dark and aristocratic in appearance, she tender-looking, with glossy brown hair and splendid large blue eyes’.13 Her books include A Lady’s Journal of her Travels in Egypt and Nubia, an account of a journey she undertook in 1858–1859 with Robert. The couple come across in her descriptions as strikingly modern in their attitudes, especially to each other. For example, when they arrive at a hideous hotel in Cairo, Ellen leaves Robert there in charge of the luggage, while she goes off into the ‘perfectly bewildering’ crowds to find somewhere better.14 Would it not, even today, usually be the man who went off into the crowds? The Hollonds being such an unconventional couple do not seem as if they would have much in common with the really very strait-laced Parkes. Yet, in a way, they are typical of the unusually

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accomplished people that we again and again find attaching themselves to him when he was young. In fact Ellen became so fond of the ‘eager spirituel young man’, Lane-Poole tells us, that she ‘delighted to call herself his mother’.15 Living near the Hollonds were the Plumers. They were also a distinguished family: Sir Thomas Plumer, memorably described as ‘lively, shrewd, coaxing, but vulgar and savouring of the inns of court’, had been Master of the Rolls from 1818 to 1824.16 His widow still lived at their grand house, Canons (now the main building of the North London Collegiate School), and the rest of the family resided in a lodge in the grounds. When Parkes met the family, they were mourning the loss of Sir Thomas’ son, Thomas Hall Plumer, who had died in a random accident, knocked down by a carrier’s cart while crossing Waterloo Place in London on 24 December 1852. The inquest heard that the horse and cart had been coming ‘at a fearful rate’ down Regent Street; Plumer was knocked down by the horse’s head and then run over by the cart.17 It was reminiscent of the accident that had killed Parkes’ father. According to Lane-Poole, his widow and children never quite recovered from the shock which ‘broke up the brightness of their lovely and loving home’.18 The crucial person in this story is one of those children, the twenty-three-year-old Fanny – a friend of Ellen’s - who wrote: [she was] a beautiful girl, tall, well proportioned, and graceful, her colouring rich and soft, her features expressing sensitiveness and the power of warm emotion; her dark brown eyes full of intelligence and speaking earnestness of purpose. She possessed in a large degree the power of fascination in which all her family were remarkable. In a word one could not see her and soon forget her.19

Parkes, four years older than her, was attractive as well, if rather intense. According to Dickins, he was a fair-haired, blue-eyed Saxon, somewhat under the middle height, of slim but well-knit frame, with a large head, drooping a little forward on his neck, and a broad high forehead. His expression in repose was somewhat stern, but it was the sternness of an earnest, not of an ungenial nature. A smile lit up his face wonderfully; when he spoke on a subject that interested him his eyes sparkled and a sort of alert look effaced every trace of sternness. In speech and gesture, especially in public, he was fluent and rapid, often emphatic and brusque.20

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In November 1855, when Fanny dropped into Stanmore Hall with her mother and a sister, Parkes happened to be there, seeing Ellen. He had a startling effect on Fanny which alarmed her mother. Fanny had

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in other cases been hard to please, critical, sensitive, reserved. Yet in a few hours on that day it seemed as if her heart opened and let the stranger freely in. The surrender on the other side was no less rapid and complete, and their friends had to be startled and a little critical over the hasty love-making.21

If we consider the situation, Fanny’s circle would have had every reason to be worried about the possible match. If Fanny went to China with Parkes, there was every chance the family would never see her again. Even without that consideration, if we think about the calculations that were made about marriage at the time, it could not be considered a very good match. Parkes certainly had prospects, but he was more than a few notches below the Plumer family on the social scale. He owned no property and had no capital to speak of. The glory days of the Plumers were behind them, but the continuing presence of Sir Thomas’ widow at Canons was a reminder that the family name was still a distinguished one. At the same time, there are things that suggest the family’s attitude to Parkes was more favourable than we might expect. The family of Fanny’s mother, Ann Headland, was far lower down the class rankings than Parkes’. She was from Wellingore, a tiny village in Lincolnshire, the daughter of an agricultural labourer who died when she was seven years old.22 It must have caused a kerfuffle worthy of a Jane Austen novel when the son of the Master of the Rolls told his family he was marrying her. She, at any rate, would not have been able to say that Parkes was not good enough for Fanny. Stronger evidence of the family’s positive view of the match can be found in the single surviving letter to Parkes from Sir Thomas’ widow, Lady (Marianne) Plumer. Addressing him as ‘My very dear Grandson’, she told him: The thought of stealing one of the few moments of respite you experience in the midst of your incessant toil … for the purpose of devoting it to the gratification of so remote and insignificant a being as myself affords … proof if any were needed of … [your] benevolent consideration for others, regardless of all personal comfort … [H]owever unworthy I feel of those expressions of

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affectionate friendship and remembrance which your precious letter conveys, it is not I assure you bestowed upon one insensible to its value.23

From Parkes’ point of view, this was an opportunity he simply could not let pass. As we have seen, it was nearly impossible for Western men living in China to get married and his religious convictions meant having a Chinese mistress was unthinkable for him. Almost their only chance to find a wife was during trips back home, but it was very difficult to persuade any remotely eligible young woman to leave her family and friends to live in a place like China. This chance to marry such an attractive woman who clearly adored him and was prepared to follow him there and wherever else he might be sent, seemed an opportunity made in heaven. Parkes could not delay his departure for Siam, which was less than two months away, and had no idea when he would be back in Britain (it would be in six years), so speed was of the essence. What he did offer was an escape from a restricted and humdrum life. Fanny was an energetic and enterprising woman, up (at this stage) for all the challenges of life in China. He certainly had many qualities. He was hard-working, honest and devout. Life had given him plenty of hard knocks and he had always bounced back. Compared to young men who had never left England, he must have seemed a figure of real substance, if a little rough around the edges. So, after a courtship of just six weeks, he and Fanny were married on New Year’s Day 1856 at St. Lawrence’s Church, down the road from Canons, which was the Plumers’ place of worship. In spite of the fact that they lived mainly in China and Japan, this church would go on to witness many of the key moments in their lives, including both their funerals. It is a curious building, very untypical of English churches. Its stone tower dates from the fourteenth century, but the rest of the building was reconstructed by the first Duke of Chandos in a decorative Baroque style. It is likely that Handel’s Chandos Anthems received their first performance in the church – the organ he played when he was the Duke’s Kapellmeister is still used there. Pevsner is dismissive of the building: The church is Baroque only in its intentions. The glow which one would expect from such lavish decoration is absent. The climate is English and moderate. So long as this country remained faithful to

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its own Baroque, the Baroque of Greenwich and Blenheim, success was assured. Where it strove to emulate the Berninis and Asams it failed.24

In keeping with the whirlwind nature of their nuptials, they had a honeymoon of two days, after which, in a sign of his rising status, Parkes saw the Queen at Windsor to take leave. On the 7th and 8th, he was frantically finishing his Foreign Office work and on the 9th, Fanny was whisked away by a man her family barely knew. Lady Plumer considered it ‘a subject of fragrant regret that time was only allowed us to discover the inestimable value of such an acquisition to every member of the family circle when we were called upon to part with it’.25 Now in her eighties, she knew she was very unlikely to see Parkes or Fanny ever again (she did not). It is difficult to be sure how happy the marriage was. Dr Willis, who observed the way they lived in Japan, wrote this in 1867:

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There is as little domestic bliss in the house as any I ever heard of. I believe he is one of those pushing elbowing men who [will do nothing] or anything except in so far it advances himself. He would be, I am quite sure, unmoved if an earthquake swallowed up his wife and family, so absorbed is he in the game of self.26

At the same time, Parkes had a rather advanced attitude towards women for his time, which may have gone a long way towards compensating for his failings as a husband. He believed that men and women were intellectual equals so as Fanny was an intelligent woman, he treated her as such. He had grown up with Catharine as the main relative he looked up to and was used to thinking of women as being strong, independent, and capable of forming their own opinions as she did. ‘What a rich blessing’ he once wrote, ‘has been vouchsafed to mankind in the society of good and intellectual women.’27 Claire Tomalin described what usually happened to wives like Fanny in her biography of Charles Dickens: The majority of women inevitably remained apart from the intellectual world in which men lived, and outside most of the activities and interests, and, since society was organized on this basis, men expected to spend a great deal of their leisure time with other men.28

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Parkes had an altogether different attitude. Fanny and their children would be almost his entire social life, fulfilling his emotional needs. In combination with an all-consuming job, he really had no need for much in the way of male friendship.Walter Hillier, who worked under him at the end of his life, put it like this: ‘His intimates were few, for he allowed himself little time for intimacies’.29 But where Parkes really stood out from most Victorian men was in his desire to so involve Fanny in his working life. When he became Minister to Japan, he told her, ‘You will have to share my responsibilities, but I have no fear for your acquitting yourself well of these, for you have far better tact than I have.’30 At the same time, he was typical of his age in wanting to put ‘virtuous’ women on a pedestal:

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I love to think upon woman as a pure holy being, who should control the fiercer and worse passions of men instead of ministering to them. In the latter case … she can only be thought of as a polluted thing – something to be shunned as one that would work your destruction, instead of saving you from it. Nothing can surpass the dignity of woman in the former case, as nothing can exceed her degradation in the latter. She both rises higher and falls lower than man.31

In spite of Willis’ comments, most of the evidence suggests that theirs was fundamentally a good marriage. We may dismiss LanePoole’s claims of ‘perfect happiness’ and ‘fondest and most devoted affection’ which existed ‘in the highest and purest degree’ as the ravings of an over-excited Victorian biographer.32 But I think a comment Fanny herself made at the end of her life has the ring of truth: ‘I have the very best and most unselfish husband … the best man I have ever seen, [and] I feel so thankful to God for having given me such a man for my husband’.33 The Parkes couple were on their way to Siam to return the treaty which had been ratified by the Queen, and pass on a letter from her and the gifts for the King. The voyage from England allowed them plenty of relaxed time together, although they had a few adventures on the journey, becoming separated from all their baggage on their way to Alexandria, meaning that they had to buy new sets of clothes in Egypt, which he charged to the government (£24). They got stuck for a week in the hideous Suez, but he decided not to push his luck any further, and they stayed on the ship rather than incur the expense of a hotel. In Singapore they

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were reunited with their things, but a far greater disaster struck them there. Parkes’ baggage had to be transferred to the ship which would take them to Bangkok and he had the public items, which included all the gifts for King Mongkut, dealt with first. Unfortunately, a storm suddenly sprang up and the boat transferring the gifts sank. Parkes was not the type to take a disaster like this calmly. Lane-Poole puts it like this: ‘with all his Christian qualities, [he] was master of an “unsanctified vocabulary” in moments of strong irritation’.34 Thirty-six out of forty-five packages were recovered, but only three were salvageable. £2,000 worth of goods were lost and, more to the point, Parkes would have the mortification of facing the King with only pitiful remnants of what had been intended for him. Making matters worse was that fact that the Siamese set so much store by the gifts. Presents exchanged between European monarchs were formalised and little attention was paid to them, but Siam was different. Parkes pathetically presented a damaged polar clock, gyroscope and stereoscope, but none of them were usable. One good thing was that the King was not at all angry with him. He wrote, ‘We do not blame Mr. H. Parkes in any term …, for … the unforeseen accident is in difficulty of human power to promptly prevent; merely we are thankful to Mr. Parkes for his great endeavour to reobtain their portion for Us.’35 However, the crucial thing for the Siamese was the Queen’s letter and that – mercifully – was all right. Parkes records showing a copy to Mongkut and having ‘the pleasure of observing the genuine satisfaction that its contents afforded him’ making him as he believed, the first sovereign in Asia to receive a letter from Her Britannic Majesty to be styled by her not only an “affectionate friend” but “sister” also and thus to be admitted unreservedly into the brotherhood of European royalty, and have his position as a king thus clearly recognised by the Sovereign … of the most powerful European state, was indeed an honor and a satisfaction which at once touched his heart and flattered his ambition.36

As Parkes was no doubt vaguely aware, George III had told the Emperor of China, ‘We are Brethren in Sovereignty’ back in 1792.37 But the letter was undeniably special and the Siamese, as Parkes put it, decided that it ‘should be … treated with the same respect as Royalty itself ’.38 Here is the King’s description of how they did this:

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[W]e prepared the processions both by land and by water in the greatest highest honour, all fully in manner and numbers of honouring articles as royal state gilt boats, sedan, flags, umbrellas, fans being royal insignia, companies of music &c., for highest royalty, with companies of great armed body guards which are only need for royal letters &c. when the above King does not go himself in the procession, and sent to accept Her Britannic Majesty’s letter from on board the H.C.S. “Auckland” and convey … until the Tha Phra: landing place, where Her Britannic Majesty’s letter was removed from the state royal gilt boat in procession in the river to the royal gilt palanquin surrounded with many gilt umbrellas and fans … in the land procession by which the British royal letter was conveyed to the Court, where the great ceremony of receipt thereof was already among great honoured assembly consisting of the principal royal princes and nobles dressed with their full dresses of dignity.39

The King enjoyed writing in English and nobody corrected him – or really needed to. He was, however, concerned to get his letter to Queen Victoria right and showed his effort to Bowring, who told him that his English ‘was perfectly intelligible’ and that ‘an autograph in his own manner, uncorrected, would be more acceptable than any letter in whose composition an Englishman should be called into assist’, which was surely true.40 A later letter to her gives an idea of his style. He described himself as king, ‘by the Divine blessing of the Superagency of the Universe’ and addressed it to the ‘powerful Sovereign of British Colonies almost around the Globe of Human world’. He assured her rather optimistically ‘we are your Majesty’s friend by firm and intimate friendship longly existed’, and goes on for page after page in a manner that is a mixture of high-blown and chatty. Queen Victoria probably did not get many letters from fellow monarchs like this. In her journal, she describes receiving this one from seven Siamese Ambassadors in ‘full dress’: one was holding the letter and ‘all the others … prostrated themselves, taking their helmets off, and crawling on all fours’. It was ‘deposited on a stool, the Ambassador then also taking the same wonderful posture and reading his Address’.41 The King was impressed by Parkes: ‘We observe Mr. Harry Parkes is a good person, circumspective and industrious for very advantageous service to his Gracious Sovereign … He did not spend a single day idly.’42 Fanny too did her best. On the day of the

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letter presentation (13 March), she met with a Governor, whom she entertained by playing the piano and singing too. Parkes, like any good freshly-married husband, was worried about whether she was comfortable enough. The Siamese gave them the factor’s residence Bowring had occupied along with servants but, while the arrangements were ‘as good perhaps as the Siamese had it within their power to make, were by no means suited to the requirements of a lady, or in accordance with the English ideas of cleanliness or comfort’, so he arranged to stay with an American missionary and used the residence as an office.43 Fanny would, in fact, turn out to be as prepared as Parkes to rough it, but he – and very likely she – did not know that yet. The veneration of Queen Victoria’s letter contrasted with the Siamese attitude to the US President’s. His representative, Townsend Harris, who was in Bangkok negotiating a treaty at the same time as Parkes, lamented that ‘the King is rather inclined to undervalue our mission, as it does not come from a crowned head’.44 Mongkut refused to receive Harris in the same way he had Bowring and would not accept President Pierce’s letter directly, saying that it had to be sent through nobles. Harris made very determined efforts to change this and did eventually manage to persuade the King to allow him to present the President’s letter to him in person, albeit with much less ceremony than Queen Victoria’s. Fanny was invited with other ladies to see the King’s Audience Hall, and to meet his favourite wife, whom she considered the prettiest woman she had seen in Siam. The King gave them a tour ‘showing us many curious things, little vases and boxes … He spoke English to us all the time, though I found it rather difficult to understand him.’45 Despite the communication problems, the King seems to have been taken with Fanny, writing to her in his typical style: Madam, I think it is my duty to descript to you the name and place of the pair of birds which I have given you this evening. Their name called in Siam Salicadong … their food chiefly consists of wild fruit and eggs … they when in confine in cage their providers give them boiled rice, potatoes, plantains, and eggs or other fruits which are articles of food for mankind … The two statues are toys … I think all will be pleased to you for examples of Siamese

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production and manufacture with whom you now have friendship and acquaintance. Whatever you or your husband Honorable Harry Parkes Esq. may need to have from Siam, please to let me know without hesitation.

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This from your faithful Friend S.P.M. Monghut46

Fanny was likewise impressed by the King, thinking him a ‘very learned intelligent person … He is very liberal and unprejudiced, quite acknowledging the superiority of our country’.47 While she was enjoying herself, Parkes was working hard, negotiating points of detail that were still unresolved relating to the export of rice and salt, extraterritorial jurisdiction, the establishment of a custom-house and limits on where British subjects might live. It sounds both dry and too much responsibility for a twenty-eight-year-old who had until recently only been an interpreter. Indeed when he had asked for the right to add stipulations, he was refused, being told that ‘Full Powers’ were ‘necessary for signing such supplemental articles’ and as Bowring, who had the powers, would not be going, nothing could be added.48 But in the five weeks after writing this, Clarendon’s dealings with Parkes convinced him that he could be trusted to negotiate additions, and so he gave Parkes the authority to do so just before he departed. Parkes was seriously tested: on top of working through abstruse, but important, detail, he needed a great deal of self-control, having his patience tested to the limit by officials he felt were messing him around. He needed endurance as well, often having to work until 2 or 3 in the morning. To Fanny, he could unburden himself; she wrote in her diary that the Siamese were so very dilatory in all matters of business, and it is such hard work to uproot their old prejudices and customs and to introduce new ideas, that Harry says he has to go over the same ground over and over again … [T]hey are so selfish and dishonourable themselves that they judge of others’ conduct by their own, and consequently imagine that foreigners have some sinister design.49

This was not quite fair because, as Parkes explained after it was all over, the officials had had no power to agree anything however trivial until it had been submitted to and fully considered by His Majesty. This being the case the Commissioners constantly

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replied to my protests against difficulties or delays … by attributing them entirely to the first King and disclaiming for themselves any responsibility, but the personal kindness with which the first King always honored me, the access to his person which he frequently allowed me … and the favorable attention which he often gave to the questions I submitted to him all [made up for it].50

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It seems that Parkes’ relationship with Mongkut was not quite as harmonious as he claimed to the Foreign Office, because Harris tells us on 6 May that there was ‘a grand row’ – Parkes had ‘so wearied the King by his letters, etc., that he got enraged, blew up all his court and ended by closing the palace gates against the world’.51 (Parkes, on the other hand, maintained that the King was annoyed with his own Commissioners for not understanding the English of the treaty properly and making a mess of the Siamese version.) Unfortunately for Harris, this happened just as he was about to present the President’s letter. This meeting was delayed, and the King was very perfunctory with him when it did happen. Probably the weather was a factor in this – the bust-up happened just before the monsoon rains came, when Bangkok is at its most uncomfortable and everybody tends to get bad-tempered. However, once the supplementary agreement giving Parkes everything he wanted was signed, on 13 May 1856, all this was forgotten (Harris got his treaty signed on 29 May with ‘all … smiles and good humor’).52 The British government was very pleased with Parkes, Clarendon telling him he had much pleasure in signifying the entire approbation of your conduct … [Y]ou were perfectly right in protracting your stay at the Siamese Court until you could come to a complete and satisfactory arrangement with regard to the points of detail … and the ability, patience, and judgment which you displayed in your communications … are deserving of every commendation.53

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‘It Is the Cause of the West against the East’ Guangzhou, 1856–1857

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™

CHINA WAS A far less welcoming place than Siam as Parkes well knew and Fanny was about to find out. He was going to find himself at the centre of an incident that would lead to war with China and the collapse of a government in Britain. In both countries, he would become an object of vilification. He was fortunate that events would play out in such a way that his reputation would end up enhanced rather than destroyed, although he would be put through the most terrifying experience of his life before he emerged triumphant. He was a nobody in Britain before the war, but after it, his name would be on everybody’s lips. He was returning as acting Consul in Guangzhou, standing in for Alcock who had left on sick leave. Parkes had solicited the post, telling Clarendon of ‘the gratification it would afford me to be entrusted with the charge of the Canton Consulate’, adding persuasively that ‘at a Port where the Consul has to be in constant communication with … numerous native officers … the interests of the Public Service might be advantageously consulted if the officer in charge possessed an available knowledge of the Chinese language’.1 He was lucky to be taking over from a friend, as Alcock was able to leave the arrangements he had had in place for him, including his servants, ‘a small establishment … but all very good and at moderate wages’. Good servants in China were, of course, like gold dust, and were passed between the ex-pats without, it seems, any thought given to what the servants themselves might want. Alcock told Parkes that he would have a ‘treasure’ in Mr Cook, who had previously been with Bourboulon, the French Minister. He told Parkes that the Bowrings 73

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sorely wanted to have him, but I said I had reserved every thing in the House for you that you might walk in immediately on your arrival and order your dinner. I have left him in your absence however at Govt. House … on the distinct understanding that he is yours, to be taken on your arrival – and if I return, he knows he is to come back to me.2

In addition to Cook, there were two ‘house coolies’, a ‘boy’ and another coolie who had his own ‘boy’. Parkes would also be buying Alcock’s furniture from him, which included a sofa and curtains he had got from the Bourboulons.

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*

The trouble in Guangzhou started over a ‘lorcha’, a type of vessel originally designed by the Portuguese in Macao in the mid1500s. They had three sails and a crew of about fourteen, were bigger and faster than junks, and could carry more cargo. On 8 October 1856, this boat, the Arrow, was sitting in the harbour at Guangzhou, opposite the strip of foreign ‘factories’. Suddenly, it was boarded on suspicion of piracy, its British flag hauled down and her crew carried off to a war junk lying close by. The master was not on the boat at the time, but saw what was happening and hurried to report it to the British Consul, who was Parkes. Parkes wrote afterwards that he assumed it was a misunderstanding – the treaty said that the Chinese authorities had to ask him first before boarding a boat flying a British flag, but he thought this had been overlooked. So, Parkes went to the junk and pointed out what they should have done and asked them to bring the men to the Consulate where the case could be investigated. They laughed at him, saying they knew nothing about any treaty and that they had orders to arrest the men. The argument got heated and one of them struck Parkes. Parkes, with his blood up, returned to the Consulate and wrote Ye Mingchen, the provincial governor, a ‘temperate’ letter asking him to let the men back on to their vessel and he would investigate whatever crime they were thought to have committed. Unfortunately, Ye’s character could have been designed to get under Parkes’ skin. An American doctor, Peter Parker, wrote that he ‘in some respects stands alone and pre-eminent in his insane and insufferable conduct towards foreigners’.3 He certainly had a haughty air, was very slow to answer letters and any day a

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Westerner wished to see him would be inconvenient for some reason. For example, when Bowring asked for a meeting with him in 1854, he replied ‘having just now the management of military operations in various provinces, my time is completely occupied, but, when I obtain a little leisure, I will certainly select an auspicious day for meeting your Excellency.’4 Ye had a high reputation in China because he had faced down Western demands for residence in Guangzhou, in spite of its being named one of the open ports in the Treaty of Nanjing. When it became clear that the British would not fight for the right to live in the city, a tablet of victory was erected there. Ye’s aim was to keep the foreigners quiet and in their place while (very importantly) maintaining face, and the best way to do that was to be just (but only just) cooperative enough to stop them making serious difficulties. Having said all this, in this case, Ye responded to Parkes fairly quickly, writing back after two days, and was, by his standards, conciliatory.Ye questioned the men himself and decided that three were guilty of piracy (one was recognised from his red turban and missing front teeth as the leader of an attack on a Chinese junk the previous month) but that he would release nine. However, he did not concede that his officials had exceeded their powers, which was Parkes’ key demand – he said that the Arrow was Chinese built and owned and that therefore Britain had no rights in the matter. Parkes refused to accept this and consulted Bowring, now Chief Superintendent of Trade. Bowring told Parkes that he should demand that all the crew be returned, that there be a public apology for what had happened, and an assurance that nothing like it would happen again. Ye repeated that the Arrow was not a British vessel and that her crew being Chinese meant that they were under his jurisdiction and that he would not discuss the matter any further. Unfortunately for Bowring and Parkes, the Arrow’s licence to fly a British flag had expired on 27 September, so she was not technically entitled to British protection. Nevertheless, Bowring told Ye on 14 October 1856, ‘There is no doubt that the … Arrow, lawfully bore the British flag under a register granted by me.’5 On 20 October, Parkes went to Hong Kong and met with Bowring. In spite of their legal claim being on shaky ground, Parkes advocated more ‘active’ measures, ‘for it appeared’ to him ‘that the insolence of the Commissioner had been carried too far’.6 The key point for Parkes was that the Chinese side had not

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known that the licence had expired – they thought they were boarding a ship under British protection. It seems incredible that a war could start over such a minor scrap, but the British believed that ‘face’ was critical in dealing with ‘Asiatics’ and once you lost it, you would lose your position and would end up having to fight to regain it. More importantly, Bowring and Parkes saw this as an opportunity to assert the British right to reside in Guangzhou, as established in the Treaty of Nanjing. As Bowring put it to Parkes on 16 October, ‘I think we have now a stepping stone from which with good management we may move on to important sequences.’7 On 21 October, with Bowring’s authority, Parkes gave Ye twenty-four hours to comply with his demands, or ‘Her Majesty’s naval officers will have recourse to force to compel complete satisfaction.’8 Probably perceiving that this time the British really did mean business,Ye came very close to yielding completely. He promised Parkes that if any lawless Chinese concealed themselves on board foreign lorchas, the Consul would be informed and the Chinese authorities would cooperate in dealing with them. He also offered to give up ten of the twelve men, which Parkes said was not good enough, whereupon Ye sent all of them to the Consulate. However, in Parkes’ words, this was done in ‘an underhand manner’, and ‘without offering a word of apology or disapproval of what had occurred’. Parkes ‘declined to receive the men without an apology. That never came.’9 Parkes wanted a complete climb down – or more to the point, he wanted war. Experience from the First Opium War suggested that Britain was certain to defeat China in any clash, with considerable loss of life on their side and minimal losses on Britain’s. Furthermore, it seemed that some kind of showdown had to come sooner or later. Lord Palmerston had put it like this in 1850: [T]he time is fast coming when we shall be obliged to strike another blow in China … These half civilised Governments … require a dressing every eight or ten years to keep them in order. Their minds are too shallow to receive an impression that will last longer than some such period … They … must not only see the stick but actually feel it on their shoulders.10

Nevertheless, even Palmerston would not start a war without a decent casus belli and they really did not have one. Successive Foreign Secretaries, including Palmerston, had decreed that

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entrance to Guangzhou proper was not worth fighting for, so almost certainly Lord Clarendon, the present holder of the position, would order them to let the matter drop as Ye had almost completely satisfied their demands. However, it would take four months for those instructions to be received and if Ye could be punished and Guangzhou successfully forced open in that time, then it would not matter what they said. It was an appallingly risky strategy, but Bowring was the type to adopt it. As the under-secretary in the Foreign Office had warned Clarendon when he was considering appointing him, ‘Of his talent and intellectual vivacity there can be no doubt but there might possibly be a question of his carrying sufficient ballast to countervail his superfluity of sail … He would probably be over the Great Wall before we had time to look around us.’11 Bowring could not order an attack but had to persuade the British naval commander, Rear Admiral Michael Seymour, to launch it. His Dictionary of National Biography entry speaks of him as a ‘talented, professional officer who combined nautical accomplishments and diplomatic skill with success in operational command’, but Douglas Hurd, in his book on the Second Opium War, called him ‘pompous, conscientious, and above all slow’.12 This last trait was not the sort to appeal to Bowring, or indeed Parkes. Seymour was dubious about the strategy of using the Arrow incident as a way of forcing Guangzhou open and Bowring warned Parkes, ‘It will be necessary to be very cautious, as we shall not obtain the aid of the naval authorities beyond a certain point. I do not think the admiral will make war.’13 However, Seymour allowed himself to be persuaded and on 23 and 24 October 1856, he attacked and dismantled the forts in the approaches to Guangzhou with minimal trouble. This was followed on the 27th by slow firing at Ye’s headquarters, followed by assaults on other official buildings.The idea was that the campaign would be ratcheted up bit by bit for as long as Ye did not comply with their wishes. However, rather than retreat, Ye escalated the crisis, declaring himself at war with the British and putting a price on their heads. Both sides were now past the point where they could back down. ‘Most fervently do I desire a speedy solution’, Parkes wrote, ‘for the responsibilities and anxiety now devolving on me are very heavy; but Yeh must bend or we must bend’.14 Whatever doubts Seymour might have had about the campaign, once it was started, he had to make Ye realise that he could not win, telling him, ‘The lives and property of the entire city

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[Guangzhou] … are at my mercy, and could be destroyed by me at any moment … The prevention of any such necessity is entirely in the hands of your Excellency.’15 The threat to kill lots of people was not something that had any effect on Ye. When the Russian representative, Count Putyatin, urged the Chinese to give in to save innocent lives, an official smiled and said, ‘They are only Chinese lives.’16 As it became clear that Ye would not back down, Admiral Seymour landed troops in Guangzhou on 29 October 1856, just to show that he could. Parkes was among them, and went to Ye’s headquarters, entering his office. ‘The humiliation’ he told Bowring, ‘is the more deserved as his arrogance would not allow him to concede the request for a peaceable admission’.17 While this was happening, Fanny was in the foreign section of the city and was taking the fighting in her stride. She was about seven months pregnant and Parkes tried to persuade her to go to Hong Kong. However, as she told his sister Isabella, ‘I felt I would rather stay and share anything with him’. In truth, it sounds like she was enjoying herself: the ship shelling the city ‘was stationed just opposite the Consulate … the concussion and noise were not particularly agreeable, but I could not resist watching the proceedings from the roof ’. The shells were being aimed to minimise harm to ordinary people, and Fanny thought that it was ‘quite wonderful to see the precision with which they fell’.18 Coming up to their first wedding anniversary, it looks as if she was happy with her decision to marry him, telling Isabella: ‘Dear Harry, I am thankful to say, notwithstanding all his cares and responsibility, is wonderfully well and in good spirits … Every one speaks in such praise of his conduct throughout, that it makes me quite proud.’19 In the end, she decided that he would have fewer worries if she did go to Hong Kong, so she went with two other Consulate wives. As Robert Hart, Parkes’ later colleague, put it: ‘English wife rather a bore in troublous times’.20 Hart, an Irish Methodist, had a Chinese mistress with whom he had three children, then paid her off, shipped the children off to England, and took a respectable British bride. For men like Hart,Victorian morality no longer applied once you left Dover. On 14 December, Parkes joined Fanny in Hong Kong, not being able to do consular work in Guangzhou. This was very fortunate because that night, in spite of precautions, the factories were set ablaze and nearly the whole European quarter was destroyed, with one of the British Consulate assistants being killed

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by a falling wall. The Parkes couple lost almost everything they owned but Fanny, writing to Catharine, was philosophical: ‘our worldly goods are not now very extensive, but I feel so grateful that my dear husband was preserved from danger’.21 Ye could not defeat the British on sea or land, but he could make life very uncomfortable for them. In Hong Kong, notices went up that any English heads would be rewarded with $30, which was increased to $100 on 25 November. The French Consul, the Comte de Courcy was upset by this – he was concerned that the Chinese could not tell whether the heads were British or French: ‘It is not like this that civilized nations make war.’22 On 29 December, in a mutiny on board a steamer named Thistle, the eleven Europeans on the boat were all beheaded. Mysterious fires broke out all over Hong Kong, and servants suddenly deserted their workplaces. The British were greatly outnumbered by the 80,000 Chinese on the island, and there were fears that they were planning to massacre them. On 15 January 1857, Bowring and his family suddenly became ill. They were found to be suffering from arsenic poisoning which could be traced to the bread that had been delivered that morning. Fortunately, the poisoner had put far too much in so people threw it up immediately, but Bowring’s wife was seriously ill for some time. The Bishop of Victoria later said that they felt ‘exposed, not merely to the ordinary danger of a foreign residence, but to the cup of the poisoner, the knife of the assassin and the torch of the midnight incendiary’.23 During this unsettled time, Fanny gave birth to their first child, Ellen Mary (Nellie). The Parkes couple would go on to give their other children a middle name which recalled someone important to them – in this case, it was Parkes’ sainted mother. The conflict had reached a stalemate; the British were able to defeat the Chinese at sea but were unable to deliver a knockout blow on land. As the war was unauthorised, Bowring and Seymour were wary about requesting reinforcements, although on 10 January, Bowring asked the Governor-General of India for five thousand men and explained to the Foreign Secretary, Hostilities, open and covert, continue to be waged with a desperation and utter disregard of any of the Laws of Civilisation and claims of humanity which cannot but awaken the greatest solicitude for the results, not only as regards the local question at Canton, but the whole of our future relations with China.

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The gate of China is Canton, and unless we can subdue the resistance and force an entry there, I believe the difficulties of obtaining an improved position in China will be almost invincible. But success at Canton will, I am assured, be followed by a general and satisfactory change in the state of our relations with the entire Empire.24

Although Parkes and Bowring saw eye to eye on dealing with China, personally they did not get along very well and in April, Bowring sent him to Amoy, to be Consul there, a demotion from Guangzhou. Most men in Parkes’ situation would have been glad he and his family could be away from the fighting, but he was furious, putting it down to spite. He told Catharine: ‘Little else than a sycophant’s part will satisfy him, and that I am not content to play; and therefore he tells me … to step aside’.25 Seymour, the only man in China whom Bowring had to treat as an equal took up Parkes’ cause, telling Bowring of his ‘high sense’ of the value of Parkes’ advice and assistance and ‘of the cheerful co-operation he at all times afforded me for the benefit of the public service … in the performance of which his intimate knowledge of the Chinese language was all-important, and on several occasions exercised under circumstances of personal danger to himself.’26 However, Parkes, Bowring and Seymour had bigger things to worry about, as news of their activities in China started trickling back to London. Faced with a fait accompli, Clarendon decided to back them. He thought that the expiry of the Arrow’s licence was only a technicality and that if they had let the incident go, then no British ship would be safe. ‘The principle’, he told Bowring, ‘involved in this case is most important, and the demands made by Mr Consul Parkes appear to me to be very moderate under the circumstances’.27 Others took a very different view. Richard Cobden, the great economist and peace campaigner asserted in the House of Commons on 26 February 1857 that Ye had been correct in saying that the Arrow was ‘not in any respect a British vessel’ because its licence had expired. Bowring should have told Parkes, ‘You have been too precipitate. The captain of the ship, by neglecting to renew his licence, has placed himself in an illegal position.’ Cobden was condescending about Parkes, characterising him as being in over his head: ‘a gentleman of considerable ability, no doubt, and a good linguist … but still a young man [he was now twenty-nine], without experience and without having gone through the gradations of civil employment calculated to give him

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that moderation, prudence, and discretion which he may one day possess’. He thought that Parkes had adopted his stance ‘simply because he wanted a pretext for making trouble’. At the same time, Cobden argued that ‘all the communications on the part of the Chinese authorities manifest a forbearance, a temper, and a desire to conciliate which should put to the blush any man who asserts that they intended to insult the British representatives.’28 Karl Marx, working as the London correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune, was also unimpressed:

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The unoffending citizens and peaceful tradesmen of Canton have been slaughtered, their habitations battered to the ground, and the claims of humanity violated, on the flimsy pretence that “English life and property are endangered by the aggressive acts of the Chinese!” … An attempt has been made to divert investigation from the main issue, and to impress the public mind with the idea that a long series of injuries, preceding the case of the lorcha Arrow, form of themselves a sufficient casus belli. But these sweeping assertions are baseless.The Chinese have at least ninety-nine injuries to complain of to one on the part of the English.29

Both Marx and Cobden could be ignored, but Parliament’s big guns could not. One of the biggest,William Gladstone, argued that Parkes had acted way above his authority and had been allowed to get away with it: ‘You have turned a consul [Parkes] into a diplomatist, and that metamorphosed consul is forsooth to be at liberty to direct the whole might of England against the lives of a defenceless people.’30 Supported by the firepower of the other four men, Russell, Derby, Disraeli and Salisbury, who together would serve as Prime Minister for all but one of the last thirty-five years of Queen Victoria’s reign, the government’s case crumbled. Punch reported the vote that followed the debate like this: For hauling down the British flag, apologising to the Chinese and putting Derby, Dizzy [Disraeli] and Gladstone in office 263 For maintaining the honour of England and keeping Pam [the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston] in place 247 Chinese majority

1631

Faced with a defeat on a matter of such importance, Palmerston had to either resign or call an election. He decided to go to the country, calculating that he and Punch were the ones that were

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in touch with the feelings of the nation (or such of it that could vote). He was right: Palmerston’s Liberals gained 65% of the popular vote and an absolute majority in the Commons for the first time. It was a stunning vindication. Parkes saw the hand of God in it, writing, ‘The finger of One who rules the destinies of races is clearly traceable in the whole affair … It is the cause of the West against the East, of Paganism against Christendom’.32

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‘Never Sparing Himself in Any Way’ Guangzhou, 1857–1860

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™

ATHOUGH BOWRING’S ACTIONS had been vindicated by the British electorate, the government nevertheless felt it had to do something about him. He was a menace – absolutely impervious to other points of view, comfortable with ignoring orders when they did not suit him, and convinced of the malice of anyone who disagreed with him. Rather than reflect on what mistakes he might have made, he put the parliamentary vote down to the ‘extraordinary combination of ignorance and faction which made up a majority in the late hours of Commons’.1 At the same time, he could not be dismissed because to do so would mean admitting that Britain had been in the wrong. So a way was found of sidelining him: he was allowed to stay on as Governor of Hong Kong, but would be superseded in his role as effective Ambassador to China. He did not take it well, telling his son that the Commons ‘majority succeeded in displacing me – but they have not displaced my policy, though they have sent a man of higher rank to do my work and have deprived me of the honors and reputation which the success of my policy would have brought with it’.2 The job of clearing up the mess in China was given to Lord Elgin, who was not enthusiastic about it, considering the whole conflict to have been a ‘wretched’ blunder. When he told his wife that he had been asked ‘to settle the important and difficult question now embarrassing us in the East’, he asked her, ‘On what grounds can I decline?’3 He could not find any, so he accepted. Many a nobleman in this position would not have needed a reason, but Elgin was dependent on government jobs for money. His father had been the Elgin who had acquired the Elgin marbles, an effort that turned out to be ruinously expensive for the family. 83

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The £6,000 plus expenses he was being offered would be very welcome indeed.4 The younger Elgin had done well in the two posts he had been given: Governor of Jamaica and GovernorGeneral of Canada, both tricky jobs which he had managed successfully. He was now forty-five years old, rather fat and grey for his age, a reluctant but professional operator. Two developments greatly affected the situation. The outbreak of the Indian Mutiny was a far more serious matter for Britain and Elgin decided that the troops that were on their way to China had to be diverted to India on the grounds that ‘Canton will keep: India will not.’5 The Chinese would have to wait a year until the British got around to teaching them a lesson. The other development was the involvement of France. Originally the French had been neutral in the dispute, thinking to stay out of it and hopefully benefit from any gains the British managed to win. However, the nation had been outraged by the gruesome killing of a French missionary, Father Auguste Chapdelaine, in February 1856, by local Chinese authorities in Guangxi province. He had been accused of inciting an insurrection and could have bribed his way out of trouble but refused to do so. He was punished by being severely beaten and locked in a small iron cage, which was hung at the gate of the prison. He died in the cage, was posthumously beheaded and his head was hung from a tree. In 1857, Bourboulon (the man whose servant and sofa Parkes had acquired through Alcock) arrived in Hong Kong and tried to negotiate reparations for the killing but he failed to reach an agreement with Ye, whereupon France decided to join the British action. Lord Elgin reflected that the French ‘had a much better case of quarrel than we; at least one that lends itself much better to rhetoric’.6 Indeed, ‘nothing could be more contemptible than the origin of our existing quarrel’.7 Elgin felt that Bowring, Seymour and Parkes had shown an ‘utter want of judgment’ in their proceedings so far, and decided to make a fresh attempt to reach a compromise with Ye.8 He abandoned any insistence on an apology and made just two demands: the full implementation of the Treaty of Nanjing, especially the right of entry into Guangzhou, and compensation for the costs of the British action. He set a deadline of 22 December 1857.Ye’s favourite oracle told him that he had nothing to worry about, so he sent a reply that was ‘sheer twaddle’, as Elgin put it, and made no preparations for defending Guangzhou.

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Determined not to be as reckless as Bowring and Parkes, on 24 December, Elgin gave Ye another forty-eight hours to surrender to British demands. In addition, he wanted to warn the people of Guangzhou what was coming – their argument was with Ye, not the people he governed – so they could perhaps move to safety. It was dangerous for a Westerner to go into Guangzhou to distribute this information, but Parkes naturally volunteered, along with a Captain Hall. Elgin despaired of both the Chinese and British telling his wife on Christmas Day that the city was doomed to destruction, ‘from the folly of its own rulers and the vanity and levity of ours’.9 Ye did not submit, and the bombardment started at daybreak on 28 December, as Elgin observed, the feast day of the Massacre of the Innocents. He wrote, ‘I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life … There we were, accumulating the means of destruction … of a population of about 1,000,000 people’.10 In the event the city was not destroyed and was easily taken, with ten dead on the British and French side and around six hundred on the Chinese. Elgin had overestimated the will of the Chinese to fight. Indeed, the reaction of the locals was indifference.There seemed to be a belief that all they had to do was wait and these wretched people would eventually go away.Ye continued as usual, ordering the beheading of four hundred rebels and for their heads to be stuck up in the city. Parkes, as we may have predicted, re-entered the city in advance of the troops – he reported that the people were calm. The allied forces followed on 5 January 1858, capturing the Governor and the Commander of the Chinese forces and a store of loot. Ye himself was elusive and Parkes, accompanied by some blue jackets, went on his trail. He found a student who seemed to know where he was and after some vigorous questioning, directed them to his residence, which involved them going deeper and deeper into the city. Eventually the guides stopped at a ‘third-rate government office’, which looked deserted. The party forced their way in and discovered officials running around, one of whom offered himself up as Ye. Parkes had seen a portrait of the man and decided that this one was not fat enough. They kept going and saw someone very fat attempting to climb the wall at the rear of the building. They had their man. Parkes told Ye that he had to accompany them to the headquarters, whereupon Ye replied, ‘Who are you that address me in my own language?’ Parkes said ‘There is no need to tell you my

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name, you know it as well as I know yours.’11 It is hard to feel sorry for such a cruel man, but few downfalls have been more total. His firm handling of the foreigners in the past had resulted in him being made a peer and showered with adulatory poems. But after this failure, he was stripped of all his ranks by the Emperor and denounced by high and low. His reputation has improved recently as someone who stood up to the West. He is known as the ‘six nots’: he would not fight, he would not make peace, he would not defend, he would not die, he would not surrender, he would not flee (୙ᡚࠊ୙࿴ࠊ୙Ᏺࠊ୙Ṛࠊ୙㝆ࠊ୙㉮). The British were fairly merciful to him, much more so than his Emperor would have been. He was kept prisoner on the gunboat Inflexible for a month and a half. The ship’s crew were impressed by his calm, dignified manner, surely helped by having an aide-decamp, two servants, a chef and a barber. The ship transported him to Kolkata, the first sea journey he had ever taken, which he did not enjoy: sounds were said to have come from his cabin skylight ‘like the strains and groans of Mt. Etna’.12 He lived in reasonable comfort in Kolkata for a year before dying from refusing to eat at the age of fifty-one in 1859. The provincial Governor let it be known that he had been opposed to Ye’s policies and the allies restored him to his position after a stern lecture from Elgin. The real power in the city, however, was a three-man allied commission, one of whom was Parkes, who, in spite of still being in his twenties, was the dominant presence. At their disposal, they had 100 British soldiers and 30 French, in addition to a Chinese force of 1,300. Elgin probably hesitated about the appointment of Parkes, telling his diary that he was ‘clever but exceedingly overbearing in his manner to the Chinese’.13 But he did not have a big choice, the British and French together having only three Chinese speakers. Parkes was very hands-on, rushing about the city with a band of soldiers, tracking down caches of arms; when he found a gate shut in his face, he would drag the man who refused him entry by the pigtail. There was an extraordinarily high bounty of $30,000 on his head (normally British officials were thought to be worth no more than $5,000), but he nonetheless strode through the city as if it were the safest place in the world. He survived attempts to assassinate him: on one occasion a disguised battery had been set up in ruined houses and opened fire as he approached. Men around him were killed and wounded but as always, he was unscathed. The commander of the British forces in Guangzhou, General Van

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Straubenzee (known affectionately by his men as ‘old strawberry jam’), wrote of Parkes a year later in terms that are now familiar: ‘His energy is untiring, never sparing himself in any way; personal danger and personal comfort were never thought of when he could in any way advance the public service.’14 While Parkes was busy in Guangzhou, Elgin had been to Japan and signed a treaty there, establishing Britain on equal – admittedly not very favourable – terms with the United States following the ‘opening’ of Japan by Commodore Perry. Parkes knew that there would be the need for a British Legation and Consulates there and many of the positions would probably be filled by people now working in China. ‘I have a longing for Japan’, he wrote in November 1858, feeling sick of the ‘ditch’ of Guangzhou.15 It would, be ‘pioneering work at new places’. He was also wondering how long he could keep going with the life he had chosen: ‘I often catch myself thinking that I have had enough of this climate and of H.M.’s service too, and have a wish to earn my bread in a little more independent way, – free at least of Chinese, language and people, of both of which I am heartily sick’.16 He contemplated being a sheep farmer, which it is hard to imagine satisfying such a restless, driven man for very long. Although it should have been dysfunctional, in a funny way the Anglo-French officials and the Qing mandarins cooperated constructively in maintaining law and order and at the beginning of 1859, things actually looked quite promising in the city, meaning that they could start thinking more long term. Parkes set about picking out a site for a new British settlement there, having been given carte blanche to do what he thought best. He chose what became Shamian Island, but at the time was no more than a muddy flat – he did not want to use already built-on land because it would have meant turning people out of their houses. It would have to be built up, work that would take a year and a half and the land cost $280,000. Fortunately, the Chinese still owed this amount as an indemnity, so the British were able to appropriate the land in lieu of the money, saving them the trouble of having to squeeze it out of them. As Guangzhou had become safer, Fanny and Nellie came to join him there, but after a year together, they decided that mother and daughter had to return to England because both of them were adversely affected by the sticky summer climate and Fanny was expecting another child. Parkes must have wondered whether it would ever be possible for them all to settle down and be together.

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Theirs was a common enough situation for those living in China. The Lockharts had made the same painful choice in 1852, deciding that Catharine had to take their children back to England because China was just too unhealthy for them to live in, keeping William separated from them for six years. It would have been a very hard decision for Catharine because she had fervently believed that having committed yourself, you could never turn back: ‘when once you leave your native country with such an object as a Missionary does’, she had written soon after her marriage, ‘the ties of country are broken, yes! snapped, never again to be rejoined’.17 But thinking in such absolutes had dissolved following the birth of three children and the loss of one of them. A new commissioner was appointed to replace Parkes in Guangzhou, freeing him to go to Hong Kong to negotiate the lease of the Kowloon peninsula to add to the colony. He successfully agreed with the local Governor that Britain could gain it for £160 a year, in perpetuity.The British could have hoped to take it as a result of winning the coming war with China, but Parkes suggested leasing it. (Incidentally, it was not the Kowloon peninsula that had to be returned to China in 1997, but the New Territories – without which the rest of colony was not sustainable – which had been leased for 99 years in 1898.) Following this, he was allowed some respite, going up to Shanghai on 27 March 1858. He was interested to see the city because he knew it had changed immensely since he had last been there. It was booming and had become very expensive, small houses renting at £300 or £400 a year, which was a good annual income in Britain. The city was becoming unlivable in for those on government salaries. In 1872, Medhurst claimed that even £1,500 a year was not enough to stop the Consul falling into debt.18 Meanwhile, the Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) had been signed, giving the Western powers the right to have legations in Beijing, eleven more Chinese ports were opened for trade, and the Yangtze River was opened to foreign ships. This seemed like a very good conclusion to a fairly painless war. However, the Chinese really did not want the legations in Beijing, and made very polite, almost humble pleas to Elgin not to take up residence there. He decided to concede that the Minister would only occasionally visit the capital, thus allowing the Chinese to pretend that he was like the Ambassadors from nearby countries that for centuries had visited Beijing to pay tribute. Parkes was not impressed: ‘Lord Elgin I do not consider a great man’, he told Lockhart. ‘It is with him,

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What will these parties say to this or that? and not What is best suited to the emergency? Conciliation, mildness, etc. etc. is with him therefore the order of the day: it will quiet the House, it will satisfy the British Public, etc. etc.’19 The crisis in China apparently satisfactorily resolved, Elgin left to be replaced by his brother, Frederick Bruce, as Britain’s first Minister to the country. Bruce did not have the kind of qualities that Parkes admired. He was a shy man, given to blushing with embarrassment, and never married. His career had been much less glittering than his brother’s: Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong; Lieutenant-Governor of Newfoundland; Consul-General to Bolivia; Chargé d’Affaires in Uruguay and Consul-General in Egypt. He ended his career as British envoy to Washington where he gained a reputation for being fair, competent and friendly. Bruce expected to exchange ratifications of the Treaty of Tianjin in Beijing, but when he arrived in Shanghai on 6 June 1859, he found that the Chinese were determined not to allow this. He decided that ‘anything which looked like hesitation or irresolution would … render the object of my mission more difficult to attain without a fresh appeal to force’.20 So, he sailed with Bourboulon and a large naval escort up to the mouth of the Peiho river which was the gateway to the capital. Arriving there on 20 June, they found that the river was blocked and soldiers were waiting, ready to resist them. The British were confident that they would be able to brush past them with minimal trouble, as they had done a year earlier. However, the forts had been greatly strengthened and the Chinese fought effectively, leaving 464 British soldiers and 14 French dead or wounded, along with three vessels sunk and many more disabled. As Parkes put it to Lockhart, ‘the defeat could scarcely have been more complete’.21 Bruce blamed his brother saying that he should have insisted on taking up permanent residence in Beijing: ‘the Chinese thought, when we abandoned the exercise of the … right, that we had virtually consented to … go back from what was accorded to Lord Macartney’ (who led the first British mission to China in 1793).22 Much of the blame for the military side of the disaster was laid at the door of Admiral Sir James Hope who had recently replaced Seymour as naval commander. Elgin thought he had ‘acted like a madman’, but Parkes was more sympathetic, telling Lockhart: ‘His dispositions, I fear, will be mercilessly condemned … but he did no more than act upon all past experience. Never have the Chinese fired so well before.’23 Hope was a popular hero

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(his affectionate nickname among his men was ‘Fighting Jimmy’) and admired for the fortitude with which he coped with the reverse and a nasty wound he had received in the fighting, so he was safe from dismissal. Applying the logic of the time, the defeat had to be punished, and the government decided to send out a force of 10,000 troops under General James Hope Grant. Grant was a veteran of the First Opium War but had made his reputation in India where he was involved in the suppression of the Mutiny. Although there are pictures of Grant looking smart, in the most frequently reproduced photograph of him, taken in 1858 in India, he looks a wreck, more like a pirate than a general, with swarthy skin, unkempt hair and clothes which can only be described as functional. He was a deeply moral man and a devout Christian, who was anxious to inculcate temperance, thrift and honourable behaviour in those under his command (he banned them from swearing). Elgin was impressed by him, writing that there was a ‘quiet simplicity and kindliness about his manner which, in a man so highly placed, must be most winning’.24 It seems that he owed his success as much to his personality as his military skills – there was a story that the decisive promotion of his career had been made because his commanding officer wanted someone who played the cello to accompany his violin. Parkes found him a ‘frank and friendly man, who makes you quite at home’.25 The first step in the campaign was the by now customary occupation of Zhoushan. It was very civilised, Parkes landing with Hope and Grant under a flag of truce to deliver a summons. Nobody official met them, but the locals were friendly, and they were guided to the office of the main military authority. Parkes told them they were taking possession of the island, explaining that they would allow the local officials to stay, but that the troops would have to be disarmed. Zhoushan was of no strategic value for an assault on Beijing, but it could prove useful as a bargaining chip in later negotiations. Having done this duty, Parkes returned to Guangzhou and it looked as if he would sit out the war in this (what had become a) backwater. But Elgin told him ‘I cannot but feel that your ability and experience would be of great value to me in the North’, while acknowledging the ‘great importance’ of his job in Guangzhou.26 When Parkes discovered that it was General Grant who had asked Elgin to write along these lines, he happily complied because it meant, he told Fanny,‘that I was to accompany the General on duty,

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and by no means as an amateur. I have no taste for going into frizzling affairs in the latter capacity, but when duty requires me to go I can of course have no hesitation’.27 This meant that he would be at the heart of the action. We might expect Parkes to have been happy about this, but he had changed. Perhaps it was marriage and fatherhood that did it, perhaps the grinding and demanding work in Guangzhou, probably a bit of both. ‘Ambition wanes’, he told Fanny, ‘either with an accession of right feeling, or a failing of physical strength and with it mental energy’. Though still willing to do his duty, he confessed to

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a strong wish to make room for some one else to act for me. In short I am a little weary of the skirmishing sort of life I have led … How delightful it would be to spend twelve months in such a place as Canons … But whatever is good for one will come in time, and the best way to enjoy the future is to make the best use of to-day.28

At thirty-two, he was feeling burned out. And he had an extra reason to be at Canons, as Fanny was about to give birth to their second child. Born on 26 June 1860, she was christened Marion Plumer but would be known as ‘Minnie’. She became the closest of Parkes’ children to him; she idolised him and he utterly adored her. Parkes now fully understood the downside of life in east Asia. It was dangerous, unsettled, demanding and seemed impossible to have any kind of family life in. But faced with the challenges of war and situations that called for skills that nobody else possessed, Parkes’ old spark would return. On 21 July 1860, he set off for the north, taking his Chinese servant ‘old Chang’ as an attendant. The name of the ship he was sailing in, the Urgent, matched his frame of mind: ‘I care little for whatever would divert me from the work that is set me to do. What that work will be, I know not, but I am anxious to get at it speedily, that it may be the sooner concluded.’29 The British were ready for the assault, but had to wait for the French, who were considering retaking Suzhou from the Taiping rebels, which would have served the interests of the Imperial government they were about to attack. Bruce managed to put a stop to this, but there seemed no sense of urgency on the French part, which Parkes found frustrating. He told Fanny, ‘This dreadful alliance [with France] is a very very great reason for our devoutly desiring a speedy settlement … They do us no good and act in fact

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in every respect like a drag upon our coach. They use our stores, get in our way at all points, and retard all our movements.’30 On 1 August, the flotilla of British and French ships prepared for landing at the forts. The locals seemed friendly, so Parkes suggested to Grant that he might try to persuade them to surrender. Parkes, fearless as ever, strode into a crowd and told them that the forts would be attacked at 4am the following morning, but that this would not happen if they were to give them up. It was obvious that the Europeans had arrived with overwhelming force and they decided to be prudent. They were even nice enough to warn Parkes that he should be very careful in them because they were filled with mines. So Parkes, with other volunteers, proceeded to take possession of the principal fort. They had to ‘traverse a populous but most filthy town, and though well accustomed to Chinese stenches I confess that this surpassed all that I had before experienced. The streets were unpaved and nearly knee deep in mud.’31 The fort was closed and barricaded, and Parkes insisted that they break open the gate. It was empty of men and modern weaponry, but there were, as he had been warned, a lot of mines in it. They found some soldiers and exchanged desultory fire. ‘In our force’, Parkes told Fanny,

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we had five wounded and the French had the same … Altogether the scene was a very lively one and our men were very well handled.They had to form in line … to go through the movements in short of a little battle, with just enough of reality about it to make it interesting.32

Parkes did not think, in his ‘character of a married man’ and, of course, a civilian, that he should be involved in the fighting, and he did stay out of it, although what he was doing was scarcely less dangerous. Parkes assured the locals that they would be safe if they cooperated, but both the British and French forces proceeded to ravage the town. Parkes told the dreadful story of what happened to one of the men who had taken him to the forts. His house was entered eight times – three times he used Parkes’ name, as Parkes had told him he would be safe if he did so, but it was still completely ransacked. The experience was so terrifying that he, his wife and daughter, and four women living in the same quadrangle all killed themselves. British forces that were caught looting were flogged,

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but the French were not punished for it, and ‘seem to think that pillage is a soldier’s right’, Parkes complained to Fanny.33 They even crossed the river and gutted a village on the opposite side. The Peiho forts, which had wreaked such destruction on the previous attack force, had to be neutralised, and the allied forces approached them overland this time. Parkes went to the northernmost fort with a Major Graham and a flag of truce, to try and induce them to surrender. He was warned away and told that the officer in command would not receive any message. But by continuing to engage with them, he gave Graham time to observe the fortifications, ‘scarcely fair play, but if they objected to our approaching the fort they ought by the rules of war to have sent people out to meet us’.34 Very soon after they left, the defenders opened fire on the British forces and were very effective – Parkes was ‘full of admiration’ for the way they fought’.35 When the fort finally fell, there were over 1,000 men dead and wounded. Grant thought that this was the key fort and that once it fell, the others would give way. They advanced to the Great North Fort, at the river’s mouth, and there being no resistance, occupied it. Parkes volunteered to cross to the south side of the river to see if that fort would surrender without a fight as well. It was not ‘altogether an inviting’ task, because his experience of the morning was that the men in the southern fort were ‘brutes, and might do uncomfortable things’.36 When Parkes arrived there, he found it entirely sealed, although by looking through the slits, he could see the men standing inside with their guns. He managed to enter through the rear and at that point an officer came rushing out to ask what they wanted. Parkes said that he intended to speak to the Governor and that if the officer ‘dared to stop a flag of truce he did it at his peril’.37 Eventually, Parkes was allowed to pass and had to trudge three miles with mud up to his knees to get to the town where the Governor was. The Governor ‘used all sorts of tricks and evasions’, but finally agreed to surrender the forts.38 Parkes made him draw it up in writing and then returned to the fort on horseback in pitch darkness. At one point, he thought he was being challenged in Chinese and answered in that language, before Elgin’s secretary, Henry Loch, who was with him, realised that they had been spoken to in English. ‘Another moment and 120 [“friendly”] rifles would have been discharged at us.’39 The southern fort had been abandoned by the Chinese, and this being noticed by the allied forces on the other side, they decided to occupy it. Unfortunately, they had not made it safe – it was full

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of traps, including slow matches leading to guns, one of which went off, taking the legs off two Frenchmen. The next morning, Parkes crossed the river again and had another three-and-a-halfhour trudge to reach Grant. Then he had to return the same way to the Governor to notify him of acceptance of his terms. Admiral Hope decided they should approach Tianjin along the Peiho river. They had no way of knowing if they would be attacked from the forts along the way or not, but they proceeded and they were not. He resolved to occupy Tianjin with five gunboats and eighty-seven men, which seems extraordinarily little for one of China’s biggest cities. But it worked – the Chinese would either fight to the bitter end or capitulate without a murmur. Parkes explained what happened next to Fanny: ‘With this we put parties into two forts and one of the gates of the city, called on the authorities and told them the city was ours, not theirs, and issued a Proclamation to the people’.40 The inhabitants were friendly and compliant and when a regiment arrived on 25 August, all was peaceful. ‘Every one must feel thankful to have obtained in one day the whole of these formidable forts at so cheap a cost’. ‘Cheap’ was a relative term: the allied forces had lost about 350 men killed and wounded, the Chinese about 1,200 to 1,500. Life, for the moment, was good. Parkes pronounced himself ‘vastly improved in health with this rough work, as I have but comparatively little head work with it’. It was hot, but not as hot as in the south, and at night he needed a blanket. In Tianjin, there were luxuries: fine beef and mutton, ‘fruit and vegetables that make one’s mouth water, – grapes, peaches, pears, apples’. He decided that both the climate and the people were ‘incomparably superior’ to those of the south.41 He and Thomas Wade (as Chinese Secretary, he was the principal Chinese language expert) were the main translators and they divided their duties,Wade doing, as Parkes put it to Fanny, ‘most of the pen work, I the mouth and outdoor labour’.42 Once he got the bit between his teeth, he did not let anything get in his way.When his Chinese drivers absconded with their animals and it looked like the army would be unable to move, he found river transport so they were able to keep going. Parkes located the suppliers for the Chinese army and got them to provide services for the allied forces. (Westerners were fascinated by the Chinese lack of national loyalty – they had no compunction about aiding their country’s enemies if they were being paid.)

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The Imperial Commissioners arrived in Tianjin on 2 September 1860, and immediately indicated that they would accept Elgin’s terms. Parkes submitted a draft to them on 6 September but they told him that they would not be able to sign it without permission from the Emperor. Elgin felt this was a brush-off and decided to ask General Hope to march on Beijing. Parkes told Fanny that ‘at the eleventh hour we found (as usual to Chinese negotiators) that they had been deceiving us’.43 He had entirely returned to his old energetic self. A chaplain was impressed:

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There is no man in China so fit to deal with the Chinese as Mr Parkes. He sees through their double dealings with an eagle glance; he is as plucky as a true British bulldog, and meets their treachery and falsehood by open, honest, straightforward boldness and determination … Mr Parkes is thoroughly polite, but does not scruple, if he finds the highest official in the realm dealing falsely, to tell him so; hence the mingled hatred and fear which his name inspires in the minds of all the governing powers in the country.44

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‘The Executioner Stood by with Uplifted Sword’ Beijing, 1860

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™

THE GOAL OF the British at this point seemed straightforward and unproblematic. It was simply to go to Beijing to have the Tianjin Treaty ratified, hopefully by the Emperor. However, matters became very complicated. A bolder policy – simply marching on Beijing from Tianjin – which certainly would have had Parkes’ support would probably have worked. But there were various factors preventing this. They had to get the agreement of their French allies, and they were having supply problems. Elgin blamed Grant, who felt that they should wait for guns, stores and reinforcements. ‘One would think’, complained Parkes, ‘that the British soldier was a creature that should be wrapped up in tissue paper and put away in a glass case!’1 The British proceeded to about halfway between Tianjin and Beijing, where Elgin agreed to stop and wait. On 17 September Parkes went to Tongzhou (Tungchow), now a very plain outer suburb of Beijing, to agree the arrangements for a meeting between the Commissioners and the British and French Ministers. He was accompanied by Loch and other officials. They found a place they could stay at a temple in Tongzhou and Parkes spent seven hours with the Commissioners making the arrangements. He found they were very much against Elgin presenting Queen Victoria’s letter to the Emperor. But the other matters were settled, and it looked as if everything would be all right when they entered Beijing. They agreed where the British officers would camp, five miles from Tongzhou. 96

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At daybreak on the 18th, Parkes went there and found it occupied by a large number of Chinese soldiers. He feared that the British forces might be walking into a trap, so he sent Loch to warn Grant to halt his advance until he could find out why the Chinese troops were massing. He then returned to Tongzhou to ask the Commissioners what was going on. Nobody would tell Parkes where they were, but he eventually found them and they told him that they would not withdraw their troops. The atmosphere was a lot less friendly than it had been the day before. Parkes had no instructions about what to do in this situation so he went back to join Loch and the others. Loch had been to General Grant who told him they must get out as quickly as possible. Parkes reckoned that the entire Chinese army was now between them and safety, but he had a flag of truce, so he thought they would be all right – he had certainly been in tighter spots. It looked as if the Chinese side were gearing up to start a battle, so they galloped as hard as they could to get out.With only a little way to go to reach safety, they found themselves surrounded and they heard the sound of gunfire. Their way was blocked, so riding ahead, Parkes told the men to ask their commander to allow them to pass. This was refused, because they could not get an order from their superior. Parkes took Loch and an old Indian soldier, Nal Singh, who was holding a white flag, to the spot where the officer was supposed to be. They found themselves passing through some tall millet cane, and realised they were being watched by men holding matchlock rifles who were ‘with difficulty prevented from firing upon us’.2 Parkes heard shouts of ‘the Prince! the Prince!’ and he asked who the Prince was. It was the Chinese Commander-in-Chief, Senggelinqin. They dismounted and soldiers ‘fell upon us, tore off several of the things we had on, dragged us across the canal, and hurled us prostrate in front of the Prince’. Senggelinqin asked Parkes his name, which he gave, and explained that he was returning to his Minister. Senggelinqin said: Twice you have dared to take the Peiho forts; why does not that content you? ... I know your name, and that you instigate all the evils that your people commit.You have also used bold language in the presence of the Prince of I, and it is time that foreigners should be taught respect for Chinese nobles and ministers.3

Parkes then ‘endeavoured to explain the mistakes of the Prince’ – which cannot have helped his cause very much – and that

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he had no power but simply followed instructions. He asked Senggelinqin to respect the flag of truce, but Senggelinqin simply laughed. ‘Write to your people and tell them to stop the attack.’ Parkes explained that it would be useless for him to do so, because he had no influence over military movements. ‘I see that you continue obstinate’, Senggelinqin told him, ‘and that you will be of no use to me.’4 The three of them were thrown into a cart with two Frenchmen and sent to Prince I, who could not be found. They were kicked and interrogated and then suddenly some soldiers rushed in and tied them up. This was the usual preliminary to a Chinese execution and they thought that their end had come. Parkes wrote:

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After some further ill-usage, we were hastily thrown into a cart, and driven to another part of the battle-field where we were again dragged out and interrogated by another general, who ended his examination by giving summary orders that we should be at once beheaded. In a moment our hands were drawn sharply behind our backs and tightly bound together; we were forced upon our knees; the executioner stood by with uplifted sword, readying to strike; and Loch and I hastily bade each other ‘Farewell!’ when, suddenly, a rush of flying men came tumbling, whirling past; upsetting us, upsetting our executioner, sweeping everything before them! We had been so near death that we were almost unnerved, bewildered at this sudden and most unexpected reprieve.5

To Fanny, Parkes wrote ‘I cannot … dwell on these moments of horror, although prayer came to my relief.’6 They were then bundled into the cart and taken, as it turned out, to Beijing – a five-hour journey which gave them ‘dreadful suffering’. Parkes ‘saw with a shudder’ that they had been taken to the Board of Punishments – it was the place were death sentences were issued.7 They were loaded with chains and carried to their inquisitors, who after asking them a few questions, ordered them to be thrown into an ordinary prison, with sixty or seventy common prisoners; Parkes asked that they might be kept together because Loch did not speak Chinese, but they were separated. When Parkes heard the clanking of chains, he knew that Loch was passing, but the only words they could exchange were ‘God bless you’. ‘Poor Parkes’, Loch wrote later,‘suffered much in mind and body, and yet maintained outwardly an appearance of calm indifference

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to all that could be done to him’.8 However, the most impressively stoical of the three was really Singh. When Loch encouraged him to keep up his spirits and not to fear, Singh said ‘Fear! I do not fear. If I do not die to-day, I may to-morrow, and I am past sixty; and am I not with you? I do not fear.’9 Parkes was directed through a huge door, to a general cell: ‘It was like entering a pandemonium’. It was full of dirty and diseased felons who crowded round to gaze at him as he was fastened to a

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kind of wooden pallet, about a foot above the ground; my arms were unbound, and an iron band was fastened round my body, secured by chains to a great beam immediately overhead. Heavy chains were placed on both hands and feet, but my arms were, at least, no longer fastened behind me; and the relief was so unspeakably great that to this I attribute the preservation of my life.10

The cords which had been tied around his wrists had made his hands swell to twice their normal size, hence his relief. The chains were long enough to enable him to lie down. In spite of his hunger and thirst – he had been given no sustenance since his arrest – and the desperation of his situation, he fell asleep on the bare planking. But at around midnight, he was again dragged in front of his inquisitors. It was, as Parkes put it, in a ‘gloomy chamber’: five judges were sitting in front of him surrounded by guards and officials, and beside him were several executioners and their assistants. On the ground were torture instruments ‘all designed, as I guessed, expressly to impress and terrify me’.11 The Chinese system of justice was based around confessions and people could not be convicted without one. Torture was normal, but Parkes was treated lightly – not much more than being shoved around. He was asked about the strength of the British army and the military resources of India. These were not confidential matters, and Parkes answered as best he could. However his inquisitors’ wrath poured on him for insisting on speaking of Queen Victoria in a way that also applied to the Emperor of China: ‘You have yourself shown that you have been long in China … and you must know, therefore, that there is but one Emperor, who rules over all lands.’12 Parkes could have saved himself some grief at very little cost by going along with the way the Chinese referred to her, but it was not his way. Presently, ‘by way of bringing the scene to an end, I thought I would simulate a fainting fit; but the result was so extremely unpleasant that I did not attempt it again’.13

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He was sent back to the cell and his name was stuck up as a ‘rebel’. The President of the Board of Punishments came to see him; Parkes warned him that the British retribution for their actions would be terrible, which he surely knew, but it did not help him. This treatment went on for seven days. Although Parkes got nowhere with his captors, he got along surprisingly well with his fellow prisoners, who were interested in him and fascinated by his descriptions of foreign countries. ‘They were seldom disrespectful, addressed me by my title, and often avoided putting me to inconvenience when it was in their power to do so.’14 After four days, Parkes was moved to his own cell, which he shared with four jailers, although he was still in his chains. This was due to the intercession of Prince Gong (Kung), the Emperor’s younger brother, who was much more pragmatic than other Chinese rulers. He knew there would be a price to pay if Parkes died. He also thought that if he was better treated, Parkes might be persuaded to agree to terms of peace that would stop the British army attacking Beijing. He did not know Parkes very well. So, the Assistant Commissioner of the Tongzhou conferences was sent to induce Parkes to write to Elgin telling him to stop hostilities. He dropped heavy hints about the consequences if Parkes did not comply. It probably would not have done much harm for Parkes to have humoured him – he could probably have bought his own freedom and that of his comrades – but Parkes would not, telling him that he would not be surprised at any cruelty, was prepared to die, and believed that his fate was in the hands of God. Elgin appreciated his actions, writing that ‘Mr Parkes’ consistent refusal to purchase his own safety by making any pledges, or even by addressing to me any representations which might have embarrassed me in the discharge of my duty, is a rare example of courage and devotion to the public interest.’15 It was clear that threats were not going to work on Parkes, so on 28 September, eleven days after his capture, Prince Gong decided the ill-treatment to which the prisoners had been subjected should stop and promised that ‘Mr Parkes shall have no cause to complain of his treatment now that he is in my hands.’16 So, the chains were taken off him and he was told that he would be let out of prison, probably the next day. ‘Not unless Mr Loch goes out too’, was his reply. Parkes did not know whether Loch was alive or dead but perceived from the manner of his inquisitor that he was alive. They had both attempted to find out about

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the other by singing ‘God save the Queen’, but after the first note their voices had broken with uncontrollable emotion. When Parkes met Loch, he found out what a close shave Loch had had – when his jailer had tightened the chain attached to a beam around his neck, he had almost been strangled. On the 29th, they were both moved to a temple outside the prison and given good food, baths and every comfort, although they still were kept separate. Surprisingly, having refused to do so under extreme duress, Parkes now agreed to write to Elgin. He told him no more than was the truth – that they were now being well treated – but went on to say that he hoped hostilities would be suspended in favour of negotiations. Loch added a postscript in Hindi warning that the letter had been written under duress. Parkes was pressed to make a pledge about peace terms, but he refused. That night, Parkes had a violent attack of ‘cholera’:

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I writhed and moaned and groaned, and cried out that I was suffocating within, and must be taken into the open air. Some of the guards accordingly assisted me into the outer court; and there I became so bad, and my groans and contortions so violent, that they all gathered round me in alarm, thinking I was going to expire.17

He was acting – he wanted to get out into the courtyard so that he could communicate with Loch. When he heard a low whistle from Loch, his spasms suddenly abated and he knew that Loch had found something. They had received a package of clothes sent by their friends at the camp containing a couple of curiously inappropriate items: a worked handkerchief and an embroidered shirt. Loch looked closely at the shirt and realised that there was a sentence in Hindi worked around the embroidery. It told them that the bombardment would begin in three days and asked for their exact position. This was not exactly good news because they had been told that the first gunshot would be the signal for their execution. On 3 October, a letter from Wade was brought in which said that if any harm came to the prisoners, Beijing would be ‘burnt from one end to the other’ which the Chinese had every reason to believe was a serious threat.18 But as we have seen with the threats to destroy Guangzhou, they believed that a country so vast, with such a huge population, would not be troubled by the loss of a city or two.

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The Council of State decided that the prisoners would be executed and on 5 October, they were told they would be killed that evening. They wrote their farewell letters and awaited their fate. However, an order came to delay until the following day and then they were told that Prince Gong had decided to accept Lord Elgin’s terms. On the 7th, there was the sound of heavy guns and the prisoners were once again plunged into suspense, wondering if their end had finally come. On the 8th, the sympathetic Hengqi came to talk to Parkes. They knew each other well – he had been Administrator of the Guangzhou customs two years earlier and was one of the government negotiators whom Parkes thought could be reasoned with. They were joined by other Chinese officials, and, according to Loch’s description, Parkes chatted convivially with them, ‘with as much calmness as if our lives and probably the future fate of China were not hanging on each moment of valuable time thus slipping away’.19 At about noon, an official called and had a long whispered conversation with Hengqi who returned and told them that Prince Gong had decided that they should be released at once and that they would be sent back to the camp at about 2pm. ‘Don’t exhibit any pleasure or feeling’, Parkes told Loch. Hengqi found his attitude surprising: ‘You appear to be alike indifferent as to whether you are to die or live’. Parkes told him, ‘Not at all; but we have now had considerable experience of the vacillation and the deceit of the Chinese Government, and therefore until our release becomes an accomplished fact, we venture to doubt it.’20 They were told that six other prisoners would be released at the same time, but not who they were. There were no more heroics from Parkes – clearly some of the prisoners were going to be held on to for some reason, but he would not delay his release further in the hope of saving them. Parkes and Loch were led to some covered carts and were told to be careful not to show themselves because they could be attacked by a mob. Loch described their feelings: ‘our hopes were raised – and yet we felt how much still lay between us and safety’.21 However, they got out of the city in one piece, and the moment they saw a British soldier, they jumped out of their carts and ran towards the camp. They met Singh who had also been released and five Frenchmen. The Chinese were still keeping twenty others, but it was explained that they were far away, and it would take two days before they could arrive. Five or six had died so ‘I’,

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Parkes reflected to Fanny, ‘who was perhaps looked upon as their worst enemy, have escaped with least injury’. He went on, I don’t believe I am any the worse for what I have gone through … God in His mercy preserved me sound in mind and enabled me to keep up good hope to the last … So, my dearest, you have nothing to do but rejoice, and see in my escape an answer to prayer and a proof of how mercifully our Heavenly Father preserves those who put their trust in Him.22

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Hengqi later told Parkes how narrow the escape had been. He had received a warning that the Emperor had issued an order for the immediate execution of the prisoners, hence his anxiety to get them out as quickly as possible. The Emperor’s message came fifteen minutes after their release. Elgin assured Fanny that ‘We shall take care that he does not run any such risks again’, which was like saying that a fish would stop swimming.23 Indeed, no sooner had he got out of Beijing, than he was returning with a small force which could easily have been overwhelmed in a determined attack. Parkes was able to negotiate the surrender of a gate, which meant that the city was theirs to do as they wished with. He explained it like this to Fanny: Had they not made this surrender, our batteries would have opened at twelve o’clock upon the city, so that a very great weight is now taken off our minds, for although, humanly speaking, we could have taken the huge place without great difficulty, still we should have destroyed at the same time the government of the country and would have been left without people to treat with.24

It turned out that of the twenty-four other men captured, fifteen had died. They had all simply been unlucky enough to have been behind Chinese lines when they decided to take prisoners (Bowlby, a Times journalist had, incredibly, been out shopping). They were bound tightly with leather straps which were wet and as they dried, they contracted and cut into the flesh. The wounds became infected and maggots started eating away at the sores. Bowlby was said to have died from maggots forming in his wrists. His body was left to rot in the cell shared by his comrades, and then tied to a wooden cross and thrown over the city walls to be eaten by feral dogs and pigs. A French prisoner went mad as maggots went into

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his ears, nose and mouth. A Sikh’s hands burst under the pressure of the contracting leather straps. Elgin gave considerable thought as to how these actions should be punished. An indemnity could have been imposed or the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City could have been destroyed. In the end he took the fateful decision to destroy the Emperor’s Summer Palace, because it was the place that was most important to him personally. He intended that it would send the message that he was not punishing the Chinese people for the way the prisoners were treated, but only the Emperor and his Court. Elgin was keen that this was understood, posting the following notice around Beijing:

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That no individual, however exalted, could escape from the responsibility and punishment which must always follow the commission of acts of falsehood and deceit; that Yuen-Ming-Yuen [the Summer Palace] would be burnt on the 18th [October], as a punishment inflicted on the Emperor for the violation of his word, and the act of treachery to the flag of truce; that as the people were not concerned in these acts no harm would befall them, but the Imperial Government alone would be held responsible.25

Parkes felt that this was the right thing to do, telling Fanny that this palace was where the Emperor spent two-thirds of his time, so it would hit him personally (although Europeans called it the ‘summer palace’, it was also the Emperor’s main residence in the winter). ‘To have burnt Peking would have been simply wicked as the people of the city … had done us no harm’ – to have imposed an indemnity ‘would have been to make money out of their [the prisoners’] blood’.26 Palmerston had no doubts about it: ‘I am delighted at our having burnt down the emperor’s Summer Palace. I only wish his Pekin Palace had shared the same fate.’27 Charles Gordon, who would become Parkes’ friend, described what destroying the palace, actually an immense complex of buildings and gardens, felt like for the men who did it: We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money ... I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did to the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and

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magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army.28

Elgin later had to justify this destruction. He made it appear that it did not trouble him at all: ‘I do not think in matters of art we have much to learn from that country … Nevertheless, I am disposed to believe that under this mass of abortions and rubbish there lie some hidden sparks of a divine fire, which the genius of my countrymen may gather and nurse into a flame.’29 We might take this at face value had he not said about the attack on Guangzhou that he was ‘melancholy’ that they were ‘so ruthlessly destroying the prestige of a place which had been, for so many centuries, intact and undefiled by the stranger’.30 If he had thought this about Guangzhou, he really must have felt some pangs about ordering the razing of perhaps the highest expression of Chinese beauty. Elgin was, however, representative of the attitude in the West at the time that China had little to offer the world. In the 1700s, the Chinese civilisation had been set at high value – the 1761 pagoda in Kew Gardens is an example of this – and enlightenment figures like Voltaire greatly admired Confucian values. (Michael Adas claimed that in the first half of the eighteenth century, ‘no culture or civilization has been as lavishly praised or as widely acclaimed as a model to be emulated as was Qing China’.31) But in the nineteenth century, China came to be seen as static and tyrannical – especially when set against Western countries which were energetically industrialising and reforming their political institutions – and its culture was therefore undeserving of any admiration. The items that were looted were turned over to be sold for the ‘general benefit’ at a spectacular auction in Beijing – the prize money Gordon mentions came from the proceeds which were apportioned to the soldiers on the basis of rank. The British even took a Pekingese dog (they had run around freely in the gardens), which was named ‘Looty’ and presented to Queen Victoria. According to the Illustrated London News, Looty was ‘considered by everyone who has seen it … by far the most beautiful little animal that has appeared in this country’. Unfortunately, Looty was not popular with the Queen’s other dogs, which took exception to his ‘Oriental habits and appearance’, and the Prince and Princess of Wales took him to Sandringham.32

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Museums in the West, particularly Britain and France, still contain items looted from the summer palace, which to modern Chinese is an outrage. The general director of the National Treasures Fund, Niu Xianfeng, said ‘China will never give up the right to bring these looted or stolen treasures back’, but, Liu Yang, a researcher who has spent years tracking down the artworks, said ‘British museums never reply’ when he writes to ask what they have.33 Present-day Chinese anger about the destruction of the Summer Palace is being stoked by the government. The vast site has been preserved, and when walking round it, you are left in no doubt about what you are to think – it is full of slogans like ‘Never forget China’s humiliation’ and the ruins are covered in anti-British and French graffiti. There is a bust of Victor Hugo there, his reward for writing, ‘We call ourselves civilized and them barbarians. Here is what civilization has done to barbarity.’34 (Actually, Hugo acquired some exquisite Chinese silk looted from the Garden of Perfect Brightness by French soldiers, so there was a touch of dishonesty about his outrage.) Jeremiah Jenne explained why the site is accorded such significance:

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The Communist Party’s basic claim to legitimacy has always been that they’ve rescued the country from the twin evils of feudalism and foreign imperialism so any representations of imperialism, things like the Yuanming Yuan [summer palace] ruins or memories of the Opium Wars, are very important to keep fresh.35

Chinese children are certainly taught all about it in schools. In a fifth-grade primary school textbook, it is asserted that the Summer Palace was, in effect, the ‘largest museum and art gallery in the world at the time’. It omits mention of the capture of Parkes and others, but rather describes the destruction as being a means of covering up the crime of looting the treasures there. It closes by saying ‘the essence of architectural art in our country was turned to ashes’.36 Although there is calculation behind the Chinese Communist Party’s focus on this episode (not to mention hypocrisy – the ravages of the Cultural Revolution receive almost no attention), it is certainly not only the Chinese who condemn it, and the whole war, today. The British academic, Julia Lovell, put it like this:

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Amid the smoke and victory, it is easy to forget that this was a war – a world war, pitting Britain, France, and at times the United States and Russia against the Chinese Empire – that was provoked (in contravention of international law) by a young British alpha male, exploited by a cantankerous monomaniac and waged by a melancholy plenipotentiary who thought it ‘wretched’.37

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‘I Do Not at All Like Being in a Great Man’s Train’ Nanjing – Hankou (Wuhan) – Shanghai, 1860–1862

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H AVING PAINFULLY ESTABLISHED the right for a British Minister to reside in Beijing, General Grant was now determined to get his men out of the city. It was November and if he did not do so quickly, the river to Tianjin would freeze and they would be stuck there until the spring. Parkes did not think he should be in such a hurry, because the treaty would be meaningless if there was no way of enforcing it. It felt as if they were going back to square one – fighting for the right to reside in Beijing and then not doing so. Parkes thought that someone should stay in Beijing to represent British interests. He suggested a ‘small officer’, whose lowly status would make him less of a target than the Minister himself. He, Wade, and Morrison all volunteered for this, but in the end, the officer left was very ‘small’ – Thomas Adkins, a junior interpreter. ‘By this arrangement,’ Parkes told Fanny, ‘we have just managed … I hope’ to prevent ‘the Chinese thinking that we have not established our Minister there out of fear of them.’1 Elgin and Bruce were swapping roles again, and Elgin was able to introduce his brother to Prince Gong as the British Minister on 8 November, thus formally handing over his responsibility – Parkes interpreted for them. The following day, they left with the British forces for Tianjin, just in time, because the river froze solid the day after. Clearly, it would have been unwise for Bruce to remain in Beijing unprotected, but an equally important reason for him not staying there was that there was nowhere appropriate for him to live. Parkes spent a week searching for a residence, but Beijing was in a dilapidated condition and its grand buildings were in a state 108

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of decay. Eventually, they were allocated a palace that was very rundown, so they were able to explain to the Chinese that the Minister had to delay his residence in Beijing until it had been fixed up, and Adkins was there to manage the repairs. (It was a job which would have perfectly suited Parkes but probably Bruce thought he was too useful for other things.) It turned out to be a magnificent set of buildings and exceptionally convenient, being very close to Tiananmen Square. Mitford called it a

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most picturesque palace … which … covers an immense space of ground. There are courtyards upon courtyards, huge empty buildings with old pillars used as covered courts, state approaches guarded by two great marble lions, and a number of houses with only a ground floor, each of us inhabiting one to himself.2

It may seem odd that the Chinese, who until that point had been so anxious to keep them out of Beijing, should have gifted the British such a large and central place for their Legation, but this area was traditionally where foreign envoys had lodged. Unfortunately, the generous attitude could not last, and in 1959 they were informed that they had to leave – they were moved to a much smaller site in the new diplomatic quarter. Parkes accompanied Elgin to Hong Kong from where he saw him off on 21 January 1861. Elgin ‘evinced some feeling in bidding me good-bye’ and expressed the hope that this would be his last farewell to China. It was. His mixed performance there did no harm to his career and the following year he gained the most glittering prize of all, being made Viceroy of India. Although he had thought Parkes was irresponsible at the start, Elgin came to genuinely admire him, writing the previous September:‘Parkes is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met; for energy, courage, and ability combined, I do not know where I could find his match; and this, joined to a facility of speaking Chinese … makes him … the man of the situation.3 Palmerston was likewise impressed, telling Russell that he ‘ought certainly to be made at once a Companion of the Bath [he was], anything further might be thought of afterwards’.4 (Mitford would complain that ‘CBs and the like’ were only given to those ‘who went through less danger and less hardship’ nearer home.5 Parkes was, as was so often the case, being treated exceptionally.) Elgin’s warm feelings were not reciprocated by Parkes – he told Fanny that he felt relieved when Elgin had gone. But, as he

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admitted to her, he was at the stage where he did not enjoy having anybody as a boss: I do not at all like being in a great man’s train – not that the Earl ever causes you to feel yourself dependent or subordinate; but still when in such a position you have work set you to do – you are certainly not the master of your own time – you are at all times of the day at the beck and call of your chief, and you are sensible of a feeling of restraint, which to me is very unpleasant.6

This leads us to ask what Parkes wanted at this point. He was now thirty-two, so still young, and it looked impossible that he could rise further in China. The Foreign Office appointed aristocratic generalists like Elgin and Bruce to be Ministers – not local experts who were in the consular service, like Parkes. He was not to know that this policy would change. As Alcock commented later:

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I could scarcely anticipate in those days seeing him transferred to the highest post in China in the diplomatic service as Her Majesty’s Minister at Peking, for at that day Peking seemed as unattainable as the moon, and no one had ever been allowed to pass the hitherto impenetrable barrier between the consular and diplomatic services.7

So, as things stood, it looked as if the limit of his ambitions in China would be Consul, which he already was. Most of the time it was a mundane desk-based job which did not satisfy him. He must have seriously wondered if this unchallenging, inconsequential, unremunerative position was really worth being separated from his family for. However, as we have seen, the situation in China was always fluid and there was some scope for escape from the consular treadmill. Luckily, Bruce had just the thing for him. The Treaty of Tianjin had allowed for the opening of the Yangtze river to trade and the establishment of three British Consulates along it. Admiral Hope was asked to take gunboats up the river as far as Hankou (Hankow) – one of the cities that makes up modern-day Wuhan – and Parkes would accompany him as the diplomatic agent. It was a perilous expedition because it would go through territory that was occupied by the Taiping. They had no idea how they would be received but it would be an excellent opportunity for gathering intelligence on them. It was right up Parkes’ street.

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They set off in February 1861 along the Yangtze, stopping in Zhenjiang (Chinkiang), around 70 kilometres east of Nanjing, on the 21st. It was in a strategic location, being the gateway to both Nanjing and the Grand Canal, which connected the area to Beijing. This had made it a target: it had been captured by the British in 1842 after fierce resistance (at which the fourteenyear-old Parkes had been present), and then was sacked by the Taiping rebels in 1853 before being recaptured by government forces in 1858. All this had taken its toll: ‘the river once crowded with shipping is now a blank’, he reported to Bruce; ‘the vast suburbs have been levelled, and of the city itself, two or three streets inside the walls, and a few thoroughfares lined with reed huts … are all that now remain.8 There were virtually no buildings in the city suitable as a Consulate, but they commandeered a temple (‘almost the only roofed tenement left near the waterside’). Parkes claimed that ‘we would not have used such a place for a stable in England – as a cowhouse it might have been utilized’, but it was the best there was. He also found some land for a British settlement and, knowing that Bruce would go along with whatever he thought best, signed a lease for it without consulting him. He then oversaw the fixing up of the buildings, and a flagstaff was erected and the flag raised. He managed all this in two days of ‘close occupation’.9 On the 24th, Parkes went on to Nanjing which had been turned into the capital of the Taiping, what he saw as a crackpot, bloodthirsty, pseudo-Christian cult. He described their ‘braves’ (soldiers) as ‘the lowest class of ruffians’. As for their ordinary people, their ‘manners are … much at fault, and their advances, even when meant to be friendly, are often marked by an unpleasant degree of familiarity’. They actually had the cheek to tell the foreigner ‘that they look upon him as one of themselves’.10 Parkes was not taken with their hospitality either; the temperature was below freezing but they were put up in a summer house, which was ‘little better than sleeping in the open air’.11 Parkes was interested to find out more about them and went for a long walk around the city with the missionary William Muirhead, who had lived through the occupation. Muirhead was somewhat sympathetic to the Taiping, but Parkes could not see in them a hope that they will be able to reconstruct what they are now destroying or be an instrument of restoring order to this miserable land. They may be destined to be a scourge … but how

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long they will be suffered to afflict the country it is impossible to say. If the Imperial Government were not also wretched and contemptible in the extreme they might … have been long since suppressed’.12

On 31 March, Parkes went to meet Taiping ‘princes’ in the company of Admiral Hope and Hope’s second-in-command, Captain Aplin. Parkes noted that there were an awful lot of such ‘princes’ – sixteen, in addition to ‘six orders of nobility, and a long list of high sounding titles’. (They were very sensitive about titles. Parkes told Bruce about a revolt of the Eastern Prince who was ‘dissatisfied with his title of “Nine thousand years”’ because it was below the Imperial title of ‘Ten thousand years’.13 The Western Prince therefore had to kill him along with twelve thousand of his men. Since that incident, the Taiping princes were not allowed to take a higher title than ‘One thousand years’.) It was an interesting experience because they had no idea how to receive foreign officials. After being kept waiting at the gate for twenty minutes, the British party were guided through lines of soldiers ‘armed with … horrible and barbarous weapons, all of which of course had been got up for effect and in the hope of awing us into behaviour that would have suited their pretensions.’ Needless to say, this did not work with Parkes, who ‘had to commence by removing them from this high perch, wringing their insufferable conceit out of them, and bringing them down from the skies … to an intelligible and mundane position.’14 When Hope proposed stationing a gunboat to protect British river factories, the matter had to be referred to the ‘Heavenly King’, Hong Xiuquan, who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the King had a vision that told him that this could not be allowed. Alexander Michie described what happened next: This was embarrassing, as the expedition was in a hurry to proceed. Parkes burst out in his most impatient manner – which he sometimes assumed in lieu of argument. ‘Tut, tut, tut, won’t do at all. He must see another vision’, his large and lucent blue eyes flashing from one to another of the Chinese officials, who were completely disconcerted and even awe-struck … With unaccustomed expedition the correcting vision was obtained and the incident ended happily.15

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Parkes arrived in Hankou (Wuhan) on 11 March, then as now a large port, in spite of being around 700 kilometres from the sea, which was still controlled by the Emperor’s government. Parkes had the task of drawing up provisional regulations for British shipping along the river, laying down what should be done about river passes, the right to carry weapons, paying customs dues etc. It was the kind of task that suited him – for all his courage and physical energy, he was also good at deskwork and when the draft was sent to Bruce, he accepted it in full. Parkes also undertook another task he enjoyed, staking out land for a British settlement. On this occasion, he negotiated ‘in a very friendly spirit’ a large area on the river bank, which was ‘the most eligible position for commerce’.16 Again, he signed the lease without consulting Bruce. Parkes found a document ‘not intended for the foreign eye’ attributing the granting of the concession to ‘that tenderness of the Emperor by which he “soothes and controls” foreign nations’. Parkes objected to this and it was changed to the ‘Emperor’s desire for friendly relations with foreign powers’. All the same, he felt that the agreement to speedily open the Yangtze to foreign trade was ‘a welcome indication of good faith and good feeling’ on the part of the Emperor’s government.17 It did indeed show an ability to ‘move on’ in those from the Emperor down, who had seen the Summer Palace destroyed just eight months earlier. They had much bigger worries though, which Parkes could appreciate for himself when he went just a little way downstream towards the city of Huangzhou (Hwang-chow), and entered territory which had been taken by the Taiping four days earlier. Their improvised style of receiving foreign visitors continued. Parkes describes being saluted with music and guns and they were received by officers in yellow gowns who escorted them through two large courts lined with soldiers armed with spears and halberds. They were carrying a large number of very gaudy flags without any definite emblem. The doors of the principal hall, which usually stand open, were kept closed until we put foot upon the steps, when they were suddenly thrown back, and we saw seated in state, in the middle of the hall, a younglooking man, robed in a yellow satin gown and hood embroidered with dragons … The principal personage seemed at a loss to know how to receive his visitors, and was evidently relieved when I drew a chair from a somewhat distant point to the table at which he was seated, and broke the silence.18

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He told Parkes he was the ‘Heroic Prince’ and was advancing on the Emperor’s forces. He said that he had not moved on Hankou because he knew that the British were establishing themselves there. Parkes ‘commended his caution in this respect’ and told him not to think of taking Hankou because it could not be done ‘without seriously interfering with our commerce’.19 The Prince then suggested that the British might occupy Hankou and Wuchang and the Taiping could occupy Hanyang (the three places that are now the one city of Wuhan). Parkes rejected the scheme, saying that all Britain wanted to do was trade; it was now at peace with the Imperial government and it was rather the Taiping that were wrecking everything. In spite of the challenges, Parkes had successfully established Britain’s right to trade along the Yangtze with both the Imperial government and the Taiping. It was a significant achievement; a report of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce in 1869 stated that the opening of the Yangtze had led to an increase of £3.5 million in the value of British exports. Bruce praised ‘the ability and tact’ Parkes had ‘displayed in performance of a very important and delicate task’.20 Parkes got back to Shanghai in April 1861, where he might have expected to be allowed to return to Britain, having both endured and achieved so much. Somebody needed to take the Treaty home for it to be ratified and he was unlucky that it ended up being Loch who would do this. The reason was that Wade said he was in need of a rest (as if Parkes was not!) and so Parkes had to go to Beijing to substitute for him as Bruce’s right-hand man. Fanny was disappointed, but Parkes reminded her that ‘the fact is my work lies for the time out here, and knowing who assigns me this work I must not murmur but diligently endeavour to discharge its duties until He sees fit to relieve me from the task’.21 ‘He’, of course, was God, rather than Lord Palmerston, although Parkes seems to have conflated the two. For Parkes, work done honestly and whole-heartedly was a godly action. He later told his daughter Minnie, ‘The motto of a noted fraternity of monks was Laborare est orare, To Labour is to Pray: I can only hope that such prayer may be acceptable in my case also.’22 It looks like there was another reason he worked so hard; again it was Minnie he explained it to: ‘I could not feel that I merited all the love you will give me unless I had properly acquitted myself ’.23 It seems that in Parkes’ mind, it was only through hard work that he could be worthy of both human and divine love.

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Parkes was positive about being back in Beijing, which was the centre of the action: ‘I shall know all that goes on in China, and shall have access to despatches and records … while my everyday work will be more interesting than the humdrum routine of consular employment’.24 However, very annoyingly, Wade started to feel better and decided to stay in the post, meaning that Parkes had wasted his journey up there. More annoying still was the fact that he had gone to the expense of moving all his furniture up to Tianjin – he ended up selling it to save the cost of moving it back down again. And of course, he had missed out on going back to Britain because it was thought he was needed in Beijing. Nevertheless, he was glad to see the city at peace. Bruce was now resident as British Minister and Parkes disapproved of the way he was carrying on, playing rubbers with the French Minister, Bourboulon, and his wife; he thought the Legation was dirty and unworthy. It was not the way he would run things. In June he returned to Shanghai, where he met up with William Lockhart after a gap of ten years. A letter from William to Catharine back in England gives a sense of how Parkes seemed to a sympathetic observer after all his trials. He still had ‘his old laugh and chuckle that you remember so well … He is well, but he feels all his work, and ought to be relieved from all the anxiety and fret of perpetual labour. He is hearty, eager and active in his work, but the everlasting strain on him will do harm if kept up too long.’25 From Shanghai, Parkes went back to Guangzhou where he was still Consul, although he had long been absent. It had been occupied by British and French troops for nearly four years, but they were there now, in Parkes’ opinion, more to support the Chinese Imperial government than to protect European interests. He needed to help wind up the Commission that had governed the city and return the management of it to Chinese authorities. The evacuation from Guangzhou was completed on 21 October, and friendly sentiments were expressed on both sides. Parkes reflected to Bruce that in the past, a foreigner took his life in his hands walking in the city, but ‘the single foreigner may now walk about its streets or suburbs, or penetrate … into remote parts of the Province, with the same degree of security as is enjoyed at … other Ports’.27 It felt like a substantial achievement. For Parkes it was the closing of a chapter and, as was often the case at moments like this, he reflected on his life, telling Fanny that the ‘long and troublesome and at times perilous service that I have been engaged on’ in Guangzhou would be at an end:

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How much cause have I for gratitude for the great mercies vouchsafed to me during this period – how much cause to regret that the talents and time and opportunities given to my charge have not been better improved. Often do I find myself wishing that I was not in official employ and that I had more time and quiet at my own disposal; – but all these are false ideas. Whatever position we are placed in in the world we have opportunity sufficient, if we choose to seek it, to love God and become wise unto salvation; and probably a life of ease and retirement is less conducive to earnest Christian work than one of toil and harass. Still I may rejoice in the opportunity now afforded me of going home and taking a retrospect of the past that ought to be useful for the future. How much there is to correct, and shall I ever be able to command strength to do it?27

As Parkes says, he was returning to Britain, having gained a medical certificate which spoke of his ‘nervous depression and the usual concomitants of … the deteriorating influences of climate and a long course of trying services’.28 The vacillating Wade again decided that he was worn out and asked for Parkes to replace him, but Parkes was now determined to go home and in the absence of a direct order, was able to refuse. He left Guangzhou for Hong Kong on 27 October and was due to leave for England on 1 November. However, on the 28th he received letters from Hope and Bruce ordering him to go to Shanghai to assist in negotiating with both the Taiping and the Imperial government about the neutrality of the Treaty ports. ‘My first impulse was to tear them up, and it was some time before I could bring myself to think calmly on the subject and decided how I would act.’29 If he hesitated, it was not for long – duty would always come first with Parkes. And there was simply nobody else who could handle this kind of negotiation as well as he could. So, Parkes went up to Shanghai, and was told to proceed to Nanjing, tell the Taiping that they may not approach within thirty miles (so around fifty kilometres) of any of the consular ports, and threaten them with force if they refused to comply. He did this, but the Taiping still attacked one of them, Ningbo (although probably not many people outside China have heard of it, it is, in combination with Zhoushan, the world’s busiest cargo port). This was a far more blatant violation of an agreement than the boarding of the Arrow had been, but Parkes was mindful of the fact that to people back home, he was known as the man who had started the

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Second Opium War. This time he was determined he would not ‘give the world the chance of condemning me for bringing about a war with the rebels, now that that with the Chinese Government has been terminated’.30 Starting two wars in China would have looked like carelessness. Parkes reached Ningbo on 9 December, just after the city had fallen, and had lengthy interviews with Taiping leaders there, finding them showing the ‘utmost desire to be on friendly terms with foreigners’.31 But this did not change the fact that they had taken a treaty port and got away with it. What was to stop them taking another? What if they tried to capture Shanghai? This, for once, would not be Parkes’ worry and on 15 January, he boarded the Columbian in Hong Kong for home and family.

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Sir Harry Parkes Britain, 1862–1864

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PARKES HAD A quick return passage, not stopping off anywhere, arriving in Marseilles on his thirty-fourth birthday, 24 February 1862, and was in Britain a couple of days later. He was immediately confronted with the fact that he was a star; the Foreign Secretary said that ‘he had never known in all his experience such excitement and interest’ as was felt about his and the other prisoners’ captivity, and people had ‘thought and spoke[n] of nothing else’.1 On his arrival in the country, he was given an official reception by the mayor of Dover, ‘anxious to pay every possible mark of honour to a gentleman for whom they entertained the highest respect’. The mayor ‘trusted that a knowledge of the sympathy felt for his sufferings by his fellow countrymen would alleviate very materially the remembrances of all he had so nobly and heroically endured for the honour and welfare of their land’. In reply, Parkes said that he ‘found it more difficult to meet the representatives of the Burgesses of Dover than the Chinese Mandarins’. The Burgesses probably laughed politely at this, but it was surely no more than the truth. He had been dealing with Chinese officials nearly all his life but had no experience of British receptions. He would have to get used to them. He took a house in Oak Hill Park, Hampstead – presumably Fanny and their daughters had been living with her family up to that point – a street that had been laid out around 1851 so it was still fairly new. (The young Gerard Manley Hopkins was living in the street when the Parkes family moved there.) It was a lovely spot, away from the grime and pollution of London, but because of the opening of the North London Line in 1860 he could get into town fairly easily. 118

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Oak Hill Park is, in estate agent speak, one of Hampstead’s ‘premier roads’ and as is often the case, we are left wondering about how Parkes managed his finances on a Consul’s salary. On the face of it, he looked well paid. In 1853, he had been getting a total of £700 a year but since his promotion to Consul in Guangzhou, his pay had been £1,600, or well over £100,000 today. He also received free medical attendance and a residence. However, the cost of living in China was exceptionally high and official entertaining had to be paid for by the officer. They had to pay UK income tax, which other ex-pats did not, although by modern standards it was tiny, being about 3% of their pay. In addition, the allowances only covered the Consul himself; medical care, education fees and travel for families all had to be paid from his salary. The most expensive item was returning to Britain. We do not know how much Parkes had paid to get Fanny and Nellie home in 1859, but it cost R.B. Jackson, Consul in Fuzhou, £700 for his family to return to Britain in 1851.2 Alcock, who did not have any children to worry about, decided it would cost too much for him to go back after eight years in China, and he could only make the journey after twelve. In 1861, the Foreign Office made a concession; half of the officer’s travelling expenses would be paid, along with a third of his family’s expenses, but unfortunately, this was after Fanny’s journey back. Parkes would have had to pay the entire cost of that journey. It is hard to see how Parkes could have increased his income. He had absolute integrity regarding financial matters and it feels unthinkable that he would have made money in an underhand way, although there were opportunities to do so in his position. He could have cashed in on his fame in Britain by writing a book about his experiences in China – Loch did – but he did not. Fanny was from a wealthy family and must have had money of her own, otherwise it is impossible to see how they could have done what they did. But Parkes would have hated having to dip into her funds. He told a Parliamentary select committee in 1872 that he considered all the grades of the service underpaid and thought that ‘their pay ought to be sufficient to maintain them’. He added that for a man in the service, it becomes a source of considerable anxiety to him to find that his income is inadequate to meet his ordinary requirements; and a man with a family growing up, with his expenditure increasing,

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and no augmentation of income, must be subject to painful anxiety as to his own future and the future of his children.3

In Hampstead, the Parkes family enjoyed, Lane-Poole tells us, ‘much domestic happiness’, although Parkes was in demand and actively running around as usual, launching himself into an intellectual milieu in London, his reputation serving as his calling card. He caused a flurry with his attendance at the Royal Geographical Society a month after he arrived back, a journalist reporting that ‘the interest of this meeting consisted not so much in the papers which were read there, as in the appearance of Mr Harry Parkes, and in the lucid, valuable remarks which he made in regard to the present state of China’. The report gives us an interesting description of Parkes at this point in his life, relating that the audience, ‘who received him with great enthusiasm, were scarcely prepared for the youthful appearance of this “distinguished man”’. It considered that it was ‘scarcely to be expected he should appear only about thirty years of age’ with his ‘slender form, brilliant forehead, clear cut features, and subtle smile’. The reporter thought that he had ‘steel to the backbone, and was not less undaunted and self-possessed when in the hands of cruel enemies, when in the presence of pain and death, than now when he is addressing at his ease a fashionable London audience’.4 His healthy appearance is at odds with Lane-Poole’s saying that he returned home in a ‘nervous shattered condition’.5 Indeed, he must have been pretty fit because he managed to climb Mont Blanc during a trip to his beloved Alps. At another Royal Geographical Society meeting, in December 1862, there was a concentration of British expertise on China; along with Parkes, there was Rutherford Alcock, Horatio Nelson Lay (Lord Elgin’s interpreter), and Captain Sherard Osborn, who had played a prominent part in the Second Opium War. Also present was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Gladstone. He had written in 1840 of being ‘in dread of the judgement of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China’ and, as we have seen, had been fiercely against the War.6 This was an opportunity for him to confront these men about the conflicts in which Britain had embroiled itself in that country, which were bloody, morally questionable and expensive. He told them to ‘go and prosper, as men who went to undo what had been too often done, and whose mission it was to carry to the Chinese the blessings, and not the curses, of civilization’.7

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Parkes accepted invitations from religious groups, anxious to see the Chinese converted to Christianity. At a meeting at the Union Chapel in Islington, Parkes sounded unbothered by the indescribable suffering being endured in China as a result of the Taiping Rebellion: Whatever instrumentalities God employed, they had reason to hope that great good would result therefrom. Perhaps it was a necessary thing, humanly speaking, that when a nation had grown so embruted as the Chinese were, that they should have a terrible baptism of fire to purify them. God had thought it necessary to do the same thing with the old Canaanites; and it might be that in China the present sanguinary contest was a preparation, or clearing of the way for Christianity.8

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On 17 February 1863, Parkes addressed a packed Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society meeting on China. He found much wrong with the country and the cause of ‘much mischief ’ was the ‘corruption that pervaded all classes. The Chinese were a people without any great sense of honour and were deficient in their respect for truth’. ‘Some people’, he told them, were ‘making a mistake in thinking that we had dealt harshly and unjustly towards the Chinese’. In fact, we had borne more from them than we would have borne from any European nation, because of their semi-civilised state. We had not forced ourselves upon them. They had been very willing to have foreign trade, but they wished it on their own particular terms. They wanted foreigners to go not as their equals but as inferiors … Our difficulty had always been in trying to battle with these pretensions and attain for ourselves a respectable and honourable position.

As for the Taiping, ‘no dependence was to be placed upon their action’ and they were ‘wholly unable to establish a government’. Parkes was entirely unrepentant about British actions: they had not made enemies of the Chinese, but had simply taught them how to behave towards us, and how foreign intercourse should be conducted, and it might be hoped they would profit by the superior information now within their reach, to maintain better order among their own people and keep pace with the march of progress.9

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The extraordinarily high esteem that he was being held in received official recognition when Parkes was made a Knight Commander of the Bath in the 1862 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. He wrote that it took him completely by surprise, which is what most people who receive such an honour say, but in this case he was telling the truth because it was almost unheard of for someone to be knighted so young. He himself was very conscious that he was receiving it ahead of Bruce and Alcock, who were fourteen and nineteen years older than him respectively and were senior to him in rank, the equivalent of today’s ambassadors. Both men, in fact, were knighted later that year, which was probably a recognition that the government had gone too far from the normal way of doing things in elevating Parkes over their heads. It is noticeable how following the knighthood, invitations started coming to the very highest society events. For example, Parkes was at a ‘grand entertainment’ given by the Prime Minister for Prince Napoleon on 5 July and at the Duke of Devonshire’s grand ball on 8 July. He went to both occasions without Fanny. It may be going too far to read into this that the couple were living rather separate lives, although Fanny probably thought she was seeing little more of her husband than she had when he was in China. And she did have a very good reason for not joining him: she was pregnant again and respectable Victorian women tended not to leave the house much once their bump began to show. On 18 November 1862 Fanny gave birth to their first son, christened Harry Rutherford – ‘Rutherford’ was a tribute to his true friend and firm supporter, Rutherford Alcock. Lane-Poole tells us that the baby began life in a ‘diffident and tentative’ manner which ‘excited his parents’ constant apprehension’.10 As we might guess from his first name, Fanny so hoped that he would take after his father. Sadly, this was not to be, and Harry junior would be the source of much heartache in the years to come.

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‘The Drudgery of the Service’ Shanghai, 1864–1865

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PARKES SET OFF back to China on his own on 11 January 1864. Fanny could not bring herself to go without the children and it seemed irresponsible to take them to such a hazardous place. On top of that, she was pregnant again. He reached Shanghai on 25 February to be ‘heartily welcomed back to China alike by the official and the mercantile community’ and take up his duties as Consul there.1 Shanghai was effectively a promotion; in the past, Guangzhou had been the most senior Consulate because it had been the first Chinese port open to foreign trade and because of its proximity to Hong Kong. But Shanghai was now clearly more important – a busy trading city in its own right and newly significant because of its being on the way to the recently-opened ports along the Yangtze – although the salary was still £100 less than in Guangzhou. Bruce recommended that the position be raised to Consul-General. This expansion however, had brought problems of its own – Parkes complained in 1865 that of ten thousand Chinese houses in the International Settlement and French Concession, 688 were brothels, while houses for opium and gambling were ‘beyond counting’.2 Parkes had not really done any consular work for eight years – rather he had interpreted at the highest level, been present at bombardments, negotiated treaties and, in effect, governed Guangzhou. Now he was reduced to the humdrum of the Consul’s life: monitoring merchant shipping; watching that Treaty rights were being upheld; settling legal matters. Parkes reflected, ‘I must take my turn at what is the drudgery of the service … Of work that brings in honours I have had a fair share, and now have to take my turn at the hewing of wood and drawing of water … The extreme monotony of the life is very irksome.’3 123

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The most stressful thing was the legal work; the trials were the ‘worry of his life’, sometimes lasting more than a week and he had had no real legal training to handle them. He had a staff of two Vice-Consuls, one interpreter, three assistants and three copyists but he kept pleading for some legal assistance – in the ten months after his arrival, he heard nearly a hundred cases. It seems that he had got quite good at handling them though; those he found guilty had the right to appeal to the Supreme Court in Hong Kong, but this only happened to him once. Parkes’ days were long: he would spend the hours between 7 and 9 in preparation, went to his office at 9 or 9.30 and he usually finished at 6. He would get on his horse, be back by 7.45 for dinner, then write despatches and get ready for the next day, going to bed as early as possible. He had virtually no social life and admitted to Fanny that he was ‘terribly lonely’. Adding to this feeling was the decision of Lockhart, at the age of fifty-three, to call it a day in China, after twenty-five years of ceaseless labour there, and return to Britain to be with Catharine and their children. For Parkes, readjusting to life in China after the happiness of his two years in Britain was turning out to be very hard. He blamed his temperament, writing

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I am afraid I do not take things sufficiently easily, for I am frequently in a gale’; ‘I can’t take things quietly, and the worry they occasion me destroys all my peace very often; … nervous irritability sets in and makes me feel what a limited degree of strength of any kind I have.

He added, ‘I sometimes wish I were a cleverer man; but contentment would be a far more valuable gift.’4 Parkes also had to contend with the ongoing Taiping Rebellion. When he had left China in January 1862, the Taiping were in control of much of the centre of the country, around their capital in Nanjing, but on his return the situation was very different. British and French troops had been supporting the Imperial government in suppressing the rebels, and together they had pushed them back to such an extent that by April 1864, they had been driven out of almost all their positions apart from Nanjing itself. We may wonder why these Western forces, who had fought so doggedly against the Emperor’s government, were now helping its survival – normally they stayed out of civil wars (they would in Japan). After all, the Taiping were quasi-Christians and would nominally have

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turned China into a Christian country had they succeeded, which would surely have been desirable? It seems that at least as far as Parkes was concerned, their Christianity was actually worse than entirely ‘heathen’ religions. He quoted an American Baptist missionary who went to Nanking ‘predisposed to receive a favorable impression’ but found

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nothing of Christianity but its names falsely applied, applied to a system of revolting idolatry … Their idea of God is distorted until it is inferior, if possible, to that entertained by other Chinese idolators.The idea which they entertain of a Saviour is likewise low and sensual, and his honors are shared by another … The whole transformation may be concisely stated in the language of Scripture, ‘They have changed the truth of God into a lie, and they worship the creature more than the Creator.’5

Having said this, the main reason the British and French opposed the Taiping was because they thought China would be reduced to chaos if they won. But the Japanese statesman Ito- Hirobumi, whom we will be hearing a lot about when Parkes gets to Japan, felt that the intervention was a mistake, because it ‘arrested a normal and healthy process of nature’. When the Qing Dynasty falls, ‘as fall they must and will before very long, the upheaval will be all the more violent and all the more protracted for having been so long and unduly postponed’.6 Much of the success against the Taiping was credited (by the British) to Colonel Charles Gordon. He became best known to posterity for his heroic death in Khartoum, but he made his reputation fighting the Taiping at the head of a private, rag-bag, Chinese force, the ‘ever victorious army’. Parkes told Fanny it was ‘perfectly marvellous what he achieves with such limited and indifferent means’.7 He was also highly respected by Chinese officials, the Governor of Liangjiang, Li Hongzhang, writing, ‘It is a direct blessing from Heaven, the coming of this British Gordon’.8 He and Parkes spent a good deal of time together, Gordon staying with him whenever he was in the city. He was, Parkes thought, a ‘fine noble generous fellow, but at the same time very peculiar and sensitive – exceedingly impetuous – full of energy, which just wants judgment to make … a very splendid type’.9 The young Winston Churchill was less enamoured, writing that he was ‘so erratic, capricious, utterly unreliable, his mood changed so often, his temper was abominable, he was frequently drunk, and yet with

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all he had a tremendous sense of honour and great abilities, and a still greater obstinacy’.10 Gordon was a deeply sincere Christian, seeing himself as living each day in the hand of God. Death was the gateway to eternal life and not to be feared. Parkes thought that Gordon was very shy and very odd. It has been suggested that he was asexual (at fourteen he expressed the wish to be a eunuch) while others think he was a paedophile. He was certainly very socially awkward with adults, but he could relax with boys. However Parkes, who also had his social limitations, got along well with him – he found it easiest if they dined alone, when they chatted freely. Parkes panicked when Gordon said he was planning to leave on 4 May, telling him he had ‘no faith in the Imperialists keeping matters straight when once made smooth for them; … Nanking is not yet retaken … In the present condition of China it is impossible to say what a day may bring forth.’11 But his fears were unfounded because Gordon did leave and Nanjing fell in July. The Parkes couple showed what the friendship had meant to Parkes by giving their second son the middle name ‘Gordon’. However, that was in the future, and in May 1864, Fanny gave birth to another daughter, christened Mabel Desborough, who gave little trouble and much joy to her parents, particularly her father. Mabel’s birth made the idea of Fanny returning to China even more remote. In January the following year, Parkes told Fanny what his family meant to him: I wish you to know that I look upon your love as the primary source of my happiness – as the chief thing given me in this world (apart from that faith which should lead us to feel that we live only for the world beyond) to enable me to do battle with its toils and troubles … I am sure I am fortunate in my wife and children … It is hard to be absent from them so long … [A]s our lot is cast in this distant land it is necessary, in order to secure the well-being of our darlings and provide for their being the stay and blessings to us that we hope they will be, to give up the satisfaction of having them much with us in their earliest days.12

It is a bit stilted and Victorian (and was much more so before parts were cut out to make it easier on the reader), but having just passed a lonely Christmas, he was surely being entirely sincere. He was going through another phase of having lost his ambition: ‘As I work on I care less I think for advancement. Japan, which is

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almost the only thing I can look to, will always be a most troublous post.’13 The problem for Parkes was that he could not hope for a position closer to home because those in the consular service stayed in the area where they had their expertise. Had he been in the diplomatic service, he could have requested a move to Europe. Of course, he could simply have quit, but this would have been very expensive in the short run and he was worried about money, writing at the end of 1864 of his anxiety not to exceed ‘our modest income … That I am determined I will not do’.14 However, with his glittering reputation and undoubted abilities, he surely would not have had much difficulty getting a good job in Britain. Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley, who had seen him in action in China, said that he would have made a great General. But Parkes doubted whether he would succeed: ‘It is not easy for men who like myself have passed so much of our time in the East’, he told Fanny, ‘and whose experience is limited to the business we have so long pursued, to find employment at home; and if I were living at home idle, and on limited means, I know I should not be happy.’15 There was undoubtedly truth in this, but probably the main reason was simply that he had realised during his two years’ leave in England that he would always be a fish out of water there. China was where he knew how to operate and he believed that he was needed there. Ultimately, this was more important to him than home and family.

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‘The Appointment is Particularly Gratifying to Me’ Yokohama, 1865–1866

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HOWEVER, PARKES’ FATE was not to stay in China but to move to Japan where he was to be the British Minister, a curt letter dated 27 March 1865 from Lord Russell bringing the news. Russell told him he would be getting £3,000 a year (with another £1,000 outfit allowance), which would have seemed an extremely good salary. The present British Ambassador to Japan earns around £125,000 a year and £3,000 then would have felt like about double that. However, as we shall see, Parkes considered it to be nowhere near enough. The vacancy had arisen because Rutherford Alcock, who had been made Britain’s first representative in Japan in 1859, had been recalled by Russell for exceeding his instructions by bombarding Shimonoseki after the strait between Honshu and Kyushu had been closed to foreign shipping.1 When Alcock returned to Britain, he was able to explain himself, was deemed to have acted properly, and he was actually promoted, becoming Minister to China, replacing Bruce. He was being offered a lot more money than Parkes: £6,000 salary and £3,000 for outfit, in addition to his expenses in getting to China.2 Parkes told Fanny, ‘I had felt that I might be thought of in connexion with it, still I fancied that Colonel Neale, and possibly also Wade, both of whom have served on the diplomatic side … might be held to be higher claimants.’3 Lt. Col. Edward St John Neale had acted as Chargé d’Affaires in Japan while Alcock had been on leave from 1862 to 1864, which is why Parkes thought he might have had the stronger claim. Similarly, Wade had been Chargé in China while Bruce was away. 128

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Once again, Parkes was being promoted over the heads of more senior people. We keep going on about how young Parkes was for what he was doing, but once again this is true: thirty-seven was very young for such an appointment (Neale was fifty-three and Wade forty-seven). But Neale was felt not to be firm enough and did not command the respect of his subordinates. The British Legation doctor, for example, thought Neale’s policy towards the Japanese was ‘pure supineness’ and he doubted ‘his courage, physical or moral’, adding, ‘He is much despised here and looked upon as an old woman’.4 Thomas Wade was a much more respected and accomplished figure than Neale. He was a great scholar of Chinese, devising the means of romanising it known as the Wade-Giles system (it was created by him and modified by H.A. Giles), that was used until the 1970s. His rise was due more to his Chinese skills than his diplomatic ones. He had a touch of Parkes about him, becoming threatening and bullying if he did not get his way, and was not above throwing tantrums. Parkes thought the reason Wade did not get the Japan post was that he was being saved to be Minister in China, which is probably true, as he was promoted to that position in 1871. Even so, Parkes had leapfrogged over his friend and rival, who would have to wait another six years to reach that rank. In fact, neither Neale nor Wade was seriously considered for the Japan post and the choice came down to someone from outside or Parkes. Normally it was the Foreign Secretary who decided, but Russell had the misfortune to be serving under a Prime Minister who knew more about his job than he did. So it was Palmerston who decreed that Parkes, being ‘decidedly an able man’ with ‘local knowledge and experience’, should get the position.5 Russell’s offer letter stated that there was not time for Parkes to say whether he would accept the position or not and that he just had to go. He must have thought there was no danger of Parkes refusing the job (Alcock, on the other hand, had to be patiently talked in taking the Beijing post). Parkes did indeed immediately accept: ‘I pray Your Lordship to enable me to lay before Her Majesty the most humble expression of my gratitude … and of my entire devotion to the new and important trust which Her Majesty has so graciously confided to me.’6 Russell gave him a month or six weeks to tie matters up in Shanghai, but Parkes took less than three weeks over this, departing on 24 June. He was happy, telling Fanny that the appointment was ‘particularly gratifying to me, as it lifts me at a stride into the higher

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branch of the service; and it is not often that a man of my age, without any advantages of birth, has the opportunity of representing the Queen and country at another nation’.7 A further advantage of the post was that because Japan was more healthy than China, Fanny and the children could live there as well. (This was relative: in a bad month – January 1871 – twenty-nine foreign residents of Yokohama died, mostly of smallpox, none of whom was over fifty.8) He first set foot on Japanese soil on 27 June 1865 in Nagasaki. The Western presence there was still very small, with only sixtyfour Britons there. Almost the furthest place in Japan from the centres of power, the city, at the head of a bay and with a fine natural harbour, would have seemed a gently bustling place. During the two hundred years Japan was officially closed to the outside world, Nagasaki had been the site of the only Western trading post. Dutch traders were allowed to live on a small artificial island in the bay. It was through this island (Deshima) that many ideas, inventions and other exotic things entered Japan, including coffee and chocolate. Now that other ports had opened, it had lost its special position. It sounds like Parkes started there the way he meant to go on; according to an admittedly very hostile source, the journalist Edward House, he got into such a furious row with the Governor of Nagasaki, he ended up physically assaulting him.9 Parkes then went on to the critical domain of Cho-shu- (now Yamaguchi prefecture), passing through the strait between Honshu and Kyushu which was open to foreign shipping thanks to Alcock’s unauthorised bombardment. The Daimyo- (feudal lord) there did not deign to receive him, so little was achieved by the visit, but Parkes was a great believer in seeing places for himself, as it both satisfied his restless spirit and his desire for up-to-date intelligence. Proceeding through the Inland Sea, he noted ‘the favourable position of Hiogo [Kobe] as a Port, and the capacity of Osaka for trade’, themes that would dominate his dealings with his Japanese counterparts until the cities were opened to foreign trade in 1868.10 On 8 July, he reached Yokohama, and Dickins saw him arrive, ‘the alert figure, vigilant questioning face, and quick step’.11 His new subordinates must have watched this resolute-looking man with a huge reputation striding out to meet them with some trepidation. He would be managing a staff of twenty-two men, fifteen of whom were working at the Legation in Yokohama, and the rest

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in Nagasaki and Hakodate, the two other ports that were open to British trade. The man who quickly became his most important subordinate (although far from the most senior) was Ernest Satow, his interpreter. Satow’s excellence in Japanese was crucial to Parkes’ ability to operate, and gave him a big advantage over Alcock, who had mostly used Dutch interpreters – Alcock’s English had to be translated into Dutch, the only Western language understood in Japan, and then translated by a Japanese interpreter into Japanese. In addition, Satow was extremely good at gaining intelligence for his boss, enabling Parkes to make informed decisions. Mitford described what all this meant to Parkes, writing that Satow’s

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really intimate knowledge of the language, combined with great tact and transparent honesty, had enabled him to establish friendly relations with most of the leading men in the country, thus, young as he was [he was twenty-two when they started working together], achieving a position which was of incalculable advantage to his chief.12

Parkes still had eight members of staff who had originally been recruited because they spoke Dutch.There were also eight present or recent ‘student interpreters’, whose job was to learn Japanese and do routine office chores, mostly the copying of despatches. There was just one other diplomat on the staff at the time, the Secretary of the Legation, who was Parkes’ deputy and filled in for him when he was absent. In addition, there were men with specialist skills: a chaplain, an accountant and a doctor. Menial roles were performed by locals, who cleaned, cooked and guarded the premises. How did these men view their new boss? As Satow put it, he was ‘invested with the prestige of a man who had looked death in the face with no ordinary heroism, and in the eyes of all European residents in the far east held a higher position than any [other] officer of the crown’.13 As for his relationships with his staff, Satow, years later, gave what sounds like a fair assessment: He was strict and severe in service matters, but in his private relations gracious to all those who had occasion to seek his help, and a faithful friend to all who won his goodwill. Unfortunately I was not one of these, and the result was that from the beginning we were never friends.14

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Satow’s biographer thought that they were ‘perhaps too much alike in their independence of character’ to get along.15 It has also been suggested that their lack of rapport could have been the result of Parkes not approving of Satow having a Japanese mistress and a daughter and two sons by her, although this relationship did not start until several years after Parkes’ arrival. I think a more likely source of their discord was Satow’s feeling that he knew better. He was fifteen years younger than Parkes, but he had been in Japan for three years, was very fluent in the language and attuned to Japanese ways of thinking. He respected Parkes’ talents and determination but saw him as a bull in a china shop. Parkes was surely aware of Satow’s aversion to his aggressive style with Japanese counterparts – Satow must have visibly winced when putting Parkes’ horribly insulting and, in Satow’s view, counterproductive diatribes into Japanese. It should be added that I have not found a single example of Parkes having written something negative about Satow. Rather, he always went out of his way to praise his skills, describing him to a Parliamentary Select Committee, for example, as a ‘brilliant scholar’.16 If it were not for Satow’s comments, we would think that everything between them had been sweetness and light. Perhaps this difference in how they wrote about each other points to an essential character difference between them: while they were both fundamentally serious men who put work first, Satow cared about personal feelings as well, while Parkes really only cared about getting the job done. An issue that soured the relationship with Satow in the early days was his pay. When Satow got the position of interpreter, he received £400 a year, while interpreters between Dutch and English got £500. Satow thought that his hard-won fluency in Japanese was much more valuable than their Dutch so he should at least earn the same as them. With a colleague who could also interpret between Japanese and English, Alexander von Siebold, Satow approached Parkes in August 1866, to ask for an extra £100 a year, which ‘brought down his wrath upon our heads’. Satow told Parkes that he would resign, whereupon, after ‘a little humming and hawing’, he produced a letter from Lord Clarendon which had been lying in his drawer several days, approving the additional £100 each.17 It is not hard to see why Satow and Siebold resented Parkes’ lack of support for each of them getting the extra money – it did not cost him anything – and even more his pettiness in not telling them as soon as he heard that it had been granted.

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‘THE APPOINTMENT IS PARTICULARLY GRATIFYING TO ME’ 133

It was also unlike Parkes. It was a constant refrain of his that he and his staff were underpaid and that the Treasury did not understand how expensive it was for a Westerner to live in China and Japan. Perhaps the explanation for his behaviour is that he was finding his feet – he had no experience of managing a staff of anything like this size and anxious to establish his authority, overdid it at the start. Once he settled into the job, he would be much more supportive of his staff receiving pay rises if he thought they deserved them, which Satow and Siebold surely did. Someone who was in a similar situation to them, but for whom Parkes would make a real effort, was A.B. Mitford. He was earning £400 a year but had also worked extremely hard to learn Japanese, in spite of being in the diplomatic service in which learning local languages was not expected – in that service they were usually moved every few years. Parkes repeatedly asked the Foreign Secretary for a higher salary for Mitford to recognize his interpreting and translating skills. (He failed because it was assumed that men in the diplomatic service had a private income – which, to be fair, Mitford did – and therefore were working from a different motive to simply earning a living.) Mitford thought that Parkes was an effective Minister but viewed him with a touch of disdain, describing him as ‘a very bustling man and always actively engaged upon something or another’.18 The doctor at the Legation, William Willis, saw him as ‘pestilently active. He gets up at 5 in the morning and works all day plotting and scheming to get up a sensation’.19 Willis really despised him, characterising him as a Jekyll and Hyde figure. Parkes’ nickname was ‘Sir Smiles’ and Willis wrote that ‘if you saw him smiling and smiling you would think him such an amiable mortal quite deserving his sobriquet’.20 But, ‘when he can put the screw on’, Willis wrote, ‘he has no mercy and it is hopeless to contend with such a man without getting the worse of any encounter.’21 He thought that Parkes had caused the death of an assistant at the Legation, John MacDonald, ‘by worrying his life out of him’. MacDonald had died of ‘softening of the brain brought on, I believe, by the acute general unhappiness of having to deal with Parkes every day’.22 (Parkes, on the other hand, claimed to the Foreign Secretary that in the month or so before MacDonald’s death, he had been ‘urging on Mr. Macdonald the necessity of rest and change of which he himself did not appear to be conscious’.23)

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Willis was also no fan of Parkes’ work habits, writing that he had ‘a terrible fashion of keeping open accounts with everybody and perpetually ordering disbursements where it is almost impossible to obtain receipts. About £40,000 a year passes through my hands and any mistake of one cent I would have to make good.’24 Parkes may have been guilty of this kind of thing himself, but he did not allow anything so slapdash among his staff, being determined to instill a more professional approach in them. One of his innovations, which must have inspired a few groans, was making them keep a ‘Daily Occurrence Book’ in which they had to write everything they did in a day and which would be checked the following morning.

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*

The Yokohama that the new Minister was arriving in was quite a pleasant place to live in, especially compared to most Chinese cities. It was clean and fairly safe; being surrounded by water, it was possible to control who entered and left. This was very important because there was such a risk of being attacked by samurai opposed to foreigners being in Japan. They all carried two very sharp swords and Satow wrote that Europeans looked on any of them ‘as a possible assassin, and if they met one in the street, thanked God as soon as they had passed him and found themselves in safety’.25 Yokohama was a new place, having been chosen for the Westerners to live in six years before Parkes arrived. It had a good harbour and was close enough to the Shogun’s capital, Edo (now Tokyo), to enable communications between the Western representatives and the government. Alcock had been furious at the way the foreigners were forced to live in this out-of-the-way place, but by Parkes’ arrival, it had been more or less accepted by most people that it was where Westerners would reside. A British journalist, John Reddie Black, made the place sound quite fun: ‘Races, regattas, sailing-matches, athletic sports, all had their turn; and thus it may be seen that as a community Yokohama was most singularly favoured’.26 There were around 165 Britons permanently living there, overwhelmingly young and male, mostly merchants, as well as a garrison and sailors who could add another five thousand. Perhaps inevitably, there were, as Satow put it,‘a fair sprinkling of men who, suddenly relieved from the restraints which social opinion places upon their class at home, and exposed to the temptations

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of Eastern life, did not conduct themselves with … propriety’.27 (Satow, as his diary reveals, was one of them.) The Bishop of Victoria (Hong Kong) was more graphic, characterising the place as a ‘deplorable scene of demoralisation and profligate life’.28 Parkes was pretty much oblivious to this side of Yokohama. He was married, not very social, and getting up to speed in a big, responsible position.

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*

Parkes got down to business straightaway. Russell’s instructions were quite general. He was to ‘cultivate the most cordial relations’ with the other foreign Ministers and follow a ‘firm but conciliatory’ policy with the Shogun’s government, although on one point Russell was very specific: Parkes needed to get ‘either the confirmation of the [1858] Treaties by the Mikado, or the formal admission that the Tycoon … required no sanction from the Mikado.29 And above all, Parkes had to avoid ‘except under the most imperative necessity or in defence of the lives and property of H.M. subjects … any step which might involve this country in a war with Japan without first communicating with and receiving distinct instructions from H.M. Govt.’30 Parkes already knew this, but Russell probably had the Arrow incident at the back of his mind and thought it would do no harm to remind him. Parkes made the ratification of the 1858 treaty his priority. As nothing had happened about this for seven years, it was clear to him that pressure had to be exerted and that he had the best chance of success if he worked in concert with the other Western representatives who also had unratified treaties with Japan. So he proposed that as it involved the Emperor who was in Kyoto, they should all go down to the nearby Osaka, accompanied by an intimidating naval force. Parkes was careful to assure Russell that the ships were ‘not employed for coercion or to support a menace’, but were there to remind the Japanese ‘that the Powers with whom these Engagements have been concluded, possess the means of insisting upon the fulfilment of them when they see fit to do so’.31 It was a bluff – Parkes knew that given his history in China that he, of all people, could not start a war with Japan. Although he had only just arrived, as Britain was much the most powerful of the Western countries represented in Japan, his colleagues went along with his suggestion. A flotilla of nine ships, five British, three French and one Dutch, left Yokohama on

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1 November 1865. The Civil War in the United States had just ended and that nation was in disarray, meaning their representative had to tell his Secretary of State, ‘I greatly regret that, on an occasion like the present, there is no national vessel in Japan’, swallow his pride, and travel down with Parkes.32 The threat of force was necessary because Emperor Ko-mei was resolutely against concessions to the foreigners and every bit as determined never to compromise as any Chinese Emperor. The year before, he had told the Shogun:

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We are subjected to the insults of five arrogant Powers; conquest by them seems certain to be our fate. Thinking of this, I can neither sleep … nor … swallow food … The subjugation of the hated foreigner is the greatest of the national tasks that faces us … if, through idleness, we fail to achieve success, how much the greater will be our crime! The deities of the universe themselves would punish us.33

In the past, the emperors had been of no importance, but the weakening of the Shogunate had created a vacuum which Ko-mei was prepared to fill. He never saw a Westerner, much less met one, and could only have had the sketchiest idea of what they were like. But he was absolutely certain that their presence was an unbearable affront to the Land of the Gods. It was unfortunate for everybody (not least the man himself) that it happened to be the immovable Ko-mei who was Emperor during Japan’s opening to the West. Parkes and his colleagues did not realise just how difficult the task they were presenting to the Shogun’s government was. But they were certainly correct in thinking that it could only be achieved if it was framed as an ultimatum.The Japanese side read it as such, fearing that if the Treaties were not approved, the Westerners would go to Kyoto and demand that the Emperor ratify them, amid ‘gun-smoke and a rain of bullets’.34 The Japanese resorted to their customary strategy when confronted with an impossible dilemma and delayed. They made the foreigners wait five days for a meeting, agreeing to see them on 9 November. On that day, officials told them that due to the complex negotiations going on in Kyoto, they would have to wait another three days, at which Parkes gave the men a ‘good rowing’, in Satow’s phrase.35 Parkes’ dominant role can be imagined from reading the minutes of the conference between the British, Dutch and American

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Ministers and their Japanese counterparts which was finally held on 11 November. The French Minister, Léon Roches, claimed to be ill and did not take part.The truth was that he thought of himself as being the senior Western diplomat and was not impressed by this new boy, twenty years his junior, immediately assuming that position. Neither was the type to give an inch, and though they would sometimes cooperate, more often they were scheming to outdo the other. Mitford tells the story of Parkes storming into his room, saying, ‘What do you think that fellow Roches has just told me? He is going to have a mission militaire out from France to drill the Shogun’s army! Never mind! I’ll be even with him. I’ll have a mission navale!’36 The following gives a sense of how evasive the Japanese side was and how determined Parkes was to press his points, in this no doubt slightly sanitised record of the meeting: Japanese Minister [Abe Masato-]: When the Tycoon [the Shogun] proposes amicable relations with foreigners, persons step in to make difficulties, and persuade the Mikado that Japan ought to have no foreign relations whatever. The Tycoon has great difficulty in controlling these people. Parkes: Be so good as to give the names of these obstructive parties.

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Japanese Minister: I am unable to give you names … There are people … who secretly complicate affairs and oppose Foreign intercourse. Choshiu [Cho-shu-] is one of these. Parkes: Choshiu’s hostility to foreigners is an affair of the past, and the Foreign Governments cannot take into account these secret and indescribable influences to which you vaguely refer. If these exist it is the duty of the Ruling Powers of the country to see that they are promptly repressed … Japanese Minister: If Hiogo [Kobe] and Osaka were opened at this moment, the old feeling would return and the people’s mind would be much disturbed. Parkes: In our opinion such an assertion cannot be maintained. We have never found the people unfriendly and if the Daimios have ceased to be actively hostile as the Japanese Minister himself states is the case we cannot see why the ports named in the 3rd article of the Treaty should be longer delayed. The Foreign Governments will not be content to go on waiting if they think that the delay is occasioned by faulty administration on the part of the Tycoon.

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Japanese Minister: Affairs are by no means in a settled condition. The Mikado’s approval of the treaties is still withheld and must be obtained before any new ports can be opened. The Tycoon must proceed very gradually in this matter… Parkes: You keep us so entirely in the dark as to the nature of these alleged difficulties that it is not possible for us to understand them. On the other hand the information that reaches us from other quarters is of such an opposite character that we may be excused for doubting whether these difficulties have any real existence …

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Parkes: The Foreign Governments conceded the postponement of the opening of Hiogo and other ports [Edo, Osaka and Niigata] on certain conditions. As those conditions have not been kept, the Foreign Governments have a perfect right to insist upon the opening of these ports when they think proper … The Japanese Minister will therefore understand that the period of the opening of these ports does not rest entirely with the Tycoon, and that it is quite within the competence of the foreign powers to withdraw the concessions made in 1862 whenever they see fit to do so.37

Part of the difficulty for the Japanese officials was that they had to keep moving back and forth between Kyoto and Osaka, although this did give them scope for delay. When they finally agreed to request the Emperor’s ratification of the treaties, they said this would take ten days. Parkes insisted that they give some guarantee that this would definitely be done in that time and the official dealing with them, Inoue Yoshiaya, said that the Japanese custom was to seal such promises in blood and told them he would cut his finger. He took out his short sword and was about to do so when Parkes said that he was prepared to accept his word. However, he wrote to the Shogun, just to make sure his point had been understood: Under any circumstances, it is necessary that I and my colleagues should receive from your Majesty, within the ten days which we have consented to wait, a categorical reply … This reply, whether favourable or not, should be made to us in writing; and if not received by us within the time named, we shall consider that its absence denotes a formal refusal of our conditions … and we shall, in that case, be free to act as we may judge convenient.38

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‘THE APPOINTMENT IS PARTICULARLY GRATIFYING TO ME’ 139

Emperor Ko-mei found that the feudal lords, or Daimyo-, almost without exception, believed that he had to ratify the treaties and one imperial Prince offered up a doomsday scenario, warning that the whole region from Kobe to Kyoto could be burned to the ground, his throne would be endangered, and the Great Shrine of Ise would be reduced to ashes.39 It was a horrifying vision, and the lesson from China was that something like this could happen. Ko-mei caved in and agreed to ratify the treaties, although he refused to allow the opening of Kobe, thus enabling him to feel he had not been completely humiliated. The two Ro-ju- (members of the senior governing Council) who had dealt with the Westerners, Abe Masato- and Matsumae Takahiro, were punished by the Emperor, being stripped of their rank in an unprecedented display of imperial power (although this was nothing compared to what would have happened to them in China). The agreement was a signal success for Parkes who had initiated the aggressive strategy without which, it was obvious, it would not have been achieved. He modestly told Russell that it would be ‘presumptuous’ in him to ‘lay claim to any other credit than that of not neglecting an opportunity of completing, in cooperation with my colleagues, the work to which they and my predecessors had so long devoted themselves’.40 Once the business in Kobe was settled, the ships could leave. The Perseus was going to Shimonoseki, so Parkes decided to go there again rather than return to Yokohama. Again he failed to meet the Daimyo- of Cho-shu-, but was able to see some of his officials and sound them out about opening up to foreign trade – they claimed that Cho-shu- was favourable to it, but added that ‘in uninformed quarters the opposite opinions were still tenaciously maintained’.41 In his report on the visit to Russell, he makes it seem that visiting Shimonoseki was the only reason for making the diversion, but Russell must have wondered why it was so important for him to visit a place that he had been to five months earlier, especially as he achieved nothing new there. Probably the real reason he went was because it was on the way to Shanghai where he could meet up with his family who had arrived there from England: Fanny, Nellie, who was now eight; Minnie, five; Harry, three; and Mabel who was a year and a half old and whom he had not yet seen. He had taken a risk using a Royal Navy ship to leave Japan to join his family – having one at your disposal was a serious extravagance but Parkes rarely used ordinary vessels, thinking that the

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British Minister should project an aura of power and authority, which was much easier to do when arriving in your own ship. Although it sounds out of character, I think the reason he did this may have been sheer excitement at what his new position had made possible. He never did it again. That said, far from being upset with Parkes, the Foreign Office was delighted with him. Russell was now Prime Minister, and his replacement as Foreign Secretary, Lord Clarendon, told Parkes:

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Her Majesty’s Government would have much regretted the employment of menace, and still more of force, without direct authority from home, to induce the Japanese Government to agree to the representations of the Treaty Powers, and they are the more gratified that, without having recourse to such measures, you should have succeeded in conjunction with your colleagues in securing the important concessions which you have thus obtained. Of your own share in these transactions I cannot speak too highly. By temper and tact, combined with firmness, you have prevailed over the resistance … which has so long been opposed to the formal confirmation by the Sovereign of Japan of the engagements entered into by the Tycoon, but hitherto ignored by the Mikado and the daimios; and you have achieved this success, to all appearance, not only without producing any bitterness of feeling on the part of the Japanese Government, but even with their hearty concurrence.42

This was a rosy way of looking at things.The fleet of ships that had accompanied the Ministers certainly seemed like the ‘employment of menace’ to the Japanese. They had been forced into a corner and had ratified the treaties because they thought the alternative may be the destruction of all they held dear. Nevertheless, Parkes had found the sweet spot between not showing enough force and being too aggressive, which had so often eluded the British in China. He had started extremely well. *

The beginning of 1866 saw Parkes working on a new convention and tariff. As things stood, tariffs varied from 10% to 30% – Parkes wanted it to be a uniform 5%. The British were great believers in free trade, which had made theirs the richest country in the world. It could be argued that in the long term, it would similarly profit

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the Japanese, but at this point, it did not seem a good arrangement to them because it deprived them of income. They nonetheless conceded the 5% tariff because their bargaining position was weak. Parkes could claim another success. As the weather got hotter, Parkes felt cooped up and decided to go to the important domain of Kagoshima at the end of July, to meet the Daimyo- of Satsuma. Surprisingly, given that she was around seven months pregnant, Fanny left the children in Yokohama and went with him. During their six days in Kagoshima they were treated like royalty. There was a dinner at a Daimyo- residence that lasted five hours, at which forty different dishes were served. They went on a grand hunt in a forest full of deer, monkeys and boar. Parkes came away with the impression that Satsuma was disposed to be friendly to the West and would not rebel against the central government – which turned out to be very mistaken. Dr Willis did not approve of the visit because this Daimyo- was the one who had ordered the attack known as the ‘Namamugi Incident’ in 1862 on Britons who had dared cross the path of his procession:

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I look upon our visit to Satsuma as a great piece of humbug and [think it is] scarcely decent to sit down at meals with an old scoundrel (Shimazu Saburo) who ordered poor Richardson’s death on the Tokaido … [W]ere I the British Minister, I certainly would not have partaken of hospitality coming from such a quarter … For my own part, I feel contaminated by contact with a murderer on convivial terms.’43

Fanny gave birth to Douglas Gordon on 16 September 1866 without complications, delivered by Willis in Yokohama. She offered him a ‘handsome fee’ for his attendance, but he refused it and instead she gave him a silk dress for his mother.44 She struggled because she was unable to produce milk, meaning that she needed a wet nurse. Willis recorded that ‘The trouble there is in getting suitable native nurses is very great’, and he thought she had the wrong attitude to staff, writing that she was ‘always in a state of chronic difficulty with her servants’.45 *

On 26 November, fire swept through Yokohama driven by typhoon-strength winds. So violent were the winds, that the fire

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was carried to some of the ships in the harbour. Two-thirds of the Japanese settlement was destroyed and some of the Western. Parkes was away at the time, but his family was there and took shelter on the Princess Royal. On this occasion, they were lucky because their house escaped intact although Parkes thought ‘it was very unfortunate’ that Fanny, ‘who was far from well should have had to go through such a trial in my absence’.46 She had an even bigger trial a year later, when another fire burned down their Yokohama residence and they had to take shelter in the house of the Secretary of the American Legation (it is perhaps significant that he did not make himself beholden to any British person). It was a ‘little cottage of three rooms’, so not nearly big enough for a family of seven. The blow, he told Hammond, ‘has come so suddenly that I can scarcely yet realize the fact or the extent of our loss. At Yokohama we are literally homeless, and probably shall remain so as house room is there exceedingly scarce and we are entirely destitute of furniture and even of wardrobes’.47 He went on to explain that were it not for the fact that he was likely to be going to Osaka, he would have taken Fanny and their three youngest up to a ‘cardboard’ house in Edo, leaving Nellie and Minnie in Yokohama. Surely they were not in quite such a desperate plight as to need to separate their family like this? It looks like Parkes was exaggerating the grimness of their situation – he was angling to get some financial help to cover his indisputably crippling expenses. He told Hammond that he had lost around £3,000 worth of possessions but was only receiving £1,200 from the insurance company. He added, The furnishing of the new legation would alone cost me £2000, and then there are wardrobes for us all, books and uniforms for myself, plate, china stores, and the numerous other indispensable things which cannot be procured for a thousand more. A whole year’s salary is thus needed to replace the losses of the fire alone, and that salary I have already found quite insufficient to meet current expenses … I think the Government will be able to afford me some assistance under a trial which has befallen me in the course of service, and to which I should probably have not been exposed had I been housed in a good legation.48

There were other factors making Parkes feel the pinch. A stream of important visitors were coming to the Legation who had to be entertained at his expense. (In 1869, for example, Admiral Keppel

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1

Parkes as a young man. He reminded Alcock of ‘the straining of a dog at his leash in sight of the quarry’.

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2

3

A rare picture of Parkes’ wife Fanny. Courtesy: the Cobbold Family History Trust.

Catharine Lockhart, Parkes’ formidable older sister, substitute mother and model of what a woman should be. Her husband thought she was very like her brother. Courtesy: of the SOAS Archives.

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4

The ‘classic’ photograph of Parkes. He signed this print ‘Believe me, yours most truly, Harry S. Parkes’. It was dated July 1883. Wikimedia

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5

6

Parkes’ favourite boss, solid friend and firm supporter, Rutherford Alcock.

Catharine’s husband, the stern and prodigious William Lockhart, who considered his brother-in-law ‘truly one to be proud of and to rejoice in’.

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7

8

Harry and Fanny Parkes, seated on chairs, surrounded by Legation staff, taken some time between 1873 and 1878. Satow is Standing third from the left. Courtesy: the National Archives, Kew.

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The British Legation buildings at Sengakuji in Edo. Living there was described by Parkes in a letter to Hammond of 17 November 1866 as ‘not attractive to any of us as it is very like penitentiary life’. 9

Yokohama kodai Eiyakkan no zenzu Bentendori go-chome by Hiroshige II, 1870. The British Minister’s residence and accommodation for other staff and families in Yokohama, completed in the summer of 1867. Courtesy: Yokohama Archives of History

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10

‘Review of British and Japanese Troops at Yokohama’, published in The Illustrated London News, 7 January 1865 – a short while before Parkes arrived in Japan (27 June 1865). The accompanying article states: ‘October 20 [1864] will be long remembered in Yokohama as the first day on which Japanese troops were brigaded with the British, and it was certainly a magnificent sight.’

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11

In the centre is Iwakura Tomomi, the Japanese politician whom Parkes most respected, on the Iwakura Mission, the high-level fact-finding tour guided by Parkes around Britain in 1872. Iwakura is flanked by his vice-ambassadors: from left to right, Kido Takayashi, Yamaguchi Masuka, Ito- Hirobumi and Okubo Toshimichi.

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12

How Japan Punch saw Parkes when he arrived in Japan in 1865 (above) and when he left in 1883 (below) – Mr Punch is even shedding a tear. (The Japan Punch,Yokohama, March 1866; the Japan Punch,Yokohama, August 1883.)

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13

Tokyo Yatsuyamashita Kaigan Jo-ksha Tetsudo- no Zu [A Steam Locomotive on the Yatsuyamashita Shore, Tokyo]. Utagawa Hiroshige III. This woodblock print points up the contrast between quick Western methods of transport and the much slower Japanese ones – a major interest of Parkes’. The most obvious fast Western means is the train but, in addition, on the left we see a phaeton, the preferred way of getting around for the better-healed foreigner, or on horseback, as we see on the right. Courtesy: Yokohama Archives of History

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14

One of the (at the time) new and ultra-fashionable houses Parkes rented in London. This one is in Phillimore Gardens, Holland Park. Photograph by the author

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15

Erected by friends and brother officers in memory of his ‘lifelong service, his unfailing courage, devotion to duty, and singleness of purpose.’ Bust from the memorial to Parkes in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Photograph by the author

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16

‘We cannot forget that it was largely owing to him that Japan has now advanced so greatly in civilisation.’ The unveiling of the statue to Parkes on the Bund in Shanghai by the Duke of Connaught, 8 April 1890.

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17 Parkes in the last year or so of his life, mellower and looking older than his fifty-seven years. He is with his beloved older daughters, Minnie and Mabel. Robert Hart thought they were ‘very nice, amiable girls,– agreeable and well educated but not very beautiful’. Satow tells us that Mabel was the prettier so perhaps she is the seated one?

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18

A very crowded grave in the churchyard of St. Lawrence’s Church, London. It contains the remains of Parkes and Fanny and two of their children: Nellie (Ellen Mary) and Harry junior. Photograph by the author

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and his family stayed with him for six weeks.) In addition, diplomats lost the privileged exchange rate they had enjoyed, which meant, as Satow put it, that on a ‘nominally small income it was … possible to live well, keep a pony and drink champagne’.49 The Foreign Office succumbed to Parkes’ pleas and raised his salary from £3,000 to £4,000 a year – something in the order of £300,000 in today’s money. (Hammond, who Parkes addressed his entreaties to, was on £2,000 a year.) Nevertheless, in his letter of thanks, he did not sound very effusive: ‘It has relieved me of some cause of anxiety … The purchasing power of money in Japan is not more than half of that which it possesses in England, and you can of course well judge how far £1,500 in our country would enable a Minister to maintain his position.’50 This welcome piece of news did not come until March 1867. The fires had made 1866 a thoroughly troubling year for the Parkes family, and just to top it off, on 31 December, Parkes was confronted by a man with a half-drawn blade while riding through Shinagawa (on the route between Yokohama and Edo). His Japanese guards did nothing, but he charged at the man and with the help of one of his escort arrested him.

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‘The Most Superior Japanese’ Osaka – West Coast – Nagasaki – Mt. Fuji, 1867

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™

ON THE PROFESSIONAL front, however, things were going well. Parkes had taken over as Minister to Japan just as the country was feeling more prepared to open up to the West, providing him with opportunities that had not been there during the frustrating Alcock years. One event that helped him was the death of the Shogun, Tokugawa Iemochi, at the age of twenty on 29 August 1866. He had attained the position when he was twelve and never had the chance to become an effective leader, being under the thumb of conservative forces. Another thing that helped even more was the death of Emperor Ko-mei, of smallpox, at the age of thirty-six on 30 January 1867. This was entirely unexpected; he had been in good health and the strain of the disease had been mild. Many believed that he had been poisoned to avoid a catastrophic showdown with the Western powers that his extreme xenophobia might have led to. Satow put it like this: ‘it is impossible to deny that his disappearance from the political scene, leaving as his successor a boy [the fourteen-year-old Emperor Meiji] … was most opportune’.1 Iemochi’s successor, the twenty-nine-year-old Tokugawa Yoshinobu, was determined that Japan should improve its relations with the Western powers. At the beginning of 1867, even before he had been officially installed, he issued an invitation to the foreign representatives to meet him at Osaka castle. Previously foreign Ministers had only been granted the briefest possible audiences of the Shogun, but Yoshinobu seemed to be proposing some kind of business meeting. All Parkes’ colleagues were keen to go and make a fresh start in their relations with Japan. 144

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Parkes was less sure. He did not want it to look as if he was at Yoshinobu’s beck and call. It would be ‘gratifying’ to Yoshinobu, ‘no doubt’, he told Hammond, to have ‘foreign Ministers troop down the moment he signified to them that their presence at his Court would be acceptable’.2 Parkes was concerned that Yoshinobu would use the visit to tell them that Osaka would not be opened to foreign trade on 1 January 1868 after all. In the event, the meetings were delayed by the Emperor’s death and it was not until April that they went down to Osaka for them, although Roches sneakily managed to see him first, ‘in furtherance’, as Satow put it, ‘of the special line of policy he was pursuing’.3 The French were constructing a dockyard for the Shogun at Yokosuka, near Yokohama, and Parkes’ suspicious mind linked this to other French plans. Roches, he told Hammond,

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is not partial to concerted movements, partly because he has in some degree to take a secondary part in these when the British Minister is present, and the Naval force by which he is usually attended is … inferior to our own – and also because he does not care to support very warmly the commercial policy of England, which scarcely agrees with that of France, or at all events with M. Roches’ ‘politique personelle’. He prefers to minister to the military aspirations or vanities of the Japanese rather than to their commercial prosperity and his heart therefore is not in the opening of Osaka or other Ports but in becoming the Military Mentor of the Tycoon and advising a system of rule based upon military strength rather than in the advancement of the commercial classes.4

Although Parkes took a dim view of what he called ‘military glitter’ in others, he was not immune to using it himself ‘for political effect’. Consequently, when he went down to Osaka to meet Yoshinobu, he took a mounted escort, a detachment of fifty infantry, along with most of the Legation staff, making about seventy in total, in addition to thirty Chinese and Japanese staff. Fanny went with them. They occupied four large temples, which had been picked out by Mitford and Satow on a preliminary mission (the other Legations accepted what the government gave them). Parkes took the opportunity of meeting with the Shogun’s officials to settle the details of how foreigners would live and work in Kobe and Osaka when those ports were opened at the beginning of 1868. He was very used to handling the issues that arose and was in his element; Satow wrote that he was ‘the most practical

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man among the whole body of foreign representatives’ and that therefore he did most of the work on this.5 Parkes put it like this to Hammond: ‘I find I have to do all the plodding work by myself – my colleagues seldom troubling themselves except to come in at the finish – unless their ideas on policy run counter to mine which is not often.’6 Yoshinobu gave orders that his officials should be as friendly as possible, and Parkes and his staff were amazed at how easy the negotiations were. In addition, all the arrangements for the audience, which would be held in Osaka Castle, were agreed without difficulty. Parkes would have had in the back of his mind memories of Chinese emperors demanding that foreigners kowtow, but there was no question of anything like that with Yoshinobu. As Satow put it, there were ‘no more angry discussions and heated arguments (in which the heat and anger of our chief were opposed to the stolid calm of the imperturbable Japanese Ministers) such as had characterized our official interviews at Yedo’.7 The only precedents they had were the previous meetings between the American, British and French Ministers and Shogun Iemochi in 1859 and 1860. Rutherford Alcock had proposed to treat the fourteen-year-old Iemochi according to the etiquette followed by foreign representatives meeting a European monarch. This meant that he was actually prepared to be more respectful than the Japanese expected; he had been told that when he was leaving, he may turn around, but he wanted to walk out backwards because that is what he would have done at a European court. However, Parkes did not consider this as his guide to how he should behave because he was not prepared to treat Yoshinobu as a king, but more like a prime minister. Incidentally, the first Japanese Embassy to Europe, which arrived in April 1862, was given less consideration than the British received in Japan. They were not able to present a letter from the Shogun to Queen Victoria, in spite of their ‘earnest representations’, because it was less than five months since her husband had died and she was in deepest mourning. The British did not offer any royal substitute (the Prince of Wales usually stood in for his mother), and the Foreign Secretary said that it had to be presented to him.The Embassy reluctantly accepted this but wanted the ceremony to take place at a royal palace. It was patronisingly explained to them that this was ‘wholly inconsistent with the usages of this country’, and that ‘as different countries had different usages’, it was ‘sufficient’ if the Shogun’s letter was received by the Foreign

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Secretary at the Foreign Office.8 This was the kind of rebuff that Parkes would never have accepted from the Japanese. On 29 April, he set out for his audience in a procession, accompanied by his entourage. They were treated with great courtesy – when they reached the point where everybody was supposed to dismount, they were allowed the privilege of continuing on horseback. The Shogun’s apartments were considered the most magnificent in Japan, certainly far superior to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, a sign of the relative importance of the Shogun and the Emperor. (Unfortunately, they were destroyed by fire in February 1868.) The British party were escorted along a corridor of tatami mats – in their shoes – which would have been a painful sight to the Japanese watching. The Foreign Ministry would agonise over what to do about the refusal of foreigners to remove their shoes – they saw them as an essential part of their uniform – and ended up conceding that they could keep them on and removed the tatami mats from the audience chamber of the Imperial palace. When they reached the farthest room, they saw the Shogun. Mitford described their first glimpse of him:

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[T]wo … tall sliding screens … were slowly and noiselessly drawn aside and that long-drawn ‘hush’caused by the drawing-in of breath which announces the coming of a great personage thrilled all through the whole palace like the most delicate pianissimo of a huge orchestra; for a second or two the Tycoon, motionless as a statue, stood framed in the opening between the screens.9

Yoshinobu shook hands with Parkes and sat at the head of a long table, with Parkes on his right and his principal Minister, Itakura Iga no Kami on his left. Parkes’ staff sat in a line next to him, and Satow, interpreting for them, had a stool between Parkes and the Shogun. When making the arrangements for the visit, Mitford had been told that Parkes should ‘deliver his sovereign’s message and after receiving the Tycoon’s answer will retire’.10 But Yoshinobu had a very different idea of how they should proceed and spoke openly about all the difficulties which had prevented proper relations between Japan and the West. Parkes agreed that all the disagreements and misunderstandings of the past should now be forgotten. He told Yoshinobu that British policy was not aggressive, and bizarrely cited China as an example to prove this. His point was that Britain would fight for any rights established

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by a treaty, but if Japan abided by what had been agreed there would be no trouble. They talked for about an hour and a half before Yoshinobu asked to see their escort, which gave him a display of lance and sword exercise. He was a keen horseman and was impressed by the horses, Gulf Arabs, imported from India, thinking them far better than those in Japan. (Parkes agreed, calling Japanese horses ‘vicious’ and wrote that just staying on them left ‘little capacity for any other effort’.11) He then casually invited them to dinner, at which he stood up to propose Queen Victoria’s health – the first time this had been done in Japan. But what was most remarkable was how relaxed it was: the Shogun, Mitford wrote, ‘frequently urged us to throw off all ceremony, and so we did. It was really a very merry party.’12 When Parkes admired some portraits of poets, Yoshinobu insisted that Parkes take one as a gift. Parkes said he thought it would be a pity to break the set, whereupon the Shogun said that when he looked at the vacant space it would give him pleasure to think that the picture that had once filled it was in the possession of the British Minister. Parkes, usually so much on the lookout for deceit and double-dealing, completely succumbed to this charm offensive, telling Hammond that Yoshinobu was ‘the most superior Japanese’ he had ever met and that he felt ‘quite disposed to give him all the support’ he could.13 Following the meetings Parkes, never one to take the easy option when a more difficult one was available, decided to travel overland to and from Tsuruga with Fanny. It was the nearest west coast port to Kyoto and Osaka and they managed the tough 340 kilometre trip through mountainous terrain in eight days. When they got there, he quickly realised that Tsuruga would not be suitable as a port for British trade. It would not have looked very good to the Foreign Office for Parkes to have spent a week on a wild goose chase (especially as he made a west coast trip by ship only two months later when he could much more easily have gone to Tsuruga to assess it). So Parkes dressed it up a little, explaining to Hammond that while the inspection of Tsuruga ‘was the ostensible object of my journey, I also wished to put in practice my right to travel in the interior, and to learn something of the country at the back of Osaka, including the road to Kioto’.14 Parkes makes it seem as if it was a relaxed jaunt: ‘Nothing could be more pleasant than the demeanour of the people, the country

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traversed was also very beautiful, and the attention of the officers sent with us unremitting.’15 What he did not say is that it was dangerous. Any trip along a Japanese road carried the risk of being ambushed, but this one was particularly perilous because they passed through Fushimi, which was almost a suburb of the sacred city of Kyoto, causing a ‘great grievance’, according to Satow.16 Three months later, four - hundred men would lie in wait to kill Mitford and Satow in Otsu, considering it unacceptably close to Kyoto, though it was further away than Fushimi (luckily they took a different route). The Parkes party, however, was all right. Still, it was one thing for Parkes to risk his own life; quite another, one would have thought, for him to risk Fanny’s as well. Were they both to have died, they would have left five orphans. Indeed, Parkes would be challenged by Admiral Keppel, Commander of the China station (which included Japan), for his recklessness in sending Mitford and Satow on the journey they were so lucky to survive. According to Mitford, Parkes tried to make out to Keppel that it was their ‘own foolhardiness which prompted the idea’, to which Mitford replied that they were ‘quite willing to obey his orders … as a question of duty’, but they would certainly not have thought of undertaking the journey ‘for a whim’, which would not have been fair to their people at home.17 At this, Parkes only laughed. He could at least have argued that he had not expected Mitford and Satow to take a risk he was not prepared to take himself. But then, as Mitford put it, where his own life was concerned he was always ‘as big a gambler as the ace of spades’.18 Parkes got back to Yokohama at the end of May, but it did not take long for him to be on his travels again, on 23 July 1867 setting off for Hakodate on Ezo (Hokkaido), then Japan’s northernmost city. It was much the least developed of the three open ports, being isolated and bitterly cold in the winter. Alcock described it as ‘little better than a living grave’.19 The consular returns describing the trade there made grim reading: the saw-mill was ‘at a dead stand-still’, coal-mining was ‘insuperably difficult’, and the only exports were shark fins, seaweed, the horns and feet of deer and fish manure.20 There were so few traders that Satow tells us they were outnumbered by consular staff.21 It was a rough kind of place, and few were rougher there than Thomas Blakiston. He made major contributions to the knowledge of natural history in Hokkaido, being the first to realise that the fauna there was quite distinct from that in Honshu, and that the Tsugaru Strait was a border in the distribution of animal species – it

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is still known in scientific circles as the ‘Blakiston Line’. However, Blakiston had a temper, and when he suspected two servants of theft, he repeatedly beat them and imprisoned them in a wood store house. One of them killed himself there. Parkes assured the Japanese government that Blakiston would be severely dealt with, under British law, but other foreign residents supported Blakiston’s argument that he had been forced to take matters into his own hands, because the Japanese authorities did nothing about arresting and prosecuting thieves. The case ended up going to the British Supreme Court at Shanghai and the judge considered the fact that the Japanese authorities had been remiss was an extenuating factor and only fined Blakiston. The Foreign Minister complained to Parkes, ‘I cannot admit it to have been a proper judgment … the court of your country did not inflict upon him a suitable punishment in accordance with the laws of your country.’22 The Chinese too would complain about lenient sentences on Britons responsible for the deaths of their citizens. In Guangzhou, a drunk customs officer called Logan killed a Chinese child and wounded a man and woman in a shooting spree in 1883, but was only sentenced to seven years for manslaughter, because British law ‘punished the intention, not the result’ and he was deemed not to have intended to kill.23 This led to houses in the foreign settlement being pillaged and burnt. Prince Gong told Parkes that Logan had to be hanged to quell the disturbances, but Parkes responded with sanctimonious legalese:‘British law does not allow of the life of an individual being sacrificed to the clamour of a mob’, adding that the Prince’s request that Logan should be retried cannot possibly be entertained, as such a course would be opposed both to British law and to Her Treaty which requires that law to be faithfully enforced. I should also add that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is altogether independent of my authority.24

The fact remained that Western courts would always tend to sympathise with the Westerner. In this case, the Chinese really did have a point: Sir Julian Pauncefote, who had been Attorney-General in Hong Kong, wrote, ‘I have read the evidence and I think he should have had 20 years penal servitude and deportation. I consider also that we should compensate the family of the deceased.’25 Parkes grudgingly said that as the father of the boy who was killed was ‘in the low condition of life of a scavenger, the sum of

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five hundred dollars … would be a reasonable compensation.’26 He would scream and shout for punishment and reparation when a Briton was killed but it was a different story when it was the other way around.

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*

Parkes sailed down the west coast, still determined to find a port that could be used for foreign trade. He went to Niigata which was the most suitable in many ways, already being home to quite a lot of commerce. The trouble with it was that there was a treacherous bar at the entrance to its harbour, and persistent north-west gales made the sea perilous there for about half the year. However, they crossed the bar without any difficulty and it looked promising: there were about eighty junks in the river, suggesting that there was plenty of trading activity. Parkes knew the Governor there because he had been Governor of Yokohama when he had first arrived in Japan. In those days they had had serious disputes, but they joked about how things had changed and that everything was friendly now. Parkes went to inspect an island in the river which could perhaps be converted into a foreign settlement. The British liked islands as places to live, because undesirables could be kept out and their ships could dock alongside. They then crossed to the island of Sado, docking at Ebisu (now part of Ryo-tsu), which had a good harbour without the problems of Niigata’s. The Governor sent a palanquin to transport Parkes to his residence about twenty-five kilometres away. However, as Satow put it, Parkes ‘did not relish either the idea of locomotion after this fashion, nor yet of walking across the island and of passing the night on the floor of a Japanese house in native quilts, and with nothing better than rice and fish to eat’.27 Parkes had been prepared to put up with what was surely much greater discomfort on the Osaka to Tsuruga trip but, of course, he did not much like falling in with other people’s ideas. So he made Satow walk to Aikawa, which was no hardship for him (‘much jollier to travel by one’s self than to play second fiddle to one’s chief always’), and he went by ship.28 The Governor of Sado was not a very exalted person, but he attempted to put Parkes in his place by having his Vice-Governors meet him and tell him to wait until the Governor was ready to see him. Parkes immediately turned around and walked out of the

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house. Satow told the Vice-Governors that the Governor must receive Parkes at the door of the house, whereupon Parkes slowly returned to the house, to be greeted by the Governor ‘beaming with smiles, as if nothing had happened’.29 The three men drank ‘quantities’ of sake together, and Parkes and the Governor complimented each other extravagantly. They then went on a tour of the gold mine there, although there was no question of putting the operation of such a valuable place into the hands of the British, however much better they might have been able to manage it. That night they departed for the mainland port of Nanao, on the Noto Peninsula. This place had an immense natural harbour which would have been ideal for British shipping, except that it was a lot harder to get to by land than Niigata. Parkes envisaged that the two ports could be opened in tandem. In Nanao they were met by officials who, it soon became clear, had no authority to negotiate on behalf of their Daimyo-. Nevertheless, these men, in Satow’s words, sat talking ‘or rather being talked to, by Sir Harry for five mortal hours’. Satow gives an example of Parkes’ negotiating style: Would the daimiô object to foreign vessels anchoring at Nanao when the weather was bad at the bar of Niigata.The reply was that for the sake of humanity and of our friendly relations he would be unable to refuse this. Well then, as ships could not afford to lie a long time at Nanao doing nothing, would there be any objection to their cargoes being landed and stored till they could be transported to Niigata. No, probably not, in the interests of humanity. Who then, asked Sir Harry, should undertake the construction of the necessary warehouses? The reply was that either foreigners or the Kaga administration could do this as seemed most convenient. Well then, supposing that the people of Nanao should wish to buy any of the goods so stored by foreigners, would it not be a hard thing to prevent the sale? They said perhaps it might be, but to give such permission would lead to converting Nanao into a foreign trading port.30

Parkes would win, or appear to win, arguments in this style of gradually wearing Japanese officials down with logical arguments that they found themselves unable to answer because they did not want to reveal the real reasons why they could not give him what he wanted. In this case, Satow thought that the Daimyo- feared the port would be taken over by the government if it became an

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active trading centre, as had happened with Nagasaki and Niigata. However, they did not want to come out and say it, meaning that they could do nothing but come out with implausible excuses. And of course, Parkes was an intimidating man, especially when his blood was up, and most people would rather placate him than rile him. Parkes would go away satisfied that he had made an agreement, then find that he had not and make accusations of double-dealing and bad faith. It was all a waste of time anyway as these ports were too remote to be useful. Niigata was eventually opened to foreign trade, but was a complete failure: in October 1871, the foreign community consisted of just four people, and the British Consulate, the only one functioning there, was closed. DeLong, the American Minister, was usually far less well informed than Parkes, but about this matter he had been right, telling his Secretary of State: ‘There is not the slightest probability … of any American merchants ever residing and engaging in business’ at Niigata or Sado.31 The discussion about the opening of Nanao actually ended amicably, but then there was an argument about how Parkes should return to Osaka. Parkes wanted them to provide horses so that he could travel back overland. Satow wrote that they did not receive the suggestion

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with any show of cordiality on which he gave them a great rowing about the want of friendship towards foreigners, so conspicuously different to the feeling manifested by other daimios. This made them rather sulky; they went about 2 on the plea that they were hungry. No doubt they were.32

The Japanese side was desperate to prevent the journey because had any of the British been killed, particularly the Minister, the consequences would have been terrible. Parkes decided to send Satow and Mitford overland and he would continue by ship to Nagasaki to do something about the investigation into the murder of two British sailors there twelve months earlier. The two men, from HMS Icarus, had died on the street. The details were very sketchy. It could have happened in a drunken brawl or perhaps they had just been sleeping off the effects of a drinking session when they were attacked. Parkes felt that if strong measures were not taken, then no Westerner could be safe in Japan. The trouble was there was just one very tenuous clue: a vessel from Tosa (the present-day Ko-chi prefecture in Shikoku) had departed

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on the same night as the murders, which made Parkes think that the assailant(s) must have come from there. Parkes felt that he was the only person who would investigate the case with sufficient vigour and so he had to go to Nagasaki in person. (British readers may be reminded of Margaret Thatcher’s determination to go to Leeds to take charge of the Yorkshire Ripper investigation herself in 1980 – she was talked out of it by her then Home Secretary William Whitelaw.) Predictably, Parkes achieved nothing in Nagasaki, apart from making the discovery that only the Shogunate could put pressure on the authorities there to investigate the crime properly. When he turned his attention to the Shogun’s officials, he found they dragged their feet in a very annoying way, but they eventually agreed to dismiss the Nagasaki Governor and send five hundred men to patrol the foreign quarter. Meanwhile, he continued his personal mission to hunt down the men responsible, going to Tosa, undaunted by the fact that there were simply no clues to base any investigation there on. Here we see the downside of Parkes’ tenacity – when he was barking up the wrong tree, he would waste endless amounts of time, while lashing out at everybody in sight. Arriving on 3 September 1867, he met the principal Tosa negotiator, Goto- Sho-jiro-, who assured him that they would do everything possible to find the criminals, even if they were not Tosa men. Parkes, Satow wrote, ‘bullies him immensely’ but, according to Mitford, Goto- was ‘quite able to hold his own against our rather peppery chief ’.33 Goto- was really not someone that Parkes should have treated like this, going on to become a key figure in the Meiji Restoration and someone who, as Mitford put it, ‘was one of the first of the leaders … to hold out his hand to the strangers from the West and he remained their consistent friend to the end.’34 Indeed, Parkes and he had a reconciliation of sorts that evening, having a friendly talk about Japan’s future government. Parkes, wrote Satow, then ‘took a great fancy to him, as one of the most intelligent Japanese we had as yet met with’ and they ‘swore eternal friendship’. Goto- ‘remonstrated with Sir Harry, at some length and in very explicit terms, about his rough demeanour on previous occasions’. ‘Sir Harry at first seemed inclined to resent being thus lectured by a Japanese. However he managed to keep his temper, so no bones were broken.’35 Parkes had to return to Edo but, determined not to let the matter drop, sent Satow to Nagasaki, who stayed there for a month continuing an investigation he had no faith in. It was indeed all a

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gigantic waste of time. The murderer (there was only one), turned out to be from Chikuzen, now Fukuoka, and was part of a halfdrunk group which had simply seen the men in the street and decided to slash them.Very foolishly they reported this to an agent in their domain. The murderer himself was ordered to perform hara-kiri and the rest were subjected to various terms of imprisonment. Justice of a kind had been done, but Parkes was still dissatisfied, complaining that he had not been consulted about the punishment. Soon after his return to Yokohama, Parkes was on the move again having decided to climb Mt. Fuji. It was a thoroughly Parkesian venture, done at the end of October, far later than is advisable (the official website sternly tells climbers: ‘The climbing season for Mt. Fuji is from early July to early September. In other periods … climbing Mt. Fuji is prohibited’).36 In addition, it was a much more difficult climb than it is today – roads now reach up to more than 2,000 metres of the 3,776 metre peak. We understand why climbers are told not to go up outside the season when we read Dr. Willis’ account of the trip: ‘It blew hard during the first day with pelting showers of rain. The cave we put up at for the night was cold to an extreme degree. The noise of the storm outside was really terrific and altogether it was a night one would never forget.’ All the Japanese in the party gave up before reaching the summit, but the ten Britons made it, including Fanny.Willis wrote that it was ‘really astonishing how well Lady Parkes went through the fatigue’.37 It was worth the effort, this achievement making her the first woman to climb the mountain, there being a taboo on females going up it. All told, they had taken a three-hundred-kilometre round trip, and afterwards Parkes reported that ‘the people are poorly off … They have however a magnificent country which may be made to produce far far more than it does at present.’ Parkes’ inevitable conclusion was that ‘foreign trade will eventually enrich the country greatly, by introducing a spirit of enterprize and industry, and creating capitalists’.38 He was, of course, absolutely right that this was how Japan would become prosperous, but the day when it would happen was a long way off. *

We must hope that a change was as good as a rest for Parkes, because there was much to occupy him on his return, with rumours that the

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Shogun had resigned. Parkes was worried about this; he believed that change had to come, but he wanted it to be gradual. He thought it would be bad for Japan – and dangerous for the Westerners there – if the Shogun ‘threw the game of government into the hands of his opponents’, adding that ‘the country eminently needs a strong man at the helm to prevent a flood of anarchy’.39 On 8 November, the Shogun did indeed resign from his formal role (while intending, it seemed, to retain power), which Parkes decided was a good thing, telling Hammond:

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The announcement … as to the Tycoon’s intention of governing constitutionally is very important. He has a most difficult task to perform in attempting to effect a readjustment of power between himself the Mikado and the Daimios, and loyal perseverance in such a work is deserving of our best sympathies.

Parkes added that he was not impressed by the attitude of the Daimyo-, commenting that it would be easier if they were a ‘patriotic body, and if they could agree among themselves’.40 He also saw that with the Emperor having only just turned sixteen, it would be a while before he could be part of Japan’s government. Nevertheless, the ‘great question as to which of the two so called Sovereigns should give way – the Mikado or the Tycoon – appears to have been solved. The latter has stepped aside and the former now governs as well as reigns.’41 Parkes was hopeful that there would be no civil war, although he did suggest to Hammond on 10 January 1868, when fighting looked likely, that it might ‘act as the powerful purifying agent which it does elsewhere’.42 Parkes usually took the opposite view: that civil conflict would unleash chaos and there was no telling where it would end. Either way, the suffering of the people caught up in any fighting seems not to have been a factor in his thinking. However, it did not really matter what he thought, because his instructions were to stay out of any conflict and he had assured Hammond a year earlier, ‘I shall be most careful to observe Earl Clarendon’s instructions as to neutrality of action and of opinion’.43 Expanding British trade was the priority, which meant Parkes’ focus was on Osaka and Kobe which would shortly be opening up. To oversee this, he arrived in Kobe on 24 December, only to be attacked by lumbago which made him almost completely immobile. He cannot have been helped by staying in the residence Mitford had found for him there, which was a huge,

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decrepit building. As Parkes put it to Hammond, ‘paper and plank form a poor protection against frost’.44 Parkes was used to discomfort and was more worried about how secure the building would be. He took fifty men from the tenth regiment with him (a barracks had to be hastily constructed to accommodate them), explaining to Hammond that they were ‘both … a measure of precaution and for political effect’. ‘Insecurity’, he went on, ‘is unfortunately the normal condition of these oriental countries, and the winter season, when the nights are long and dark and the people are pinched with want, is naturally prolific of violence.’45 Parkes had no idea how true this would turn out to be.

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17

The Meiji Restoration Osaka – Kyoto – Tokyo, 1868 ™

ON 1 JANUARY 2018, the Prime Minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo-, declared:

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One hundred fifty years ago, a wave of colonial rule was surging into Asia, and the building of a new nation by Meiji-era Japan had its start right alongside that major sense of urgency. To overcome this precarious situation, which should truly be called a national crisis, Japan pressed forward with modernization in a single stroke … The class system that had been in place was abandoned and all Japanese were emancipated from the systems and conventions that had existed until then.1

Abe used very broad brushstrokes to paint the history of the overthrow of the Shogunate and the ‘restoration’ of power to the Emperor in 1868. Japan was in no danger of being colonised by a European power, but the presence of Westerners with up-to-date weapons that could have easily overwhelmed its forces had laid bare the nation’s weakness. By the standards of other countries, Japan resolved the situation quickly, embarking on a course that would make it a modern, unified, strong nation, capable of defending itself (not to mention becoming a threat to its neighbours). Although Abe implied that the restoration freed Japan from the threat of Western colonialism, the first big event of 1868 (according to the Western calendar) – on 1 January – further exposed Japan to the West, the ports of Osaka and Kobe being opened to foreign trade, as had been promised. Parkes tended to fixate on issues and this was one that he just would not let go of, regardless of how chaotic the state of the country was. That said, Ito- Hirobumi had 158

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told Mitford on 20 December 1867 that the opening would go ahead in order to distract Western attention from the machinations in Kyoto. It was nevertheless a big prize: the Kansai area – Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe – was Japan’s second biggest population centre and would obviously generate vastly more trade than any of the west coast ports – Niigata, Nanao, Sado, Tsuruga – that Parkes had put so much time and energy into trying to open. The reaction of the local people was surprisingly positive. In Kobe there was a week of feasting in honour of the event, with processions of people dressed in red silk crape, dancing in the streets, and many carrying red lanterns on their heads. They thought that Western trade would bring prosperity. Following hard on its heels was the key event of the Meiji Restoration but the Western Ministers had only the sketchiest idea of it. In Kyoto, an alliance of Satsuma and Cho-shu- forces, in combination with court nobles, seized control of the palace and therefore the Emperor, who issued a decree proclaiming the end of the Shogunate.Yoshinobu was just down the road, in NijoCastle, but he could not countenance fighting in the sacred city of Kyoto itself and possibly involving the Emperor in any conflict. So, he decided to retreat to his stronghold of Osaka Castle. The foreign representatives met to discuss the situation on 4 January and Parkes found that he was much the best informed of them. The others were very confused; in his journal, Satow mocked the Prussian Chargé d’Affaires for getting Geishu (Hiroshima) and Kishiu (Wakayama) mixed up.2 Satow later proudly wrote, ‘We had felt the pulse of the Japanese people more carefully and diagnosed the political condition better than our rivals, so that the prestige of the British Minister in the years 1868 and 1869 was completely in the ascendant.’3 In spite of still having a painful back, Parkes made a formal entry on horseback into Osaka accompanied by his customary mounted escort and guard of fifty infantry. Satow met him there on the 7th, writing that he ‘had in what I call bad taste come out to see’ the defeated Shogun.4 Parkes was ‘pained to notice his deeply dejected appearance’ but nevertheless insisted on seeing him the following day.5 While Satow was censorious, Parkes, as he explained to Hammond, needed to ‘know whether hostilities had commenced, and whether in coming to Osaka he intended to make it a position of defence or offence, or to retire still further’.6 Satow should have learned that Parkes would never allow sentiment to get in the way of doing his duty; he always homed-in

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on what he thought was important, ignoring any hurt feelings, inconvenience or difficulties. The interview was not conducted in a very seemly manner, Parkes being furious when he discovered that Yoshinobu was seeing Roches on the 8th and that he would have to wait until the following day. Satow takes up the story:

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On hearing that he had been outstripped by his colleague, his wrath was unbounded; he claimed priority on the ground of superior rank [Roches was Minister plenipotentiary, while Parkes was Envoy extraordinary and Minister plenipotentiary], and ordered out the escort … I … entered the audience chamber just as Roches and Sir Harry were exchanging words about what the former stigmatized as a breach of les convénances [propriety] in interrupting his interview. But he got as good as he gave, and the audience then proceeded.7

Both Roches and Parkes praised Yoshinobu’s patriotism in giving up his position and attempting to resolve matters peacefully, Roches, Satow thought, doing so in ‘very flattering terms’. But Parkes felt that Yoshinobu did not explain his position ‘very coherently and he appeared to be overcome by his difficulties. I am inclined to think that he lacks decision while his opponents are naturally men of the opposite stamp’. Parkes added, ‘whatever may be his motives his conduct during the last few days would give the impression that he is more subtle than bold’.8 ‘Subtle’ here means devious. Parkes who had seen Yoshinobu as the saviour of Japan nine months earlier, now saw him as indecisive and scheming. It seems that at this point, he mentally moved on, feeling sorry for him, willing to work with him if necessary, but no longer seeing him as worthy of British support. On the 9th, the diplomatic body met to draw up a joint declaration of neutrality in the conflict that now looked inevitable. The discord between Parkes and Roches continued; Roches desired a declaration of non-partisanship only regarding fighting between Daimyo-, leaving open the option to him of supporting Yoshinobu, something Parkes was having none of. It was the duty of the most senior member of the diplomatic corps to deliver the declaration. Parkes thought this should be him, but his colleagues decided that Roches should do it because he was the doyen, having been in Japan longer than any of the others. Satow took satisfaction from this, writing in his journal, ‘After all, Parkes is a ᑠே’ – a small

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person – probably a reference to his lack of height, as well as his being Roches’ junior.9 It was silly and Satow could not have defended the comment because Parkes had won the substantive point: the Western powers jointly committed themselves to being neutral in any fighting. At a meeting with Yoshinobu that afternoon, he told the representatives not to concern themselves with Japan’s internal problems and assured them that he was still in charge of foreign affairs. Indeed, in the absence of any communication from the other side they had no alternative but to continue working with his officials. He told Parkes that he hoped they would remain friends and thanked him for past British support for his navy. Parkes was in a florid mood, telling him that his ‘heart was the same as it had ever been towards him, and that he trusted the sun shining through the windows was an omen of his future’, a sentiment, Satow writes, which was difficult to express in Japanese, although Yoshinobu ‘pretended to take it all in’.10 Yoshinobu had good reason to be confident as it still looked as if he would be able to retrieve the situation. He had the numbers on his side and it seemed that he would win any battles easily. At the first real confrontation, at Fushimi, near Kyoto, on 27 January, his forces outnumbered those of his enemy’s by three to one, but the imperial army was better armed and, helped by defections, won the crucial victory. Facing defeat, Yoshinobu took refuge in disguise on an American ship, before fleeing to Edo, which he still controlled. On 30 January, the Ministers were officially informed that the old regime could no longer guarantee the safety of the foreigners in the area. Parkes was determined not to make a panicky exit and, unlike the other Western representatives, took his time about leaving. Also, when he did move, he stayed at the foreign settlement in Osaka, somewhat distant from the fighting but too dangerous in the opinion of his colleagues, who went to Tempo-zan, at the mouth of the Ajigawa river. Satow tells us they were in ‘miserable huts, and with very little to eat’ there, adding that the British felt ‘pity for them, mingled with pride, when we compared our situation with theirs’.11 As may be imagined, when Parkes met the other representatives on 1 February, they were not very happy. In Satow’s words, Colleagues were furious with the chief for having been so lucky as to save all the baggage, and for having had superior pluck in

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remaining four miles nearer the supposed danger than themselves. A rather angry discussion ensued, in which the chief declared he would not leave unless he could take every atom of baggage, and he did not know when that might be. Colleagues all declared their intention now that they had struck their flags, of going to Kôbe and waiting the course of events.12

It went against all Parkes’ instincts to make an undignified retreat as he thought the others had, but even he felt it would be better if they were all in one place, and joined them in Kobe on 2 February. However, having gone all the way to Kobe, he then returned to Osaka to rescue Satow and Locock who were still there. The city was in a chaotic state, with the castle on fire and looters emptying the Legations of everything that had been left. We might think that Parkes should have been thanked for showing such concern for their safety (he certainly did not need to go personally), but Satow was far from grateful:

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How angry I was. We were not in the slightest danger, either of being attacked by the victorious party or by the fire, and I would have answered with my life for the safety of every person left with me. Had I not received repeated assurances from the Satsuma, Tosa & Choshiu people that our Legation would be respected [?]. What is the use of being Japanese Secretary if one’s advice is never taken on Japanese matters [?].13

Ironically, Kobe would turn out to be a lot more dangerous than Osaka. On February 4, a fine day, the members of the foreign Legations were outside, going about their business in the recentlycreated foreign settlement. At this point it was small: about 400 metres wide and 600 long, and the only buildings standing there were the new Custom House, a bonded warehouse, and the British Consulate, all in one corner, on the waterfront. Some of them looked up to see several hundred Japanese troops marching towards Osaka. They were from the Bizen domain (south-east Okayama prefecture). Suddenly, the soldiers stood opposite them and fired straight at them. Most of the diplomatic presence in Japan, including Parkes, was in clear view and completely exposed; Parkes explained that they ‘could only seek safety by endeavouring to gain the cover of the Custom-house and other buildings at the opposite corner of the square, and to do this they had to cross the large open space under the fire of their assailants’.14

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Luckily, the Bizen men did not understand the sights on their rifles, which had been recently imported from America, and nobody was killed. Mitford commented that if they were bad marksmen, they were ‘mighty runners’, all of them managing to escape from the foreign Legation guards, apart from one old coolie.15 Parkes joined the chase on horseback. Parkes and his colleagues had as yet had no dealings with the Imperial regime, which was consolidating its position in western Japan. He felt that the way they punished this attack was of great importance, telling Ito- Hirobumi:

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I understand that in your country the Bakufu [Shogun’s regime] has been replaced by a new government.Yet no respects have been paid by the new government to any of the foreign powers. This incident will be a test of your new government’s attitude, and we shall draw our own conclusions.’16

In the meantime, Parkes decided to view it as an attack by Japan, rather than one by a rogue domain. All Japanese troops were expelled from the foreign settlement and four Japanese steamers were seized. It looks as if Parkes was almost threatening to go to war with the new regime, but the Emperor’s men certainly did not want to go down the disastrous Chinese route of fighting a civil war and a war against Western powers at the same time. On 7 February, Higashikuze Michitomi, the man responsible for foreign affairs for the new ‘government’ came to talk to the Ministers and they met in the Kobe Custom House. He made a series of momentous statements. He told them that the Emperor was now in control of foreign affairs. He promised that the new regime would protect foreigners and agreed to make reparation for the Bizen incident. Most surprising was the information that the Emperor would be glad to welcome them to Kyoto, as yet unvisited by any Westerner. The clarity of his statements contrasted favourably with the vagueness they were used to from the Shogun’s officials. Won over, the Western representatives agreed to return the steamers they had impounded four days earlier. Higashikuze also asked them to report Japan’s change of government to their foreign ministries. This was an ambitious request because Yoshinobu’s forces still controlled most of the country, including Edo. Nevertheless, everyone but Roches said that they would do so. Roches, the great supporter of the Shogun, was not

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going to give up on his friend that easily and went to Edo to consult with him. Gordon Daniels identifies this meeting as the ‘vital turning point’ in British policy towards the Emperor’s men because it is when Parkes started backing the new regime.17 This can only be said with hindsight – we saw him make a similarly decisive move to bolster the Shogun after first meeting him (‘I am quite disposed to give him all the support I can’) which within a year he was reversing. But this time there would be no turning back. On 13 February, word came that the Japanese had accepted the terms of the Western powers for resolving the incident. Almost as an afterthought, a document was brought stating that the Emperor had ratified all the foreign treaties. This ratification, that in 1865 Parkes had needed to organise a flotilla of ships, dragoon his colleagues into cooperating with him, and employ all his bullying, threatening and cajoling abilities to gain, had now fallen into his lap without the need for him to lift a finger. Two of the Emperor’s leading advisors came to meet with the foreign Ministers to discuss the punishment for the man who had ordered the troops to fire on the foreigners, Taki Zenzaburo-. Parkes advocated clemency for Taki, believing it would encourage a warmer feeling towards foreigners among ordinary Japanese.The Dutch representative agreed with him but all the others thought that Taki should be ordered to perform hara-kiri. Hugh Cortazzi suggested that this shows Parkes had a compassionate, merciful side, which I think is right.18 In China he had supported actions that he knew would result in many deaths, yet when his enemy was cornered, his instinct was to be magnanimous. And for all his harshness towards them, Parkes could show compassion to his staff. Two weeks before this, he had cared enough about his seriously ill Consul in Hyogo, Francis Myburgh, to go from Osaka to Kobe to visit him, at a time when he was under exceptional pressure. He was not, in spite of often acting like one, a monster. Parkes sent Mitford and Satow to witness the hara-kiri, which was performed with great dignity, and they both came away impressed. Satow thought that it was ‘a most decent and decorous ceremony’, and ‘far more respectable’ than what Britain produced ‘for the entertainment of the public in the front of Newgate prison’.19 (In fact, public executions had almost become a thing of the past in Britain – the last would be on 26 May 1868.) Parkes now stood out from his colleagues in his enthusiasm for the new regime. He thought that the ‘promptitude and decision

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with which the officers of the Mikado have treated this grave matter, furnishes a striking contrast to the dilatoriness and evasions, which have marked the action of the Tycoon’s government, whenever redress in similar cases has been demanded at their hands’.20 The French, American, Prussian, and Italian representatives were all reluctant to recognise the new government, and felt that meeting the Emperor would be essentially doing that. But in Parkes’ eyes, the Emperor had always been Japan’s supreme head and there could be no harm in affirming that. As promised by Higashikuze, the new regime quickly broke the great taboo – that no Westerner be allowed to enter Kyoto – by inviting Dr Willis to the city to treat men injured at the Battle of Fushimi. Unfortunately, all this good feeling was destroyed by another attack on Westerners. On 8 March, a group from Tosa (presentday Ko-chi) brutally killed eleven French sailors at Sakai, near Osaka. Parkes felt that he had to temporarily withdraw cooperation until redress was made and withdrew to a British ship. But again he advocated moderation. He thought that those who had committed the murders should die, but he did not want a broader punishment, like imposing an indemnity. The imperial regime’s task of dealing with the incident was made vastly easier by the fact that the Tosa Inkyo (the retired Daimyo-, but still the real power in the domain) completely dissociated himself from the attack. Mitford happened to be with him when news of the incident came, and quoted him saying, ‘The act of violence which my retainers have committed has caused me to be deeply ashamed’ and he expressed the desire that only Tosa and not the whole of Japan be punished for it.21 In the event, the twenty men judged responsible were all ordered to perform hara-kiri and a party of Frenchmen from the ship the victims had come from, had to witness this. It was very hard watching twenty men go through the same gruesome and elaborate procedure, and once they reached eleven (the same number as the men who were murdered) the commander could bear it no longer and asked them to stop. As Satow pointed out, they were all equally guilty, so this made it look more like revenge than justice.22 In spite of these incidents, the Emperor’s men were determined to persevere with their charm offensive, so immediately after the Sakai incident had been resolved, the Western Ministers were invited to an audience of the Emperor in Kyoto, on 23 March.

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Parkes was still keen to go, as was his Dutch colleague. Roches surprised them by deciding that he would accept the invitation after all; he said that the way the Imperial regime had resolved the Sakai incident was what had changed his mind, but he told his Foreign Minister the real reason: he did not want to leave Parkes with ‘the honour of first seeing the divine Sovereign of Japan alone’.23 The Japanese side was just as conflicted about the audiences as the Western, but for entirely different reasons. The Emperor’s mother said, ‘What can I possibly, possibly say about the barbarians being received in audience tomorrow? It is the end of the world. I can do nothing but weep and wail.’24 She thought her son was being unpardonably unfilial because it went against all that Emperor Ko-mei had stood for. Several courtiers killed themselves. Roches’ audience was first, and he was escorted into the imperial presence, with the Emperor, holding the imperial sword and jewel, seated behind the screen of state. He bowed at the screen and the Emperor told him ‘We are pleased to learn that the Emperor of your country is well. We hope that the relations between our two countries in the future will be ever more cordial, lasting and unchanging.’25 Roches was expected to give a short, bland, response, but he never liked following other people’s rules and added a prayer for the prosperity of Japan and for divine protection for the Emperor. He left, and the Dutch Minister went in for his audience. However, when it came to Parkes’ turn, he was not there. The British were staying at the Chion-in temple, in the two guest houses there which had been built in 1639. As we know, Parkes was no great fan of staying in Japanese style, but it was an undeniably lovely place, the Tokugawa family temple and an inspiration for the naturalistic style adopted by British garden designers.26 The previous day Parkes had been to see senior officials and it was all smiles as they talked over the arrangements, including their security. The British procession to the Palace must have been a magnificent sight. First came the Inspector of the Legation Escort, who rode alongside a Japanese officer named Nakai Hiroshi, from the Satsuma clan.27 Then came the British mounted escort and Japanese troops, followed by Parkes, Satow, and Goto- Sho-jiro-, who was now a high-ranking official in the Foreign Office. These were followed by a guard of infantry, both British and Japanese.

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Suddenly, when they reached a turning, two men with swords came out of nowhere and ‘commenced their deadly work in a demoniacal way’, as Parkes put it to Fanny.28 Nakai bravely jumped off his horse and engaged one of them in desperate combat. However, he was not dressed for fighting and his feet got entangled in his loose trousers and he fell on his back. His attacker tried to slash his head (fortunately, he cut no deeper than his scalp), and he managed to parry the blow and stab the man in the breast. Then Goto- hit the assailant on the shoulder with his sword and Nakai cut off his head. The other attacker, after slashing many of the escort, charged at Satow, wounding his horse near Satow’s knee and clipping off part of its nose. Satow had moved up to protect Parkes, an obvious target in his gold-embroidered coat and plumed hat. Needless to say, he was absolutely calm, although his escape had been narrow: his belt was cut, but he was unscathed. Standing with the headless body of one of the attackers at his feet, he said to Mitford, ‘Sensation diplomacy this’, a wry reference to an article with that title written in 1863 which stated that ‘Japan is probably the only country in the world in which diplomacy becomes a pursuit of thrilling excitement.’29 To the Foreign Secretary, Parkes reflected on the fact that it was amazing that just two attackers should ‘have had the temerity to throw themselves upon a body of seventy armed foreigners, and it is melancholy also to see that a few desperate men should be able to inflict such serious injury’.30 Nobody had been killed, but thirteen of the escort were wounded. Parkes expressed the ‘satisfaction afforded me by the behaviour of all the officers and men of my party at the time we were attacked’, which must have left Lord Stanley wondering why they had not done a better job of defending themselves.31 The trouble was that the British Legation guard were carrying lances, which were essentially for show and were not practical weapons in a narrow street. The Japanese guards ran away, only returning when the fighting had stopped. In fact, it was the brave actions of the senior Japanese officials, Nakai and Goto-, that did most to repel the attackers: ‘Regardless of their own safety, and thinking only of the duty with which they were charged, they threw themselves upon the assassins’, as Parkes put it to the Japanese Government.32 It is ironic that Goto-, whom Parkes had been so rude to in Tosa, should have ended up helping to save his life.Their courage was recognised in Britain, the two men being presented with swords of honour from Queen Victoria. (The sword given

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to Nakai, in its presentation box, is now at the Kyoto National Museum, along with a letter of thanks to Nakai from Parkes. It was presented to the museum by Nakai’s son-in-law, Hara Takashi, who was Japan’s Prime Minister from 1918 to 1921.) The reaction from the Emperor’s court was one of consternation mixed with panic. They were worried that Britain would interpret this attack as a declaration of war by the regime, which still had such a tenuous hold on power. High officials of state, dressed in court robes, were sent to apologise for what had happened. Parkes took the apologies in the spirit in which they were offered because he was sure that the Emperor’s government had had nothing to do with the attack. Indeed, he was generous enough to tell the head of foreign affairs that he ‘considered a graver outrage had been committed’ upon the Emperor than himself, as it had been the Emperor’s wish that they should visit him.33 In the past, Parkes would have had to insist on punishment and reparation but not in this case: the officials assured him that the wounded would be compensated, and should any of them die provision would be made for their families. None did die, and the two men of the escort who were most badly injured, Hatton and Duffy, got $5,000 each for them, or around £1,130. It seems a modest sum for men who had been disabled for life (if we take £50 a year as the bare minimum someone could survive on in Britain as a benchmark, it would have lasted them about twenty-two years) but Parkes thought it ‘liberal and satisfactory’.34 Unfortunately, the harmonious atmosphere again proved to be very temporary. Parkes had been assured that the surviving attacker and three accomplices would all be executed as common criminals (thus denied the privilege of hara-kiri). This happened to the attacker, but the accomplices were only sentenced to permanent exile. Furthermore, Parkes was written of as ‘having been ordered or permitted to enter Kioto in order to attend the Emperor’s Court’. He ‘refused to receive the copies of these sentences, and insisted upon these derogatory expressions being expunged’.35 The government sort of apologised and changed the wording but did not change the accomplices’ punishments. However, they did decree that anyone attacking foreigners would be executed, rather than allowed to perform hara-kiri, which was Parkes’ main demand. As he told Fanny, ‘The hara-kiri … makes heroes or martyrs of the men who undergo it, and rather encourages than deters from crime.’36

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The new arrangements for Parkes’ audience of the Emperor were made with great care. Three was a lucky number, so the date chosen, 26 March, which was the 3rd of the 3rd month in the Japanese calendar, was a very auspicious day. That morning, the courtyard of Chion-in was full of soldiers with ‘plumed lances and arrayed in the panoply of medieval warfare’, in Mitford’s description. He added that even those who were ‘more or less “blasé” about such sights’ were ‘struck with the surprising picturesqueness of the scene’.37 Two powerful figures, the Inkyo of Uwajima and the Daimyo- of Hizen, came to conduct the delegation to the palace, and their immense retinues added to the splendour. Unfortunately, on the British side only two of the mounted escort were able to ride. Special care was taken at all the corners, and crowds turned out to watch the extraordinary procession, which was of a kind which had never been seen in Kyoto and never would be again, because it would soon no longer be the Emperor’s capital. The British party was treated with great respect, being allowed to dismount at the inner gate of the palace, usually only the right of princes of the blood, and was received by Prince Yamashina, the Emperor’s cousin. The buildings seemed very modest and had no fortifications beyond plain whitewashed walls (emperors had been virtually powerless, so there was no great need for them to be defended). Mitford considered that ‘with all its simplicity it is not without a certain grandeur of its own’.38 The Emperor was eating lunch so they were given sweets while they waited for him to finish. Unfortunately, while they were waiting, it started to rain torrentially, meaning they had to splash through courtyards almost ankle-deep in wet sand to reach the audience hall. Only Parkes and Mitford could enter because no one else at the Legation had been presented at the British court. When they went into the hall, they were greeted by a novel sight: the Emperor leaning against a high chair, under a canopy supported by four pillars covered in black lacquer and draped with white silk. It was the first time a Japanese Emperor had ever given an audience like this. Mitford did not understate its significance: [A]ll of a sudden the veil of the temple has been rent, the holy of holies has been thrown open, and the God-King has descended from the elevation of his spiritual throne to the commonplace of Imperial Sovereignty … [T]he whole web of bigotry and folly, in which the Japanese have wrapped themselves for centuries has been destroyed.39

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When we compare the style of this audience with those given to Japanese officials at the time, the differences are very striking. In meetings with his own subjects, Meiji would be behind the screen, and they would have to kneel on entering, and then move on their knees in his direction but at an angle to him.They would prostrate themselves twice.This was the kind of respect the Chinese wanted for their Emperor from Westerners. The Japanese gave up a lot in allowing Parkes to stand face to face with Emperor Meiji. Two princes were kneeling behind Meiji to prompt him should it be necessary and in front of him knelt other princes. The great men of Japan were standing in rows, including many of the Daimyo-. Mitford described the Emperor like this: He’s a remarkably high bred looking youth, as indeed he has every right to be … He is about sixteen years of age [he was fifteen] but tall of his years. He has a bright eye, good features and a clear complexion. He is dressed in a white coat with long padded scarlet trousers trailing like a lady’s train. His head-dress is the same as that of his courtiers. His teeth are blackened; his eyebrows shaved and painted in high up on his forehead; his lips are stained red. Poor Mikado! What a victim to tradition. And yet in spite of all this grotesque disfigurement, the Son of Heaven contrives to look dignified.40

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The Emperor, speaking barely above a whisper, told Parkes, I hope that your Sovereign enjoys good health. I trust that the intercourse between our respective countries will become more and more friendly, and be permanently established. I regret deeply that an unfortunate affair which took place as you were proceeding to the Palace on the 23rd instant has delayed this ceremony. It gives me great pleasure therefore to see you here to-day.41

It was not very exciting, but it was certainly the first semblance of an apology made by an emperor of Japan to a Westerner. Parkes went off the diplomatic script in his response, gently lecturing Meiji on his responsibilities: The condition of the foreign relations of a state must ever be dependent upon its internal stability and progress, and Your Majesty is taking the best measures to place the foreign relations of Japan upon a permanent footing by establishing a strong general government throughout Your Majesty’s dominions, and by adopting the system of international law universally recognized by other states.42

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Parkes thought the new regime needed his guidance, telling Hammond, ‘I am afraid that the new holders of office will show themselves ignorant and perhaps arrogant, and that we shall have to educate them’.43 Indeed, for Parkes a reason for entering Kyoto was to teach the Japanese something:

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I felt it to be my mission to enter that Mecca last March in order to dispel the halo of sanctity and superstition which hung around the place and the person of the Mikado, and if this step had any effect in dislodging His Majesty from those cloisters of prejudice and ignorance – strongly directed against the foreigner – it may be said to have succeeded. Little could have been done with him or the Government in such an atmosphere.44

The Emperor’s authority had not been fully established in Edo, and Satow saw a possible role for Parkes in brokering a deal between the two sides. Parkes was concerned that if the terms of the imperial party were too severe, there would be more bloodshed. He thought the Japanese who were ‘very gentle under ordinary circumstances … appear to acquire the ferocity of a wild animal as soon as they taste blood’.45 Of course, the attitude of the foreign representatives had to be that it was an internal Japanese matter which really had nothing to do with them. Parkes did his best, however, using the only argument he could employ, telling Saigo- Takamori, the negotiator for the imperial government, that any severity towards Yoshinobu or his supporters would ‘injure the reputation of the new government in the opinion of European Powers’.46 It is possible that this carried weight, because Yoshinobu was allowed to retire to his home province of Mito and to retain some of his armed forces. As he was characterised by the new regime as an enemy of the Court, this was very lenient indeed. When Yoshinobu was no longer any threat, the Emperor was very generous, raising him to the rank of prince in 1902. He lived until 1913, the last surviving major figure of the Meiji Restoration. *

Although there were many more important things going on, one of Parkes’ big concerns was his credentials. In the past they had been addressed to the Shogun, as his ‘Imperial and Royal Majesty’, but Parkes had all along felt that they should have been presented to the Emperor. He had requested ones addressed to

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Meiji in November 1867, long before it was clear who would be governing Japan, and received them at the end of March 1868. Presenting these credentials while the civil war was still going on certainly implied his support for the Imperial regime, meaning that Parkes was compromising Britain’s neutral stance. Nevertheless, he was pleased with himself:

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I do not know whether my colleagues are quite pleased to see me so much in advance of them in the matter of letters of credence, and I know it to be the intention of the Prussian and possibly the French ministers to go to Osaka for the purpose of seeing the Mikado as soon as they can get ships for the purpose.47

This was a snide reference to the fact that the French and Prussians had far fewer ships at their disposal than the British. Indeed, Admiral Keppel would excel himself for Parkes’ presentation of these credentials, being able to provide not just a vessel to take him to Osaka (the flagship of the China squadron, the Salamis), but a flotilla of warships to accompany it, to impress on ‘the mind of the young Mikado’, as Parkes put it to Keppel, ‘a just sense of the rank and dignity of the Queen and also of the power’ of Britain.48 Satow thought the real intention was to ‘assist in glorifying Parkes’.49 The ceremony of handing over the credentials, on 22 May, was a grand one. Parkes was accompanied by his staff, Admiral Keppel and the officers commanding his ships, along with nearly two hundred marines. If Parkes had intended to intimidate the Japanese side, it worked, the Emperor being very nervous. When Parkes tried to give him the letter from Queen Victoria, he seemed ‘bashful or timid’, according to Satow, and needed help.50 He forgot his speech and after being prompted got out one sentence, upon which an official gave up on his managing the whole thing and read out the full translation. Probably this fifteen-year-old felt overwhelmed by the expectations of those around him. However, Parkes was impressed by him, telling the Foreign Secretary eight months later, I must confess … to a feeling of some admiration on observing the sensible and unostentatious way in which this Sovereign – accustomed to think of himself and a long line of ancestors as demigods – addresses himself, upon the advice of his councillors, to the practical duties of his new station … The object aimed at seems to

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be that he shall be known as a Sovereign possessing no exceptional or unnatural attributes, but charged with the welfare of some millions of his fellow-beings, whose interests he is to watch over.51

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The Emperor’s regime greatly appreciated the fact that Parkes had gone out on a limb in being the first to acknowledge the Emperor and not the Shogun as the supreme head of Japan. Iwakura Tomomi, one of the key leaders at this time told Parkes that they had ‘especially to thank the English for having been the first to recognize the truth’.52 In July 1868, Imperial troops finally drove the remnants of the samurai supporting the old regime out of Edo, and began to close in on their last stronghold on Honshu, the Aizu domain, which they took in November. Parkes welcomed this news, telling Hammond that it was a ‘most desirable conclusion to a revolution which I think has been conducted in a manner that does great credit to the Japanese’.53 Indeed, given the momentousness of the changes, the bloodshed was strikingly low: around 3,500 killed in total (fresh in their minds was the American Civil War, which had cost 750,000 lives). The Emperor’s government could now turn its mind to the future of Japan. A key decision was where its capital would be, and in August 1868 Parkes considered the alternatives: The question of whether the future capital shall be Kioto, Osaka, or Yedo is still under consideration. I begin to think that they would do well to choose the latter place. It is greatly superior to the two former … I am afraid the question will not be soon settled. All the strong conservatives, and the followers of the Mikado’s Court will cling fast to Kioto which is a second Mecca to them. The liberal party on the other hand maintain that no progress will be made in bringing round this very prejudiced and narrow-minded class to more intelligent news until they have been removed from old scenes and associations.54

Surprisingly the government made the announcement quickly, confirming in people’s minds that it was more decisive than its predecessor. It was of course Edo that they chose, which on 3 September 1868 was renamed Tokyo: the ‘Eastern Capital’, although Parkes would continue to call it Edo (actually ‘Yedo’) for years afterwards. This decision was sealed by a visit by Meiji, the first to the city by a Japanese emperor for two thousand years. He travelled in a

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palanquin, at walking pace, and the journey took twenty days – he arrived on 26 November 1868. Parkes, in common with other foreign Ministers was granted another audience, on 4 January. Such events, just two years ago unthinkable, were now becoming routine. He was accompanied by 100 marines, but he wondered to the Foreign Secretary whether all that fuss was needed any more. Although Parkes was treating the civil war as basically over, supporters of the old regime, led by Enomoto Takeaki, were still holding out around Hakodate. The imperial regime was keen for the powers to drop their neutrality and treat Enomoto’s men as rebels. The main reason for the request was they wanted to take possession of an American-built ironclad, the Stonewall Jackson, which had been ordered by the Shogun’s regime but not delivered. The ship was sitting at anchor in Yokohama Bay, while it could have been very useful for defeating the rebellion in Hakodate. Parkes did everything he could to persuade the other Ministers to abandon neutrality. He met with Iwakura (whom he was calling the Prime Minister, but whose actual position, hosho-, only meant senior official) on 9 January 1869, and found he was ‘very eloquent against those Ministers, who while recognizing the Mikado as sovereign etc. gave the status of belligerents to the Hakodate pirates’.55 However, the American Minister, Robert Van Valkenburgh, like his Italian and Prussian colleagues, had sympathy with Enomoto’s men; on 18 December 1868, he told his Secretary of State that the Tokugawa forces were not ‘rebels and pirates’; rather, they ‘form a strong political organization, commit no depredations and meet with the cordial support of the people’.56 It seems extraordinary that Van Valkenburgh would not accept that the old regime had been defeated and that the US, like it or not, was going to have to work with the Emperor’s government. As Jack Hammersmith expressed it, he ‘seemed to long for a Tokugawa triumph more strongly as it became less likely’.57 Van Valkenburgh held on to the Stonewall Jackson for as long as he could. When eventually he did part with it, in early March, Parkes was dismissive: ‘She is a poor craft for that price’ (they had paid $550,000) and ‘such a dangerous ship and … difficult to manage’ that it was questionable whether she would make it to Hakodate at all.58 Parkes was in the happy position of being seen by the new regime as its best friend among quite a hostile diplomatic corps. He was ‘glad that this question [neutrality] has brought me into

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intimate relations with Iwakura for he is clearly possessed of great ability’.59 Parkes would generally have a positive relationship with Iwakura but, as Iwakura observed to Satow, Parkes’ ‘violent demeanour often damaged the effect of the sincere and friendly advice he offered to them’. Nevertheless, Iwakura said that he preferred Parkes over the French Minister, Ange-Maxime Outrey, who ‘with all his blandness was very obstinate’.60 Willis expressed a similar thought, telling his sister that Parkes’ ‘intentions are all good’, while adding that he was ‘not overburdened with politeness to the Japanese. I almost fear he will goad them too far.’61 He never did though, and it is surprising that men who he had been horribly rude to were ever prepared to work with him again. It was partly because they had to – the representative of the most powerful foreign country could not be ignored. He would not have got away with his behaviour had he represented a smaller power. But it may also point to a fundamental respect they had for Parkes – it seems they were prepared to look past his abusive behaviour because he was a titan, worthy of a certain esteem, even awe, for all he had done and been through. In fact, there were some Japanese who almost liked him: Hayashi Tadasu, who later became Japan’s Ambassador to Britain, remembered him as a fair but impatient man, constantly endeavouring to promote Japan’s development to the advantage of Britain, so much so that he was ‘often like a woman tormenting her son’s new bride’. But, thought Hayashi, his sincerity was beyond question and he never used his rank for personal advantage. ‘He was thus maligned while in Japan, but sorely missed following his subsequent transfer to Beijing.’62 To Alexander Michie, it looked as if ‘some of his outbreaks were as carefully calculated as the fury of an actor’, and much of his anger was ‘simulated indignation’.63 Dickins, on the other hand, as his official biographer (so he had to be a bit careful), contended that his irritability was mainly the ‘result of over-work, and of a curious hurry he was always in’. Dickins added that his anger was momentary, utterly devoid of malice premeditated or sequent. What slight bitterness is occasionally exhibited in his correspondence is very rarely displayed against persons, but rather against propositions or doctrines that he condemned … it was the sin not the sinner that called forth his ire … The harshest word I find in his correspondence is ‘charlatan,’ applied in charity to a man who deserved a much stronger epithet.64

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Dickins was keen to paint Parkes in the best light but what he writes is essentially true. When you were on the receiving end of Parkes’ wrath, it felt like you would never be able to work with him again, but then he would get over it and move on – and expect you to as well. As Dickins says, in writing, he dealt in issues rather than personalities. (This was particularly true after he became Minister – we really have no idea what he thought of his colleagues and counterparts in Japan as human beings.) It is striking to compare his despatches, which were always very detached and professional, with those of Bowring in particular, who would launch into bitter, lengthy diatribes about anyone he was in dispute with (the Foreign Secretary told him, ‘You need not have repeated your laments … in every letter, – one statement of facts would have been sufficient’).65 The eminent Japanologist Basil Hall Chamberlain summarised the feelings of most observers of Parkes when he wrote: ‘By the Japanese he was not liked. He was respected; but he was feared too much to be liked. He was the strongest man we have ever had in Japan.’66 He quoted a high Japanese official as saying ‘Sir Harry Parkes was the only foreigner in Japan whom we could not twist round our little finger.’67

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‘We of Course Hope for Improvement’ Tokyo, 1869–1871

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™

A LTHOUGH ON THE face of it, the relationship between the British and Japanese governments had become much more solid, it was far from sweetness and light. The atmosphere quickly started to sour again when unwanted extremists who had gathered around the Emperor were creating a serious threat to safety. In June 1869, Parkes told Hammond, ‘After the labour of many years it is sorely trying to hear at this date such sentiments as these men appear to be giving expression to. The old cry of … “expulsion of the barbarians” – has been revived by them.’1 One seized the bridle of Parkes’ horse on the To-kaido- and others flashed swords at Westerners and forced them to dismount. There were no fatalities, but Parkes was upset by the relaxed attitude the government was taking towards them; indeed there seemed to be many officials who sympathised with them. The feeling that the Emperor’s regime was actually hostile to the West was reinforced by a bitter dispute that arose over Christianity in the country. The religion had been banned since a brutal campaign of eradication which had seen thousands of Japanese Christians tortured and killed between 1614 and 1650. In spite of this, substantial numbers of ‘hidden Christians’ had maintained their faith particularly in western Kyushu. The town of Urakami, near Nagasaki, had a population of around 4,000, who were all Christian. These Christians were discovered by French missionaries who encouraged them to emerge from hiding, in spite of the fact that being a believer was still punishable by death. These actions were viewed by the Emperor’s government as a challenge to its authority and in April 1868, signs were erected stating that this evil sect was ‘strictly prohibited. Anyone arousing 177

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suspicion should be reported to the village office. A reward will be paid.’ Parkes took the news calmly, telling Hammond that the edict against Christianity was ‘not a favourable sign’, but he would ‘endeavor while at Osaka’ (when presenting his credentials) to see if the tone of this paper could not be corrected. He added, ‘They have no right to speak of Christianity as “an evil sect”. It is a symptom of the old leaven, which of course can only be gradually removed.’2 He did indeed complain about the edict and managed to get it altered, but this did nothing to stop the persecution. On 14 June, more than one hundred Christian leaders were imprisoned and in the next months, 2,400 followed them. Around 500 recanted, but for those that did not a majority of the Emperor’s Ministers thought they should be executed. Parkes was well aware that British policy was to not interfere in Japan’s domestic affairs and no British interest was involved. However, religious groups back home were exerting pressure to come to the aid of the Japanese Christians, which meant that Parkes had to do something. Parkes had some sympathy for the Japanese position. He knew that the Taiping Rebellion, which had wreaked such havoc in China, had been founded on quasi-Christian beliefs; conceivably something similar could happen in Japan. He also thought the uncovering of the hidden Christians in Kyushu by French missionaries was irresponsible. Mitford called them ‘fanatic bigots’, who refused ‘to recognise any other authority spiritual or civil than that of the Roman Catholic Priests’.3 In 1867, Roches had asked Fr. Bernard Petitjean, their leader, to stop the activities, telling him that Japan could not tolerate Christianity now, but would in the future, adding ‘One year and ten years are not appreciable delays in the accomplishment of the designs of God … Very great self-denial is required of you, it is true, but you will make this sacrifice, for … you possess all the virtues of the apostolate.’4 In fact, it was not only Catholic missionaries that were stirring up religious feeling. George Ensor, a Protestant one with the British Church Missionary Society drew attention to himself in Nagasaki with his sale of Bibles, teaching, and discussions of Christianity. A month after his arrival in 1869, he wrote that his house was ‘thronged with Japanese visitors, all curious to know something about England and her science and art and progress, but, most of all, about her religion’.5 He believed that Britain had a moral responsibility to do everything possible to help the Christians who were being deported, but there was little outsiders could do, and by

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encouraging Japanese to become Christian he was laying them open to being arrested, while being untouchable himself. Roches’ replacement as French Minister, Outrey, wanted a ‘strong and united demonstration of force by European powers’, but Parkes opposed him, obeying instructions from the Foreign Secretary who was concerned that the French may threaten Japan’s territorial independence under the guise of protecting the Christians.6 Outrey could not pursue an aggressive policy while Parkes was against it. Parkes’ instructions from the Foreign Secretary were clear, telling him to simply press ‘in a friendly way on the Japanese Government the expediency of forbearance in matters of religion’.7 Parkes’ idea of ‘friendly’ was different from most people’s and Satow writes of how in December 1868, he ‘lost his temper over the arguments used by Kido [one of the Emperor’s most senior ministers]’ relating to this matter, ‘and made use of very violent language such as I do not care to repeat’.8 The future Prime Minister, Okuma Shigenobu, told Parkes that ‘foreign countries are not justified in interfering when we punish our people according to our laws’, adding, ‘hence we do not think it necessary to discuss the matter with you’. At this, Parkes became very angry, shaking his fist and striking the table. He said: You are cowardly … Why not destroy evil customs and come out into a broader world than you have yet known? Christianity is now accepted by all civilised countries … Its excellence and truth are evident. Nothing is worse than to regard as an enemy what the whole world knows to be good; nothing is so foolish as to reject the truth.You ought to open your eyes. It is truly said that Oriental officials are so in the habit of looking only at what is directly before them that they never turn their gaze upwards. If you repeal the edicts and pardon the prisoners, you will find that your fears were needless. If you do not take this action, I am sure that Japan is doomed.

Okuma was only thirty at the time, but in spite of his youth, he was not intimidated by Parkes, telling him, ‘The day that we blindly follow the commands of foreigners will surely be the time of our nation’s destruction.’9 With respect to his own beliefs, Parkes was described by Dickins as ‘a truly religious man’, but ‘he never obtruded the subject of religion’.10 This was exactly what the Foreign Office wanted: their diplomats were expected to be respectable Christians but

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not to allow religious considerations to influence their actions. Lord Stanley, who was not a very religious man, was particularly clear about this; we see him warning Parkes not to be too strong about the Christian question because ‘a rupture with Japan would paralyze a trade which promises to be of great value’.11 Many in Britain were horrified at the treating of trade as a higher priority than (particularly Christian) people’s lives. They would have been even more shocked to hear that Parkes recommended to the Japanese that if they were deporting Christians, they should not do so from Nagasaki, where it would be witnessed by the foreigners living there. Incidentally, Parkes was far from alone in his attitude among the foreign Ministers. Van Valkenburgh had no sympathy with the Japanese Christians, writing that they were ‘ignorant and superstitious … and more or less under the influence or control of a host of priests … living in a state next to absolute idleness’ and he thought he only needed to go through the motions when protesting over their persecution.12 Parkes got a surprise when he went home on leave in 1871 and discovered how concerned British Christians were about the matter.The Council of the Evangelical Alliance, along with several missionary bodies, submitted a memorial to the Foreign Office in London protesting against what was happening in Japan and the unconcerned reaction to it of the British government. The document was inaccurate; it claimed for example that suspected Christians were being forced to step on religious symbols to see if they were believers or not, as had happened in the seventeenth century. They were not. However, its overall tone was reasonable, arguing that the Japanese ‘government and the people need to be reminded that a spirit of intolerance is incompatible with the progress and safety of civilised nations, as well as with their friendly intercourse and mutual interests’.13 Parkes made a point by point response to its arguments and warned against ‘substituting Western intolerance for that of the Japanese’.14 He explained that it was not so much the Japanese government, as a ‘deeply-rooted and wide-spread national feeling’ against Christianity in the country that they were contending with. He also argued that Japan was not that illiberal, noting that many Christian missionaries were working in government service and employed in teaching foreign languages and sciences at public schools and colleges. Translations of foreign religious books were widely available. But, Parkes explained, when Japanese people

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assumed Christianity as a cloak for dangerous conspiracies – when an ostentatious disregard of the fundamental laws of the country was openly indulged in – when the native Christian communities disowned to a great extent the authority of the Japanese government, and were led by their teachers to rely on foreign protection, and consequent immunity from punishment because they were Christians, then the government was obliged in self-defence and in support of the authority of the Emperor to adopt such measures as would bring his misguided subjects back to the established laws and institutions of the country.15

Parkes’ arguments won the Church Missionary Society over, and they decided not to push for force to be used to stop the persecutions, even if ‘the cause of Christ should for a season be hindered and delayed’.16 Gordon Daniels notes the contrast between the tactfulness of Parkes’ behaviour here and the ‘brusque and intemperate interviews he had had with Japanese politicians of much greater importance in earlier months’.17 At the same time, he observes how Parkes showed himself to be fundamentally sympathetic to Japan, ‘something one would hardly guess from the appearances of his diplomacy in the Far East’.18 I think he was simply saying what he had to say to nip any talk of intervening on behalf of the Christians in the bud. But I agree that he was, underneath all the bluster, sympathetic to Japan and so, for the most part, did the Japanese. In 1871, Satow reports Iwakura saying that it was ‘certain that he had their interests at heart, if he could only restrain his temper.’19 It was his manner rather than his actions that made him appear hostile. The Japanese government fully realised how backward the persecution of Christians made the country seem to Westerners, and in 1873 the proscription edicts against Christianity were taken down from public view, although they remained in force until the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. *

Another major worry for Parkes at this point was Russia, a far higher Foreign Office priority than Japan. The concern was that instability in Japan was offering Russia a chance to steal its territory. Curbing Russian expansionism had been the cause over which Britain had fought the Crimean War in the 1850s and over which it nearly went to war again in 1878.

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The situation appeared alarming. Admiral Keppel went on an intelligence-gathering mission and discovered that Russia had a huge military presence around Vladivostok: ‘I was struck with the utter absence of trade and enterprise.The whole country is simply in military occupation.’ He added, ‘I … therefore … conclude the aim of Russia is to acquire territory to the southward, and steadily but surely advance on Japan and the Corea.’20 Parkes told the Foreign Secretary what a Russian Rear-Admiral had said two years earlier: ‘We have 10,000 men in Tartary, and a strong force at Kussunai [Kusunai was the settlement that marked the border between Japanese and Russian territory on Sakhalin], and what would the Japanese oppose to that? If we want the rest of Saghalien, nobody can prevent it; and if we want’ Ezo (Hokkaido), ‘nobody can prevent it’.21 Parkes was frustrated by the relaxed attitude of the Japanese who were ‘very helpless in such cases and they do not seem to know what has occurred, although they half admit that some aggression has taken place’.22 He wanted them to build a port in northern Ezo, to establish their claim and enable them to police the area, but they did not. Indeed, they saw the British as the bigger threat to their sovereignty than Russia. He does not seem to have thought about why this would be, but Alcock, who was a more reflective man, put his finger on the reason: We must not complain that our reputation in the East takes its complexion from our conquests and progress in India, the history of which in broad outline at least is perfectly well known ... How we began by asking for a privilege to trade and ended by annexing provinces after disastrous wars is no secret. Whatever explanations or defence we may have to offer as to the causes of this irrepressible advance from trading factories to Empire, we can scarcely expect any Eastern Sovereign or people to attach much credit to them. We must be content to trade and to negotiate weighted with this heavy burden of distrust and suspicion.23 *

While there was so much happening on the professional front, Parkes and Fanny were experiencing severe anxiety on the domestic, as a result of some ‘affection of the brain’, as Parkes put it, of their older son, Harry, who was six. On 12 August 1868, Parkes told Hammond,

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Our worst apprehensions are I fear to be realized, and for the last three days he has been dangerously ill.Yesterday his attack took the form of acute mania to the great distress of those around him! I have first just left his bedside to pen these few lines and to apologise for saying so little.24

Dr Willis described the situation like this:

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I regret to say that young Parkes is apparently merging into an idiot. He has epileptic fits with occasional paroxysms of mania … really it is painful to a degree to see and sympathise with the poor boy and his mother. He was the apple of Lady Parkes’ eye. She expected he would turn out a very distinguished man; for her sake, I hope he will die as I entertain a most unfavourable view of his sanity.

Willis blamed Parkes, saying ‘I cannot say I am much surprised at the boy’s proclivity to brain disease, as I really think his father’s restlessness, and what some call ability, a modified form of insanity.’25 In fact, Willis thought that all the Parkes children had ‘bad constitutions and are always requiring treatment. They are feebly vitalized with a proclivity to disease of the brain.’26 Perhaps he was right, because none of them apart from Minnie (who lived to 89) would survive into old age: Nellie died at 15, Mabel at 25 (in an accident), Douglas at 27 and Harry at 58. The Parkes couple did some soul searching and decided that Harry would have to return to Britain the following year where he would have a better chance of treatment. It was normal at the time to send children back home with a nanny, but Fanny decided she had to go with him, in spite of being pregnant again. Willis did not think it would be a good idea for her to give birth on the ship but in the event, something went wrong with the pregnancy, probably a miscarriage (she had been threatened with one just before they departed). She had had one the previous May, so this was the second pregnancy she lost in the space of a year. She took Harry with Minnie, Mabel and Douglas, leaving their eldest, Nellie, who was now twelve, with her father in Japan. These separations were, as Parkes put it, ‘fearful thorns to eastern domestic life’. Willis set out their situation: It was of course a break-up in her domestic life … Still it was all that could be done as it was to the last degree inadvisable to risk another summer with the boy. Last year it was terrible work,

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no sleep, no quiet and if Lady Parkes had combined with this trouble that of a baby the results might have been of the most serious consequence. It seemed to me just on behalf of the boy, of Lady Parkes and Sir Harry to send him home. And this Lady Parkes would not permit except in her own charge. I even offered to take charge of the boy home, which however was declined in as much as they thought it unfair to saddle me with such a burden.27

They departed on 24 February – what must have been one of Parkes’ least happy birthdays – on the Ottawa. Satow who was going on leave was on the same ship. He described how the British community paid Fanny ‘the compliment of sending out a band, which played “Home, sweet home” as the anchor was weighed. I felt the tears come into my eyes.’28 He cannot have been the only one.

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*

At the same time, relations between official Japan and Parkes were starting – patchily – to improve. The Imperial regime really were grateful for Parkes’ persuading his colleagues to recognise them as the legitimate government of Japan. So when he told them that the Queen’s second son, Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, would be visiting Japan as part of a round-the-world tour, they contemplated breaking every precedent. As would be expected, the Emperor of China absolutely refused to receive Alfred, and the idea of the Emperor of Japan meeting him, as Parkes put it to Hammond, ‘perplexed the Mikado’s Government in no slight degree’. Parkes explained the Japanese dilemma like this: They felt that if they did not give H.R.H. a public reception they would be offering a slight to a friendly nation with which I really believe they desire to cultivate cordial relations, but on the other hand they feared the clamour of the old conservative party which opposes every advance on the part of the Government towards establishing foreign relations on the only footing on which they can be satisfactorily conducted – that of equality and mutual respect. The reception of foreign Ministers by the Mikado was a grave error in the minds of that party and the reception of a foreign Prince of the Blood, claiming as good a descent as the Mikado himself, and expecting to be received with more regard to such a claim would obviously involve still more serious concessions.29

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The government spent two months agonising over the decision, but finally Parkes was informed that the Emperor was ‘delighted beyond measure; and, although our country can offer but poor hospitality, His Majesty would be intensely pleased if your Prince would consent to take up his abode in the gardens of O Hamago-ten [now known as the Hama-rikyu gardens], the seaside palace of His Majesty.’30 Parkes’ next concern was how the Duke would be lodged, because the Imperial residences had no Western-style furniture at all. Mitford, whom Parkes had put in charge of the visit, thought the Duke would enjoy staying in Japanese-style accommodation, as he himself would have done. But Parkes did not agree: Japanese aesthetics made a ‘very pretty show’ and were in ‘perfect taste’ but were ‘wholly irreconcilable with our requirements’.31 So an entirely new guesthouse was erected, a ‘great big clumsy uncomfortable building’, in Mitford’s opinion, although it remained the place for Western dignitaries to stay until the 1880s.32 The Japanese government told him that they could not provide any furniture, so the British had to get some in Hong Kong. Mitford thought that what came had ‘a strong flavour of Tottenham Court Road’ which ‘jarred piteously with the imaginative poetry of the Japanese artists’.33 The arrangements were almost wrecked by a devastating typhoon which struck on 20 August, the worst for fifteen years. Unfortunately, Parkes had just finished repainting, papering and decorating his residence ready for the Duke’s arrival. Now it was a mess, Parkes telling Fanny that ‘all our work in the front rooms at least will have to be done over again’ – the ceilings had come down in two of the rooms – and ‘the rain beat so strongly’ into her bedroom ‘as to require three bathing tubs to catch the water that fell in cascades into the drawing-rooom below!’34 Fortunately, the house built for the Duke was all right, although the garden and trees had been ‘knocked about terribly’.35 What made things more difficult was that they only had a vague idea of when the Duke would arrive. Fortunately, it was later than they thought; he sailed into Yokohama Bay on 23 August but did not disembark until the 31st, meaning that there was time to get everything in place for him. Parkes had other anxieties, the main one being that the Japanese would somehow treat the Duke as being of a lesser kind of royalty than the Emperor. He told Fanny that

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if at the last moment I see anything derogatory in their arrangements, I can decline the reception … The principal difficulty in the matter is the mode of his reception by the Mikado himself … as the Mikado will be receiving a scion of royalty, as his equal in point of blood.36

Parkes’ fears were not unfounded – rites of purification would be performed on the Duke, what Mitford describes as ‘a sweeping away of evil influences with a sort of flapper with a hempen tassel’, in order to stop him polluting the palace.37 Fortunately, nobody on the British side realised that was their purpose – Parkes would certainly have made a fuss had he known – although the American Minister did, telling President Johnson that the rites had been done ‘because in the eyes of the Japanese, all foreigners, whether of noble lineage or common, are alike impure as animals’.38 In other ways, however, the Japanese did everything both spiritual and material to ensure the Duke’s safety and comfort. Prayers were offered to Kanjin, the god of China, involving, according to Parkes, the revival of an ‘extremely ancient’ ceremonial, dating from the time when Japan’s only foreign relations were with China and Korea. ‘Kanjin’, Parkes explained to the Foreign Secretary, ‘is, therefore, the patron saint of foreigners, who are all united under his protection’.39 In addition, the Duke received the same treatment as the Emperor himself when he drove through the streets: all the upper floor windows were sealed so that nobody could look down on him, and the onlookers all kneeled with their foreheads touching the ground as he passed. Surely no member of the British royal family had ever received this level of respect. It certainly contrasted with the Duke’s recent experience in Australia, where he had been shot in the back. The first meeting between the Duke and the Emperor was very formal, with the Japanese side wearing the traditional court dress – ‘living pictures out of the dark centuries’, as Mitford described them.40 The ‘usual commonplaces’ were exchanged and then the Emperor invited the Duke to talk with him privately in the garden, which seemed an extraordinary departure from the way things had been done in the past.41 Parkes was worried that the ‘poor young Mikado [he was now sixteen] suffers much from severe shyness and his Ministers fear the Prince will find him very uninteresting’.42 However, they seem to have managed all right. The Duke congratulated the Emperor on the restoration of his authority, and he in return said that his government had ‘received the greatest

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assistance from the advice and counsels of Sir Harry Parkes, and he was glad to take so important an occasion of acknowledging this debt of gratitude’.43 The Duke asked him for a poem which he could present to his mother on his return and Meiji obliged him with sentiments that no Sovereign would disagree with: ୡࢆ἞ࡵ ேࢆࡵࡄࡲࡤ ኳᆅࡢ ࡜ࡶ࡟ஂࡋࡃ ࠶ࡿ࡭࠿ࡾࡅࡾ

If one governs the land And benefits the people Heaven and the earth Will surely last together For all eternity.44 Although Parkes had been very anxious before the visit, during it he seems to have actually enjoyed himself, and we encounter the rare thing of him letting his hair down a bit. To Fanny, he described a ball he gave for the Duke: ‘The party kept it up vigorously till two … Mrs Norman made me dance our usual galop, and I had a turn with Mrs Berger also.’45

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*

Another significant British visitor, especially as far as Japan’s future was concerned, was Horatio Nelson Lay, whose father, George Tradescant Lay, we met in China. H.N. Lay had lived in China and been an interpreter but had had a far less successful career in the service than Parkes, and had quit it in 1864, going into financial affairs. Now in Japan, he was offering to raise a loan to enable the Japanese to build a railway. Parkes strongly believed that the Japanese needed to improve their infrastructure. He told the Foreign Secretary, I have had frequent opportunities of discussing with the Mikado’s Government the desirability of introducing railways and telegraphs into Japan. It is essential to the establishment of a vigorous and compact administration under the new constitutional system, and of equal importance to the interests of commerce and the industry of the people that improved means of communication should be provided.46

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Railways were certainly needed as travel was agonisingly slow in Japan. Unlike China, it did not have navigable rivers or canals and many of its roads were very rough, with steep mountainous sections. When the Duke of Edinburgh travelled along the busiest stretch of road in the country, between Tokyo and Yokohama in 1869, the springs of his carriage broke twice because the surface was so uneven, in spite of its having been repaired for his visit. Alcock, who had travelled overland between Osaka to Edo, so traversed almost the entire length of the To-kaido- (he had to make a detour around Kyoto, so missed the very end of the road), wrote that

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macadamizing is woefully wanted, one half the road rising in perilous abruptness one or two feet higher than the lower edge. And in wet weather, the road … becomes a perfect quagmire. What the great Daimios do on such occasions I can not say.47

Modern sea-going ships were the quickest means of transport to almost anywhere in Japan, but few were available to the Japanese. Their traditional vessel, the wasen, which was used until the late 1880s, was barely quicker than walking – they would take from about thirteen to twenty days to get from Yokohama to Kobe, depending on the wind, while a Western steamship would take no longer than two. The preferred method of travel was on foot, or for those who were important enough, being carried in a palanquin. So, as Parkes pointed out, provinces that were separated by 400 or 500 miles were nearly a month’s distance apart. The Japanese government was well aware of the problem, and at the end of 1869 had decided that a railway needed to be built to connect Tokyo and Kyoto, although it had no means of raising the capital to do so. The transcontinental railroad across the United States, which had opened that year, was a much bigger project, making Japan’s challenge seem modest in comparison. In America, private companies had raised the money through the stock markets, but Japan simply did not have the facilities to do this. Rather it had to be financed by the government, which would have to borrow the money, and this was where Lay came in. Parkes was away when the actual deal was signed between Lay and the government and had no oversight of it. This became significant when a year later complaints about it arose in both London and Tokyo. The Japanese had thought that Lay would be raising the money from his rich associates, but in fact he obtained it at

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the stock exchange at a rate of 9%, while charging them 12%.The difference would be pure profit for Lay. The Japanese felt cheated and Parkes became concerned that they would stop wanting to do business with the British. He was also worried that the Japanese would cancel the whole deal, but they decided to pursue it and managed to get the British-owned Oriental Bank to resolve the dispute. In the event, the bank itself lent the money and Japan’s first railway line, from Tokyo to Yokohama, was opened in 1872. In spite of the problems, Britain would continue to play a dominant role in railway construction; of 251 foreigners employed by the Ministry of Industry as engineers and technicians between 1870 and 1885, 233 were British.48 Parkes was equally concerned to encourage the construction of lighthouses in Japan. Maritime safety was a major priority for him, and during the treaty negotiations in 1865 the Japanese had agreed that they would ‘provide all the ports open to foreign trade with such lights, buoys or beacons, as may be necessary to render secure the navigation of the approaches to said Ports’. The Japanese did not know how to build modern lighthouses and after a good deal of pushing from Parkes, they employed a twenty-seven-year-old Scottish engineer, Richard Henry Brunton, accompanied by two assistants, who arrived in Yokohama in August 1868. Brunton was strongly supported by Parkes, who met me with the greatest cordiality and threw himself heart and soul into the work. For many months he was the only medium of communication between the Tokio Government and myself and staff, conducting also all the financial operations … It was through Sir Harry’s energy and unflagging interest that many, many months of delay in inaugurating the work were avoided.49

Brunton had many of Parkes’ own traits; Hugh Cortazzi uses the adjectives ‘difficult’, ‘determined’, ‘obstinate’, ‘intolerant’, ‘impatient’, ‘energetic’, ‘conscientious’, ‘courageous’ and ‘tough’ to describe him.50 He really needed to be like this because he had to face many obstacles: Resignation, insubordination, absence from duty, drunkenness, and other aberrations of conduct among Europeans employed in the Japanese government service, became frequent and distressing. On the other hand, the semi-ignorance of the native servants of the Emperor, and the self-esteem, untrustworthiness, craftiness and

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corruption of the Japanese underlings rendered cooperation by an honourable foreigner with them extremely irritating.51

In spite of these difficulties, Brunton, was extraordinarily successful. During his eight years in Japan, thirty-six lighthouses were constructed, making the coast of Japan as well lit as any in Europe. Parkes, unusually for him, took rather too much of the credit, describing the lighthouse project as the ‘child of my own creation’.52 Although only employed to build lighthouses, Brunton became involved in other projects: he supervised the laying of Japan’s first telegraph, designed a system for drainage and road-building in Yokohama, and built the first iron bridge in Japan, all supported by Parkes. Things were very much settling down in the country, but just to remind Parkes that he was not in a normal place, he was attacked one last time. On this occasion he was riding with a companion at dusk through a crowded street. It looks as if he had no guards. They were moving quickly, which helped – the two assailants swung at them and missed them both. Parkes, never one to shy away from trouble, pulled up and swerved around managing to capture one of them. The man was questioned and gave the name of his accomplice, who was also captured. It was a half-hearted attack. The men were drunk and claimed they had only meant to frighten Parkes. But, as he told Fanny, ‘There would have been little room for a joke if the long sweeping cut which he delivered … had taken effect, and I shall have to insist upon the wretch being severely punished as an example to others.’53 This brought to at least twelve the attempts on his life in China and Japan, although he was never so much as scratched. When added to the fact that he survived diseases that felled so many around him, it is not surprising that he saw himself as being under special divine care – in 1865, he wrote that God had ‘so signally watched over me and protected me’.54 At the same time, he knew that his luck could run out some day, telling Hammond that he hoped he ‘may not someday be an instance of the fatality which ultimately attends the pitcher that goes often to the well.’55 1869 had been a very good year for Japan – it had embedded a revolution, resolved a civil war and established a stable government, but Parkes was surprisingly negative about the country at the end of that year. He thought the Chinese had attained the degree of civilization which the Japanese now possess many centuries ago and are far beyond the latter in laws, literature

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and all moral institutions … The Japanese are more impressionable than the Chinese but are more uncertain in their action, and are apt to abandon any work that calls for continuous effort. At the present time it is no easy task to get men to work steadily at the task of Government … We of course hope for improvement but great social or moral evils are only met by moral cures, which unfortunately are plants of slow growth.56 *

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In the meantime, the Parkes couple had decided that all their children apart from Nellie would be better off living in Britain with their aunt Eliza, Fanny’s unmarried older sister, in Worthing. Fanny would take them there, get them settled and then return. It was common for women in Fanny’s position to have to choose between children and husbands. This time, Fanny took the more usual path – that of husband and duty. Parkes wondered what was in store for them all – he was thinking that he might succeed Alcock as Minister to China – and he would have to live there alone. However, while she was in England, Fanny found out that Wade was being appointed to the position. Parkes probably felt some disappointment, but did not show it to Fanny: If you don’t care for the advancement, I shall not, and whoever may have charge of our interests in China during the next few years will have a troublesome task. If it falls to my lot in the end to have the direction of them I shall probably be better able for the charge at a later date than an earlier one.57 *

Fanny’s long and lonely return voyage to Japan, having left four children in England, must have been a hard one for her. Unfortunately, an accident right at the end of it, would also leave her traumatised. On 24 January 1870, a clear, cold day, an American ship, the USS Oneida weighed anchor at 5pm and her screw began turning, slowly moving her through the crowded waters of Yokohama harbour. Like most ships at the time, the Oneida was a hybrid, using a mixture of steam and sail. When the wind was favourable they would cut the engines in order to save on coal and rely on sail, and this is what they did on this occasion. As they eased out

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into Tokyo Bay, they saw the P&O steamer City of Bombay, which was carrying Fanny, sailing into Yokohama. She was much bigger than the Oneida, displacing nearly a thousand tons more water. She was showing a green, starboard, navigation light and they would pass starboard to starboard with plenty of room to spare, assuming they maintained their courses. However, Captain Eyre of the City of Bombay decided to pass Oneida port to port, meaning that he had to cross her bow. The Oneida’s crew watched in horror as the red port navigation light became visible, which meant they were heading straight towards her. The Oneida turned hard to port, and the City of Bombay seemed to do the same. The City of Bombay’s bow hit the Oneida at an angle of 45 degrees, slamming into the wooden hull. It is striking how, with big maritime disasters, what little notice the collision can attract. When the Titanic struck an iceberg, passengers spoke of thinking there had been some mishap in the kitchen. In this case, Fanny was playing chess with a Miss Binns and was only mildly concerned – they said that it felt like a slight grazing. Nevertheless Fanny thought some kind of collision had taken place and went out, thinking that if they had to get into lifeboats, she would have a better chance if she was prepared. She was probably nervous; Willis had written of her that she was ‘not only a bad sailor in as much as she suffers from seasickness but she is exceedingly timid and in case of rough weather suffers much mental distress about her personal safety’.58 It was a different story on the Oneida however, as the City of Bombay had smashed into her. There were injuries where the impact had been and water was flooding in. It was clear that the Oneida was going to sink quickly (it went down within fifteen minutes) and they prepared to set off distress rockets. Unfortunately, the rockets had been kept on the starboard side of the stern, which no longer existed. This was a critical point. Normally, a ship in the City of Bombay’s situation would have waited to see if a vessel it had collided with was all right but in this case, not seeing any rockets, they assumed that the Oneida was not badly damaged, and carried on. The Oneida only had two lifeboats or ‘cutters’ – her longboats had recently been wrecked in a typhoon and not replaced. They were nowhere near big enough to take everybody. Some got into these boats, some were picked up from the water by Japanese rescuers, but 115 died. The new American Minister, Charles DeLong, no friend of Britain, was convinced that the City of Bombay had deliberately run

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down the Oneida and abandoned her crew knowing they would drown. Parkes wrote ‘it seems unnatural to suppose such a thing’, which sounds reasonable – what motive would Captain Eyre have had for committing mass murder? – but DeLong’s claim still seems to be believed by Americans in Japan.59 The inscription on a memorial placed at the Yokosuka Naval Base in 2006 says that the ship was ‘rammed’ by the City of Bombay, which implies that the collision was deliberate, as does ‘that vessel was sunk, while homeward bound’, written on the memorial in the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery. DeLong was determined to see Captain Eyre prosecuted for either murder or manslaughter. He attended the court and conducted the proceedings on behalf of the United States himself, unwisely Parkes thought. In the event, it was found that the City of Bombay was not at fault for the collision, but should have stayed longer to see if anybody needed rescuing, which is what Parkes believed. DeLong would turn out to be troublesome not only to Parkes but also to his boss, the Secretary of State, and he was recalled in 1873, accused of not following instructions and of poor business practices. He struggled, only having three staff, compared to Parkes’ twelve. A visitor, Charles Longfellow, the son of the poet, thought that it was difficult for ‘Orientals’ to respect US power when the Minister and his staff ‘go about like any cobbler’.60 Unfortunately for Parkes, DeLong would be replaced by someone even more anti-British, John Armor Bingham, who detested him, and even more unfortunately, was long in the job, remaining until 1885. Bingham wrote of how his ‘dear ancestors’ struggle against the tyrannical forces of George III’ led him to be ‘deeply wary of the English government and this attitude was amply reinforced by my dealings with Her Majesty’s representative’.61 This attitude was frustrating for Parkes, who had got along well with Van Valkenburgh, the Minister in the crucial years from 1866 to 1869. Like it or not, they were better off working together, a point which was made clear to Bingham by his Secretary of State: It has been the policy of the United States to act in concert with European powers in Oriental matters. The President has considered your suggestions respecting possible political or commercial objects of other powers conflicting with the interests of the United States, and he has come to the conclusion that it is for the interest of this country to continue the harmonious co-operative action which has been maintained by your predecessors.62

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While Parkes had professional worries, Fanny had personal ones. She was, of course, separated from her four younger children. She was also concerned about her husband, writing that he was ‘looking ill and worn’, having gout, lumbago and diarrhoea; ‘my nursing and care may make him better’, she added hopefully.63 However, it was she who became seriously ill, catching the typhus fever that was going around. She recovered, but one of their best friends, Prudence (Prudie) Wilkinson, did not. She died, on 7 March, leaving two little children; the elder, who was only three, had been named Hiram Parkes, as a mark of respect and friendship for the Minister. Fanny took charge of Prudie’s children and husband. He was accountant to the Legation, ‘my managing man at Yokohama’, and really diligent, patient, painstaking, as well as being one of the few kindred spirits Parkes had among his staff. In spite of how pressed Parkes was, with Mitford gone and Satow and Siebold on leave, he felt he had to let Wilkinson return to England. He explained to Hammond what this meant: ‘He will be even a greater loss to me in the office than Mitford and my staff will thus be reduced to three students’ – he pleaded for another £100 for two of them because of the extra work they had to do.64 Unfortunately, their troubles were not over as John O’Driscoll, whom Parkes thought was the most promising student of Japanese since Satow, died on 28 April.65 The shortage of staff put him under huge strain: in addition to his onerous responsibilities as Minister, he had to manage both the Yokohama Consulate and the Tokyo Legation, and keep the accounts himself. Parkes of course pressed on, and he and Fanny took an energetic trip to Nikko in May, being the first Westerners to see the great temples there and both ascending Mt. Asamayama, Fanny probably being the first woman to climb the peak. Nikko, he thought, from its holy character is a place which all Japanese might not like to see foreigners visiting, [but] I have met with nothing but the greatest civility both from officials and people, and am enjoying an opportunity of making myself acquainted with the districts of the great Yedo plain which commercially considered is perhaps the most valuable part of Japan’.66

In November, they went to Osaka, where they visited the brandnew mint and Fanny struck the first coins ever produced by machinery in Japan. Parkes had long argued that Japan needed

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a sound currency, and he had managed to achieve the delicate balance of having Japanese ownership but foreign oversight of the operation – he felt that the Japanese could not be trusted to operate it efficiently and honestly, and that there had to be some guarantee of the soundness of the coins coming out of it.

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*

Parkes was rather fortunate to receive home leave in 1871 because there was an unwritten rule that there had to be ten years between leaves and his last one had been 1862–1864. But he certainly could plead special circumstances with his family separated and him exhausted. Just before he went, Parkes was given an audience of the Emperor, now eighteen, to take his leave. No foreign representative had ever been so honoured, and Meiji expressed his deep gratitude to Parkes for the assistance he had given the imperial cause. He presented Parkes with a superb sword in gold mounts by Tomomitsu, dating from 1335, which Parkes passed it on to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), where it still sits. It was, incidentally, joined at the same time there by a remarkable assemblage of around four hundred sheets of Japanese paper, which contains samples of almost every kind of washi manufactured in Japan at the time. The ‘Parkes collection’ was gathered following a request from Russell who had heard that paper was used in Japan to make domestic objects and thought it was ‘of importance to the manufacturers of this country to be made acquainted with the various uses to which experience in Japan has proved that the material of paper can be applied’.67 Parkes made sure the request was fulfilled with typical thoroughness: the report accompanying it is said to be the best record of the craft from this time and the collection’s importance was confirmed when it was exhibited in Japan in 1993. In addition to this collection, there is a set of thirty objects gathered by Parkes at Kew Gardens, including bark, paper samples and paper artefacts. The Emperor’s principal Minister (the Udaijin), Sanjo- Sanetomi, topped off the special treatment they were giving Parkes by telling Gladstone: Our Government has trusted profoundly to him as a support, and have frequently received his aid in different matters with various nations and it is truly impossible to express our sense of gratitude.

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He has informed me that he is about to return to England, and I have been commanded by His Majesty the Tenno- to take the opportunity of telling your Excellency of his merits during his period of office, and I have the honour to request that you will lay these facts before Her Majesty the Queen of England.68

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There was clearly a coordinated effort on the part of the Imperial household and the government to give the highest possible honour to Parkes. They were departing far from the diplomatic playbook in sending this gushing tribute about someone who was only going on leave. It speaks to the fact that despite some bitter disputes and harsh words, they held Parkes in extraordinarily high esteem.This warm feeling would certainly be tested in the coming years.

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‘This is Becoming Civilised with a Vengeance’ Britain, 1871–1873

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™

PARKES, FANNY AND Nellie took the new route back home, via the transcontinental railroad crossing the United States. It was now the quickest way back to Europe and also enabled him to gain an impression of the nation that was emerging as Britain’s principal rival in east Asia, with France out for the count following its catastrophic defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. It sounds as if Parkes was actually able to relax on the voyage across the Pacific, a friend writing that ‘he was cheerful and bright’, and ‘in fair weather or fog, he was always delighted to play a game at deck-quoits or bull-board, throwing his whole heart into it with the warm enthusiasm and merry laughter of a schoolboy’.1 The Parkes trio docked in Liverpool on 9 August, and they travelled to Iford, near Lewes in Sussex, where the whole family stayed in the rectory which belonged to Fanny’s uncle.The restless Parkes then took them to Bridge of Allan where he was able to indulge his love of hill climbing. They spent the autumn in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, and then moved to a house in London: 1 Lancaster Gate, near Paddington station, now the Corus Hotel Hyde Park. The area had been developed between 1860 and 1870 and was described in 1878 as a ‘splendid new city of palaces’.2 It was typical of the new, fashionable houses that he would choose when they were in England. They were to have an eventful stay there. Harry gave them a scare, going down with scarlet fever, and on 28 April 1872 a fourth daughter, christened Lillian Hope, was born. Just six weeks after the birth of Lillian, on 14 June, the Parkes family lost Nellie to diphtheria. Such a close sequence of birth and death was, of course, not so unusual at the time, but it seems that nothing was 197

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ever really the same for the Parkes family after that, certainly not for Fanny. Dickins tells us that ‘the shock was a terrible one; she never quite rallied from it; but the shadow that thenceforth hung over her life, … paled all her joy’.3 It is ironic that the family survived China and Japan, which had far worse mortality rates than Britain, but then succumbed when they got home (Parkes himself was the only one of them to die in China or Japan). Nellie was buried at St. Lawrence’s in what would go on to be Parkes’ and Fanny’s grave, and a plaque put up in the church to their ‘dearlyloved daughter … who, after realizing the blessedness of humble and implicit trust in her saviour, died’. A quotation from Hebrews follows: ‘Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.’ It feels like Parkes the evangelical was hoping to send a message to anybody who read it. Although there was plenty happening on the domestic front, Parkes was very busy on the work one. On 11 and 18 April, he was grilled at length by a Parliamentary select committee looking into the consular and diplomatic services, being questioned not only about Japan, but also about China and Siam. He was impressive, being neither evasive nor defensive, but answering fully and authoritatively. This was in contrast to Hammond, who dealt with them in classic Foreign Office mandarin style, admitting to a friend that he had evolved a technique of ‘drowning in a flood of words ... questions that might lead to inconvenience’.4 The Foreign Office frequently consulted Parkes about Japanese matters, and his opinions were more trusted than those of the man left as Chargé d’Affaires in his place, F.O. Adams. Certain tricky matters had to be decided, including whether a British garrison was still needed in Yokohama. Parkes did not think Japan was safe enough to withdraw it and was strongly supported in this stance by the foreign community. He said that they should leave it there another year and see how things looked, advice that was taken. The garrison was smaller than in the years of its peak in 1863 to 1869, but until it was withdrawn in 1875, there were never fewer than five hundred British soldiers in Yokohama. Of course, withdrawing the garrison would save money, but there was another very good reason for doing this, and also having the navy pay fewer visits. Being in Japan had a devastating effect on them because of the extremely high rate of venereal diseases there, which the men would catch in the pleasure quarters they inevitably visited. Dr Willis had complained in 1863 that the ‘whole, young and old, go with Japanese women of the lowest class,

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who are diseased as a rule’ and that the men took the resulting disease ‘as the most natural thing in the world, and neither see the shame or disgust of it’.5 With 10,000 or so sailors passing through Yokohama each year on British ships, the scale of the problem was obvious. In order to tackle it, Parkes offered the Japanese government the services of the naval surgeon, Dr Newton, if they would build a lock hospital (one specifically for women with a venereal disease) and make periodic examination of the prostitutes mandatory. The idea was that an arrangement would be made with certain brothels that their women would be inspected weekly and those who were diseased would be removed to the hospital where they would receive treatment. British forces, who would also be inspected, would then be instructed to visit only those houses. Such a hospital was opened in Yokohama in 1868, which was so successful that the Japanese agreed to other such hospitals being built at Kobe and Nagasaki. In the early 1880s, this system came to the notice of the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act in Britain. The act, passed in 1864, had legalised prostitution and put the women under police and medical control. The Association saw lock hospitals as legitimising prostitution, and indeed almost encouraging it, whereas they thought the policy should be to end it. Parkes found it difficult to answer them because he could not disagree with their central argument – that prostitution was sinful and should not be condoned – and resorted to obfuscation and an outright lie (the only one that I have discovered him telling): that British Naval Officers no longer superintended the hospitals, which was not true when he wrote it in 1881.6 In fact, when Dr George Hill left the Yokohama lock hospital in 1879 and the Japanese Foreign Ministry said they wanted it to be entirely run by Japanese staff, Parkes pushed hard to make sure his successor was British, not trusting the Japanese to manage it properly. It must have given such a truthful man some pain to mislead a morally upright organisation which trusted him implicitly. While in Britain he was able to plead for better Legation buildings. It was now safe for them to live in Tokyo, but the premises there were temporary and uncomfortable. Before he set off on leave he had found the site that the Embassy still occupies, beside the moat of the Imperial Palace. Parkes thought it was so ideal that he undertook to lease it without the agreement of the Treasury. It received government approval as did his very modest plans for the buildings. Parkes was well aware that the Treasury would

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disapprove of anything frivolous or overly grand; the ‘high stone towers’, he wrote, that had been built for the Yokohama Consulate had ‘cost much money, were not in any way useful’, and were dangerous in a country plagued by earthquakes.7 Consequently, the buildings he proposed were very plain; indeed the Far East said ‘we confess that we have never seen public buildings of a less imposing appearance’.8 Parkes did, however, decide that one tower was needed as a fitting place from which to fly the flag. Unfortunately, when it was constructed, it was realised that the flag would flutter higher than the roof of the Imperial Palace, so a separate flagstaff had to be put up and the tower was used to house a water tank. Parkes was right that towers were a mistake in a country like Japan because this one collapsed in an earthquake on 20 June 1894. Parkes would also be occupied by taking care of the Iwakura Mission – a top-level fact-finding tour aimed at gathering information about the world’s leading powers and gaining insights into how Japan could progress. It included men who were key architects of Meiji Japan: Kido, Ito- and Okubo, all vice-ambassadors, and was led by Iwakura as envoy extraordinary and ambassador plenipotentiary. They arrived in Liverpool on 17 August 1872 from the United States. They started with a fairly gentle tour of London and the south of England, followed by an intensive schedule of factory, office and institutional visits outside London, organised by the indefatigable Parkes. Crowds of people turned out to see them. In Tynemouth, they were introduced to a system whereby a rocket with a rope attached could be fired out to sea to rescue a person in distress.They also saw a similar piece of equipment which could allow a bosun’s chair to travel back and forth (it could be attached to a stricken vessel to carry those on board ashore). According to the Mission’s record, Parkes got into the chair and as he left the shore, a cheer went up from the people on this side, and when he reached the far shore we heard another cheer from the people there. By this time it was almost dark, so magnesium flares were lit on the hilltop … The shadow of the tub was cast on the water, and we saw the indistinct form of Sir Harry coming back across the waves.The cheering from both sides of the bay was ceaseless. It was a remarkable scene.9

It seems extraordinary for a man of Parkes’ rank to have submitted himself to this – a Japanese official would not have dreamt

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of doing anything like it. Although in some respects he was extremely concerned about ‘maintaining his position’ as Minister – he dressed impeccably, insisted on respectful forms of address, often refused to travel in ordinary ships – he did not stand on his dignity in others. Satow watched him scramble ‘up to the top of a large shed … to get a view of the surrounding country’ in Niigata, ‘much to the horror of Mitford and myself, who were so orientalised by this time in our notions that we longed to see our chief conduct himself with the impassive dignity of a Japanese gentleman’.10 As Alcock observed, a ‘Japanese Magnate[’s] … progress never exceeds two or three miles an hour’ and he ‘is quite above sudden changes’.11 With Parkes, ‘Everything was done at full speed. If he went for a ride, he galloped all the way; and if he walked, it was at the rate of four miles an hour.’12 Isabella Bird was struck by Parkes’ willingness to slum it: when he and Fanny jumped into ordinary rickshaws, ‘it was most amusing to see the representative of England hurried down the street in a perambulator with a tandem of coolies’.13 Britons of far lower status would move around in phaetons, with a groom running in front to shout at people to get out of the way. Parkes was anxious for the Iwakura Mission to think that Britain was the best of all the countries they were visiting and became very boastful. For example, on a train to Manchester, he told Iwakura that Lancashire was said to have more factories than anywhere else in the world and that ‘as far as Japan’s future traffic with the world and the promotion of new enterprise is concerned, this is the single most significant tour of inspection you are likely to have’.14 They wanted to meet with Queen Victoria before they had any talks with the government but discovered that she was at Balmoral and would not see them until 5 November, which was very inconvenient. However, on that day, the Queen gave them an audience of one-and-a-half hours, which was far longer than they expected and, according to one newspaper, was ‘particularly gratifying to the distinguished Orientals’.15 They met with the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville, on 27 November 1872, their main high-level meeting while in Britain, although they communicated with Granville further while they were there. Granville told them that the British were keen to see religious toleration, more freedom for merchants to travel in Japan, and more treaty ports opened. They were unenthusiastic about all

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three. When they were asked about their views on treaty revision, they said that they were only there to sound out British opinion. Granville was able to see for himself the lack of clarity in Japanese negotiating positions, which made him realise why Parkes sometimes could not make more progress. They mentioned extraterritoriality, and Granville agreed to gradually ease the system. The trouble was that by Western standards, the justice system of Japan was very murky; there was no equality before the law, torture and brutal punishments were common and there was no proper judiciary, legal matters being dealt with by officials on an ad hoc basis. In 1866, a Minister told Parkes: We think by concealing the laws they will inspire more terror, and consequently repress crime more effectually … When a man sees or hears of another man’s having been beheaded he fears the law and the less he knows of its particular provisions the more he will dread it.16

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Even the new penal code of 1882 did not meet with Parkes’ approval because Japanese law ‘appears to be changed from day to day by Imperial Decrees and Administrative Notifications which are probably only known within the Departments which issue them’.17 Furthermore, even good codes were ‘merely books’ unless they were supported by ‘the judges and magistrates who could administer them’.18 After he left Japan, Parkes explained, Whenever Japanese Ministers spoke to me about the abolition of consular jurisdiction I told them that Great Britain would be only too pleased to get rid of the heavy expense and responsibility of maintaining trained judges and competent Courts in the various treaty ports of Japan … All this expense we incurred in consequence of consular jurisdiction, and we must continue to incur it until Japanese tribunals can be trusted with the liberties and property of our merchants.19

Today, the British insistence on their own courts in nations like Japan and China may seem like a relic of an imperialistic past, but in fact extraterritoriality is still alive and well. When American or British military personnel or civilians working for the military in, say, Iraq or Afghanistan, are accused of a crime, they are not tried by local courts, but by US- or UK-created ones.20 (As I write this, I see that a US State Department spokesman has expressed

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‘grave concern’ about American citizens being subjected ‘to China’s capricious judicial system’.21) The British press was positive in its coverage of the Mission. One newspaper even thought that ‘in many useful departments of everyday life these untaught islanders might give valuable hints to English trade and commerce’.22 The Graphic considered Iwakura to be a ‘sensible, able, dignified, and sincere man; he is a bright thinker, a subtle reasoner, he is gifted with a singular charm and felicity of manner, and is anxious to see his country join frankly in fellowship with the West’.23 One wished they had worn traditional Japanese dress when they had their audience of the Queen, commenting sardonically, ‘Emphatically may we cry at this …, Bravo Japan! This is becoming civilised with a vengeance.’24 The Mission was grateful to Parkes for his assistance on the trip and after they left Britain for France, sent a long note of thanks. The main lesson they had learned was just how far behind Japan was and the need for it to become more powerful so that it could negotiate from a position of strength. On 18 January 1873, the Parkes family set off back to Japan, departing on the P&O Steamer Deccan, taking everybody except ten-year-old Harry who was to stay for his education and the better medical help available in England. A local newspaper notice about their departure gives us, unusually, a glimpse of their servants: a governess, nurse and page – presumably the page was to serve Parkes, the governess to manage the three older children, and the nurse to help Fanny take care of Lillian, who was nine months old.25 Fanny would have needed all the help she could get as she was pregnant yet again. Many Victorian doctors would have tactfully suggested that after Lillian, Fanny, now in her forties, have no more babies, as we are repeatedly told that she was ‘not strong’. However, she had to face giving birth a second time in twelve months. The passage from England to Gibraltar was rough and they were stuck in Suez for three days, ‘the heat and discomfort of which’, he told Lockhart, ‘you know well’. In addition, as they went down the Red Sea, they had to keep the port-holes closed, to prevent coal-dust coming in, which made their cabins unbearably hot. ‘Bad weather’, he told Lockhart, ‘tries Minnie and all the children a good deal, but they revive directly the sea goes down, though they droop before the heat’.26 As for Fanny, she was not doing very well, although he hoped that things would improve once they reached Bombay, where they would be able to take

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a break, although that was still only halfway. They could not stay very long there though, because they wanted to get back to Yokohama before Fanny gave birth again. In the event, they just made it: they arrived on 26 March and Frances Emmeline, known, like her mother as Fanny (we will call her ‘Frances’ to avoid confusion) was born on 4 April.

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‘I Arrived Too Late’ Tokyo – Britain, 1874–1881

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™

THE FOREIGN RESIDENTS had perceived Parkes’ two stand-ins in Japan, Adams and Watson, as being far too willing to compromise with the Japanese government and were relieved to see Parkes back in his rightful place. The staff at the Legation, on the other hand, were less happy, although Willis wrote a year later that Parkes was a bit mellower: ‘gouty and livery and not up to his old standard of making everyone miserable over whom he holds power’.1 During the two years he had been away, much had happened. In addition to the new railway line from Tokyo to Yokohama, the government had introduced conscription to establish a national army, and samurai men had lost their exclusive right to bear arms. The nation was more stable and the government more confident, which may be why it was becoming more assertive. On the face of it, they treated Parkes with great respect – on 19 April he was given an informal audience of the Emperor and the Empress, a ‘marked advance’, he thought, ‘as compared with the forms observed at the time of my departure’.2 However, they were consulting him less, and there was a coldness about their communications with him. In May 1874 Parkes told the Foreign Secretary that the authorities had the mistaken supposition that by making themselves unpleasant to foreigners, the Japanese Government may prevail upon the latter to submit more easily to Japanese views. The unfriendly attitude had appeared more marked since the return of the Japanese embassy from Europe, and I think there is little doubt that it may be mainly attributed to the disappointment felt by Iwakura, on finding that the Governments of the Treaty Powers were not inclined to yield 205

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to the wishes of the Japanese Government on those important points, which the latter, acting upon unsound foreign advice had prematurely raised, namely jurisdiction over foreigners and the abrogation of the existing Tariff.3

Parkes makes it sound as if it was foreigners in general who were being treated roughly, but the Japanese had become particularly unfriendly to the British. The Iwakura Mission had realised that Britain was far from the only country Japan could deal with, and America was looking like a more sympathetic partner. As Gordon Daniels put it, they were feeling that in the

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United States [they] had a friend far closer in outlook to its energetic, patriotic and pioneering spirit than was Great Britain, whose attitude was still one of conservatism, superiority and selfrighteousness … personified in the rough insensitive paternalism of Sir Harry Parkes.4

That said, the actions the government took to show its annoyance at gaining no concessions with regard to treaty reform, affected everybody. To make their point, they started to enforce the existing treaties more stringently. For example, a stagecoach had been operating between Yokohama and Odawara for five years and was well used by foreigners. In January 1874, the government decreed that as Odawara was outside the twenty-five mile treaty port limit, the service had to cease. On 15 July, Parkes received a telegram from Lord Derby, who had just returned to the Foreign Office (as Lord Stanley, he had served as Foreign Secretary from 1866 to 1868), telling him ‘to inform the Japanese Government that the shuffling unsatisfactory condition of the relations between the present administration in Japan and foreigners is engaging the serious attention of H.M.’s Government who are in communication with the other Treaty Powers on the subject.’5 Parkes really should have thought that ‘shuffling’ was not the kind of word that Derby would have used in such a communication and it had indeed been mistranscribed – it should have been ‘very’. Still, it seemed appropriate and Parkes, before he knew it was a mistake, wrote that ‘“shuffling” describes with admirable force and truth the action of the Japanese, and no other word could do it so well’.6 The telegraph had been operating between Europe and Japan since 1871, when a submarine cable was laid between Nagasaki

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and Shanghai. Up to this point, Japan had been the most isolated Legation in the world, allowing Parkes a lot of latitude. Now he would receive the Foreign Secretary’s instructions the day they were sent. However, telegrams were expensive to send, costing about £1 for every two words, meaning that they had to be short. Anything that was complex still had to be communicated by letter and, as we have seen, mistakes happened. (One telegram, sent by Parkes in 1865 via Galle, came out as: ‘From Sir Henry Carks to Earl Russell, Shpghai Becre fe the Mikado has approved the treaties the tenion of the tarif has been agreed to the opening of Hiogo in yo year’ etc.)7 During the ‘shuffling’ of the 1870s there was frustration on both sides: the Japanese wanted to be able to set their own tariffs, while Parkes was annoyed by the way they were absolutely refusing to allow Western businessmen to invest in enterprises outside the treaty port limits. He believed (wrongly) that Japan had immense mineral resources and that if Britain were to help with exploiting them then both sides would benefit. However, the Foreign Minister, Terashima, told him that the minerals belonged to Japan and they must be left undisturbed until the Japanese themselves were able to extract them.8 The Japanese were also fighting to gain control over postal services. When Westerners arrived, Japan had no organised mail network so they established their own postal agencies in Yokohama. However, as Japan’s mail system developed, it wanted to take over the running of all the postal services in the country. In September 1873, the United States agreed to hand over its postal agencies (while insisting that the Postmaster-General should be American). Parkes, backed up by the foreign residents, wanted to keep postal services to Britain in British hands until he was sure that the Japanese could manage them competently. Fundamentally, the Japanese wanted to be treated as equal to the Western powers.They no longer wanted Parkes’ lectures on where they were going wrong and what they needed to change. A shocking example of one of these, if it is true, is the claim by Edward House that Parkes had ‘harangued’ the Emperor on the subject of his sovereign duties in a way that was ‘so grossly impertinent’ that the other diplomatic representatives who were present ‘were forced to disavow it’.9 It probably had truth in it, because we know from another incident that Parkes was not afraid to confront the Emperor. Back in 1869, at an audience given to him and Admiral Hornby, Meiji delivered a short message expressing his hope that

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Queen Victoria was in good health. When Parkes realised that the Queen had been given a lesser title than the Emperor, he stunned everybody by telling him, ‘Until you cease to refer to Queen Victoria as teio, as you have just done in your message, and until you substitute the title kotei for teio, you will be guilty of disrespect towards my Sovereign’, whereupon he walked out.10 Although Parkes was still treated with god-like respect by the British residents in Japan, he was starting to look somehow out of touch, and after nine years, no longer the vigorous figure he had been when he arrived. He was not helped by the fact that Fanny was seriously depressed and contemplating suicide. When she later looked back on that time, she remarked, ‘I was very selfish in letting’ him ‘see my depressions’, but she had not thought that ‘there was anything to attach one to life’. We might expect Parkes to have been dismissive of such a problem, but it sounds as if the opposite was true, Fanny saying, ‘Any one less patient and unselfish … could not have borne with it.’11 The only solution seemed to be that Fanny should go back to England, which she did on 5 November 1878, with all the five children in Japan (Harry was already there). Parkes hoped that he would be able to join her in a year or so, but unfortunately that was not to be. The breakup of their family home must have been terribly painful, especially as it sounds so comfortable and happy in the description of Isabella Bird who had visited earlier in the year: The butler and footman are tall Chinamen, with long pig-tails, black satin caps, and long blue robes; the cook is a Chinaman, and the other servants are all Japanese, including one female servant, a sweet, gentle, kindly girl about 4 feet 5 in height … None of the servants speak anything but the most aggravating “pidgun” English, but their deficient speech is more than made up for by the intelligence and service of the orderly in waiting … There are two real English children of six and seven [Frances and Lillian], with great capacities for such innocent enjoyments as can be found within the limits of the nursery and garden.12

Parkes explained to William Lockhart that Fanny was not robust when she left me, but I hope the change will do her good. She will form her plans after she arrives at home, where the responsibility of all the children will give her ample care and occupation. Her departure reduces me to a desolate condition, which will oblige me to follow her at no distant date.13

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Parkes made a special effort to send morale-boosting letters, trying to make her realise how much she was liked in Japan: Mr Glover particularly pleased me by calling to tell how greatly you were appreciated by all your Japanese acquaintances – male and female. Several of these had spontaneously observed to him how much you had done to take them by the hand and to bring them into your own society and that of foreigners.14

At the time, the wives of Japanese officials were expected to be invisible and kept completely out of their husbands’ working lives. For example, in 1879, Parkes mentions a New Year entertainment given by the leading figures in Tokyo for all government Ministers, the Foreign Ministers, Consuls etc., but ‘there were no ladies.That may be attempted the next time, the difficulty being to get a Japanese lady qualified to take the lead on the occasion.’15 Parkes had a low opinion of Japanese women, thinking they needed guidance from Western, particularly British, ones. In 1872, he wrote,

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I suppose the tone of Japanese ladies is much the same as that of the Chinese, and there I have known the force of example and principle of the European lady check irregularities or lightness of demeanour … Japanese women will soon feel the need of … instruction and I think they would be better provided in England than if they were to look towards the United States.16

Fanny’s life was different to theirs because Parkes involved her in his work as much as possible and told her about everything that was going on. Lane-Poole explains it in this way: She was deeply interested in everything that he did; she understood the problems with which he had to deal, and was eager to learn every step he took in the political complications of the time. Hence his letters [to her] … are … full of his views on all the events … and they contain a minute record of his thoughts and acts.17

Even on her deathbed, she was discussing the Ryu-kyu- affair, quarantine regulations and a plan for paying off the national debt with Isabella Bird.18 Her friendliness towards the wives of Japanese officials speaks well of her – it would certainly have been easier for her to just

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keep the company of Westerners; conversation with Japanese women would inevitably have been stilted, even painful. It was also unusual, Parkes being told that ‘no other foreign lady … had ever made similar endeavours’, and that the Japanese recognized that her ‘efforts were attributable altogether’ to her ‘own kind feeling, and were something altogether apart from official observances, and were not done for public effect’.19 Bird painted a picture of Fanny as woman who was kind to everyone. When she left for England, Bird wrote, she ‘carried the good-will and regret of the whole foreign community’ because she had

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given liberally of those sympathies in sorrow and of those acts of thoughtful and unostentatious kindness, which are specially appreciated by those who are ‘strangers in a strange land’. People only need to be afflicted in ‘mind, body, or estate’, to be sure of soft, kind words genuinely spoken and generous attempts at alleviation.20

Parkes was itching to join her and was hopeful that as the new Foreign Secretary, Lord Salisbury, had decided that the treaty revision would be carried out in London, he would think Parkes’ presence would be needed there, as he understood the issues involved better than anyone else. On 5 February 1879, Parkes received the magic telegram ordering him to come home once R.J. Kennedy, who would act as Chargé d’Affaires in his absence, arrived. Parkes told Fanny the news on the same day and had already researched which would be the best ship for him to take, going via America. Leaving on 4 March, it would get him to Britain on 10 April, which was exceptionally fast (forty years earlier, it had taken him nearly four months to get from England to Macao). It was extremely lucky to be summoned back for work purposes because he would have his whole fare paid and it would not be counted as leave. However, even to Fanny, he was careful not to sound triumphant: ‘I shall come there to work, to join in a Conference relative to the Japan Treaty – which I shall not like.’21 However, in what would turn out to be an extremely unfortunate development, Parkes’ departure was delayed. The Japanese were saying that they would not discuss the tariff and everybody felt that if that was the case then the conference would be a waste of time. Parkes blamed the Americans, who had conceded everything Japan desired: the end of extraterritoriality, the freedom

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to set tariffs and the right to stop Western companies operating coastal vessels, but under the condition that all other Powers do the same. Of course the Americans acted very falsely in making such a Treaty, as they knew well that all the other Powers would not agree to it, and therefore that they might make themselves agreeable to the Japanese without incurring any risk.22

In spite of this, Parkes felt he needed to return to Britain anyway: ‘whether there be a Conference or not, I think it would be desirable that I should come home in order that I may thoroughly understand the views of our Government’.23 Unfortunately, Salisbury did not agree, instructing Parkes to delay his departure. In the pre-telegraph days Parkes, having been told he could go to Britain, would have been able to judge for himself when he should leave, but now he had to wait for the order. To Fanny, he was philosophical:

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I should have been glad to find myself on my way home in order that I might rejoin you and the children and embrace you both warmly, and yet I should have been sorry to have to take part in a Conference and see my Government taking part in one which must have proved a failure.24

On 2 April, he received the miserable news from Salisbury that the treaties would be revised in Tokyo instead of London. Parkes was angry and blamed everybody in sight. He thought the Japanese were at fault for attempting to bypass the Ministers in Tokyo and appeal directly to the European governments. He also was uncharacteristically critical of the British Foreign Secretary. The government, he told Fanny, have made a thorough failure of their attempt to conduct Japanese negotiations in London, and this ought to make them disposed to consider my difficulties. Lord Salisbury has apprised me by telegram in the briefest form that ‘negotiations are to take place in Yedo,’ and I must await despatches, which will be six weeks more on their way before I learn what I have to do.25

Parkes was finding everything difficult. Even the fairly trivial matter of a ball on the Queen’s birthday was a source of stress: ‘I am

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at present in a state of agony, as I found I could not well get out of giving’ one. In the past, Fanny had arranged things like that, managing the delicate task of deciding who to invite. Parkes did not much like social occasions anyway: Janet Aston said that he was ‘by no means a society man; one felt that to him society instead of being a relaxation was rather regarded as a part of the day’s work – and not the pleasantest part’.26 This may have been because social events made him anxious. Chamberlain observed that at

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committees and on all public or semi-public occasions, Sir Harry was a ready and felicitous speaker, though in general conversation he had a nervous habit of repeating his words. Curiously enough, this habit deserted him when tête-à-tête with any one whom he cared to talk to. He then became as fluent and interesting as when speaking before a large audience.27

As for the guest list, he pretty much followed Fanny’s list from the previous year, and ‘as usual every reply I receive is an acceptance’. An additional name was that of a grandson of Queen Victoria’s, sixteen-year-old Prince Henry of Prussia, making invitations much more sought after than usual. In the end 260 were accepted – the absolute maximum number of people that could possibly be accommodated. The arrangements ‘of course I had to do entirely by myself, for several days’. ‘It is truly a severe ordeal’.28 He decided the event should take place outdoors, and had a pavilion constructed on the lawn and another for a band. It seemed a good idea – it was May, so hopefully the temperature would be comfortable, and the day dawned fine. However, unfortunately, at midday it began to rain in torrents: The place is deluged – pavilions thoroughly soaked and I am in despair … I really don’t know what to do, as I have no accommodation in the house either for the band or supper … It is no use crying over spilt milk, and I must bear the disaster as I best can. It is now four o’clock and the house is in the state of the direst confusion – new mats covered with mud, flowers coming in soaking wet, confectionery … in a state of pulp, and everything about as bad as it can be.29

The bad weather did not put off many of the guests – 170 still came, which could just be squeezed into the residence. Prince Henry turned out to be a ‘very nice boy’, a midshipman in the

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German navy, and staying as the Duke of Edinburgh had at the Hama-Goten residence. Unfortunately, on his arrival in Yokohama, he had to be told of the death of his eleven-year-old brother, Prince Waldemar, of diphtheria. His programme was therefore very curtailed, but he and Parkes seem to have got along, seeing a lot of each other during the three weeks or so he was in Japan. ‘I like young Prince Henry very much’, Parkes told Fanny; ‘he is so unaffected; speaks English with an accent, but very well; … he always addresses me in conversation as “sir”.’30 Parkes was exhausted and was feeling the aches and pains of middle age (he was now 51) as well as the strain of overwork. The Legation doctor, William Anderson, took him for four days to Tomioka, a pleasant seaside place near Yokohama. Anderson was a remarkable personality, who went on to be elected Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy of Art. There he combined his medical skills with drawing ones and he is now most famous for the Japanese art he acquired, which became the foundation of the British Museum’s Japanese collection. Parkes was needing his medical skills however, suffering from a sudden attack of neuralgia in his stomach. He told Fanny,

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my weakness is painfully palpable to myself, and I never felt strength come back so slowly. I shall not fail, therefore, to turn the warning to account, and shall finish off one or two things that press and then take a fortnight’s complete holiday in the country. It is only head-work or worry of mind that exhausts me, and the pain is then apt to return.31

At the end of June, Parkes heard that Admiral Coote, the current Commander-in-Chief of the China station, was going to Hakodate for ten days, and that seemed a good opportunity to take the rest he needed in a cool place. But on his return, he had to face working ‘from seven to seven amid stinging insects, perspiration, and fatigue’.32 The following year, his doctor told the Foreign Office he was suffering from ‘blood impoverishment, nervous exhaustion, mental and physical strain, a disturbed liver, a troublesome cough, and frequent attacks of gout’.33 Although Parkes was feeling sorry for himself, Fanny was facing much more serious health problems, having to use a bath chair to get around. ‘It is sad to think that you should be reduced to such a state of weakness – you who have been so active throughout your life and have performed such feats of travel, endurance and

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constant labour’, Parkes told her.34 He wanted to be with her and was still pushing to return to Britain to consult with Salisbury about the revisions to the treaty. But for the moment, there was a very interesting visitor from the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding General of the northern army in the Civil War, and President from 1869 to 1877. After leaving office, he had embarked on a world tour, unofficially representing and promoting the United States. Japan was the last country he visited, and he stayed there for more than two months during the summer of 1879. He was the first former Head of State to visit Japan, and the Japanese resolved to treat him as if he still was one, feting him with the most lavish and extensive reception they had ever given a foreign visitor. They wanted him to think they were the most civilised Asian country and he wanted them to think that the United States was sympathetic to getting the treaties revised in their favour. Parkes was determined to be unimpressed by Grant or by Japanese efforts to entertain him. He felt that it was easy to talk in generalities about closer relationships and the unfairness of unequal treaties but very much more difficult to negotiate the details of them. Parkes’ feelings about Grant were not helped when the latter turned down an invitation from him, explaining that his tight schedule was forcing him ‘to decline all private hospitalities’.35 There was an epidemic of cholera at the time, which killed more than 100,000 people in 1879 and overshadowed Grant’s time in the country.The Japanese very much wanted to hold a big festival in Ueno during his stay, and delayed it until the end of the visit, when they hoped the danger from the disease would be less. Parkes enjoyed watching them tie themselves into knots over it:

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.

It was first intended to be given to General Grant, and the managers, as a second thought, invited the Mikado who declined on the ground of the prevalence of cholera. The subject then dropped, but was revived later in better form – the Mikado being invited first and then General Grant. It went off very well on the whole, though the day was too hot for complete enjoyment, and a good deal of time was lost or spent unprofitably.36

Parkes was accustomed to being in the position of passing on Western expertise in dealing with things like cholera, but in this case, the Japanese were determined to do it their own way. Their measures looked very haphazard. For example, when the Genkai

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Maru docked in Yokohama in August, the authorities insisted on quarantining the Western passengers, but allowed some Japanese to leave. Parkes viewed Japanese attempts to manage the quarantine on incoming shipping as an underhand way of assuming powers of jurisdiction which the treaties did not give them. His opposition to their actions led to accusations that he was responsible for the deaths of all those who died in the outbreak. This was unfair, but the Japanese thought that the epidemic had originated on a British naval vessel, the Lily, so the British were to blame one way or another. Parkes denied this, maintaining that cholera had been present in Nagasaki and blamed unsanitary conditions. However, the disease had been present in Chinese ports from August to September 1877 so probably it had spread from there to Japan – British ships were the most likely means for it to have done so. Bingham, the American Minister, naturally supported the Japanese over quarantine, so the foreign Ministers were divided, a situation Parkes always tried to avoid. Things came to a head when a German vessel, the Hesperia, protected by a German cruiser, forced its way past the Japanese quarantine patrol. Grant said the Japanese would have been justified in firing on it. Another annoying visitor in the summer of 1879 was John Pope-Hennessy, the Governor of Hong Kong. Isabella Bird commented darkly that he had ‘known sympathies with coloured people’.37 She had grounds for this, Pope-Hennessy having stopped Chinese labourers being forced to go to Australia and appointed Chinese and Indians to the colony’s legislative council. The Yu- bin Ho-chi newspaper thought that his actions were in direct contrast to the ‘active principle of the English in the far east’, which was to ‘suck out the last drop of blood from the people’.38 As might be expected, he clashed with Parkes – he complained to Gladstone about Parkes’ ‘bullying’ and ‘acrid policy’.39 Parkes wrote ‘I utterly mistrust him’ and in this case, Satow agreed with him, telling his diary, ‘his gestures were those of an affected poseur. His wife has a very dark complexion and looks as if she belonged to one of the downtrodden races which he is so fond of picking up.’40 Yet another visitor that provoked Parkes’ ire that summer was Edward Reed, a Liberal MP and naval architect, who had come to deliver three warships manufactured in Britain for the Japanese navy.The Japanese hoped that he would speak in Britain in favour of treaty revision and, in Parkes’ words, ‘made an immense fuss about him, feting him day after day’.41

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On his return to Britain, Reed published a book in which he attacked Parkes, stating that the ‘diplomacy of the European powers has been seriously detrimental to the true interests of Japan’ and that ‘England is the greatest sinner’. He added,

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In comparison, the Americans and the Russians are spoken of with affectionate esteem. It is we who are said to have delayed the revision of the treaties; to have objected to the laws of Japan having reasonable application to foreigners; to have attempted to force on the country an illegitimate trade in opium; to have objected to the closing of the foreign post offices, and to have secretly fomented the difficulties with China on the Loo-choo [Ryu-kyu-] question.42

Dickins came to Parkes’ defence in the Quarterly Review, dismissing the charges as ‘common claptrap’, adding that ‘none are true in whole or in part, and we challenge Sir E. Reed to produce any justification whatever of any one of them’. Reed defended his comments in a long letter to The Times.43 At that point, the matter would have been laid to rest but Parkes, who was in Britain at the time, could not resist getting involved. Dickins warned him not to, telling him ‘I should be cautious about being dragged into a newspaper correspondence … in which you would be at the disadvantage that you could not, from your official position prove your facts.’44 However, it was not Parkes’ style to back down from a fight, and he accused Reed of making common cause with the virulently hostile American journalist, Edward House, who was a ‘rabid hater of England and her interests’ and argued that ‘a very large share of the material progress made by Japan may be traced to British initiation’.45 Reed’s remarks were indeed very one-sided. Hugh Cortazzi homed in on Reed’s motive for making the criticisms: ‘He was doubtless reflecting, often in garbled form, what his hosts wanted him to say. He was greatly indebted to the Japanese authorities not only for his lavish welcome in Japan, but for lucrative contracts to build three warships for the Japanese navy’.46 *

At the beginning of October 1879, Parkes received a telegram saying that Fanny was dangerously ill. He immediately requested and received permission to travel back to England, leaving on the 11th. Remarkably, he was seen off by Ito- Hirobumi, the Home Affairs Minister, and Inoue Kaoru, the Foreign Affairs Minister,

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which calls into question how much he was disliked by official Japan. Perhaps they were happy to see him leave – his staff certainly were, if Satow is to be believed. He told Dickins that great relief was felt at once. He is an excellent painstaking official, but he did not manage to make himself agreeable either to his colleagues, [or] subordinates … with whom he came in contact … We no longer sit in the Chancery at fixed hours whether there is work or not, which is one of Sir Harry’s favourite ways of making one waste time.47

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Sadly, he arrived back just too late. Fanny died on 12 November at 50 Holland Road in west London at the age of forty-seven. (The house, which is still standing, is far less grand than those Parkes chose when he was in London, suggesting that Fanny was less concerned about appearances – or more worried about money – than he was.) He arrived on the 16th, meaning he was in time for the funeral, which took place on the 19th at St. Lawrence’s, the church they were married in twenty-four years earlier and where they had buried Nellie. Parkes told Dickins: I left Japan by the first opportunity after receiving the earliest warning that her illness was attended with danger. I lost not an hour in crossing America – but I arrived too late to hear her last wishes and injunctions, to smooth her pillow, and to close her eyes … She hoped to the last that I should have reached in time. I have now six children to take charge of, and feebly indeed shall I replace her in that charge, while the Legation will have lost the bright and good spirit to which it owed entirely whatever attraction it possessed.48

The news was received with the ‘greatest sorrow’ by the foreign communities in Yokohama and Tokyo and ‘with the greatest sympathy for Sir Harry Parkes and his family’.49 The day of the funeral was marked in Japan by all the flags at the Legations and Consulates there flying at half-mast. The Victorians usually did not write frankly about the dead, especially women, and the many eulogies all tended to be along the same lines. Dickins wrote: She bore her long illness with a fortitude that only wavered when the thought obtruded itself that Sir Harry’s summons home,

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which had not been sent with her knowledge, might prove a serious hindrance to the progress of the important work of revision with which he was then occupied.’50

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This sounds like a typical depiction of saint-like selflessness that the Victorians loved, but it was basically true. She did put him first, saying when she found out he had dropped everything to return to her: ‘I have always striven to set him free as much as I could for public business, and now I am the cause of bringing him home at the greatest inconvenience.’51 As Dr Willis wrote, she had ‘strong views about her duty’.52 However, she need not have felt so bad, as we know that Parkes thought that he needed to come home to consult the Foreign Secretary about treaty revision and so the trip back could be justified on work as well as personal grounds. Her death certificate gives her cause of death as ‘diarrhoea after long residence in Japan’, although they did not know what had really killed her. Dickins stated that her health ‘had been on the wane since she had caught a chill at a Paris railway station’.53 She at least did not suffer very much, saying shortly before the end: ‘If I die now it will be nearly painless, but the exhaustion and uselessness are very distressing.’54 The London and China Telegraph considered that her memory would long be affectionately cherished, not only by all the foreign residents in China and Japan with whom she was acquainted, but also by a wide circle of Japanese lady friends, whose interests she had always deeply at heart. Lady Parkes showed great courage in facing difficulties and dangers.55

Isabella Bird expressed similar sentiments, writing that she was ‘mourned by every one, not only because she took, as no one else can, the social lead in the English-speaking community, but because of her thoughtful kindness and genuine sympathy with sorrow, no less than for her high sense of truth and justice’.56 Bird’s biographer, Anna Stoddart, thought that ‘no woman was ever spiritually fitter to pass through the brief, dark corridor to heaven’ as her.57 Many mentioned the perfection of the Parkes marriage. SaigoTsukumichi (brother of the much more famous Saigo- Takamori) told Parkes, ‘She was so kind and affectionate a partner … no man, I venture to say, ever enjoyed more domestic bliss than yourself.’

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He went on to say that Fanny had been a dear friend to his wife, who ‘when she heard the news she felt almost as distressed as if she had lost a sister of her own’.58 There is a plaque to her at St. Lawrence’s whose text starts with a typical Parkes touch, writing of her ‘long devotion to responsible duties in China and Japan’ – he would always stress that her role was far more than just an ornament to him but involved important work. It continues in a more conventional vein, saying that she was ‘universally lamented by the communities among whom she had resided, and leaving to her sorrowing husband and children a bright example of Christian trust and fortitude and of loving and unwearied labour in the cause of others’. It closes with a quotation from Psalm 107: ‘Then are they glad because they are at rest, and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be’ (which seems far more appropriate for a memorial plaque than the one Nellie got: ‘Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith’). It is difficult at this distance to form a full picture of Fanny Parkes, although we can pull together a few things. She clearly loved her husband and her children and put their interests first. She had shown character in marrying him in the first place, knowing that she would end up in difficult-to-live-in, dangerous places. The only letters that we have that are really frank about her are those from Dr Willis to his family, and he was a jaundiced observer of her husband. In 1874, he wrote of how she was a ‘nice person in a hundred ways’, while he was ‘a cold hearted man’ and ‘so profoundly selfish’. Fanny had a ‘goodly amount of scolding and snubbing to put up with’.59 For every comment like this, there are more pointing to Parkes as a kind, family man. For example Aston’s wife, Janet, wrote: ‘It was only in the intimacy of home life that one realized how affectionate, how kind and thoughtful for others, and how lovable the real man was.’60 Whatever the emotional impact on Parkes of losing Fanny was, the practical consequences would have felt just as devastating. However, in this respect, he was not bereft, the nineteen-year-old Minnie being prepared to step into her mother’s shoes and take responsibility for the raising of Lillian and Frances, who were only seven and six. Fanny had said she was glad how much of a companion Minnie would be to Parkes if she died, but did not think that her health was ‘fitted to bear a great strain’.61 By all accounts, Fanny was underestimating her daughter, who blossomed into a figure of substance and an affectionate and practical support to her

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father. Janet Aston observed Minnie and Parkes together: ‘It was quite delightful to see the intimacy and friendship between him and his eldest daughter: she was his companion and confidante, and did all the house-keeping, and she and her sister [Mabel] were charming hostesses.’62 Being in Britain, Parkes was able to take some time out after Fanny’s death, although he may have preferred to have been kept busy. He behaved in his typically restless way, going down to Torquay to stay with Fanny’s brother, Hall Plumer, for a few weeks, then returning to London, living at 61 Rutland Gate in Knightsbridge, yet another of the ultra-fashionable addresses he favoured. May saw him in Liverpool, and then he went on a yachting tour around Scotland, visiting the island of Mull where Henrietta, Isabella Bird’s ‘sainted sister’ as Parkes called her, had lived. She had recently died and Parkes, who surely had Fanny in his thoughts, used black-edged paper to share his feelings with Bird on visiting Henrietta’s home there. He

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indulged … in the rush of feeling that welled up in heart and soul. The white cottage was beautifully lighted by a pale moon, and the peacefulness of the beautiful scene seemed typical of that perfect rest and far higher beauty that she and they are now enjoying … I would beg of you … to be encouraged by the remembrance of her spotless life, and the sure and certain happiness which it has secured to her. Rejoice with her in that full fruition of purity, goodness and untroubled rest to which she has attained.63

Following this excursion, he found a house in Sevenoaks, from where he could easily go into London. He made an effort to become part of the community there, the local newspaper recording after his death that he had made ‘not a few friends’ in the neighbourhood, who retained ‘a most pleasant remembrance of the unassuming kindness, great facility, large power of sympathy and high cultivated intelligence, which rendered him a most delightful and interesting companion’. He and his family were regular attenders at Riverhead Parish Church to which, on leaving Sevenoaks, he sent a ‘handsome and entirely unsolicited offering’.64 He moved back to Rutland Gate in the autumn and then to Kensington, which was usually his preferred base when he was in London. There he found a large and elegant detached house in Phillimore Gardens, backing on to Holland Park.

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(The house, number 47, was for sale in 2018 at an asking price of £35 million.) We gain a snapshot of the household from the 1881 census, taken on 3 April. There were a total of fifteen people in the house on that day. In addition to Parkes himself, there were four of his children, Minnie, Harry, Lillian and Frances, as well as Fanny’s younger sister Emily, and Parkes’ fellow widower Hiram Shaw Wilkinson. In addition, there were eight servants: a cook, a lady’s maid, a parlour maid, a housemaid, a fourteenyear-old page and three general servants who were all widows, one of whom was sixty-nine and one seventy. Perhaps it was an act of charity on the part of the Parkes family, keeping them on and saving them from the workhouse? Whatever was the case, managing a household of that size would have been a demanding job for the young Minnie. She had other things on her mind though, having to prepare for being presented at Court in March 1881. It was an ordeal for a young woman, but essential, because it meant that she was thereafter able to attend court functions, as well as balls and parties only open to those who had been through it. She had to spend weeks finding the gown and all the necessary accessories: fan, feathers, jewellery, etc., and even more importantly receive deportment training, including learning how to do the full ‘court curtsey’, in which her knee had to almost touch the ground, without losing her balance. It must have been a moving moment for Parkes, seeing his beloved daughter so grown-up. Two years later, he set down his feelings about her, on the eve of her twenty-third birthday, telling her that he was thankful she had her dear mother’s spiritual [qualities] …; but more than this, you have taken your place as far as a daughter could by being a new fresh little love to me. I ought indeed to be thankful, and am so, that this delight has been spared me already for nearly four years [that is, since Fanny had died]. I know I must be prepared to resign it some day … But I will nevertheless enjoy it while it lasts.65

Parkes dined with the Queen that November, and as before, she found him impressive, even if she could not spell his name correctly and was shaky about the facts of his imprisonment: Sir H. Parks, is a very intelligent man. He has been 36 years in Siam, China, & Japan, in which latter country he has been 12 years. He seems to think they go on too fast with their Europeanising.

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He was one of the 6, who was imprisoned, cruelly treated, & almost tortured by the Chinese, & of the 2, who came out alive.66

The papers respecting the treaty revision had been very slow in coming, and it was not until the autumn of 1880 that he could start working on them. Although he had thought that he needed to be in Britain to work on the question, the fact that the negotiations would now be in Japan meant that he was out of the flow. The director of the Japan Gazette, William Talbot, told him that during his absence, ‘the aggressions of the Japanese upon trade have assumed formidable proportions’. There was the feeling that nothing could be done without Parkes there:

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There is but one opinion at present, and that is, that if a remedy exists, it can only be properly obtained and applied by Her Majesty’s Minister, whose experience of the country and knowledge of the Treaty rights … are essential … [Y]our prolonged absence is a source of very earnest inquiry and anxiety to the community as a body and without regard to nationality.67

With his return to Japan, his children went their separate ways. He took his two older daughters, Minnie and Mabel (now twentyone and seventeen) with him. The boys were off his hands: Harry was nineteen and in his first year at Brasenose College, Oxford, and Douglas was fifteen and had gone off to Pontianak in Borneo.68 Lillian and Frances, who were nine and eight, were left with aunt Eliza. Fate would decree, as Parkes probably suspected, that he would never see the four who did not go with him again. The hard decision must have been to leave Lillian and Frances: they were effectively turned into orphans. The date for Parkes’ departure was 8 December 1881. The day before he left, he was summoned to Windsor where the Queen invested him with the GCMG – a higher knighthood than the one he already held and the only time she gave it to someone who was serving in east Asia. (Satow was given it by Edward VII.) He, Minnie and Mabel returned to Japan by the longer route, via the Suez Canal and Singapore, which was the best option in the winter – the railroad across the United States could be blocked for days, or even weeks, by snow. Parkes told Catharine that he seemed ‘to recognize each stone or house or tree or cocoa-nut of every place’ they stopped at, he had made the trip so many times. But his daughters made it fun for him, serving ‘those objects up

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again with the fresh sauce of their enjoyment and hearty interest, and I have derived much pleasure from their satisfaction’. Port Said was still a ‘sad hole’ and Aden was worse: ‘Dante should have seen [it] before he wrote his Inferno, for I believe it would have added strength to his dark imagery’. Ceylon was a treat though, and there they lingered, the three of them enjoying drives through the plantations and tropical forests. He thought the voyage was doing him good because he felt that he ‘could be idle and sin not’, which was quite a departure from how he had once been. Of course, Parkes’ conceptions of ‘idle’ were not the same as other people’s, for he reassured Catharine that he occupied himself ‘to an extent that prevented the time hanging heavily on hand’. The voyage from Ceylon to Singapore was brightened by the presence of the Hepburns. He had known them in Amoy and they were very much his kind of people, being high-minded, religious and productive. James Hepburn was a distinguished American doctor, missionary and authority on the Japanese language, whose Japanese-English dictionary was the standard reference for many years and popularised the ‘Hepburn’ system of romanisation. Mrs Hepburn watched over the girls ‘like a mother’ and they showed her ‘the reverence due to such a senior’, which was very reassuring to Parkes.69

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‘I Am Deeply Sensible of the Services You have Rendered’ Tokyo, 1882–1883 ™

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WHEN PARKES, MINNIE and Mabel arrived in Yokohama on 27 January 1882, they were greeted with genuine joy and enthusiasm, combined with a great deal of sympathy for the loss of Fanny. ‘Sir Harry’s presence’ was, in the words of the Japan Weekly Mail, ‘an assurance that nothing unwise or dangerous will be permitted’.1 A group of the foreign residents addressed a combined letter to him, offering him a cordial welcome … after your prolonged absence, to express the sincerest esteem in which we hold you, and the unfeigned pleasure it affords us to find you once again amongst us … you have so fully earned our gratitude … We tread here on sacred ground, but, remembering the dark shadow that has crossed your path since you were last amongst us, we … offer you our respectful sympathy.2

Not everybody was pleased to see Parkes back, Satow thinking the Japanese regretted his return: We have I think made a great mistake here in pursuing an unfriendly, harsh policy towards the Govt., the knowledge of which has come to the ears of the common people, and has caused them to look on foreigners in general, and Sir Harry Parkes in particular, as their enemy. You would not credit to what extent he is the bugbear of the Japanese public; in the popular estimation he occupies much the same position as “Boney” [Napoleon Bonaparte] with us fifty years ago. It has been going on for the past ten years … No one 224

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can deny his great qualities, and his fitness to meet any dangerous crisis. His talents are however thrown away here … He would do excellently well at Peking, but here he is the square man in the round hole. The Japanese require a diplomatist of the Talleyrand type, who would smooth them down and attain his ends at the same time.3

This was not just Satow’s disgruntlement talking as many others were saying that it was time for Parkes to leave. The trouble was there was nowhere else to put him and dismissing him was out of the question. Furthermore, for all their complaints, the Japanese were not officially asking for him to be replaced. They resented Parkes’ continued denial of their aspiration to be treated as an equal to Western countries but not strongly enough to want to see the back of him. His support of the Imperial cause in 1868 had mattered far more than any present disagreements – he was still seen as the man who had been their friend at their time of greatest need. However, while he had been away, an accusation had been made that he had knocked down a Japanese official in Kobe and rubbed his face into the sand, back in 1868, fourteen years earlier.4 The charge was laid by the most intense Parkes-hater of all, Edward House, in an article in the Atlantic Monthly. Parkes claimed that it was completely untrue, but those who had seen his temper would probably not have put it past him. Satow thought the official had been Ito- Hirobumi. He believed that Ito- had not been thrown on the ground but ‘I think Sir Harry did touch his queue, or his hair, and use loud language’.5 There was, however, probably a good deal of truth in House’s other examples of Parkes’ abusive behaviour, which included ‘the furious smashing of a glass’ publicly as an illustration of how Japan could be ‘dashed to pieces’, in addition to ‘beatings of tables with rulers, inkstands, and other available implements’.6 Whatever the case, it was all old news, and the residents of Yokohama preferred to ignore it, feeling that Parkes’ virtues greatly outweighed his faults. This did not stop House continuing his campaign against him in pamphlets and in the Tokio Times, claiming that Parkes’ career had been ‘one long series of exactions, oppressions, insults and humiliations’.7 In order to explain why the Japanese put up with him, he explained that it was their ‘generosity … and a cordial readiness to overlook injuries’.8 House thought Parkes was ruthless in his pursuit of what was best for Britain;

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about his resistance to treaty revision in 1879, he wrote, ‘He will consent to no changes that shall interfere, even in the remotest degree, with the advantages of his countrymen.’9 Of course, the first duty of the British Minister was to promote British interests. But House felt that as Britain was in such a strong position, Parkes could afford to be more generous. Finding that he was not having much effect in Japan, House took his campaign to Britain, writing anonymously in the Pall Mall Budget, in the guise of an Englishman, alleging that We have bombarded their towns and forced ourselves and our trade upon them without consideration for anything but our own interests… [The Japanese] are courteous and highly sensitive, and yet our diplomacy continues to treat them as quasi-barbarians … [Y]ou unnecessarily wound their national pride by small indignities … You make a treaty with them at the cannon’s mouth which every one knows to be entirely in your own interest, and which totally ignores the right which every nation should possess of regulating its own import and export duties.10

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Parkes answered these accusations in a letter to the Foreign Secretary by saying that he did not think it was time to ‘discontinue the exercise of the cautious policy … by means of which foreign commerce has been fostered instead of being strangled at its birth’. ‘It may also be asked’, he went on, whether the Treaty Powers are yet confidently assured that if the power to control their foreign Tariff at will were now placed in the hands of the Japanese Government, it would be exercised wholly with a judicious regard for the true interests of commerce … It should be remembered that the Japanese Government are apt to be influenced by unwholesome counsel. This will now be freely offered them from a new source, the “Tokio Times,” a foreign newspaper … conducted by the American [House] who wrote incendiary pamphlets.11

Indeed, the Japanese wanted to set the tariff on a sliding scale rising to 30%, from a blanket 5%. Clearly, this would be very bad for British merchants, so Parkes was surely only doing his job in opposing the change. But Parkes could be petty about small matters, which helped to sour the atmosphere. One such was about laws relating to

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shooting game. Parkes refused to accept Japanese regulations on this because he said they did not apply to Britons living in Japan, while the Japanese argued that foreigners had to obey Japanese laws. The long correspondence between Parkes and the Foreign Office shows how important this seemingly minor matter appeared. The Foreign Office agreed with Parkes that conceding this point would be the thin end of the wedge, but in 1878 the Law Officers of the Crown, the British government’s most senior legal advisors, decreed that in any instance where Japanese regulations did not infringe treaty rights or clash with British law, British subjects had to abide by them. Parkes’ uncompromising attitude undoubtedly did harm to British interests. Pope-Hennessy reported in 1879 that his ‘bullying’ had ‘enabled the Russian and U.S. Ministers to gain a position’ in Japan ‘that they are not – according to Board of Trade returns – entitled to hold.’12 Even after he had left Japan, the leading businessman, Okura Kihachiro- wrote of how Japanese merchants still preferred to buy as little as possible from the British. He explained that it was due to ‘the resentment against the policy of the late British Minister, who, during all the years of his residence in this country, in small matters or in large, set himself to oppose anything that was for the benefit of Japan, and created the impression, that British interests lay in harassing the weak’.13 In 1886, Parkes’ successor, Francis Plunkett, following a conversation with Ito- Hirobumi, now Japan’s Prime Minister, told the Foreign Secretary frankly that Germany was being preferred over Britain as a partner because of the continuance, for years after it ceased to be appropriate, of the policy followed by Sir Harry Parkes. Germany had very cleverly taken advantage of this mistake. Was it in human nature that, while being, as they considered, harshly and unfairly treated by the British Minister, they should not, to a certain extent, yield to the continued blandishments of the German Minister, who was steadily inviting them to come to him for support and consolation as the British Minister repelled them by his criticisms and advice.14

Although Plunkett was much more emollient than Parkes, as were his successors, the revision of the treaties only happened in 1894 and extraterritoriality lasted until 1899. Parkes was an obstacle to Japanese aspirations, but he was not the only one. Ultimately, the reason

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that Britain was so slow to concede Japan’s demands was because that was the wish of successive British governments.

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*

Although Parkes’ prestige in Japan had diminished by the start of the 1880s, the treaty revision could not take place without him present, and as the negotiations were to be in Japan, they had to wait for his return. When they did start, at the beginning of 1882, they were drawn-out and ultimately fruitless, dragging on for over six months. Every Wednesday and Thursday, representatives of the thirteen European powers met their Japanese counterparts at 3pm at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo under the chairmanship of Inoue Kaoru, the Foreign Minister. Parkes behaved calmly and declared himself open to changes to the tariff. Satow thought he was ‘in a conciliatory mood all round’ and ‘keeps a vigilant watch over his temper’.15 It looked as if agreement would be fairly easily reached, but this was because they were avoiding discussing contentious points. Once they did, the mood soured. Satow tells us that Inoue had a three-hour talk with Parkes on 30 May ‘about his project for throwing open the country and obtaining jurisdiction to an almost unlimited extent’. Parkes ‘made several crushing objections’.16 Inoue’s proposal seemed quite reasonable: Japan now had a new penal code, and he was suggesting that extraterritoriality should gradually be brought to an end during a five-year transition period, during which time mixed courts would try cases involving foreigners. As we might expect, America was sympathetic, while Parkes – and the French – were very much opposed. Parkes issued a memorandum stating that ‘the new Penal Code had only been one year in operation, and ‘neither civil nor commercial codes were yet in existence’.17 The negotiations broke up in July 1882 with no agreement. He remained as restless as ever. Minnie told her aunt about a summer ‘holiday’ in the mountains of Hakone that followed the conference: Even here he will work and fidget about: he cannot take things quietly. I do so long for him to be able to rest, but that is not his nature, and here, if he is not rushing up and down hills, he is working. He does not understand rowing about in a boat for the sake of enjoyment, or sitting and looking at the view; you know he never did, and I don’t think he ever will.18

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In the spring of 1883, Parkes was finally offered the position of British Minister to China by the Foreign Secretary. It was the job he had wondered if he would get for many years, but he was now tired and unwell, and felt none of the excitement and enthusiasm the promotion to Minister in Japan had inspired in him.This position, he wrote,

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does not afford me any delight for the burden aggregate will be greater, the responsibility heavier, and the disagreeables of life more numerous than here, but I felt I could not shrink the post without account and my girls though they will suffer most by the change, encouraged me to go. So the die is cast and I can only hope that I may be sustained there as I have been here by a Heavenly Father’s care.19

One slightly sour aspect to the offer was that the government was in an economising mood and had decided that he would receive £500 less than Wade, his predecessor. However, Parkes wrote, ‘I believe on thinking over it that the reduction of pay involved no personal reflection’.20 This was correct – Gladstone’s government was under great pressure to reduce the national budget and the whole diplomatic service was a victim of this. And it was still £5,500 a year, so a very welcome extra £1,500 over what he was getting in Japan (in addition to a £1,000 outfit allowance). To William Lockhart, Parkes was more positive, telling him that Tokyo was ‘too damp and malarious’ and that the drier climate of Beijing might help his health – the exact opposite of what he had used to think.21 Wade was generous: ‘You start fair – fairer than most men in one respect: you have the full confidence of the community’, adding, ‘You know the country and people better than any one alive.’22 Not everybody considered that he was the right man for the job. The North China Herald had urged the appointment of a ‘nobleman of rank and ability, who had never been in the country before. We want a fresh vigorous mind, and we want the prestige of birth and title. There are no people on the face of the earth more easily impressed by insignia of office and magnificence of style, than the Chinese.’23 Alcock, who had always seemed to be Parkes’ greatest promoter, told Hammond in 1869 that his past dealings in China ‘I am sure they will think ought to have effectually’ saved them ‘from ever seeing him in Peking as Minister’. He added, ‘I don’t know that they might go to the extent of

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refusing to receive him – but that it would be offensive to them and to the last degree inexpedient in our interest and in theirs I can have no doubt.’24 The Foreign Secretary did his best to bring them around, assuring them that Parkes entertained ‘the most friendly feelings towards the Chinese Government’.25 He seems to have hoped that memories of Parkes part in the Second Opium War had faded, but it would soon became obvious that this was wishful thinking. However, Parkes was idolised by the merchants and other British residents in China and respected, if not necessarily liked, by people of other nationalities for his courage and determination. As Alcock predicted, the Chinese did not veto his appointment, although they did not express any enthusiasm for it: ‘as Sir H. Parkes has been selected by the Queen, he [Prince Gong] hopes Sir H. Parkes will bring a friendly spirit to bear upon the discussion of all questions arising between the two countries’.26 In fact, the Foreign Secretary really had no option but to give Parkes the job. As the London and China Telegraph put it, the position was ‘the natural climax and completion’ of his career.27 He had served too long in Japan, but there was nowhere but Beijing to put him, it being impossible to dismiss or demote him, or move him to a similar position in Europe, and he was too young, at fifty-five, to retire. He was also seen as deserving of the promotion having, to most people, been an extremely successful Minister in Japan – even to the Japanese. The clearest sign of this was when Parkes was invited to a lunch with the Emperor, on 22 August. The Emperor’s words were formal and stilted, but their meaning was clear: You have resided over eighteen years in this country, and I rejoice to say that, during that period the friendly relations between Japan and Great Britain have been greatly advanced. I am especially happy to acknowledge that in the early years of Meiji your Excellency not only showed great sympathy with our reform measures, but also gave us many useful suggestions … I am deeply sensible of the services you have thus rendered.28

The Emperor said that he would have liked to present Parkes with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, but he knew that diplomats were forbidden to receive foreign orders, so he confined himself to giving him a censer and a flower-vase (which the Foreign Secretary allowed him to keep).Three days later, the Emperor received him again, in a farewell audience, and Parkes presented the

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Hon. Power Henry le Poer Trench, his temporary replacement as Chargé d’Affaires. As may be guessed from his name, Trench was a very different kind of man to Parkes. The son of an earl, Trench was a much more conventional diplomat (he went on to become Minister to Japan in 1894). In 1889, the Japan Weekly Mail commented that ‘without suggesting any violent contrasts or ruffling any prejudices’ – clearly a reference to Parkes’ style – ‘he succeeded in adapting himself throughout to the best canons of British diplomacy’.29 That said, Chamberlain wrote of how, twenty years after his disappearance, old hands of all nationalities would say ‘Oh! for an hour of Sir Harry Parkes!’30 But Chamberlain accepted that the Parkes approach was now no longer tenable:

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Rapid transit, and especially telegraphy, have revolutionised diplomacy since about 1880, or rather they have killed it … The title of “Plenipotentiary” … has become simple irony in days when the force of events has reduced him to the position of a clerk … The field is no longer open for original thought and daring action; there is no longer any responsibility to take, for every point must be referred home.31

A more emollient style, treating the Japanese as equals and not as people to be dragooned, was called for. The job when Parkes had started it required great physical courage and initiative, and the constant need to gather intelligence in a fluid situation. Now that Japan was safer and more stable, it had become an almost dull diplomatic posting, especially compared to China which was still a place where anything could happen. The farewell address by the foreign residents of Yokohama was gushing: ‘We come from various lands … but to-day we have but one voice … For us, it is a matter of congratulation that we have so long had you in our midst:– for you, it is but fitting that you should pass on to a higher sphere of labour.’ It was, wrote Minnie, ‘a very proud moment for us to stand by his side and to see the honour and respect, which is only his due indeed, paid to him on all sides’.32 Parkes could look back on many successes – one which really stands out and which has not been discussed yet, was the way he inspired others to acquire knowledge about Japan. Chamberlain put it like this: Sir Harry’s practical wisdom was shown among other things in the training of his subordinates … Satow, Aston, McClatchie, Gubbins

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and other names eminent in the British Consular Service in Japan all owe much to Sir Harry’s stimulating influence, which raised the members of that Service to the position of Chief authorities on all subjects connected with Japan … By gentle pressure all the members of his staff were encouraged to enter the field as gleaners of facts, even the most recondite of which might come to exercise an influence over practical politics.33

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Whether the pressure was always ‘gentle’ is open to question. He had a touch of Charles Dickens’ harsh school board superintendent Thomas Gradgrind about him: ‘You are never to fancy … [What is wanted is] Fact, fact, fact!’ He was the guiding light of societies which were dedicated to the cause of information gathering. An outstanding example was the Asiatic Society of Japan, which was founded in 1872, along the lines of the North China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai, following Parkes’ recommendation. It was to be the outlet for many of his staff to present and publish papers in the Society’s Transactions. In addition to Parkes himself, eleven members of the Legation read papers there; Aston would read a total of 21 and Satow, 22. A report of the Council from June 1878 has Parkes’ stamp all over it: We want before all things to learn more about the religions of Japan. Concerning Buddhism in this country we have been up to the present entirely in the dark, and our knowledge of Shinto is still extremely meagre … The introduction of Chinese learning and its influence upon the language and ideas of the Japanese people is a subject which has never been treated … although of extreme importance if we wish really to comprehend the character of the nation and its institutions. It cannot be said either that we possess … a useful account of the history of Japan previous to the middle of the present century, and the nature of the laws, civil, penal and ceremonial by which the people have been governed in successive ages.34

It concluded, ‘There is none amongst us who does not possess an aptitude and facilities of some sort for pursuing one or more’ of these paths of study. He himself did not have the time to really do so, and he knew far less about Japanese literature, language and history than men like Aston and Satow, but he practised what he preached, reading a paper on what seems an obscure and

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difficult-to-research topic: ‘The Mission to Rome in 1615 of an Envoy from the Prince of Sendai’, illustrating it with a painting lent him by Iwakura. He was scheduled to speak on another very un-Parkes-like topic, ‘The Monastery at Koya Zan’, but ‘the lateness of the hour and the extent of the subject deterred him’.35 When Parkes left Japan, he was thanked by the Society in gushing terms. They expressed ‘warm gratitude for past favours, mingled with a keen sense of present loss in bidding farewell to one to whom they had been so long and so greatly indebted’.36 *

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Parkes was now taking over the job that he had probably dreamt of doing for most of his life. He would now be the most important British official east of India, representing his country to nearly a quarter of the world’s people. But before he could turn his attention to China, he had to open to British trade the last remaining country still to be ‘closed’: Korea.

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‘The Last Semi-civilised State’ Seoul, 1883

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™

KOREA WAS, FROM the point of view of Europe, the very end of the world – ‘the last semi-civilised State which has resisted the attempts of foreigners to open intercourse with it’, as Griffis put it.1 Unfortunately, it was impossible just to leave it alone because, in addition to its potential for trade, it was of great strategic importance, with Japan, China and Russia all vying for dominance over it. Parkes was most concerned about the last of these, telling Brooke Robertson, now Consul in Guangzhou, that ‘we ought to bring the fusty old ancients within the pale of intercourse if it were only to prevent them being annexed by the neighbour on their frontier’.2 Parkes thought that Korea’s backwardness provided an open invitation to Russia to gain strategic ports there, which would have jeopardised Britain’s position in the area. His warnings about Russian intentions in Korea were alarmist; he told the Foreign Office that ‘Port Lazareff [now W˘onsan in North Korea] and Pusan being taken by Russia would affect British interests even more than the position of the Khanates of Central Asia.’3 This was a ridiculous exaggeration; Russian activity in the ‘Khanates’ menaced India which was a far more vital interest to Britain than anything in East Asia. Perhaps because he overdid it, he got nowhere. When he recommended the annexation of Port Hamilton, a group of islands off the south coast of the peninsula (known in Korean as Geomundo or Komundo), in order to provide a base from which to police the area in 1875, he was turned down flat. The Foreign Office felt that it would create a bad precedent, giving an excuse to other powers to grab far more valuable Korean territory. 234

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With the telegraph connecting Tokyo and London, there was no longer the option of acting without authority, so all Parkes could do was continue making his arguments. It was very unlike him to be so out of touch with Foreign Office thinking. In the past, they had treated his opinions with great respect – now they were dismissing them out of hand. At the same time, the Japanese were sizing up their options in Korea, but in a far more decisive way. In September 1875, the Japanese ship the Unyo- was surveying Korean coastal waters. While moving along the western coast of Korea, the Japanese put ashore a party on Ganghwa Island to request water and provisions. This island was very sensitive because it controlled access to Seoul. When shore batteries fired on the ship, the Japanese response was swift and ruthless. After bombarding the Korean fortifications, they landed a shore party. The Koreans were using matchlock muskets – technology from the fifteenth century – and the Japanese with modern rifles made short work of them. The Japanese navy blockaded the area and demanded an official apology from the Korean government. They sent in a considerable force and the Treaty of Ganghwa was signed in 1876. It was very similar to the early Western treaties with Japan, opening up three ports, and was initially kept secret because, as the Japan Gazette explained, ‘At a time when Japan was agitating for the elimination of the extraterritoriality clauses from her Treaties with the Western Powers ... her Government not unnaturally hesitated to publish a Treaty … wherein her representatives had provided for the benefit of her own nationals an extra-territoriality clause.’4 The treatment both Japan and China meted out to Korea was actually worse than the way the Western powers had behaved towards them over the years. The Chinese made no bones about treating the Koreans as their inferiors, their 1882 treaty with the country making it clear that the King of Korea only ranked with a Chinese Governor. Li Hongzhang explained the Chinese thinking to Parkes. ‘China’, Li said, was not the equal of Corea, but her superior, and … she did not make Treaties with Corea, but ‘Regulations’, which were communicated by order of the Emperor. The [other] nations who treated with Corea were therefore in a wholly different position to China, and could not claim the same privileges … the Regulations in question were granted by China as a favour to one of her dependencies.5

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In 1880, Parkes started arguing that any approach to Korea should be made through China, a cautious approach which was much more in tune with Foreign Office thinking than his previous suggestions. China’s (and Japan’s) imposition of harsh terms on Korea made it a lot more likely that Britain could obtain similar terms without recourse to the force that had been necessary when dealing with China and Japan.The Foreign Office really wanted Korea to be opened peacefully. Parkes saw Korea as

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a weak and an uncivilized State …; her people are violent and illmannered, and greed and rapacity appear to be prominent characteristics of her officials. Though the various parties in her divided and incapable Government will pay court from time to time either to China or to Japan ... they all probably entertain for both those countries about an equal degree of aversion ... A wide field ... is presented for intrigue and dissimulation.6

Treaties were a Parkes speciality and he looked at the follow-up Japan-Korean one of 1882 with an expert eye, telling the Foreign Secretary that Article 10 was especially noteworthy because as before, the Japanese had been ‘careful to stipulate for the right of jurisdiction over their own people in Korea. They have also imitated those Treaties in not making this right reciprocal … It is, in short, almost a repetition of articles 4 and 5 of the British Treaty of 1858 with Japan … The resemblance … is remarkable.’7 On top of this, Inoue, the Foreign Minister, using the argument Parkes had been employing for years against him and other Japanese officials, was saying that the tariff should be only 5% ‘as a higher one would prevent the growth of trade’.8 (We may recall that Japan was wanting to raise its own tariffs to up to 30%.) In fact, the Japanese ended up paying Korea nothing in duties. Britain was content to let Japan and China ‘open’ Korea, with all the ironies that that involved, but was concerned about American moves in that direction, worried that they were trying to elbow the British out.Vice-Admiral Willes, Commander-in-Chief of the China station, was sent to monitor American activity and told to negotiate a treaty, if he thought it necessary. Given what a mess another naval commander, Admiral Stirling, had made of the early diplomatic negotiations with Japan, this was a surprise. Experience showed that an expert team would probably have to come in and redo it.

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Parkes had a major falling out with Willes. Knowing Parkes as we do, we might assume he was to blame, but for all his fieriness, he was very professional in his relationships with people like Willes. And Willes was certainly a piece of work, Admiral Sir Frederic Fisher saying that ‘If ever there was a martinet, Sir George Ommanney Willes was one.’9 The dispute happened because Willes had ordered Commander Eliott to take the Daring straight to Korea while Parkes, not knowing this, asked him to stop at Nagasaki to pick up letters from him for Aston. Eliott did as Parkes requested and Willes was furious, announcing that he would dismiss Eliott once he got back from Korea. Parkes never complained to the Foreign Secretary about a colleague, but he broke the rule on this occasion telling Granville that he thought he would

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readily understand that it has occasioned me much pain to learn that I have been the cause of this severe censure being passed upon that officer, and from a feeling of justice to Commander Eliott, who appears to have been thus punished for complying with a service request of mine of a very simple nature, and also from a sense of the wrong done to myself as Her Majesty’s Minister in being thus publicly discredited in making that request.10

There was an exchange of letters between Parkes and Willes of icy politeness, in which both refused to back down. Willes essentially told Parkes that it was none of his business, writing that ‘the whole question was a simple one of naval discipline, and separate from any possible argument between your Excellency and myself ’.11 Parkes was not one to bear grudges or indulge in petty acts of revenge, but it feels as if he made an exception to that rule as well. Willes concluded a treaty with Korea which was essentially a copy of the American treaty negotiated by Commodore Shufeldt in May 1882. Parkes would have been ill-disposed to any treaty negotiated by somebody else because he thought that he should do it, but the thoroughness with which he took apart Willes’ work in his letters to the Foreign Office surely had something to do with the Eliott incident. He noted that he had offered Willes Aston’s services as an interpreter, but Willes had refused them, meaning he was in the hands of a Chinese one. Consequently, ‘of course Admiral Willes does not know what he signed in Chinese’.12 Parkes wrote that the ‘jurisdiction clauses are more confused, the Opium clause is

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unworkable, the duties prohibitive, and the dignity and position of the Queen depreciated’.13 Shufeldt’s treaty was ratified by the US Senate on 9 January 1883, but neither the Willes one, nor a German one negotiated at the same time, was approved by their home governments. So it was left to Parkes to negotiate a new British treaty with Korea, in league with Germany. This is what should have been done in the first place, Granville having immense confidence in Parkes’ ability to do the job and giving him ‘large discretionary powers’.14 Hoping that the Germans would take Parkes’ lead, he explained to their Chargé d’Affaires in London that Sir H. Parkes’ great experience and acquaintance with the relations of the Western Powers with the eastern countries of Asia entitle him to the entire confidence of Her Majesty’s Government in regard to the negotiations with which he may be intrusted in Corea, and it is not proposed, therefore, that he should be strictly bound as to the wording of the Treaty.15 *

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While this was going on, Parkes was preparing to move to China and on 6 September 1883 he arrived in Shanghai with Minnie and Mabel on the Tokio Maru. Their reception was like that accorded to a film star, with the wharf crowded with those wishing to catch a glimpse of this near-legendary figure. He received an effusive welcome address from the foreign residents of Shanghai which expressed how much they admired the ability, energy and patience with which you have fulfilled the arduous duties that fell to the lot of the Consul here … We trust that for our sakes your stay in China will be a long one and we shall all of us go about our duties with a lighter heart, and be easier in our relations with the people among whom we have found our lot, from the knowledge that all our interests are secured in your able hands.16

There was the feeling that after coasting for some years the British would now be represented by someone who meant business. Eight days later they set off for the capital in the Vigilant. To his daughters this was an adventure, and Minnie described how it felt to be entering the Peiho river in a letter to Fanny’s sister, knowing that she would pass its contents on to Lillian and Frances:

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It interested us very much seeing the Taku forts, the scene of so much of papa’s work in early days, and we made him tell us about the taking of them: the Peh-tang fort he really took almost singlehanded; his energy, courage, and bravery must have been something marvellous and I don’t think we half realize what wonderful work he has done. Oh! we are not half proud enough of being his children and bearing his name.17

Minnie was not overly impressed with Beijing or the people there, writing ‘You miss so much … the kindly courtesy of the Japanese. The Chinese seem so very rough and sullen … The houses are simply filthy.’18 While his daughters were getting used to life in China, Parkes left for Korea on 18 October. The following day he was to go to Seoul, but he found their baggage was still on the beach owing, he told Minnie,

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to the utter absence in this country of any organization in regard to transport. For two hours we vainly endeavoured to get something like order into the mob of people and animals who were intended to convey us.There were bullocks for the baggage, ponies of the sorriest description for those who liked to ride, and strange somethings, which might be called chairs or palanquins, but which resembled the upper half of bathing machines for those who did not choose to ride.19

Parkes did not have the patience for sedan chairs and rode, although he found that his mount ‘refused to do more than crawl, and I was told that this was the only pace that ponies in this country are acquainted with’. Still, he added, ‘the day was fine, and the country novel and not wholly uninteresting’.20 He jogged along in pleasant conversation with Aston, Hillier and the German Consul in Yokohama, Eduard Zappe, who had lived in Britain and was good company – Parkes wrote while they were negotiating with the Koreans that he ‘agrees with me in everything’ which no doubt helped them get along.21 Unfortunately it started to rain, but Parkes decided, in typical style, that they should not wait, but separate from the group transporting the baggage and continue on to Seoul. The rain came down more heavily, and the roads (if you could use the word) became sloughs. Still we made our ponies go at a pace they had

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never gone before, and every one was so cheery that we really enjoyed the fun of the pitiful position … [W]e reached the gate of Söul soon after five and our quarters at half-past, soaked through and very chilled.22

The tone of this, and other letters he wrote to Minnie and Mabel from Korea, is so different from how he wrote in his younger days. He was showing an ability to laugh at himself a bit and see the funny side of situations. He was mellowing; Minnie and Mabel had taught him that he could take things a bit easier. Satow noticed this, writing a year earlier that it was ‘a sign of old age coming on when it is no longer worth while to fly into a rage about everyday trifles’.23 In Seoul, Parkes met up with General Lucius Foote, the American representative, who was there to implement the treaty negotiated by Shufeldt, and with Zappe they together agreed on how they would approach the Koreans. The luggage was in a bedraggled state and it all had to be dried out, but Parkes was nonetheless able to meet the Koreans in a frock-coat, tall hat and new gloves, ‘as decent as if I had been in Regent Street’. Parkes considered that he showed the Koreans ‘more civilization in the way of dress than they had ever seen before’.24 We can only hope that this was tongue in cheek which, given that he was writing to Minnie and was now more relaxed, it probably was. Parkes was well supported; as well as having a brilliant Chinese scholar, Walter Hillier (later to become professor of Chinese at King’s College, London), he had the remarkable Irishman,William Aston, whose services he had offered to Willes, at his side. Aston had already been to Korea, sent to prepare the way earlier that year. Parkes had told him ‘to avoid as far as possible personal risk’, primarily because of the political complications to which any untoward occurrence would give rise. If the result should prove that the visit of a public officer in your position to Corea is attended with insecurity, Her Majesty’s Government might naturally infer that the time is inopportune for authorizing private subjects of Her Majesty to resort to that country.25

This was probably not because Parkes did not care about Aston – he was in fact one of Parkes’ few friends on his staff. Rather it was because for Parkes it was a given that his staff would not

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usually worry about their personal safety because he did not worry about his. Aston was a second Satow (the two were friends), having not only become a recognised authority on Japan’s language and literature, but very competent at Chinese, and he had recently learned Korean (as had the protean Satow). The Koreans wrote official documents in Chinese though, which suited Parkes. His Chinese was rusty, but he did not let that stop him. The Chinese scholar, Herbert Giles, watched him in action in Shanghai a year later and recorded how Parkes ‘rattled gaily on … with a very limited vocabulary and utter disregard of tones’.26 He seems to have still been confident in his written Chinese though, translating a draft he had made with Zappe into the language. Parkes knew that it was entirely possible that the negotiations might fail because he was in a great hurry, having to get back to Beijing before ice prevented it. A big problem was that the Koreans were annoyed about the fact that they thought they had already concluded treaties with America, Germany and Britain and could not see why they had to agree to fresh ones with the latter two. Parkes, sounding like a dodgy politician, explained to them that the ‘object in view was to establish friendly and satisfactory relations between Corea and two of the leading states of Europe, such as would enable Corea to develop her dormant commercial resources, and open out to her people a wide field of industrial activity’ and the previous treaties, ‘however well meant by the Corean Government, would not have secured that object, and would not have afforded satisfaction to any of the parties concerned.’ On the other hand, the treaties that were now being proposed would ‘secure great and permanent advantage to Corea, both political and commercial; and, if concluded, would not fail to be highly serviceable to Corea in her negotiations with other European Powers’.27 Their previous experience of treaty-making would hardly have given the Koreans confidence that these new ones would guide them to sunlit uplands, but they were basically favourable to them, realising that concluding agreements with Britain and Germany would give them some room for manoeuvre with respect to China, Japan and Russia. In addition, compared to the Chinese and Japanese negotiators, Parkes seemed a model of respectfulness. He was no pushover though, being fearsomely concerned with even the smallest details, aware that any ambiguity might create problems later. When comparing the Chinese version with the

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English, he thought that the use of the character, 㐠 (‘carry’ or ‘convey’), could be construed to mean more than the English text intended and wanted to replace it with ㍕ (‘load’). The Koreans maintained that 㐠was correct, but Parkes suspected that they wanted the Chinese and English versions to diverge.28 In spite of his desperation to conclude the treaty, he refused to budge and the negotiations were suspended for two days. Eventually it was the Koreans who gave way. On 7 November, King Gojong and his Council of State considered the proposed treaty, and the following day, he and Zappe were told at a long conference that they basically accepted it, and that only the detail needed to be settled. Parkes told Mabel, ‘I am therefore relieved of considerable anxiety as I feel I have got to the top of the hill, and a journey on the descent is comparatively easy.’29 He decided he liked the Koreans and thought Seoul ‘prettily situated’, although it became uncomfortable as the weather got colder: ‘Our comforts are scanty and quarters ill-adapted to the season. Frost is setting in, and is attended with hail and snow and rain, so it is not surprising that we all have colds.’30 On 26 November they finally managed to sign the treaty, and Parkes had the joy of being able to tell the Foreign Secretary that it contained ‘every condition indicated in instructions’.31 He had an audience of the King on the 27th and managed to leave on the 30th.They reached Zhifu the following day and then took another ship up the Peiho river to Tianjin, moving slowly through the ice. They just made it – they would be the last vessel to enter until the following spring. He was desperate to see his daughters in Beijing but had to remain in Tianjin to see the Governor and deal with a ‘whole pyramid of despatches, etc.,’ as he put it to Minnie. He added, ‘To be obliged to stay here for three days instead of rushing on at once to you is hard to bear’.32 London considered that he had done well. Philip Currie, the assistant under-secretary of state in the Foreign Office, told him his treaty had given ‘entire satisfaction, and we are very grateful to you for the admirable way in which you have managed the business, and for undertaking the hardships of a journey to Söul’.33 Having now achieved diplomatic relations with Korea, they had to decide how Britain would be represented there. Parkes felt that there was no need to go to the expense of a British Legation there and told Granville that ‘whilst urging the appointment of a British Minister to Corea, the Corean Ministers also gave

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me to understand that it would not only be satisfactory, but even preferable, to their Government if the British Minister to China should be intrusted with that appointment’. Parkes emphasised that he did not want to promote his own claims, but was nevertheless, sensible that some advantage might accrue to our interests, not only in Corea, but also in its neighbourhood, from the first Diplomatic Representative in that country being one who is already well known to its Government, and who, from having conducted the recent negotiations, is fitting for the charge of putting a Treaty into operation, which in Oriental countries is often a more arduous task than negotiating the Treaty itself.34

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Parkes added persuasively that Korea was easier for him to visit than many of the Chinese ports. As Currie put it, the King of Korea was ‘hardly a potentate of sufficient importance to have a full envoy accredited to him by the Queen’, and Granville accepted Parkes’ proposal.35 On 21 April 1884, he returned to Seoul with his credentials from Queen Victoria. He was a veteran of these occasions and must have compared this with others he had been through. This one had most in common with the splendour and extravagance of Siam, being very different from the dignified simplicity of Japan. The Koreans went to great lengths to treat Parkes with honour, allowing him to ride in the king’s carriage at the head of a procession to the palace. The palace sounds unbelievably big; according to one of the men who accompanied Parkes, it covered about 300 acres of ground … There seems to be building enough to accommodate an army of 500,000 men … the throne-room is an immense building about 200 feet in height … The banqueting hall is also a very large building, and is built on forty-eight huge pillars of granite, and is surrounded by an artificial lake, with artificial islands in it.36

Parkes declared himself ‘particularly impressed by the graciousness of His Majesty’s manners, the polish and attractiveness of his appearance, and the earnestness and intelligence with which he delivered all his observations’.37 The King was equally taken with Parkes: he had ‘succeeded in concluding a good a thoroughly satisfactory arrangement’ which was ‘entirely due’ to his exertions.38

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Winning round the Koreans and agreeing the treaty the British wanted with them was a classic Parkes success of the kind he had enjoyed in the past, but which had lately become thin on the ground. There was nobody else who came remotely close to combining his ability, authority and experience in such matters. Unfortunately, his years of exerting himself to the maximum in disease-laden places were catching up with him. It would be his last great breakthrough.

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‘I Can Find No Rest’ Beijing, 1884–1885

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PARKES’ STINT AS Minister in China was the peak of his career, or at least should have been. The foreign residents of China were, of course, delighted to see him back, glad that their interests would be represented by someone who could be trusted to be firm. To most he finally seemed in his rightful place. The Chinese government, on the other hand, seemed to be actively hostile to him. He had hardly arrived when a complaint was being made about him to the Queen, something that had never happened to him in his eighteen years in Japan. It happened because of a disagreement about the light sentence in the Logan case (he had only received seven years for killing a Chinese boy) that degenerated into an almighty row. Hillier, the Chinese Secretary, described how it all came about: Parkes was discussing the case with Ministers at the Foreign Office on 19 December, when he ‘rose somewhat abruptly from his seat’ and struck ‘the table with the palm of his hand, to emphasise his remark’. He had hardly started speaking again, when one of them shouted out – ‘You strike the table do you? So can we’, and commenced to imitate the action of Sir H. Parkes in an exaggerated form. This appeared to be the signal for a general outburst on the part of all the Ministers present, each of whom proceeded to shout out at the top of his voice and strike the table as well, the Grand Secretary Li [Hongzhang] overturning his cup in the vehemence of his passion … [One of them] was heard to say that if Sir H. Parkes thought he could frighten them by blustering he was very much mistaken; they could bluster as well as he; he, Sir H. Parkes, (or, ‘You Parkes’ as he put it) had a reputation for 245

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violence already, and it was to him that China owed her last war with England. If he thought he was coming here to stir up another war with China, let him try. China was not afraid of him and his bluster … They knew something about foreign etiquette, and they should like to know what the Queen of England would say to this exhibition on the part of Her Representative. They would take good care that the matter should be brought to … [her] notice.1

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When the complaint arrived, Parkes was backed up by the Foreign Secretary, but the permanent under-secretary commented privately,‘I strongly suspect that it was a burst of animosity against Parkes personally and it is … unfortunate that he gave them the opening’.2 Fortunately, Prince Gong had not been present, so he was able to intervene and at a meeting nine days later, got them all to promise to be civil to each other in the future. Parkes optimistically telegraphed the Foreign Secretary: ‘Reconciliation complete.’3 It looks like they simply wanted to show that they would not be pushed around because having made their point, things settled down. However, it feels like Alcock’s prediction that Parkes’ appointment as Minister ‘would be offensive to them’ was correct.4 Having said this, Parkes’ one-and-a-half-year stint in the job certainly cannot be described as a failure. Hillier wrote after it that while there was ‘no denying the fact that he was not popular’ with the Chinese, he got more out of them than any one else. When he came up to Peking there was a long list of unsettled claims that had been under discussion for years, but they all went down like ninepins before his indomitable energy and were settled in desperation by the authorities … who knew they would have no peace until they had given in.5

A mixed happy and sad event for Parkes was the marriage of Mabel in March 1884, at the age of nineteen, to Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett, Admiral Willes’ Flag Lieutenant (aide). When Levett asked his permission, Parkes ‘was surprised but after a little thought agreed’. He realised that it would mean her returning to Britain: ‘I can scarcely yet foresee the extent to which this wholly unforeseen engagement may affect me.’6 Parkes gave Mabel a Chinese tiger claw necklace as a wedding present – the only piece of Chinese artwork we know of his having bought. No doubt he simply

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got it because he thought she would like it, but it was a change from the old Parkes who had not seen anything to admire in Chinese art. Nine months after the wedding, a son was born, Evelyn Harry Byrd, Parkes’ first grandchild and the only one he would know about. Parkes knew that he had to take things easier and in the summer of 1884 he rented Xiangjie Si, or the Temple of the Fragrant World, part of a complex of temples and monasteries in Beijing’s Western Hills, which were a good deal more comfortable than being in the city when it was hot. Minnie stayed there intending to spend time with him, but Parkes felt compelled to remain most of the time at the Legation. He caught a fever there which, he told the Consul-General in Shanghai, ‘enfeebled me to an extent I have not previously experienced, and confirmed me in my view that Peking is a damnable dunghill’.7 He did go to the hills to recover but then had to rush back to Beijing when there were anxieties about a war between France and China. Minnie wrote,

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He was really feeling the better for the change and rest out here, and just as he was deriving some benefit from the purer air, back he has to go into that sink – I really cannot call it by any more appropriate name. I much fear we may all have to bundle into the city again, for I expect if war be declared it would be scarcely safe to remain out here … Besides, first and foremost, where the father is, there I am: I cannot spend these last precious months separate, so I should simply go to him.8

This time was precious because the (for Parkes) dreaded day was coming when she too would get married, to a Scot, James Johnstone Keswick, known in the family as ‘Jamie’. Keswick had been in China since 1870 and stayed there for a total of 26 years, mostly in Hong Kong. He was part of the dynasty which controlled Jardine Matheson and as its ‘taipan’ or Chairman from 1889 to 1895 steered the company through the Baring trade crisis of 1891–1892 which killed off its main rival, Russell & Co. His nickname was ‘James the bloody polite’, reputedly for dismissing an employee in such flattering and sorrowful terms that the man said ‘Thank you so much Mr. Keswick. Thank you very much indeed.’9 He was certainly very polite to Parkes, skillfully managing to be both friendly and deferential while telling him all the things a father wants to hear from the man about to marry his

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beloved daughter. After he and Minnie had met up at the port of Zhifu (Chefoo), he told Parkes, We are in addition to being lovers such intimate friends that I shall find it hard to be without her. The “bonne camarade” has gone away looking very bright and bonnie and I am very thankful to her and to you for the visit she made to Chefoo which has drawn us closer together if possible, and helped me to love her more dearly than ever.10

Minnie’s desire to spend as much time as possible with her father before she got married was frustrated by his inability to settle. ‘It was impossible’ wrote Mrs Pirkis, widow of the Legation accountant,

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to get Sir Harry to take a proper holiday and rest from work … He would ride out to the temple intending to stay a few days and enjoy the country; but before he had finished dinner … or had any rest, a courier from the city would arrive with … despatches, which Sir Harry would immediately open and become so immersed in them for hours, that we had unwillingly to say goodnight and leave him surrounded by papers.11

Minnie and Jamie were married at the Legation Chapel in Beijing on 21 October 1884. They would be staying in China, so it did not feel quite such a wrench as with Mabel, but because Beijing was so isolated from the rest of the country, it would be difficult for Parkes to meet up with them (in fact, he never saw them again). He consoled himself by writing to them. He told Mabel, showing his fairly enlightened attitude to women: ‘My consolation for your absence is the knowledge that you are doing better duty at your proper post. I love to think of you as making a little Greenwich home happy, and showing that a wife can help a man to acquit himself of hard studious work.12 Minnie’s marriage was a loss to Parkes on a practical, as well as emotional, level because she had been so good at organising the social side of his duties, which he had no interest in. He told her that he had completely forgotten a diplomatic party given by his German counterpart. ‘You see, you used to keep the record of all my engagements’.13 Ten days later, he wrote her a tender note: ‘’Tis Saturday night – the night appropriated to “sweethearts and wives”, and therefore a proper time to write a line to my

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sweetheart.’ He went on to reassure her that he was following a wholesome routine, to which she would have added a grain of salt:

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I am in good health, for I am taking a good deal of exercise … I … leave my office directly the 2.30 post leaves, and am out for a couple of hours. This week I have ridden four days out of the six. I am also going through the grape cure, which consists of eating a bunch of grapes when I get up … I then take a brisk walk of half an hour in the compound, and go to breakfast at 8.30 punctually (!) with a good appetite. Work commences at nine sharp, and continues sharply till 2.30: luncheon (not very punctually) at one. Then I try to work again from 5 to 7.30.The evenings after dinner are rather somnolent, I fear, but … I intend them to improve.14

As we are seeing, there is a refreshing undercurrent of humour and almost irreverence here. Christmas saw him in reasonably high spirits, although he started to feel unwell in January. Jamie told him ‘I wish you could have the little woman on these occasions. As soon as we come back from Hong Kong in March she will go to you if there is no immediate prospect of your coming south. It will be a happiness to me to spare her to you for a few weeks.’15 That March, Parkes became very ill, telling Mabel on the 11th that his old complaint, neuralgia in the stomach, was keeping him to the house and ‘rendered all movement painful’.16 He assured Mabel he was getting better, but a few days later, the Legation Accountant, Pirkis, came into his room and saw him painfully gathering up some papers that had fallen on the floor. Pirkis suggested he lie down, to which Parkes responded that the ‘Government don’t pay me for lying down!’17 On the 19th, Hillier found him suffering from an attack of fever and asked the doctor to see him. On the same day, the German Minister Max von Brandt called and he later described what he saw: He was reclining on a sofa in his study, shivering and evidently in great pain … I insisted that he should go to bed at once, give up his work, and try to get a good rest. ‘That is the advice everybody has given me,’ was his answer, ‘but I can find no rest when lying down, my mind being constantly busy with the past and the present; so that I would prefer to work if I could.18

Hillier commented that ‘living so entirely alone as Sir Harry did, official matters were never absent from his mind’.19 However, Parkes

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did finally give up on working, sending a note to his deputy, Nicholas O’Conor, telling him ‘I tried to go on with this work, but find I am unable to – will you kindly do what is necessary.’ O’Conor went straight to him, and as he later told Minnie,

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found him sitting on the sofa by the window, looking very pale and worn, and with his feet resting on a chair. He said, ‘Excuse me lying down, but I am not well and don’t quite know what is the matter.’ I said, ‘I am afraid you are in great pain, Sir Harry?’ ‘Oh yes,’ he said; ‘but I can stand pain: what I cannot endure is that I cannot go on with my work … On the Friday [the 20th] there were some fifty or sixty despatches for the Government and the ports, but I did not like to take them to him for signature, nor yet to sign them for him, so I sent for Dr Bushell, and begged him to see Sir Harry and let me know what he thought I had better do. Bushell returned in about ten minutes and said, ‘Sir Harry can sign the despatches, but he ought not to read them.’ I accordingly brought them over to his bedroom. He was lying on his bed in a dressing suit … He got up and came over to a little table at the foot of the bed and signed all the despatches without a word, looking very pale. ‘[Y]ou see I have not bothered about work, and try to dismiss it from my mind, but the moment I shut my eyes and attempt to sleep the brain begins to work with terrific rapidity – all the scenes of my life in Japan, all the hair-breadth escapes, etc., come back with appalling vividness.20

Stephen Bushell, the Legation doctor, was with him constantly, but did not think his condition was too serious. He thought Parkes was suffering from a sharp attack of typhoid fever and hoped that with quiet rest he would recover from it as he had done before. On the following day, Parkes said he was feeling better, had eaten well, and was able to walk around his room. He had people who were keen to help, but he said he wanted to be left alone, attended by his faithful ‘boy’ from Guangzhou, Ah-ni, who had been with him for years. Minnie was now on her way, but Parkes was not told of this because they were worried that he would think she was being sent for because they thought he was going to die. That said, they still thought that he should pull through. At about half-past nine on the 21st, Bushell gave him quinine with a dose of morphia and he seemed to be going off to sleep comfortably. Ah-ni saw him three

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times during the night, giving him some milk. Between six and seven on Sunday morning (the 22nd), Ah-ni noticed that something was very wrong, and sent for the doctor who found that he had died. Everybody agreed that it was not the fever that had killed him but overwork. Hillier put it like this: ‘He never allowed his brain a moment’s rest, and his ceaseless mental activity rendered him abnormally sensitive to an illness which, though not light, would not, at the stage which it had reached, have given cause for alarm in ordinary circumstances.’21 To us, fifty-seven seems a tragically young age to die, but in the China service, it was pretty good. Parkes had beaten the odds for years, soldiering on while those around him were dropping. That said, it is sad that he had none of his family with him at the end. Had Minnie been there, she would have been able to make him relax and laugh, forget his worries, and possibly get him through it. In telling the Consul-General in Shanghai the news, O’Conor said,

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He had not a thought but what was devoted to his country’s interest, and a truer patriot or more single-minded, able Minister England has never had … I cannot say how sincerely I mourn him. I had learnt in the time I had had the pleasure of serving under him both to admire his remarkable talents and to esteem him above men as the devoted servant of his country.22

After his death, even Satow could be nice about him, writing that ‘without any doubt [he] achieved more than any other half dozen put together of the men who have represented England in that part of the world’.23 He would even offer a defence of Parkes’ rages, saying that ‘other great men have been queer tempered and there are plenty of stories about Napoleon I, Wellington … etc.’24 Dr Willis had made a similar point in a less generous way, writing that he was ‘a cold hearted man; I don’t think anybody could like him. At the same time men of the Parkes stamp are in a public way more useful than loveable men.’25 His death was treated as a major event.Throughout the Consulates in the Far East, flags stood at half-mast. Inoue, still at Foreign Affairs, instructed Japan’s Minister in London to personally tell the Foreign Secretary that the Japanese Government ‘cannot but feel a great grief at the death of one who has so much contributed to the improvement and progress of this country and whose long

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residence has won so many friends among Japanese officials’.26 To Plunkett, Parkes’ replacement as Minister, he even wrote of Parkes’ ‘sincerity and kindness of character’.27 We may accept that he had to, for the sake of Japan’s relations with Britain, praise Parkes’ achievements, but surely he would not have mentioned what a nice person he had been if there was not some truth in it? The Japan Weekly Mail thought this ‘spontaneous tribute … must be highly gratifying not only to the immediate family of Sir Harry, but also to his friends here and in China, whose number, we feel sure, includes all who ever came in contact with him’, which, however you look at it, is over the top.28 The obsequies were delayed until Minnie arrived and took place in the Legation chapel in Beijing on 30 March. The coffin was draped with a Union Jack and covered in garlands of flowers. The whole of the diplomatic corps were present; Ito- who was now Japanese Minister to China delayed a trip back to Japan to attend. He, along with other Foreign Consuls, acted as pall-bearers. Ito- must have had some very mixed feelings about Parkes, whom he had had many dealings with over the past twenty years. But now was not the time to express them. And he, like Inoue, probably genuinely felt that he had been a giant and that while other diplomats may have been easier to work with, they were small beer in comparison.The effective Foreign Minister of China, Li Hongzhang, another old sparring partner of Parkes’, showed his respect by having his bodyguard escort the coffin on to a steamer (the Kowshing, owned by Jardine Matheson) in Tianjin as it started on its journey to Shanghai. As it passed the Taku forts, where Parkes had dictated terms of surrender twenty-five years earlier, minute-guns were fired by the Merlin until the ship was out of sight. Sir William Dowell, the Commander of the China Station, was upset that he could not provide a ship to escort the Kowshing because his fleet was tied up with monitoring Russian shipping, but the Merlin was at least able to divert for long enough to fire the salute. (It was fortunate that Dowell had replaced Parkes’ bête noire, Willes, the previous year.) At Shanghai, all business in the foreign settlements stopped and the whole community assembled to pay its respects to the coffin. It was placed on a gun-carriage drawn by blue-jackets, who hauled it through heavy rain down the Bund and along Jiujiang road to a mortuary chapel. The telegraph transmitted the news to England immediately and it was in British newspapers the following day. Parkes’ passing

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was noticed by the Queen, who learned with ‘great regret’ of the death.29 The London Evening Standard considered that Parkes’s passing was a national calamity. Seldom has there been a time at which it was more vital to the safety and repose of our countrymen in China that their Government should be represented at the Imperial Court by a Minister qualified by experience to divine, and unquestioned authority to control, the tortuous courses of Celestial Diplomacy. Sir Harry Parkes was, in a pre-eminent degree, fitted for the duties from the active discharge of which he has prematurely and unexpectedly passed away.

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The Standard believed that both China and Japan had made great progress: ‘If fanatical prejudice has given place to cordial goodwill and willing imitation, it is men like Sir Harry Parkes who have wrought this change. Among many who merited well of China and Japan his claims to gratitude are pre-eminent.’30 The St. James’s Gazette did not go quite as far as the Standard, but believed that his loss was peculiarly unfortunate just now, when British interests require a firm hand and a wise head to protect them at the Court of Peking. Sir Harry … had an experience of diplomacy in the far East unequalled among living Englishmen. Diplomacy, [in] spite of modern improvements, democratic ideas, and platform politics, is still a business requiring special training … In China such special knowledge is even more necessary than elsewhere … [Parkes] had gifts of character as well as of experience. Bold and self-reliant, he was also cautious and far-seeing: in all respects a man whom we cannot easily replace.31

To the Graphic, he was ‘not only an indefatigable public servant, courageous, and at the same time adroit … but he also really understood China and the Chinese’.32 Some newspapers linked the deaths of Parkes and General Gordon, who had died two months earlier. The Homeward Mail considered that both were men of exceptional talent and power, stamping on the history in which they acted the impress of their individual personality; both were men of dauntless courage and lofty aims, and succeeded in

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raising the prestige of England in the far East by displaying before darkened multitudes a fine example of the highest type of English virtues; both had the true interests of China sincerely at heart.33

A much less gushing tribute appeared in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette Daily Telegram. It noted that Parkes’s death

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affords the Foreign Secretary a fresh piece of valuable patronage … The post at Pekin is worth £5,500 a year, but then it requires special talents … After more than forty years spent in China and Japan, the late Sir Harry Parkes had become so thoroughly Orientalised that he was more at home in the “Flowery Land” than he would have been in England. A man of great individuality of character and marked ability, intimately acquainted with the “Heathen Chinese” and all his ways, Sir Harry will be deeply regretted by the Government.34

The Dundee Courier was the least enthusiastic: ‘His … services in China and Japan were nothing more than might have been looked for from a man of such tact and bravery … His life represented both the sunny and the seamy sides of diplomacy.’35 His body was transported on the Blue Funnel steamer Anchises, which left Shanghai on 22 April, arriving on 20 June at the Royal Albert Docks in London, to be met by relatives and friends. From there, it was taken to Kensington in an open funeral car, covered with a Union Jack. A James Macaulay MD writing in the Leisure Hour, thought that he deserved a burial in Westminster Abbey, but his career was not well enough known.36 On 3 July, his remains were finally laid to rest in the same grave as those of Fanny and Nellie in the churchyard of St. Lawrence’s, which is surely what he would have preferred. It was a big funeral with many dignitaries present, including the Master of the Queen’s Household representing Her Majesty. Members of the Chinese Legation were there but not the Japanese, because they had missed the train. ‘There are occasions’, a Kawanaka-san told the Japanese Minister, ‘when trains ought not to be missed’.37 The value of Parkes’ estate was more than £9,000 and his will was very complicated, naming three men, Fanny’s brotherin-law, Sir Thomas Douglas Forsyth, another relation of Fanny’s, Hall Rokeby Price, and William Keswick, Jamie’s older brother, as his executors. He charged them with dividing up his goods between his children as they thought ‘calculated to effect a fair and

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equal division thereof ’ and left them each £100 to thank them for performing this troublesome task. His money would likewise be split up equally between the children once other bequests had been made. The will reads as the wishes of one who had considered very carefully about all the people in his life – from annuities for his uncle, George Gitton, and his cousin, Louisa Parkes, to 19 pounds 19 shillings to twelve of his relatives for them to buy a ring or other memento of him. Aside from his children, Isabella did best, getting £1,000, while Catharine only got £200. This did not reflect his feelings about them – Isabella really needed the money. In 1888, she would receive a Civil List pension of £75 ‘in consideration of the long and valuable services of her late brother … and of her destitute condition’.38 Some wills leave bitter feelings and others leave the survivors with great difficulties (like Parkes’ father’s will). This one did neither: it was scrupulously fair and ensured that those he left behind would be taken care of to the greatest extent he could manage.

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Epilogue

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THE VICTORIANS LOVED their heroes, especially once they were dead, and plans were immediately made for commemorating the great man: ‘It is proposed that a Memorial of so distinguished a servant of the Crown should be erected in a public place in London, and a Committee has been formed to give effect to the project.’1 The Chairman was Rutherford Alcock and both the Japanese and Chinese Ministers in Britain sat on it, as did the former Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville. The original plans were scaled down and he ended up being given a monument in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is an effective piece, with a bust that well conveys his no-nonsense demeanour. He is wearing his diplomatic uniform, with the star and sash of his GCMG, and it bears the following inscription: ‘Erected by friends and brother officers in memory of his lifelong service, his unfailing courage, devotion to duty, and singleness of purpose.’ On 21 July 1887, it was unveiled in a low-key ceremony by Sir Rutherford Alcock, attended by Wade, Keppel, the Secretaries (not the Ministers) of the Chinese and Japanese Legations, along with family and friends, including Isabella, William Lockhart with one of his sons, Minnie and Mabel. Satow was also there – he thought Alcock’s speech was ‘rather egotistical’ but he ‘appeared moved during the end’.2 The sculptor was Thomas Brock, who was responsible for some of the most famous statues in London, including Prince Albert for the Albert Memorial and Queen Victoria for the memorial to her outside Buckingham Palace. In spite of this, probably fewer than one in a hundred of the visitors to St. Paul’s gives Parkes more than a cursory glance, both he and Brock now having been almost entirely forgotten. (To be fair, nearly all of the memorials around his are also to people very few will now have heard of.) Few artists can have had their reputation fall quite as dramatically as Brock’s. The art historian Mark Stocker explained why: ‘His qualities of intelligence, punctuality, consistency, care, courteousness, and cost-effectiveness count for little when the product 257

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is considered reactionary and academic. He has paid dearly for fitting so well into his age.’3 This latter comment could perhaps equally be applied to Parkes. He was seen as a great man in his day but now, while admiring his personal qualities, it is hard for us in the twenty-first century to look at what he did in China in particular without very mixed feelings. In China, the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce established a memorial committee and the Japan Weekly Mail thought that there were ‘few, if any’ in Yokohama

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who could endure the thought of taking no share in a last tribute to the memory of one whom we all loved and respected.The Japan of former days, the Japan that we … look back to across years that do not gain by comparison, is the Japan of Sir Harry Parkes. All its most thrilling episodes, all its best records, are inseparably linked with his name.4

It was a strong pitch and £975 was raised. Proposals were solicited and a large number were received, including five for granite obelisks, one for three memorial fountains, and a design for a statue by Tommaso Solari, whose works graced his native Naples, although he was hardly a household name outside it. In spite of this, the committee had ‘no hesitation’ in choosing his proposal for a ‘conventional statue on a pedestal’, judging how it would look from photographs of other works which were, ‘in the opinion of the committee most satisfactory proofs’ of his artistic ability.5 Solari was a safe, conservative choice. The critic Agostino Della Sala Spada characterised him as ‘not a revolutionary, nor a leader of a school, nor a grandiose man … He is modest … and has good bourgeois habits’.6 As important was his price, which was a very reasonable £500. Adding in the cost of a pedestal, an inscription, and passage from Italy, the committee calculated it could be erected for £825, leaving a comfortable margin.They decided to haggle a little, and proposed to Solari that everything, including the shipping, be done for £800 and this was accepted. Jamie Keswick provided him with ‘excellent’ photographs of Parkes, and there was ‘therefore good reason to expect that the statue will be a satisfactory likeness’.7 Solari proposed a standing figure but Keswick thought that the best photograph they had was of Parkes seated, so a statue based on that image would produce the optimum result.The committee decided to leave this to the artist. There was also the question of

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whether it should be made of marble or bronze – they concluded that bronze would last longer and be less likely to be damaged on the journey, but again decided that Solari should be left to decide based on the budget. In the end, they got a bronze statue, with Parkes standing in a typical statesman-like pose, left hand on his hip, and his right held out, as if making a gesture of conciliation. It was not particularly admired. The North China Herald thought that it looked

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better at a distance. It is a well-designed, well-balanced, figure … but it is a coarse likeness of Sir Harry. The figure is too robust and stalwart; and the features, while preserving a likeness to the original are rather those of the prosperous tradesman than of the keen, eager, zealous, thoughtful man of speech and action whom many of us remember so well.8

It was placed in a very prominent location in Shanghai, across the Bund from the Peace Hotel, ready for unveiling by the Duke of Connaught, Queen Victoria’s third son, on 8 April 1890. It was lucky that the Duke happened to be visiting because it made the ceremony a much bigger event than it would otherwise have been – he was certainly an improvement on the rather B-list Alcock. At the unveiling, the Duke said that Parkes had provided ‘noble service to his country’, and, ‘I hope we may say, to the world; certainly to the civilised world at large’.9 He added,‘We cannot forget that it was largely owing to him that Japan has now advanced so greatly in civilisation.’10 Almost nobody in Japan would have gone that far, but the unveiling of a statue is not a time for nuance. And he was seen as a very great man. In 1901, a piece in the Saturday Review commented, If the British community in China, – and still more surely men now retired who knew Sir Harry and his times – were asked which of all the officials they have known during the last fifty years they would rather see back at Peking, the name of Sir Harry Parkes would command a practically unanimous suffrage.11

He ‘won his present ascendancy mainly by never giving in, never allowing himself to be slighted, but always resolutely maintaining the dignity and honour of his country’.12 Diplomats do not usually get statues. Even at the Foreign Office in London, where there are forty-four statues and relief portraits

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of identifiable people, none is of a Minister or Ambassador. Parkes’ was unique and he got it because he had entered the Victorian pantheon of heroes. The qualities they needed to have exhibited to do so, along with having achieved (or tried to achieve) something exceptional, were extraordinary courage, lack of concern for their own well-being, and patriotism.The reason Parkes ticked the Victorian hero boxes derives from his conduct when he was captured back in 1860. As a Minister, he did not show any more bravery than, say, Alcock, but he never got so much as a memorial, let alone a statue. When Parkes had been held prisoner he really had exhibited all the necessary qualities, particularly the indifference to his own fate. At the same time, it was hard to attribute one big achievement to him (and easy to attribute one big disaster – the triggering of the Second Opium War). Nevertheless, his courage in 1860 became so well known that all his subsequent actions were interpreted in the light of it. Once you were established as a hero in nineteenth-century Britain, you were likely to remain so – wondering if heroes had feet of clay did not start until the twentieth century. The statue was nicknamed by locals ‘tieren’, meaning ‘ironman’, which was not a bad way to describe Parkes. It was near a busy ferry jetty, meaning that it would be seen by many Shanghai citizens every day. However during the Japanese occupation it was looking very out of place and on 9 December 1942, the Shanghai Municipal Council was informed by the Japanese that various public memorials of the Western presence would be removed. It was agreed by both Japanese and Chinese members of the Council committee that the Parkes statue was a symbol of ‘British Imperialism in East Asia’.13 The process was orderly – the statue was not ripped down in an orgy of anti-British sentiment. Its dismantling was carefully costed; removing the Parkes statue along with one of Sir Robert Hart, would cost $5,000; 20% more if they were to be preserved. They were not, Parkes being melted down to provide much-needed bronze to contribute to the fight against all that he had stood for. *

As for his children, as may be expected, they had mixed fortunes. His daughters did better than his sons. Fanny once said that she was thankful that the girls had inherited his robust mental constitution – the boys took after her in being prone to depression.

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All the Parkes daughters married well, although it may be significant that all their husbands were quite a lot older than them: Jamie Keswick was fifteen years older than Minnie, Egerton Levett was seven years older than Mabel, Rowland Cobbold was fifteen years older than Lillian and Charles Dickson was ten years older than Frances. Perhaps they needed husbands who were older, and indeed figures of substance as they all were, to measure up, having had their father as their model of maleness. The consequence of the age gaps was that all of them except Mabel had long widowhoods. None of them divorced and none remarried, so perhaps all the marriages were happy. The eldest surviving child, Minnie, lived to the age of eightynine and had a full and satisfying life. As we have seen, her husband was Chairman of Jardine Matheson. She devoted herself to good works, ‘more or less’ running the Missions to Seamen and the Hong Kong Ladies’ Benevolent Society.14 Her obituary in The Times speaks of how ‘she had inherited’ from her father ‘the tradition of service for others which never left her … She was the matriarch of a large circle of children, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren … she took the greatest interest in world affairs’. It also spoke of her ‘sound judgment and quick brain’, as well as her ‘deep and selfless devotion to all those who needed her’.15 She had been a widow for forty-five years (Jamie died at only sixty-one), living in comfort at Dormont House near Lockerbie in southwest Scotland. The next child, Harry, successfully gained his degree from Brasenose College Oxford in 1884. Other than that, he seems to have entirely fallen through the cracks of history – we do not know what he did, but he clearly did not become the great man that Fanny had so hoped he would be. He did not, it seems, even become a middling man; it would have been normal for the eldest son to handle his father’s affairs and legacy, but this was left to Minnie and Catharine. However, his survival into adulthood was an achievement in itself, given how hopeless things had seemed for him. He lived to the age of fifty-eight, dying in 1921, and was buried with Parkes, Fanny and Nellie in their grave at St. Lawrence’s Church. No wife is mentioned on the gravestone, so it looks as if he was unmarried. In worldly terms, Mabel did particularly well, marrying into a very wealthy family, the Levetts, and lived in Yoxford near the Suffolk coast. Her husband, Egerton, had served in the Royal Navy, and it was while he was visiting China that they met. They had

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two sons and a daughter who died in infancy. Six years after her marriage Mabel was killed in a fall from her horse, just short of her twenty-sixth birthday. (Egerton, on the other hand, lived to ninety-seven.) As we have seen, Douglas, like his father, ended his formal education very early, and went off to Borneo in 1880, at the age of thirteen or fourteen. We catch up with him again in 1891 when he was appointed a junior officer attached to the Government Secretary’s office in Taiping, Malaya, and then again when he died there, unmarried, on 12 February 1894 at the age of twenty-seven. His gravestone reads: ‘Youngest and much loved son of Sir Harry Parkes’. Lillian stayed in England, marrying Rev. Rowland Cobbold in St. Mary Abbott’s Church in Kensington in 1903, which is where the Parkes family had worshipped when they were living nearby. He had been Chaplain at the Cathedral in Hong Kong from 1889 to 1898. They had three sons and one daughter. After China, they lived at Farlingaye Hall, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, which is still standing. Lillian died in 1946 at the age of seventy-four. Frances had a similar life to Minnie’s. She married Charles Dickson, who was the Director of Jardine Matheson from 1900 to 1906 and a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. He was related to Jamie Keswick through his mother Christina, and they had two daughters. He must have been successful in Hong Kong, because when they moved back to Britain they were able to buy a huge baronial mansion near Dumfries (not far from where Minnie was living), called Friars Carse, now a beautiful country house hotel. Charles died in 1936, whereupon Frances moved to the smaller nearby property of Trigony, now another very nicelooking hotel. She died in 1965 at the age of ninety-two. Her obituary in the Japan Society Bulletin said this about her: Remarkably active, both physically and mentally, until recently, she was particularly interested in youth movements and was County Commissioner for the Girl Guides and Cubs for a number of years; but she never lost her interest in the land of her birth … Although some eighty odd years have passed since she left Japan for the last time, it may not be out of place to note that one of her nephews, Mr. W.J. Keswick, is married to Mary Lindley, daughter of the late Sir Francis Lindley and sister-in-law of Sir Oscar Morland. Mrs. Dickson, therefore, had the unique distinction of being the daughter of a former eminent British Minister to Japan and

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of being related by marriage to two former distinguished British Ambassadors in Tokyo.16 *

What then are we to make of Parkes’ life and career? His work in China, viewed from a British perspective, can be said to have been remarkably successful in most respects. There was simply nobody else who came close to matching his ability to achieve the impossible in unresolvable situations and with immovable people. He almost never failed to fulfil any task he was set, however difficult. From a Chinese viewpoint, the picture is of course very different. His support for unequal treaties, tough measures to enforce agreements and especially his role in the Second Opium War, make hostile attitudes towards him there seem reasonable. In Japan, the picture is brighter and he was a very effective Minister there, particularly in his first ten years or so. In his memoir, Satow, who as we know did not like Parkes, writes that

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whatever may have been his faults and shortcomings, especially towards the latter part of his career, it must be acknowledged that England never was represented by a more devoted public servant, and that Japan herself owes to his exertions a debt which she can never repay and has never fully acknowledged.17

Fundamentally, Parkes was a conventional, obedient British diplomat – it was his abrasive style rather than his actions that were unusual. The fallout from the way he and Bowring started the Second Opium War taught him that he must never again stray from the guidelines laid down by Foreign Secretaries. From that point onwards, he was deferential towards their wishes and did not argue with their instructions (his pushing to open Korea in the 1870s was the one exception to this). He wanted China, Japan and Korea to respect treaties and become peaceful trading nations. He certainly thought he knew better than they did what was good for them, but it could be argued that the path he envisaged: raising national wealth through developing global commerce and conforming to international (Western) rules, would have been much the best course for all three of them. Later generations there would have been immeasurably happier if the countries had followed his teachings. That they also benefited Britain was not, of course, irrelevant. But Parkes was

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not only concerned with his own country’s interests – his tireless promotion of projects to improve Japanese infrastructure like the development of lighthouses, telegraphs, and railways, brought only marginal benefits to his own country, but immense ones to Japan. Hugh Cortazzi wrote that Parkes’ ‘irascibility must have made him insufferable but he was obviously an outstanding head of mission’.18 He would indeed have been hard to work under, especially if he did not think much of your abilities. That said, however much some of his subordinates resented and even hated him, he managed them well, getting stunning results out of them. The reports by Satow, Mitford, Aston and others of his staff opened up swathes of knowledge about Japan. Not for him, Roches’ basing of policies on instinct and personal impressions. Parkes always understood what was happening in Japan far better than any of the other foreign representatives. Parkes was adored by the British community in China and Japan for his no-nonsense attitude to local officials and (towards them) genial personality. But he was also widely respected by the local authorities, in Japan at least.The fulsome tributes and outpourings of gratitude from the Emperor and senior Ministers there were more than just politeness. To me, his outstanding characteristic was his integrity. He would gloss over matters he did not care to go into, but fundamentally what you saw was what you got. He was a strikingly truthful man, never afraid to say and do what he thought was right, whatever pain or embarrassment it might cause himself or others. We never see him saying one thing to one person and another to someone else. He was also phenomenally tenacious. He would dig and dig to get to the bottom of a matter. He did not let things go. I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of him. His hard driving surely had its roots in his childhood. People have different ways of dealing with having been an orphan – Parkes seems to have coped in his professional life by never making himself beholden to anybody and never putting himself in a position where he could be accused of not doing his duty. He made himself indispensable so that even if he was not much liked, he could never be cast aside. One of his tremendous strengths was that he felt no fear. Perhaps the traumatic events of his childhood had taught him that there was no point in being scared because terrible things would happen anyway. Normally people who are so fearless in dangerous places die young – he was extremely fortunate that his luck with bullets and swords never ran out.

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While he worried about providing for his family, he was not money-driven. Indeed, his family’s well-being was not really something that motivated him – rather, they had to make big sacrifices to enable him to pursue his career. It is sad to think of Fanny as a bright, enterprising, beautiful woman when he met her, weakened by the diseases she inevitably caught (on top of giving birth seven times), and crushed by the painful choices they had to make for their family. The children, of course, were shunted around.Yet if any of them resented this, I have seen no sign of it. Rather, it seems that they worshipped him, proud to have such a great man as their father. He gave things his all. No effort was ever spared. He was aggressive in his style, but in his actions in Japan if not always in China, he strove for peace. He loved his family and loved his country. Even in this post-colonial age, there may still be something to be said for his virtues: the courage, the single-mindedness, the devotion to duty.

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Bibliography ™

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Primary Sources National Archives, Kew: Great Britain, Foreign Office General Correspondence, Japan Great Britain, Foreign Office General Correspondence, China Great Britain, Embassy and Consular Archives, Japan correspondence Great Britain, Embassy and Consular Archives, China correspondence The Satow papers The Hammond papers Collections of papers: The Clarendon Papers (Bodleian Library, Oxford) The Kimberley papers (Bodleian Library, Oxford) The Parkes papers (Cambridge University Library) The Loch family papers (National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh) The Rutherford Alcock papers (Bristol University special collections) The Bowring papers (University of Manchester Library) The Hiram Shaw Wilkinson papers (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland) The Robert Hart papers (Queen’s University, Belfast) The William Lockhart papers (SOAS Library) A.B. Mitford letters (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Norwich) William Willis correspondence (Yokohama Archives of History) Other archives and collections visited: The Royal archives (Windsor Castle) The Jardine Matheson archive (Cambridge University Library) The Japan Society Library (London) The Walsall Local History Centre The Lichfield Record Office The Schools of King Edward VI archive (Birmingham) The Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (Tokyo) The Newspapers and Periodicals archive (Hong Kong Central Library)

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Selected Secondary Sources Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. Alcock, Rutherford. The Capital of the Tycoon, 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1863. ———. Art and Art Industries in Japan. London: Virtue, 1878. Allen, Bernard. The Rt. Hon. Sir Ernest Satow G.C.M.G, A Memoir. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1933. Altick, Richard D. Victorian People and Ideas. New York: Norton, 1973, 54. Anonymous, ‘Our Trip to Seoul’, Tinsley’s Magazine, London, Vol.26/212, March 1885, 234. Auslin, Michael R. Negotiating with Imperialism: The unequal treaties and the culture of Japanese diplomacy. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Barr, Pat. The Coming of the Barbarians: A Story of Western Settlement in Japan 1853–1870. London: Macmillan, 1967. Beasley, W.G. Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy 1853–1868. London: Oxford University Press, 1955. ———. ‘Sir Harry Parkes and the Meiji Restoration’, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Series 3, Vol 12, 1975. ———. Great Britain and the Opening of Japan 1834–1858. Folkestone: Japan Library, 1995. ———. Japan Encounters the Barbarian: Japanese Travellers in America and Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Beeching, Jack. The Chinese Opium Wars. London: Hutchinson, 1975. Behan, T.L. Bulletins and other State Intelligence for the Year 1857. London: Harrison, 1859. ———. Bulletins and other State Intelligence for the Year 1859. London: Harrison, 1860. Bickers, Robert. Empire Made me: An Englishman adrift in Shanghai. London: Allen Lane, 2003. ———. The Scramble for China. London: Penguin, 2012. Bird, Isabella. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: An account of travels on horseback in the interior, including visits to the aborigines of Yezo and the shrines of Nikkô and Isé. New York: Putnam’s, 1881. ———. The Golden Chersonese and the way thither. London: John Murray, 1883. Black, John. Young Japan, 2 vols. London: Trubner, 1881. Robert Blake. Jardine Matheson. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999. Bowman, Marilyn. James Legge and the Chinese Classics: A brilliant Scot in the turmoil of colonial Hong Kong. Victoria, BC: Friesen, 2016. Bowring, John. The Kingdom and People of Siam, Vol. II. London: J.W. Parker, 1857.

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Acknowledgements

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™

THIS BOOK WAS mostly written at the K.B.  Chen  China Centre  Library, the Japanese Library  at the  Nissan  Institute of Japanese Studies (both part of the Bodleian Library in Oxford), and the International House Library in Tokyo. The three of them offer the perfect conditions for working on Japan and China with, between them, virtually every book or article you could want available in one way or another, combined with friendly staff to help you find the difficult-to-locate ones. I want to thank the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and Jardine, Matheson & Co., joint guardians of the Parkes Papers. They could not be in better hands, even if we wish that so many of them had not disappeared. Also helpful was the National Records of Scotland, whose staff so kindly arranged for me to see the embroidered shirt which contained the message in Hindi that Loch had received while he and Parkes were being held captive in 1860. There were a lot of individuals who helped so much with specific things. Stuart Cawthorne gave me a lot of information about the Plumer family and St. Lawrence’s Church in Stanmore. Simon Sole taught me about extraterritoriality and how it still operates today. Judith Stanley gave me (I’m embarrassed to say, very necessary) assistance with the French, and my esteemed colleagues in Japan, Ciaran Murray and Charles De Wolf, gave me advice on all sorts of abstruse points that only their vast range of scholarship could extend to. Charles and Janine Beichman helped me with reading classical Japanese (which, especially if handwritten, is really hard!). And my dear friend Hugh Wilkinson read the whole manuscript and made all kinds of improvements. At ninety-three and entirely without the aid of technology, he comfortably outdoes those of younger generations who have an arsenal of gadgetry at their disposal. Heidi Potter at the Japan Society found obscure pieces of information for me, as did Mary Redfern at the Chester Beatty Library, and Gregory Irvine at the V&A. Conversations

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with two former Ambassadors in Japan, George Sioris and David Warren, really assisted my thinking about Parkes professional life. I thank the redoubtable Paul Norbury who after decades of publishing books on Japan still has the thirst for more. My, how his patience has been tested over the years if his other authors are anything like me. Certain places you hope will always stay the same. The Yokohama Archives of History is one, with its obliging staff, unparalleled resources and comfortable space to work in. Other places you hope will change. The archives of the Foreign Ministry in Japan is the bane of the lives of anybody who needs them. Fortunately, their needle in a haystack approach to cataloguing is compensated for by the kindness of the staff who take you by the hand and lead you through the most arcane and bizarre system ever devised. I owed a lot to Andrew Hughes Hallett who, I am sad to say, died on the last day of 2019. He was Parkes’ great grandson and was extremely supportive of this project. When I asked him to write a preface to this book, he casually mentioned that he had terminal cancer and had a few things he needed to do, but nevertheless found time to read the text and comment thoughtfully on it. Parkes would have been proud of such a descendent. Another Parkes relative through his fourth daughter Lillian, Anthony Cobbold, who manages the amazing Cobbold Family History Trust website, gave valuable suggestions. Ian Ruxton, the walking encyclopedia on Ernest Satow always instantly (not to mention, fully and perceptively) answered anything I asked him. Without his work on Satow’s diaries and correspondence, writing about Britain’s relations with bakumatsu and Meiji Japan would be a lot harder. Two anonymous readers really put their fingers on (rather fundamental) things that were wrong with the manuscript. That it is better is down to them – that it is still far from perfect is down to the author. Friends showed forbearance in accompanying me to obscure places that somehow seemed important to the writing of the book. Keith McPhalen good humouredly let me take him to Naples to see Lord Holland’s tomb at San Giuseppe a Chiaia, so I could see work by Tommaso Solari who sculpted the statue of Parkes, only to find the church was ‘in restauro’. Kazuo was the one who really suffered. A low point was being traipsed around the temple King Mongkhut had lived in for twenty-seven years, Wat Bownniwet Vihara in Bangkok, in the

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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middle of the day, when it was heaving with people there for a special occasion of some kind. I suspect that most biographers are slightly cracked, obsessive types who lose any sense of proportion about what is important and what can safely be skipped. That anyone sticks with them is a miracle for which they should give thanks every day.

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NOTES ™

Preface 1

Stanley Lane-Poole & F.V. Dickins, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes K.C.B., G.C.M.G., Sometime Her Majesty’s Minister to China and Japan, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1894); Henry Brougham Loch, Personal Narrative of Occurrences during Lord Elgin’s Second Embassy to China, 1860 (London: John Murray, 1869).

Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6

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7 8 9

I am grateful to Stuart Cawthorne for this and much more information about St. Lawrence’s church. Robert Morton, A.B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State (Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2017). https://www.japansociety.org.uk/category/reviews/by-issue/2017-vol-12/ issue-70-august/. Accessed 18 January 2019. ‘Edited by Boz’ (Charles Dickens), The posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club, Vol. II, (Paris: Galignani, 1838), 349. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 177. Parkes is alluding to Psalm 45 here: ‘My tongue is the pen of a ready writer’. Satow to Dickins, 10 October 1881, Ian Ruxton ed., Sir Ernest Satow’s Private Letters to W.G. Aston and F.V. Dickins (lulu.com, 2008), 142. ‘The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, K.C.B., G.M.C.G., sometime Her Majesty’s Minister to China and Japan by Stanley Lane-Poole and F.V. Dickins.’ The Quarterly Review, 178/356 (April 1894), 460. ‘Sir Harry Parkes’, The Speaker, 14 July 1894, 50. John Foster, Decision of Character and other essays (London: Ward, Lock & Tyler, ninth edition, 1830), viii.

Chapter 1: ‘Watch Therefore for Ye Know Not’  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 3. Lichfield Diocesan Magazine, 1886, 130. Walsall Observer, 23 January 1953. Frederick Hackwood, Staffordshire Worthies (Stafford: Chronicle Press, 1911), 162. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 3. Ibid. Ibid., 4. Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 August 1833. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 4.

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10 https://www.ayotstpeter.com/the-rectors/. Accessed 26 April 2019. 11 Arthur Waley, The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958), 233.

12 Report of Proceedings on a Voyage to the Northern Ports of China, in the Ship Lord Amherst (London: B. Fellowes, 1833), 26.

13 Zheng Yangwen, The Social Life of Opium in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 61.

14 Parkes to Granville, 3 November 1883, Park Il-Kuen, ed., Anglo-Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea, 1866-1886 (Seoul: Shin Mun Dang, 1982), 377.

15 Christopher Meyer, Getting Our Way (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009), 127. 16 Catharine Lockhart to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 7 August 1841, SOAS archives, MS380645/1.

17 Robert Bickers, The Scramble for China (London: Penguin, 2012), 171.

Chapter 2: ‘A Sharp Intelligent Lad’ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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William Lockhart to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 23 March 1841, SOAS archives, MS380645/1. William Lockhart to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 4–10 May 1841, ibid. Catharine to S.B. Lockhart, 31 May 1841, ibid. Catharine to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 31 May 1841, ibid. Maitland Daily Mercury, 1 April 1918. Catharine Lockhart to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 21 September 1841, SOAS archives, MS380645/1. William Lockhart to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 20 October 1841, ibid. William Lockhart to Catharine, 26 July 1861, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 445. Catharine to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 29 June 1843, SOAS archives, MS380645/1. R. Montgomery Martin, China, Political, Commercial, and Social, Vol. II (London: James Madden, 1847), 325. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 14. Parkes’ Journal, ibid., 19 and 21. Ibid., 17. Jack J. Gerson, Horatio Nelson Lay and Sino-British Relations, 1854–1864 (Cambridge: East Asian Research Center, 1972), 8. ‘I’m a copyist / An ugly business / Happy or sad / Always copying.’ Lord Redesdale, Memories, Vol. I (London: Hutchinson, 1915), 108. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 19. The sentence should read, ‘Les Anglais l’ont soutenu dans cette affaire beaucoup plus que ses propres compatriotes.’ My thanks to Judith Stanley for helping me out with this. Regulations for Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service, as amended by the Marquis of Salisbury, January 1879, Cambridge University Library, MS Parkes 26/10. Zara Steiner, The Old Foreign Office: From a Secretarial office to a modern department of state (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1981), 186. Redesdale, Memories, Vol. I, 94. Gordon Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes, British Representative in Japan 1865–83 (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1996), 14. Willis to Fanny Willis, 30 September 1866, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/7, No. 132.

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23 Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 19. 24 Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank, eds., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 10 (Taipei: Caves, 1986), 201. 25 Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 18. 26 Ibid., 23. 27 Parkes’ Journal, ibid., 22 June 1842, 25. 28 Ibid., 27 June 1842, 27. 29 Ibid., 8 July 1842, 30. 30 Ibid., 27 July 1842, 37. 31 Ibid., 20 August 1842, 42. 32 Ibid., 42–43. 33 Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 44. 34 Parkes’ journal, 24 August 1842, ibid., 44–45. 35 Ibid., 46. 36 Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 47.

Chapter 3: ‘Not Sufficient to Satisfy Me’ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Martin, R. Montgomery. China, Political, Commercial, and Social, Vol. II (London: James Madden, 1847), 317–369. Parkes to Catharine and Isabella, 13 November 1842, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 54. Ibid. Ibid., 1 January 1843, 55. Parkes to Lockhart, ? 1843, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 59. Ibid., 1 April 1843, 57 James Summers, A Handbook of the Chinese Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1863), xx. Parkes’ examination, 18 April 1872, Report from the Select Committee on Diplomatic and Consular Services: together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, appendix and index (London: House of Commons, 1872), 62. Robert Thom, Yishi Yuyan, Esop’s Fables (Macao: The Canton Press Office, 1840), no page number. Parkes’ Journal, 3 September 1843, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 62. Hurd, The Arrow War, 14. Parkes’ Journal, 4 September 1843, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 64–65. Ibid., 8 September 1843, 65. Harold Williams, Shades of the Past (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1959), 217. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 90. Thom, Yishi Yuyan, Esop’s Fables, no page number. Redesdale, Memories, Vol. I, 376.

Chapter 4: ‘Here I Am Now Perfectly Alone’ 1 2 3 4

Parkes’ Journal, 1 July 1844, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 73. Ibid., 72. Ibid., 72–73. Catharine to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 4 September 1844, SOAS archives, MS380645/1.

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Parkes’ Journal, ? July 1844, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 74–75. Ibid., 1 July 1844, 73. Ibid., 11 October 1844, 84. The comment was made by the prominent Hong Kong lawyer and author, J.W. Norton-Kyshe. G.B. Endacott, A Biographical Sketch-book of early Hong Kong (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1962), 23. W.C. Hunter, Bits of Old China (London: K. Paul, Trench, 1885), 189. Parkes’ Journal, ? July 1844, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 78. Ibid., ? August 1844, 80. Ibid., 103. Martin, China, Political, Commercial, and Social, Vol. II, 203. John Davis, China, During the War and Since the Peace, Vol. II, (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1852), 36; Parkes’ Journal, 20 September 1844, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 82. Davis, China, During the War and Since the Peace, Vol. II, 36. Parkes to Lockhart, 1 March 1845, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 82. Parkes’ Journal, 15 October 1844, ibid., 87. Alexander Michie, The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era as Demonstrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock KCB DCL, Many Years Consul and Minister in China, Vol. I (Edinburgh & London: Blackwood, 1900), 117. Ibid., 135. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 93. Redesdale, Memories, Vol. I, 358. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 96; Parkes to Catharine, 5 November 1845, ibid., 118. Parkes’ Journal, 31 December 1844, ibid., 98. Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 354. Alcock to Hammond, 3 July 1869, FO 391/2. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 101.

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Chapter 5: ‘A Continuous Settled Life Has No Charms for Me’ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Parkes to Catharine, 31 March 1845, ibid., 106. Ibid., 27 April 1845, 107–108. Ibid., 108. Martin, China, Political, Commercial, and Social, Vol. II, 296. Parkes to Catharine, 5 October 1845, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 112. Martin, China, Political, Commercial, and Social, Vol. II, 300. Immanuel C.Y. Hsü, The Rise of Modern China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 187–88. Parkes to Catharine, 27 July 1845, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 115. Ibid., 18 September 1845, 117. Ibid., 5 November 1845, 76. Parkes’ Journal, 1 January 1845, ibid., 99. Parkes to Catharine, 1 May 1846, ibid., 118. Entry for W.H. Medhurst, Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. William Lockhart to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 1 November 1844; William Lockhart to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 15 June 1844, SOAS archives, MS380645/1.

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15 16 17 18 19 20

Catharine to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 4 September 1844, ibid. Catharine to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 5 November 1844, ibid. Alcock to Parkes, 26 April 1858, CUL, MS Parkes 1/A19. Church Missionary Society, Missionary Register, March 1852, 120. Thomas McClatchie, ‘Phallic Worship’, China Review, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1876, 257–261. Thomas McClatchie, A Translation of the Confucian I Ching or Classic of Changes (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1876). 21 The North China Herald, 24 July 1885. 22 Alcock to Davis, 10 March 1848, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 123. 23 Report by Brooke Robertson, ? April 1848, ibid., 136.

Chapter 6: ‘I Saw a Good Deal’ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Parkes to Catharine, 19 April 1850, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 141–142. Viscount Mersey, The Viceroys and Governors-General of India 1757–1947 (London: John Murray, 1949), 160. Parkes to Catharine, ? April 1850, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 143. Valerie Cromwell, ‘Diplomatic Service’, in V. Cromwell et. al., Aspects of Government (Dublin: Irish University Press, 1978), 44. Redesdale, Memories, Vol. I, 109–111. Parkes to Lockhart, 23 November 1850, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 146–147. Parkes to Palmerston, ? January 1851, CUL, MS Parkes 32/1. Alcock to Parkes, 26 April 1858, ibid. 1/A19.

Chapter 7: ‘I Distinctly Declined to Accede’ This account is taken from The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle for 1851 (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1851), 520–525. 2 Parkes to George Sullivan, 5 February 1852, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 151–152. 3 Parkes to Catharine, 27 February 1852, ibid., 149. 4 George Sullivan to Sir George Bonham, 10 February 1852, ibid., 157 5 Parkes to John Patteson, 27 October 1852, ibid., 168. 6 Parkes, ‘Porcelain Bottles: Chinese porcelain bottles found in the Egyptian tombs – their antiquity and uses’, Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Part IV: 1853–1854, 100. 7 Parkes to Catharine, 29 March 1852, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 166. 8 Parkes, ‘Porcelain Bottles’, Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Part IV: 1853–1854, 96. 9 Parkes, ‘Report on the Russian Caravan Trade with China’, The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 24 (1854), 306–312. 10 Parkes to John Patteson, 27 October 1852, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 167. 11 Ibid., 169. 12 Ibid., 170.

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13 14 15 16 17 18

Parkes to Catharine, ? 1853, ibid., 178; Foster, Decision of Character and other essays. The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 56, 75, 78. Parkes to Catharine, 10 March 1853, Lane-Poole, ibid., 179. Ibid., 9 October 1853, 179. Parkes to Clarendon, 5 November 1869, FO 262/167. Li Chen, Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty, Justice, and Transcultural Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 4. Parkes, ‘Public Executions at Canton: Description of Proceedings in the Criminal Court of Canton’, Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Part III: 1851–1852, 43. Endacott, A Biographical Sketch Book of Early Hong Kong, 35. Ibid. Bonham to Parkes, 3 June 1853, CUL, MS Parkes 27/5. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 185.

19 20 21 22 23

Chapter 8: ‘Hasty Love-making’ 1 2

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Robert Bruce, ‘King Mongkut of Siam and His Treaty with Britain’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 9 (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Libraries, 1969), 91. Paul Vincent, ‘Sir John Bowring (1792–1832) as a Translator and Publicist of Dutch Literature and Culture’, in M. J. Wintle, ed., Modern Dutch Studies: Essays in honour of Professor Peter King on the occasion of his retirement (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 25–37. Bowring’s dates are not correct – they should be 1792–1872. Bruce, ‘King Mongkut of Siam and His Treaty with Britain’, 94. John Bowring, The Kingdom and People of Siam, Vol. II (London: J.W. Parker, 1857), 285. Ibid., 306. Ibid., 308. Parkes to Clarendon, 22 May 1856, FO 228/207. Queen Victoria’s Journal, 10 July 1855, Royal Archives. Parkes to Hammond, 14 August 1855, FO 17/236. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 195–196. Unsigned draft note to Parkes from the Foreign Office, 6 September 1855, FO 17/236. Harry Parkes, ‘Geographical Notes on Siam, with a New Map of the Lower Part of the Menam River’, The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 26 (1856), 71–78. Entry for Ellen Hollond, Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. Ellen Hollond, A Lady’s Journal of her Travels in Egypt and Nubia (London: Emily Faithfull, 1864), 18. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 196. R.G. Thorne, The House of Commons 1790–1820, Vol. I (London: Secker & Warburg, 1986), 833. Morning Post, 28 December 1852. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 197. Ibid. Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 353. Ibid., 198. I am grateful to Stuart Cawthorne for telling me about this.

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23 Lady Plumer to Parkes, date illegible, CUL, MS Parkes 33/9. 24 Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England, London 3: North West, 296. 25 Lady Plumer to Parkes, date illegible, CUL, MS Parkes 33/9. 26 William Willis to Fanny Willis, 18 January 1867, Yokohama Archives of History, 44/7, No. 134. 27 Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 91. 28 Claire Tomalin, Charles Dickens: A Life (New York: Penguin, 2011) Kindle edition, chapter 6. 29 Walter Hillier to Stanley Lane-Poole, undated, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 369. 30 Parkes to Fanny, 21 May 1865, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 511. 31 Ibid., 91. 32 Ibid., 321. 33 Isabella Bird, ‘Notes of my last conversation with Lady Parkes.’ Undated (probably November 1879), CUL, MS Parkes 33/33. 34 Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 200. 35 Memorandum by King Mongkut, Georges Coedès, ed., ‘English Correspondence of King Mongkut’, Journal of the Siam Society 22/1 (July 1928), 19. 36 Parkes to Clarendon, 22 May 1856, FO 228/207. 37 George III to Emperor Qianlong, presented on 14 September 1793, Hosea Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Trading Company 1635–1834, Vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926–1929), 247. 38 Parkes to Clarendon, 22 May 1856, FO 228/207. 39 Memorandum by King Mongkut, Coedès, ed., ‘English Correspondence of King Mongkut’, 22–23. 40 Bowring, The Kingdom and People of Siam, Vol. II, 321. 41 Queen Victoria’s Journal, 19 November 1857, Royal Archives. 42 Memorandum by King Mongkut, 14 May 1856, FO 228/207 43 Parkes to Clarendon, 22 May 1856, FO 228/207. 44 Townsend Harris’ Journal, 15 April 1856. Mario Emilio Cosenza ed., The Complete Journal of Townsend Harris, New York: Japan Society, 1930, 84. 45 Fanny’s Journal, undated, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 208. 46 King Monkhut to Fanny Parkes, 23 April 1856, ibid., 209–210. 47 Fanny’s Journal, 14 May 1856, ibid., 211. 48 Unsigned draft note to Parkes from the Foreign Office, 23 November 1855, FO 17/236. 49 Fanny’s Journal, 14 May 1856, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 211. 50 Parkes to Clarendon, 22 May 1856, FO 228/207. 51 Townsend Harris’ Journal, 5 May 1856, Journal of Townsend Harris, 139. 52 Ibid., 156 53 Clarendon to Parkes, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 214.

Chapter 9: ‘It Is the Cause of the West Against the East’ 1 2 3

Parkes to Clarendon, 17 December 1855, FO 17/236. Alcock to Parkes, 23 April 1856, CUL, MS Parkes 1/A17a. John King Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports 1842–1854 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 277; Hurd, The Arrow War, 20.

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4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

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K.F. Bruner, Entering China’s Service: Robert Hart’s Journals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 170. Sir John Bowring to Commissioner Ye, 14 October 1856, Joshua Rowntree, The imperial drug trade: A re-statement of the opium question, in the light of recent evidence and new developments in the East (London: Methuen, 1906), 83. Joshua Rowntree, The imperial drug trade, 83. Sir John Bowring to Parkes, 16 October 1856, Hurd, The Arrow War, 28. Parkes to Ye, 21 October 1856, Hurd, The Arrow War, 30. Letters from Parkes, 21 and 22 October 1856, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 230. Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914 (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 119. Addington to Clarendon, 26 August 1854, MSS. Clar. Dep. C8 China. Entry for Michael Seymour, Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; Hurd, The Arrow War, 31. Bowring to Parkes, 19 October 1856, J.Y. Wong, Deadly Dreams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 89. Parkes to ?, 14 November 1856, Wong, Deadly Dreams, 75. Rear-Admiral Seymour to Commissioner Ye, 30 October, 1856, T.L. Behan, Bulletins and other State Intelligence for the Year 1857, Part 2, January to June (London: Harrison, 1859), 83. Hurd, The Arrow War, 147. Parkes to Sir John Bowring, 29 October 1856, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 240. Fanny to Isabella, 11 December 1856, ibid., 252. Ibid., 253. Journal of Robert Hart, 30 July 1858, Bruner, Entering China’s Service, 205. Fanny to Catharine, 14 January 1857, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 256. Jack Beeching, The Chinese Opium Wars (London: Hutchinson, 1975), 219. George Smith, Our National Relations with China. Being two speeches delivered in Exeter Hall and in the Free-Trade Hall Manchester, by the Bishop of Victoria (London: Hatchard, 1857). Bowring to Clarendon, 10 January 1857, Hurd, The Arrow War, 38. Parkes to Catharine, 29 March 1857, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 260. Seymour to Bowring, 18 April 1857, ibid., 261. Clarendon to Bowring, 10 December 1856, Charles S. Leavenworth, The Arrow War with China (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1901), 24–25. Hansard, 26 February 1857, Volume 144, Columns 1391–1421. Karl Marx, ‘Whose Atrocities?’ New York Daily Tribune, 10 April 1857. Hansard, 3 March 1857, Volume 144, Column 1802. Punch, 14 March 1857. Parkes to Thomas McClatchie, 9 May 1857, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 262.

Chapter 10: ‘Never Sparing Himself in Any Way’ 1

John Bowring to Frederick Bowring, 25 October 1857, John Rylands Library Special Collections, Eng Ms 1229/226.

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21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

293

Ibid. Elgin to Lady Elgin, 12 March 1857, Hurd, The Arrow War, 82. Russell to Elgin, 4 March 1860, PRO 30/22/101. Canning to Granville, 4 May 1857, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, The Life of Granville George Leveson Gower, Second Earl Granville, K.G., 1815–1891, Vol. 1 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1905), 249. Huang Yen-Yu, ‘Viceroy Yeh Ming-Ch’en and The Canton Episode (1856– 1861): 4. The Canton Episode’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, March 1941. Elgin’s Journal, 24 December 1857, Theodore Walrond (ed.), Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin (London: John Murray, 1872), 213. Hurd, The Arrow War, 116. Elgin to Lady Elgin, 25 December 1857, Walrond, ed., Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, 214. Elgin’s Journal, 22 December 1857, ibid., 212. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 274. J. Y. Wong, Yeh Ming-Ch’en: Viceroy of Liang Kuang 1852–8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 196. Hurd, The Arrow War, 126. General Straubenzee to Lord Elgin, ?1859, F.C. Jones, Extraterritoriality in Japan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931), 94. Parkes to ?, ? November 1858, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 287. Ibid. Catharine to S.B. and Eliza Lockhart, 7 August 1841, SOAS archives, MS380645/1. Medhurst’s examination, 9 May 1872, Report from the Select Committee on Diplomatic and Consular Services, 106. Parkes to Lockhart, 14 March 1858, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 283. Bruce to Malmesbury, 14 June 1859, T.L. Behan, Bulletins and other State Intelligence for the Year 1859 (London: Harrison, 1860), 2068. Parkes to Lockhart, 21 July 1859, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 313. Bruce to Parkes, ibid., 314. Hurd, The Arrow War, 196; Parkes to Lockhart, 21 July 1859, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 313. Elgin to Lady Elgin, 14 July 1860, Walrond, ed., Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, 335. Parkes to Fanny, 6 August 1860, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 360. Elgin to Parkes, 30 June 1860, Correspondence respecting affairs in China, 1859– 1860 (London: Harrison, 1861), 78. Parkes to Fanny, 31 July 1860, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 348. Ibid., 8 July 1860, 343. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 344. Parkes to Fanny, 25 July 1860, ibid., 346. Ibid., 4 August 1860, 352. Ibid., 6 August 1860, 358. Ibid., 8 August 1860, 360. Ibid., 26 August 1860, 362. Ibid., 363.

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36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Ibid., 365. Ibid., 366. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 367. Ibid. Ibid., 10 September 1860, 369. Ibid. R.J.L. McGhee, How we got to Pekin: A Narrative of the Campaign in China of 1860 (London: Bentley, 1862), 121–122.

Chapter 11: ‘The Executioner Stood by with Uplifted Sword’ 1 2 3 4 5 6

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7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 374. McGhee, How we got into Pekin, 230. Ibid., 230–231. Ibid., 231–232. ‘Captive in Pekin, 1860. Narrative of the Late Sir H. Parkes’, in Evening Post (New York), 20 or 27 June 1885. Parkes to Fanny, 9 October 1860, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 382. McGhee, How we got into Pekin, 234. Loch, Personal Narrative of Occurrences during Lord Elgin’s Second Embassy to China, 1860, 160. Ibid., 170. ‘Captive in Pekin, 1860. Narrative of the Late Sir H. Parkes’, in Evening Post. Ibid. McGhee, How we got into Pekin, 238. ‘Captive in Pekin, 1860. Narrative of the Late Sir H. Parkes’, in Evening Post. McGhee, How we got into Pekin, 239. Walrond, ed., Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, 350. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 386. ‘Captive in Pekin, 1860. Narrative of the Late Sir H. Parkes’, in Evening Post. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 388. Loch, Personal Narrative of Occurrences during Lord Elgin’s Second Embassy to China, 228. Ibid. Ibid. Parkes to Fanny, ? October 1860, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 392. Elgin to Fanny, 9 October 1860, ibid., 397. Parkes to Fanny, 14 October 1860, ibid. Loch, Personal Narrative of Occurrences during Lord Elgin’s Second Embassy to China, 1860, 271–272. Parkes to Fanny, 27 October 1860, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 400. Palmerston to Russell, 28 December 1860, PRO30/22/21. http://illicitculturalproperty.com/chinas-repatriation-team-visits-the-met/. Accessed 10 May 2019. Hanes and Sanello, The Opium Wars, 11–12. 2 January 1858, Walrond, ed., Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, 216.

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31 Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 79. 32 Jeremiah Jenne, A Look Back at China’s Purloined Pekingese, https://radiichina. com/new-year-special-a-look-back-at-chinas-purloined-pekingese/. Accessed 2 November 2018. 33 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30810596. Accessed 28 February 2019. 34 Tom Wilkinson, Bricks and Mortals: Ten great buildings and the people they made (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 165. 35 https://www.voanews.com/europe/150-years-later-destruction-beijingssummer-palace-still-inspires-patriotism. Accessed 19 December 2019. 36 Lesson 21 in the fifth grade primary school textbook. I am grateful to my student Li Rongrong for finding this and translating it for me. 37 Julia Lovell, The Opium War (London: Picador, 2011), 266.

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Parkes to Fanny, 17 November 1860, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 404. A.B. Freeman-Mitford, The Attaché at Peking (London: Macmillan, 1900), 163. Elgin’s Journal, 14 September 1860, Walrond, ed., Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, 353. Palmerston to Russell, 31 December 1860, PRO30/22/21. A.B. Mitford to H.R. Mitford, 20 October 1868. Parkes to Fanny, 29 January 1861, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 407. Alcock to ?. undated, ibid., 100. Parkes to Bruce, 10 May 1861, FO 228/303. Parkes to Fanny, 5 March 1861, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 416. Parkes to Bruce, 10 May 1861, FO 228/303. Parkes to Fanny, 5 March 1861, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 417 & 418. Ibid., 420. Parkes to Bruce, 10 May 1861, FO 228/303. Parkes to Fanny, 5 March 1861, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 421. Michie to Lane-Poole, 8 July 1893, CUL, MS Parkes 1/M34. Parkes to Bruce, 10 May 1861, FO 228/303. Ibid. Report by Parkes on his visit to the Yingwang, 22 March 1861, ibid. Ibid. Bruce to Parkes, 23 May 1861, FO 228/302 Parkes to Fanny, 3 March 1861, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 438. It is associated with the Benedictine order. Parkes to Minnie, ? January 1885, Dickins and Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 422. Ibid., 4 December 1883, 216. Parkes to Fanny, 3 March 1861, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 438. Lockhart to Catharine, 26 July 1861, ibid., 443–445. Parkes to Bruce, 31 October 1861, FO 228/303.

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27 Parkes to Fanny, 13 October 1861, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 453. 28 Medical certificate (signature illegible), 14 August 1861, FO 228/303. 29 Parkes to Fanny, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 30 October 1861, 459. 30 Ibid., 23 November 1861, 460. 31 Memorandum by Mr Parkes on the capture of Ningpo by the Rebels, 17 December 1861, Papers Relating to the Rebellion in China and Trade in the YangTze-Kiang River (San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1975), 95.

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Loch to Parkes, 9 January 1861, CUL, MS Parkes 1/L7. P.D. Coates, The China Consuls (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988), 89. Parkes’ examination, 11th April 1872, Report from the Select Committee on Diplomatic and Consular Services, 56. 4 North and South Shields Gazette, 3 April 1862. 5 Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 465. 6 Gladstone’s Diary, 14 May 1840, W.G. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of Japan 1834–1858, 46. 7 The Essex Standard, and Eastern Counties’ Advertiser, 19 December 1862 (taken from a report in The Times). 8 The Clerkenwell News, 11 June 1862. 9 The Leeds Mercury, 19 February 1863. 10 Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 465.

Chapter 14: ‘The Drudgery of the Service’ 1 2

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The Homeward Mail from India, China and the East, 13 April 1864. Stella Dong, Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City (New York: Harper Perennial, 2001), 44. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 468. ‘Hewing of wood and drawing of water’ is a quotation from Joshua 9.23. Ibid., 467–468. Parkes to Bruce, 10 May 1861, FO 228/303. Stephen Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom (New York: Vintage, 2012), 363. Parkes to Fanny, 7 April 1864, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 490. https://sacu.org/chinesegordon. Accessed 4 March 2019. Parkes to Fanny, 3 July 1864, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 500. This was after a conversation with Lord Cromer, who had hated Gordon. R.S. Churchill ed., Winston S. Churchill: Youth, 1874–1900, Part 2 (London: William Heinemann, 1966), 1017. Parkes to Gordon, 11 May 1864, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 495. Parkes to Fanny, 8 January 1865, ibid., 476–477. Ibid., 25 December 1864, 476. Ibid. Ibid., 22 April 1865, 479.

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Chapter 15: ‘The Appointment is Particularly Gratifying to Me’ 1

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In fact, Russell soon realised he had overreacted, and let Alcock know while he was on his way home, that he just wanted ‘fuller information as to the state of things in Japan than mere despatches could convey’ and ‘the order given to you to return home for that purpose was by no means to be understood as implying your removal from your Post’. (Draft despatch, Russell to Alcock, 31 January 1865, FO 46/52.) Russell to Alcock, 16 March 1865, PRO 30/22/101. Parkes to Fanny, 21 May 1865, Lane Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 510. Willis to George Willis, 7 February 1866, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/7, No. 123 and ibid., 21 September 1862, Vol. 44/2, No. 43. Palmerston to Russell, 19 March 1865, PRO 30/22/23. Parkes to Russell, 5 June 1865, FO 46/55. Parkes to Fanny, 21 May 1865, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 510. Meiji Ishin ki no Yokohama Eifutsu Chu-tongun [The British and French garrisons in Yokohama during the Meiji Restoration] (Yokohama: Yokohama Archives of History), 1993, 83. Edward House, ‘The Martyrdom of an Empire’, Atlantic Monthly, May 1881, 619–621. Parkes to Russell, 12 July 1865, FO 46/56. Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 4. Bernard Allen, Sir Ernest Satow, A Memoir (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1933), 37–38. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 141. Ibid., 141–142. Allen, Sir Ernest Satow, 47. Parkes’ examination, 18 April 1872, Report from the Select Committee on Diplomatic and Consular Services, 66. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 158. A.B. Mitford to H.R. Mitford, 15 November 1866, Morton, A.B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State, 9. Willis to George Willis, ? August 1865, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/7, No. 119. Willis to Fanny Willis, 31 March 1866, ibid., No. 125. Willis to Fanny Willis, 5 July 1874, ibid., Vol. 44/16, No. 334. Willis to George Willis, 22 August 1868, ibid., Vol. 44/9, No. 160. Parkes to Clarendon, FO 46/48, 28 April 1866. Willis to Fanny Willis, 16 May 1868, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/9, No. 155. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 53. John Black, Young Japan, Vol I (London: Trubner, 1881), 379–380. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 25. Cortazzi, Victorians in Japan (London: Athlone, 1987), 276. Russell to Parkes, 8 April 1865, FO 46/52. Russell to Parkes, undated (probably August 1865) draft instructions, FO 46/52. Parkes to Russell, 25 November 1865, FO 46/58. Portman to Seward, 30 October 1865, Foreign Relations of the United States, Document 264, 266.

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33 Emperor Ko-mei to Shogun Iemochi, 28 February 1864, W.G. Beasley, trans. & ed., Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, 1853–1868 (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 264. 34 Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his World, 1852–1912 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 85. 35 Satow’s Diary, 9 November 1865, Morton & Ruxton eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869), 142. 36 Redesdale, Memories, Vol. I, 377–378. 37 Minutes of a Conference held on board H.M.S. “Princess Royal” lying off Hiogo on the 11th November 1865. FO 46/58 38 Parkes to Iemochi, 21 November 1865, FO 46/58. 39 Keene, Emperor of Japan, 87. 40 Parkes to Russell, 28 November 1865, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 51–52. 41 Parkes to Russell, 8 December 1865, FO 46/58. 42 Parkes to Clarendon, 5 February 1865, FO 46/63. 43 Cortazzi, Dr. Willis in Japan, 76–77. 44 Ibid., 61. 45 Willis to George Willis, 30 September 1867, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/8, No. 145; Willis to Fanny Willis, 30 May 1867, ibid., No. 141. 46 Parkes to Winchester, 22 December 1866, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 70–71. 47 Parkes to Hammond, 1 February 1867, Robert Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868 (Tokyo: Edition Synapse, 2018), 61. 48 Ibid., 17 March 1867, 72. 49 Satow, Diplomat in Japan, 26. 50 Parkes to Hammond, 17 March 1867, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 72.

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Chapter 16: ‘The Most Superior Japanese’ Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 186. Parkes to Hammond, 1 February 1867, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 62 3 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 196. 4 Parkes to Hammond, 16 March 1867, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 70. 5 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 198. 6 Parkes to Hammond, 13 July 1867, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 92 7 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 198. 8 Russell to Alcock, 10 May 1862, Correspondence respecting affairs in Japan, London: Harrison, 1863, 4. 9 Redesdale, Memories, Vol. I, 393. 10 Memorandum sent to Mitford by Matsuno Magohachiro and Takenouchi ? no Kami, 16 February 1867, FO 46/78. 11 Parkes to Hammond, 26 July 1865, FO 46/55. 12 A.B. Mitford to H.R. Mitford, 6 May 1867, Morton, A.B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State (Folkestone: Renaissance, 2017), 54. 1 2

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13 Parkes to Hammond, 6 May 1867, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 83. 14 Parkes to Hammond, 29 May 1867, ibid., 86. 15 Ibid. 16 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 203. 17 Redesdale, Memories, Vol. II, 398–399. 18 Ibid., 399. 19 Alcock to Wodehouse, 18 October 1860, Bodleian Library Special Collections, MS Eng.c.4001. 20 Pat Barr, The Coming of the Barbarians: A Story of Western Settlement in Japan 1853– 1870 (London: Macmillan, 1967), 184. 21 Satow’s diary, 2 October 1865. Morton & Ruxton eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869, 133. 22 Terashima Munenori to Parkes, the 3rd the 2nd month, the 7th year of Meiji, The Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 7–13–336–14. 23 Hosea Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Vol II, (New York: Paragon, 1900), 320. 24 Parkes to Prince Gong, 11 October 1883, FO 17/925. 25 Note by Julian Pauncefote, 20 December 1883, FO 17/927. 26 Parkes to Granville, 5 February 1885, FO 17/948. 27 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 234. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., 235. 30 Ibid., 236. 31 DeLong to Fish, 5 April 1870, Hammersmith, Spoilsmen in a “Flowery Fairyland” (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1998), 86. 32 Satow’s diary, 9 August 1867. Morton & Ruxton, eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869, 226. 33 Ibid.; Redesdale, Memories, Vol. II, 409. 34 Redesdale, The Garter Mission to Japan (London: Macmillan, 1906), 247. 35 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 267. 36 http://www.fujisan-climb.jp/en/. Accessed 17 January 2019. 37 Willis to Fanny Willis, 29 October 1867, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/8, No. 147. 38 Parkes to Hammond, 15 October 1867, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 105. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid., 14 November 1867, 110. 41 Ibid., 28 November 1867, 112. 42 Ibid., 10 January 1868, 123. 43 Ibid., 19 July 1866, 27. 44 Ibid., 16 December 1867, 117. 45 Ibid.

Chapter 17: The Meiji Restoration 1

Abe Shinzo-, 2018. ‘New Year’s Reflection by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.’ (https://japan.kantei.go.jp/98_abe/statement/201801/_00001.html). Accessed 11 January 2020.

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Satow’s diary, 4 January 1868. Morton & Ruxton, eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869, 284. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 173. Satow’s diary, 7 January 1868, Morton & Ruxton, eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869, 287. Parkes to Hammond, 10 January 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 122. Ibid. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 300. Parkes to Hammond, 10 January 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 123. Satow’s diary, 10 January 1868, Morton & Ruxton, eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869, 291. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 304. Ibid., 313. Satow’s diary, 1 February 1868, Morton & Ruxton eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869, 301. Ibid., 2 February 1868, 303. Parkes to Stanley, 13 February 1868, Nish ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 130. A.B. Mitford, Tales of Old Japan, 139. Nemoto Katsuo, Kensho Kobe Jiken [Investigating the Kobe incident] (Osaka: Sougei Shuppan, 1990), 26. Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes, 77. Cortazzi, ‘Sir Harry Parkes’ in Cortazzi, ed., British Envoys in Japan 1859–1972 (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2004), 44. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 347. Parkes to Stanley, 14 February 1868, Nish, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 135. Parkes to Roches, 13 March 1868, FO 46/92. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 347. Richard Sims, French Policy towards the Bakufu and Meiji Japan 1854–95 (Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1998), 72, 90n. John Breen, ‘The Rituals of Anglo-Japanese Diplomacy: Imperial Audiences in Early Meiji Japan’, Chushichi Tsuzuki and Gordon Daniels, eds., The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600–2000, Vol. V, Social and Cultural Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 72. Keene, Emperor of Japan, 133–4. The tale of how this happened is brilliantly told by Ciaran Murray in Sharawadgi: The Romantic Return to Nature (Bethesda, MD: International Scholars, 1999), 35, 274–5; Disorientalism: Asian Subversions, Irish Visions (Tokyo: Asiatic Society of Japan, 2009), 1, 14 and Voyagings: Ireland, Japan, India (Tokyo: Castle Quarter Press, 2014), 219. For more about Nakai, see Eleanor Robinson, ‘Nakai Hiromu (1838–94): A Forgotten Hero of Anglo-Japanese Relations’ in Cortazzi, ed., Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol. VII (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2010), 33–43. Parkes to Fanny, 24 March 1868, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 87. Redesdale, Memories, Vol. II, 451; ‘Sensation Diplomacy in Japan’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 93/570 (April 1863), 397–413. Parkes to Stanley, 25 March 1868, Nish, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 174.

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31 Ibid. 32 Nihon Gaiko- Bunsho- – Meiji No. 1, Vol. 1 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1993 edition), 492–493. 33 Parkes to Stanley, 25 March 1868, Nish, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 174. 34 Parkes to Higashikuze, 13 February 1869. The Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4–2-5–5. 35 Parkes to Stanley, 18 April 1868, Nish, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 174. 36 Parkes to Fanny, 24 March 1868, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 88. 37 A.B. Mitford to H.R. Mitford, 3 April 1868, Morton, A.B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State, 109. 38 Ibid., 110. 39 Ibid., 111. 40 Ibid., 112. 41 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 362. 42 Ibid., 363. 43 Parkes to Hammond, 13 May 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 137. 44 Parkes to Hammond, 24 March 1869, FO 391/15. 45 Parkes to Hammond, 9 April 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 131. 46 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 366. 47 Parkes to Hammond, 13 May 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 136–137. 48 Parkes to Keppel, 29 April 1868, FO 46/98. 49 Satow’s Diary, 17 May 1868, Morton & Ruxton eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869, 340. 50 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 371. 51 Parkes to Stanley, 26 January 1869, Black, Young Japan, Vol. II, 247. 52 Satow’s diary, 22 March 1868, Morton & Ruxton, eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1861–1869, 336. 53 Parkes to Hammond, 18 November 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 166. 54 Ibid., 8 August 1868, 149. 55 Satow’s diary, 9 January 1869, Morton & Ruxton, eds., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1870–1883, 371. 56 Van Valkenburgh to Seward, 18 December 1868, Hammersmith, Spoilsmen in a “Flowery Fairyland”, 78. 57 Ibid. 58 Parkes to Hammond, 2 March 1869, FO 391/15. 59 Ibid., 30 January 1869. 60 Satow’s diary, 24 October 1871, Ian Ruxton ed., A Diplomat in Japan Part II: The Diaries of Ernest Satow, 1870–1883 (Morrisville NC: Lulu), 371. 61 Willis to Fanny Willlis, 31 March 1866, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/7, 125. 62 Andrew Cobbing, ‘Britain: 17 August-16 December 1872’, Ian Nish ed, The Iwakura Mission in America and Europe: A New Assessment (Richmond: Japan Library, 1998), 42. 63 Michie to Lane-Poole, 8 July 1893, CUL, MS Parkes 1/M34.

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64 Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 353–354. 65 Clarendon to Bowring, 8 December 1855, Clarendon Papers C, Vol. 134, ff. 214–215. 66 A memoir of Parkes by Basil Chamberlain, 2 June 1893, CUL, MS Parkes 33/83. 67 Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese: being notes on various subjects connected with Japan, for the use of travellers and others (London: John Murray, 1905), 362.

Chapter 18: ‘We of Course Hope for Improvement’ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

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Parkes to Hammond, 7 June 1869, FO 391/15. Parkes to Hammond, 15 May 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 138. Mitford to Parkes, 5 May 1868, FO 46/94. Roches to Petitjean, ? 1867, Foreign Relations of the United States, Document 289, 486. Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan (Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 1976), Vol. II, 70. Cortazzi, ‘Sir Harry Parkes’, Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, 12. Stanley to Parkes, 30 July 1868, Nish, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 203. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 398. Otis Carey, A History of Christianity in Japan (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1970), 310–311. Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 355. Stanley to Parkes, 9 September 1868, Nish, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 227. Van Valkenburgh to Seward, 8 July 1868, Jack L. Hammersmith, Spoilsmen in a “Flowery Fairyland”, 69. London Evening Standard, 10 February 1872. Parkes’ memorandum on religious persecution in Japan, 8 February 1872, FO 46/161. London Evening Standard, 12 February 1872. Church Missionary Intelligencer, March 1872, 74–79. Gordon Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes: British Representative in Japan, DPhil thesis (Ms.D.phil d.4099, 1967), 236. Ibid. Satow’s diary, 24 October 1871, Ian Ruxton ed., A Diplomat in Japan Part II: The Diaries of Ernest Satow, 1870–1883 (Morrisville NC: Lulu), 371. ‘Report on Russian Resources in Tartary. Acquisition by Russia of Saghalin Island and the Southern of the Kuril Group’ by Sir Henry Keppel, 23 August 1868, FO 46/96/77. Parkes to Stanley, 12 September 1868, Nish, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 252–253. Parkes to Hammond, September 5, 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 153. Augustus Raymond Margary and Rutherford Alcock, The Journey of Augustus Raymond Margary From Shanghae to Bhamo, and Back to Manwyne (London: Macmillan, 1876), 345. Parkes to Hammond, 12 August 1868, Morton, ed., Private Correspondence between Sir Harry Parkes and Edmund Hammond 1865–1868, 150.

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25 Willis to George Willis, 22 August 1868, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/9, No. 160. 26 Willis to Fanny Willis, 16 May 1868, ibid., No. 155. 27 Willis to Fanny Willis, 8 March 1869, ibid., Vol.44/11, No. 178. 28 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 412. 29 Ibid., 28 July 1869. 30 Date Chiunagon (Principal Minister for Foreign Affairs) & Terashima Shi-i (Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) to Parkes, 15 July 1869, Black, Young Japan, Vol. II, 266. 31 Parkes to Hammond, 28 July 1869, FO 391/15. 32 A.B. Mitford to H.R. Mitford, 9 August 1869, Morton, A.B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State, 141. 33 Redesdale, Memories, Vol. II, 496. 34 Parkes to Fanny, 20 August 1869, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 122–123. 35 A.B. Mitford to H.R. Mitford, 23 August 1869, Morton, A.B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State, 142. 36 Parkes to Fanny, 6 July 1869, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 121. 37 Redesdale, Memories, Vol. II, 497. 38 Keene, Emperor of Japan, 185. 39 Parkes to Clarendon, 23 August 1869, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 143. 40 Redesdale, Memories, Vol. II, 500. 41 Ibid., 499. 42 Parkes to Fanny, 23 August 1869, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 147. 43 Memorandum by A.B. Mitford, Black, Young Japan, Vol. II, 271. 44 Keene, Meiji Tenno- [Emperor Meiji] (Tokyo: Shincho-sha, 2001), 295; Keene, Emperor of Japan, 186. 45 Parkes to Fanny, 6 July 1869, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 148. 46 Parkes to Clarendon, 21 April 1870, ibid., 157. 47 Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon, Vol. I, 396–397. 48 Umetani Noboru, Oyatoi Gaikokujin: Meiji Nihon no wakiyakutachi (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 1965), 222. 49 Richard Henry Brunton, Building Japan 1868–1876 (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1991), 27. 50 Brunton, Building Japan 1868–1876, 9. 51 Ibid. 52 Yokohama Archives of History, R.H. Brunton: Nihon no todai to Yokohama no machi zukuri no chichi [R.H. Brunton: The father of Japanese lighthouses and builder of Yokohama] (Yokohama: Yokohama Archives of History, 1991), 46. 53 Parkes to Fanny, 28 September 1869, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 149. 54 Parkes to Fanny, 21 May 1865, Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 511. 55 Parkes to Hammond, 28 September 1869, FO 391/15. 56 Ibid., 4 December 1869. 57 Parkes to Fanny, 17 September 1868, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 147

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58 Willis to Fanny Willis, 8 March 1869, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/11, No. 178. 59 Parkes to Hammond, 29 January 1870, FO 391/15. 60 Christian Wallace Laidlaw, Charles Appleton Longfellow: Twenty Months in Japan 1871–1873 (Cambridge, MA: Friends of Longfellow House, 1998), 31. 61 Hammersmith, Spoilsmen in a “Flowery Fairyland”, 118. 62 Fish to Bingham, 20 April 1874, Foreign Relations of the United States, Document 430, 675. 63 Fanny to ?, ? March 1870, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 159. 64 Parkes to Hammond, 26 March 1870, FO 391/15. 65 Ibid., 12 March 1870. 66 Ibid., 22 April 1870. 67 Russell to Winchester, 23 March 1865, FO 46/52 (draft). 68 Sanjo- to Gladstone, ? May 1871, CUL, MS Parkes 33/23.

Chapter 19: ‘This is Becoming Civilised with a Vengeance’ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

W.F.A. Archibald to F.V. Dickins, undated, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 359. Edward Walford, Old and New London: A Narrative of its History, its People, and its Places, the Western and Northern Suburbs, Vol. V (London: Cassel, 1873), 186–188. Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 177. Cromwell, ‘Diplomatic Service’, in Cromwell et. al., Aspects of Government, 56. Willis to George Willis, 15 February 1863, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/3, No. 64. Parkes’ comments on the letters of the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act, 11 July 1881, FO 46/278. Parkes, ‘Memorandum on Legation and Consular Buildings in Japan, 19 November 1871, FO 46/145. The Far East, vi/7, 31 January 1875. Diary of Kume Kunitake, 23 October 1872. The Iwakura Embassy 1871–73: A True Account of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary’s Journey of Observation Through the United States of America and Europe, Vol. II, Britain, translated by Graham Healey (Chiba: The Japan Documents, 2002), 305. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 233. Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon, Vol. I, 367. Ibid., 410. Isabella Bird to ?, 22 May 1878, Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Vol. 1 (New York: Putnam’s, 1880?), 22. Andrew Cobbing, ‘Britain: 17 August-16 December 1872’, Ian Nish ed, The Iwakura Mission in America and Europe: A New Assessment (Richmond: Japan Library, 1998), 44. South Wales Daily News, 10 December 1872. Minutes of an Interview held in Yedo, on the 10th of January 1866, at the residence of Matsudaira Suwo no Kami, FO 46/65. Parkes to Granville, 30 December 1882, FO 46/290. The Manchester Guardian, 27 November 1889. Ibid.

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305

20 I am grateful to Simon Sole for explaining this to me. He further said that it is rare for an American or British serving soldier anywhere in the world to be tried in a local courts even in a country like Germany. He also pointed out that Iraqis have pursued claims against the Ministry of Defence in UK courts for alleged crimes that happened in Iraq. 21 Ana Nicolaci da Costa, ‘Hong Kong extradition row: Will it damage its star status?’ (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48618585). Accessed 15 June 2019. 22 Eastern Daily Press, 3 December 1872. 23 The Graphic, 7 December 1872. 24 The Day’s Doings, 14 December 1872. 25 Hampshire Advertiser, 18 January 1873. 26 Parkes to Lockhart, 13 February 1873, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 178–179.

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11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Willis to Fanny Willis, 5 July 1874, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/16, No. 334. Parkes to Granville, 29 April 1872, FO 46/166. Parkes to Derby, 22 May 1874, FO 46/179. Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes, DPhil thesis, 282. Parkes to Tenterden, 21 July 1874, FO 46/180. Ibid. Parkes to Russell, 3 January 1865 (it should be 1866), FO 46/58. Brunton, Building Japan 1868–1876, 74. House, ‘The Martyrdom of an Empire’, Atlantic Monthly, May 1881, 620. Breen, ‘The Rituals of Anglo-Japanese Diplomacy: Imperial Audiences in Early Meiji Japan’, 73. Bird, ‘Notes of my last conversation with Lady Parkes’, CUL, MS Parkes 33/33. Bird to ?, 22 May 1878, Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Vol. 1, 31. Parkes to Lockhart, 25 November 1878, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 263. Parkes to Fanny, 24 November 1878, ibid., 265. Parkes to Fanny, 11 January 1879, ibid., 269. Parkes to Brunton, 23 December 1872, Brunton, Building Japan 1868–1876, 128–129. Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. I, 321–322. Bird, ‘Notes of my last conversation with Lady Parkes’, CUL, MS Parkes 33/33. Parkes to Fanny, 24 November 1878, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 265. Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Vol. II, 216. Parkes to Fanny, 5 February 1879, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 270. Parkes to Fanny, 14 January 1879, ibid., 270–271. Parkes to Fanny, 14 February 1879, ibid., 271. Parkes to Fanny, 2 March 1879, ibid., 272. Parkes to Fanny, 10 April 1879, ibid., 273. Note by Janet Aston, ibid., 356. A memoir of Parkes by Basil Chamberlain, 2 June 1893, CUL, MS Parkes 33/83.

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28 Parkes to Fanny, 23 May 1879, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 273. 29 Parkes to Fanny, 30 May 1879, ibid., 274–275. 30 Ibid., 10 June 1879, 276. 31 Ibid., 275. 32 Ibid., 18 July 1879, ibid., 278. 33 Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes, 181. 34 Parkes to Fanny, 28 July 1879, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 278. 35 James L. Huffman, A Yankee in Meiji Japan: The crusading journalist Edward H. House (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), 145. 36 Parkes to Fanny, 2 September 1879, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 280–281. 37 Isabella Bird to ?, 24 December 1878, Bird, The Golden Chersonese and the way thither (London: John Murray, 1883), 33. 38 Quoted in the Tokio Times, 14 July 1879. 39 Pope-Hennessy to Gladstone, 24 August 1879, Huffman, A Yankee in Meiji Japan, 143. 40 Parkes to Fanny, 12 August 1879, Dickins & Lane-Poole, Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 280; Satow’s diary, 9 August 1879, Ruxton, ed., A Diplomat in Japan Part II: The Diaries of Ernest Satow, 1870–1883, 405–406. 41 Parkes to ?, 10 April 1879, Cortazzi, ‘A Public Quarrel - Sir Edward Reed and Sir Harry Parkes’, Japan Society Proceedings, 146, 2008, 67. 42 Edward Reed, Japan: its history, traditions and religions, with the narrative of a visit in 1879, Vol. I (London: John Murray, 1880), xxxii. 43 F.V. Dickins, ‘Recent Travels in Japan’, Quarterly Review 150/300, October 1880, 319; The Times, 28 May 1881. 44 F.V. Dickins to Parkes, 8 June 1881, CUL, MS Parkes 14/D4. 45 The Times, 4 June 1881. 46 Cortazzi, ‘A Public Quarrel - Sir Edward Reed and Sir Harry Parkes’, 73–74. 47 Satow to Dickins, 29 October 1879, Ruxton ed., Satow’s Private Letters to Aston and Dickins, 126. 48 Parkes to F.V. Dickins, 30 November 1879, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 287. 49 The Japan Weekly Mail, 22 November 1879. 50 Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 287. 51 Bird, ‘Notes of my last conversation with Lady Parkes’, CUL, MS Parkes 33/33. 52 Willis to Fanny Willis, 8 March 1869, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/11, No. 178. 53 Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 286. 54 Bird, ‘Notes of my last conversation with Lady Parkes’, CUL, MS Parkes 33/33. 55 London and China Telegraph, 26 November 1879. 56 Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Vol. 2, 315. 57 Anna Stoddart, The Life of Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop) (London: John Murray, 1906), 114. 58 Saigo- Tsukumichi to Parkes, 30 December 1879, CUL, MS Parkes 1/S1. 59 Willis to Fanny Willis, 5 July 1874, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/16, No. 334. 60 Note by Janet Aston, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 356. 61 Bird, ‘Notes of my last conversation with Lady Parkes’, CUL, MS Parkes 33/33.

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62 Note by Janet Aston, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 357. 63 Parkes to Bird, 19 August 1880, CUL, MS Parkes 2/81. 64 Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser, 27 March 1885. 65 Parkes to Minnie, 25 June 1883, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 338. 66 Queen Victoria’s Journal, 28 November 1881, Royal Archives. 67 William Talbot to Parkes, 7 December 1880, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 293. 68 Brasenose College Register 1509–1909 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1909), 300; H.H. House, The Sherborne Register, 1823–1892 (London: Clowes, 1893), 172. 69 Parkes to Catharine Lockhart, 9 January 1882, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 297.

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12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

The Japan Weekly Mail, 28 January 1882. Ibid. Satow to Dickins, 10 October 1881, Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters to Aston and Dickins, 142. House, ‘The Martyrdom of an Empire’, Atlantic Monthly, May 1881, 621. Satow to Dickins, 24 July 1893, Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters to Aston and Dickins, 195. House, ‘The Martyrdom of an Empire’, Atlantic Monthly, May 1881, 619–621. The Tokio Times, 7 December 1878. Ibid., 15 September 1877. Ibid., 19 April 1879. Quoted in the Tokio Times, 17 February 1877. Parkes to Derby, 27 January 1877, Nish ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, 337. James Huffman, The Rise and Evolution of Meiji Japan (Folkestone: Renaissance, 2019), 121. Okura Kihachiro- to N.P. Kingdon, 27 September 1885, FO 46/334. Francis Plunkett to Lord Rosebery, 1 March 1886, FO 46/343. Satow to Dickins, 7 March 1882, Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters to Aston and Dickins, 143. Satow’s diary, 30 May 1882, Ruxton ed., A Diplomat in Japan Part II: The Diaries of Ernest Satow, 1870–1883, 486. Cortazzi, ‘Sir Harry Parkes, 1828–1885’, Ian Nish, ed., Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1994), 15. Minnie to Eliza Plumer (probably – Dickins only tells us it was ‘Miss Plumer’), 14 August 1882, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 333. Parkes to G.R. Gilton, 11 June 1883, Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes, 199. Parkes to H.S. Wilkinson, 7 June 1883, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 338. Parkes to Lockhart, 25 July 1883, ibid., 342 Wade to Parkes, ? 1883, ibid., 364. North China Herald, 25 July 1868. Alcock to Hammond, 18 March 1869, FO 391/2.

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25 Granville to Grosvenor (British Chargé d’affaires in China), 2 June 1883, FO 17/928. 26 Grosvenor to Granville, 16 May 1883, ibid. 27 The London and China Telegraph, 29 October 1883. 28 Address by Emperor Meiji, 22 August 1883, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 342–343. 29 The Japan Weekly Mail, 6 April 1889. 30 Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 362. 31 Ibid., 362–363. 32 Minnie to ?, ? September 1883, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 348. 33 Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes, 201. 34 Douglas Moore Kenrick, ‘A Century of Western Studies of Japan’, The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Series 3, Vol. 14, 1978, 70–71. 35 Ibid., 72. 36 Ibid., 73

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

Stephen A. Royle, ‘Traditional Korean islanders encounters with the British navy in the 1880s: The Port Hamilton Affair of 1885–1887,’ Journal of Marine and Island Cultures, Volume 5, Issue 1, June 2016, 22. Parkes to Brooke Robertson, 25 July 1876, CUL, MS Parkes. Parkes to Tenterden, 29 January 1876, FO 363/2. Japan Gazette, 25 March 1876. Parkes to Earl Granville, 29 December 1882, Park Il-Kuen, ed., Anglo-Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea, 1866–1886 (Seoul: Shin Mun Dang, 1982), 138. Ibid., 137. Parkes to Derby, 25 July 1883, Correspondence respecting the Treaty between Japan and Corea (London: Harrison, 1876), 17. Parkes to Aston, 10 March 1883, Park ed., Anglo-Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea (1866–1886), 209. Jonathan Parkinson, The China Station, Royal Navy: A History as seen through the careers of the Commanders in Chief, 1864–1941 (Kibworth Beauchamp: Matador, 2018), 119. Parkes to Granville, 20 April 1883, Park ed., Anglo-Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea (1866–1886), 210. Willes to Parkes, 11 May 1883, ibid., 261. Parkes to Tenterden, 21 June 1882, FO 46/285. Ibid., 13 July 1882, FO 46/286. Parkes to Granville, 6 December 1883, FO 17/926/3. Granville to Baron von Plessen, 23 August 1883, Park ed., Anglo-Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea (1866–1886), 375. Shanghai Welcome Address to Parkes from Frederick H. Bell, Alexander Myburgh, P.G. Hubbe and Carl Jantzen ‘On Behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and the Municipal Council of Shanghai representing the Foreign Residents of these Settlements generally.’ CUL, MS Parkes 30/4. Minnie to Eliza Plumer, 18 September 1883, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 367. Ibid., 3 October 1883, 368.

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NOTES

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

309

Parkes to Minnie, 6 November 1883, ibid., 208–209. Ibid., 209. Ibid., 212. Ibid., 209. Satow to Dickins, 7 March 1882, Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters to Aston and Dickins, 143. Parkes to Minnie, 6 November 1883, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 210. Parkes to Aston, 6 March 1883, Park, ed., Anglo-Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea (1866–1886), 189. Herbert Giles to Lane-Poole?, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 373. Parkes to Granville, 3 November 1883, Park, ed., Anglo-Diplomatic Materials Relating to Korea (1866–1886), 377. Parkes to Granville, 6 December 1883, FO 17/926. Parkes to Mabel, 8 November 1883, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 212. Ibid., 214. Parkes to Granville, 1 December 1883, FO 17/928. Parkes to Minnie, 4 December 1883, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 216. Philip Currie to Parkes, 22 February 1884, ibid., 372. Parkes to Granville, 16 December 1883, FO 17/927. Philip Currie, note of 16 December 1883, ibid. Anonymous, ‘Our Trip to Seoul’, Tinsley’s Magazine, London, Vol.26/212, March 1885. Parkes to Granville, 17 December 1883, FO 17/927. Note of the remarks of His Majesty the King of Corea on the occasion of the audience granted to the British Plenipotentiary on the 27th of November 1885, ibid.

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Hillier, Memorandum of interview at the Tsungli Yamen on the 19th December 1883. Note by Julian Pauncefote, 20 December 1883, FO 17/927. Parkes to Granville, 28 December 1883, ibid. Alcock to Hammond, 18 March 1869, FO 391/2. Hillier to Lane-Poole, 20 December 1893, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 395. Parkes to Wilkinson, 7 June 1883, CUL, MS Parkes 2/W14. Parkes to P.J. Hughes, 4 July 1884, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 413. Minnie to ?, 15 July 1884, ibid. Colin Crisswell, The Taipans (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1981), 191. J.J. Keswick to Parkes, 26 June1884, CUL, MS Parkes 1/K5. Mrs Perkis to ?, undated, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 413 Parkes to Mabel, 30 September 1884, ibid., 414. Parkes to Minnie, 19 November 1884, ibid., 415. Ibid., 29 November 1884, 415–416.

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15 J.J. Keswick to Parkes, 6 January 1885, CUL, MS Parkes 1/K11. 16 Parkes to Mabel, 11 March 1885, Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 424. 17 Dickins & Lane-Poole, The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, 424. 18 Von Brandt to Lane-Poole, 19 January 1894, ibid., 425. 19 Hiller to W.G. Aston, 7 April 1885, ibid., 424. 20 O’Conor to Minnie, 18 December 1892, ibid., 426. 21 Hillier to ?, undated, ibid., 427–428. 22 O’Conor to P.J. Hughes, 26 March 1885, ibid., 428. 23 Satow to Dickins, 17 March 1894, Ruxton, ed., Satow’s Private Letters to Aston and Dickins, 206. 24 Satow to Dickins, 24 July 1893, ibid., 195. 25 Willis to Fanny Willis, 5 July 1874, Yokohama Archives of History, Vol. 44/16, No. 334. 26 Inoue to Kawase, 25 March 1885, The Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 6–4-7–4. 27 Inoue to Plunkett, 23 March 1885, ibid. 28 The Japan Weekly Mail, 28 March 1885. 29 Granville to Lockhart, 23 March 1885, St James’s Gazette, 31 March 1885. 30 London Evening Standard, 23 March 1885. 31 St. James’s Gazette (in the Hampshire Advertiser, 28 March 1885). 32 The Graphic, 28 March 1885. 33 Homeward Mail from India, China and the East, 31 March 1885. 34 Exeter and Plymouth Gazette Daily Telegram, 30 March 1885 35 Dundee Courier, 23 March 1885. 36 James Macaulay, ‘Sir Harry Parkes K.C.B.’, The Leisure Hour, September 1894, 722–726. 37 Kawanaka to Kawase, The Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 6–4-7–4. 38 The North China Herald, 15 September 1888.

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Epilogue 1 2

21 December 1885, CUL, MS Parkes 34/21. Satow’s Diary, 21 July 1887, Ian Ruxton ed., The Diaries of Sir Ernest Mason Satow, 1883–1888 (Ian Ruxton via Lulu, 2016), 380 3 Entry for Thomas Brock, Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. 4 The Japan Weekly Mail, 6 March 1886. 5 North China Herald, 12 August 1887. 6 Angelo de Gubernatis, Dizionario degli Artisti Italiani Viventi: Pittori, Scultori, e Architetti (Florence, 1889), 486. 7 North China Herald, 12 August 1887. 8 Ibid., 12 April 1890. 9 Ibid., 11 April 1880. 10 James Macaulay, ‘Sir Harry Parkes K.C.B.’, The Leisure Hour, September 1894, 726. 11 The Saturday Review, 15 June 1901, 773. 12 Adolphus William Ward & George Peabody Gooch eds., The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783–1919, Vol. 2, 1815–1866 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923), 424.

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311

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13 R.A. Bickers, ‘Moving Stories: Memorialisation and its Legacies in Treaty Port China’ in Max Jones, Berny Sèbe, Bertrand Taithe, Peter Yeandle, eds., Decolonising Imperial Heroes: Cultural legacies of the British and French Empires (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 61. 14 Stephen Davies, Maritime Mission in Hong Kong from Whampoa Reach to the Mariners’ Club (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2017). 15 The Times, 4 October 1949. 16 Malcolm D. Kennedy, obituary of Frances Dickson, The Japan Society Bulletin 48, February 1966, 24. I am grateful to Heidi Potter at the Japan Society for finding this for me. 17 Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 141. 18 Cortazzi, ‘Sir Harry Parkes, 1828–1885’, Collected Writings of Sir Hugh Cortazzi, 50.

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Index

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™

Abe Masato-, 137–138, 139 Abe Shinzo-, 158 Adams, F.O., 198, 205 Ah-ni, 250–251 Aizu domain, 173 Albert, Prince, 60, 257 Alcock, Henrietta, 34–35, 38, 43 Alcock, Rutherford, 33–35, 36, 48, 119 120, 122, 182, 201, 230, 257, 259, 260; comments on HP, 34, 110, 229–230, 246; in Amoy, 36, 37, 40; in Fuzhou, 37–38, 39, 40; in Shanghai, 40, 43; in Guangzhou, 73–74, 84; Minister to Japan, 128, 130, 131, 134, 144, 146, 149, 188, 296n1; Minister to China, 129, 191 Alfred, Prince. See Edinburgh, Duke of Amoy, xv, 21, 50, 51; HP interpreter there, 28, 29–30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 44, 49; HP Consul there, 56, 60, 80 Anderson, William Dr, 213 Arrow, 74–76, 80, 81, 116, 135 Asiatic Society of Japan, 232–233 Aston, Janet: observations about HP, 212, 219, 220 Aston, William, 231, 232, 264; and Korea, 237, 239, 240–241 Austen, Jane, 64 Beijing, 89, 104, 111, 239, 242, 248, 252; British Legation there, 88, 108–109, 247; possible assault on, 90, 95, 96, 100, 101,

103; HP stays there, 98, 114, 115; HP Minister there, 175, 225, 229, 230, 246, 247, 253, 259 Bingham, John, 193, 215 Birchills Hall, 1, 2, 3, 4 Bird, Isabella, 208, 215; and HP, 201, 220; and Fanny Parkes, 209, 210, 218 Birmingham, 4, 5–6, 13 Bizen domain, 162–163 Blakiston, Thomas, 149–150 Bloxwich, 1, 2 Bogue, Treaty of, 28 Bonham, Sir George, 54–56 Bourboulon, Alphonse de, 73, 115; and the Second Opium War, 84, 89 Bowlby, Thomas, 103 Bowring, John, xv, 59 Bowring, Sir John, xv, 47, 73–74, 176; and Siam, 58–60, 61, 69, 70, 71; and the Second Opium War, 75–76, 77, 78, 79–80, 83, 84, 85, 107, 263 Brandt, Max von, 249 British Museum, 213 Brock, Thomas, 257–258 Brooke Robinson, Daniel, 44, 234 Brooke Robinson, Russell, 55, 56 Bruce, Frederick, 122; and the Second Opium War, 89, 91; Minister to China, 108, 109, 110, 115, 116, 123, 128; and the opening of Consulates along the Yangtze, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114

313

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314

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Brunton, Richard Henry, 189–190 Bushell, Dr Stephen, 250 Caine, William, 14, 16 Canons, 63, 64, 65, 91 Canton. See Guangzhou Ceylon. See Sri Lanka Chamberlain, Basil Hall: observations about HP, 176, 212, 231–232 Chandos, Duke of, 65 Chapdelaine, Fr. Auguste, 84 Chefoo. See Zhifu Chinkiang. See Zhenjiang Chion-in temple, 166, 169 Cholera, 101, 214–215 Christianity in Japan. See Hidden Christians Cho-shu- domain, 137, 159, 162; HP visits, 130, 139 Church Missionary Society, 42, 178, 181 Churchill, Winston, 125 Chusan. See Zhoushan City of Bombay, 192–193 Clarendon, Lord, 73, 132, 140, 156; and Siam, 71, 72; and the First Opium War, 77, 80 Cobbold, Lillian. See Parkes, Lillian Cobbold, Rowland, 261, 262 Cobden, Richard, 80–81 Connaught, Duke of, 259 Coote, Admiral, 213 Cortazzi, Sir Hugh, 189, 216; observations about HP, 164, 264 Courcy, Comte de, 79 Currie, Philip, 242, 243 D’Aguilar, General, 38 Daniels, Gordon: observations about HP, 15–16, 164, 181, 206 Davis, John, 32, 33, 39, 55; HP’s opinion of, 30–31 DeLong, Charles, 153; and the Oneida disaster, 192–193

INDEX

Derby, 14th Earl of, 81 Derby, 15th Earl of (until 1868 Lord Stanley), 180, 206 Dickens, Charles, xii, 2, 5, 62, 66, 232 Dickins, F.W., vii, xiii-xiv, 198, 216, 217–218; observations about HP, 36, 175–176, 179; descriptions of HP, 63, 130 Dickson, Charles, 261, 262 Dickson, Frances. See Parkes, Frances Disraeli, Benjamin, xii, 81 Dowell, Sir William, 252 Dufferin, Lord, 46 East India Company, 22, 31, 47 Edinburgh, Duke of: visit to Japan, 184–187, 188, 213 Edo. See Tokyo Elgin, Lord, 87, 89, 101, 102, 108; and the Second Opium War, 83–85, 86, 90, 95, 96, 103, 107; HP’s opinion of, 88–89, 109– 110; praises HP, 100, 109; and the destruction of the Summer Palace, 104, 105 Eliott, Commander, 237 Elliot, Charles, 23, 39 Enomoto Takeaki, 174 Ensor, George, 178–179 Extraterritoriality, 71, 304n20; in Japan, 202, 210, 227, 228 Eyre, Captain, 192–193 Foochow. See Fuzhou Foote, General Lucius, 240 Formosa. See Taiwan Foster, John, xv, 53 Fuji, Mt., 155 Fushimi, 149; Battle of, 161, 165 Fuzhou, 21, 38, 40, 43; HP interpreter there, 30, 32–33, 34, 37, 39 Ganghwa Island, 235 Geomundo, 234

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INDEX

George III, King, 68, 193 Giles, Herbert, 129, 241 Gitton, George, 255 Gladstone, William, 195, 201, 215, 229; and China, 81, 120 Gojong, King, 242, 243 Gong, Prince, 108; and HP’s imprisonment, 100, 102; and HP as Minister, 150, 230, 246 Gordon, Charles, 253; and the destruction of the Summer Palace, 104–105; and the Taiping, 125–126 Go-to- Sho-jiro-, 154; defends HP, 166, 167–168 Grand Canal, 111 Grant, Sir James Hope, xv, 108; and the Second Opium War, 90, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97 Grant, President Ulysses S., xv, 214 Granville, Lord, 257; meets with the Iwakura Mission, 201–202; and Korea, 237, 238, 242, 243 Gray, Rev John, 53 Gribble, Henry, 31, 32 Griffis, William, 234 Guangzhou, 8, 21, 26, 31, 55, 58, 88, 101, 102, 123, 150, 250; confinement of foreigners there, 22, 27, 51; HP Consul there, 52, 53–54, 56, 73–78, 80, 90, 91, 115, 116, 119; and the Second Opium War, 73–78, 81, 84, 85–87, 105 Gulangyu, 21, 36; HP there, 31–32 Gully treatment, 62 Gutzlaff, Charles, 6–7, 8, 12, 13, 26; and HP, 18, 20, 23–25 Gutzlaff, Mary, 6, 7, 8 Hakodate, 131, 174; HP there, 149, 213 Hakone, 228 Hammond, Edmund, 46–47, 198, 229; correspondence with HP, 142, 143, 145, 146, 148, 156,

315

157, 159, 171, 173, 177, 178, 182, 184, 190, 194 Hampstead, 118–119, 120 Handel, George Frideric, 65 Hankou, 114; opening of a British Consulate there, 110, 113 Hankow. See Hankou Hara Takashi, 168 Harris, Townsend: in Siam, 70, 72 Hart, Robert, 78, 260 Hayashi Keiichi, xi Hayashi Tadasu, 175 Hengqi, 102, 103 Henry of Prussia, Prince, 212–213 Hepburn, James, 223 Hesperia, 215 Hidden Christians, 177–181 Higashikuze Michitomi, 163, 165 Hill, George Dr, 199 Hillier, Walter, 249; observations about HP, 67, 245–246, 251; in Korea, 239, 240 Hinghua, 50 Hiogo. See Kobe Hizen, Daimyo- of, 169 Hollond, Ellen, 62–63 Hollond, Robert, 62 Hong Kong, 7, 13, 31, 55, 78, 109, 123, 150, 185, 247, 249, 261, 262; and the First Opium War, 8, 17; HP as a child there, 10, 13–14, 15, 16, 24, 25, 26, 30; as a port, 10, 17, 109, 116, 117; Governors of, 16, 36, 55, 83, 215; British acquisition of, 21, 23, 39, 88; Supreme Court there, 54, 124; and the Second Opium War, 75, 78–79, 84 Hong Xiuquan, 112 Hope, Sir James, xv, 116; and the Second Opium War, 89–90, 94; and the opening of Consulates along the Yangtze, 110, 112 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 118 Hornby, Admiral, 207

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316

House, Edward, 130, 207, 216, 225–226 Huangzhou, 113 Hughes-Hallett, Andrew, vii-ix, 282 Hugo, Victor, 106 Hurd, Douglas, 26, 77 Hwang-chow. See Huangzhou Hyo-go. See Kobe I, Prince of, 97, 98 Iemochi, Shogun, 137–138, 146; death, 144 India, 16, 60, 99, 109, 148, 182, 234; and opium, 8, 47; HP visits, 45, 203–204 Indian Mutiny, 84, 90 Inoue Kaoru, 216, 228, 236; and the death of HP, 251–252 Inoue Yoshiaya, 138 Ito- Hirobumi, 125, 158–159, 227; and HP, 163, 216, 225, 252 Iwakura Mission, 200–202, 203, 206 Iwakura Tomimi, 203, 205; and HP, 173, 174–175, 181, 233

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Jardine Matheson, 54, 247, 252, 261, 262 Johnson, President Andrew, 186 Kagoshima, 141 Kennedy, R.J., 210 Kensington, 220, 254, 262 Keppel, Admiral, 142–143, 149, 172, 182, 257 Keswick, Jamie (James Johnstone), 247–248, 249, 258, 261, 262 Keswick, Minnie (Marion). See Parkes, Minnie (Marion) Kew Gardens, 105, 195 Keying. See Qiying Kido Takayoshi, 179, 200 King Edward VI Grammar School, 5–6 Kiying. See Qiying

INDEX

Knightsbridge, 220 Kobe, 162–163, 164, 199, 225; opening to foreign trade, 130, 137–138, 145, 156, 158, 159 Kobe incident, 162–163, 164 Ko-chi. See Tosa Ko-mei, Emperor, 136, 144, 166; and treaty ratification, 135, 137, 139 Koolangsoo. See Gulangyu Korea, 182; and HP, viii, 233–244, 263 Kung, Prince. See Prince Gong Kyoto, 147, 148, 163; and treaty ratification, 135, 136, 138, 139; and the overthrow of the Shogunate, 159, 161, 188; HP in, 165–171 Lane-Poole, Stanley, vii, xiii, 63, 120, 122, 209; on HP’s childhood, 1, 3, 4–5; opinions about HP, 15, 16, 17, 28, 67, 68 Lay, George Tradescant, 33, 37, 187 Lay, Horatio Nelson, 120; and a railway loan, 187, 188–189 Leeds, 121, 154 Leonowens, Anna, 58 Levett, Egerton, 246, 261–262 Levett, Mabel. See Parkes, Mabel Li Hongzhang, 125, 235, 245, 252 Lighthouses: construction of in Japan, 189–190, 264 Liverpool, 197, 200, 220 Loch, Henry, 93, 96, 97, 114; book by, vii, 119, imprisonment, 98–99, 100–101, 102 Lockhart, Catharine, 12, 13, 28, 52, 66, 88, 255; and HP’s legacy, xiii, 261; childhood, 4, 7, 8; marriage, 10–12; correspondence with HP, 24, 37, 39, 46, 50, 53, 54, 79, 80, 222, 223, opinion of HP, 30, 61; and Isabella, 40, 41, 43; in Britain, 61, 115, 124

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

INDEX

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Lockhart, William, 7, 11, 43, 53, 88, 257; and Catharine, 10–12, 88, 124; with HP, 12, 115; correspondence with HP, 24, 33, 47–48, 88–89, 203, 208, 229; and the Medhurst family, 40–42 Lock hospitals, 199 Locock, Sidney, 162 London Missionary Society, 11 Longfellow, Charles, 193 Macao, 7, 8, 31, 74; HP there, 10, 13, 26 Macartney, Lord, 89 MacDonald, John, 133 Mao Zedong, 25 Marseilles, 45, 118 Marx, Karl, 81 Matsumae Takahiro, 139 McClatchie, Harry Parkes, xv, 43 McClatchie, Isabella, 59, 78, 257; childhood, 3, 4, 7, 8; and HP, 13, 24, 25, 43, 255; and Walter Medhurst, 40–41, 59; marriage, 42, 43 McClatchie, Rev Thomas, xv, 42–43 Medhurst, Walter, jr., xv, 40–42, 59, 88 Medhurst, Walter, sr, xv, 40 Meiji, Emperor, 144, 164, 168, 172–173, 196, 214, 264; and the ‘restoration’ of power to, 156, 158, 159, 163; meetings with HP, 165–166, 169–171, 172, 174, 195, 205, 207–208, 230–231; and the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit, 184–187 Michie, Alexander, 112, 175 Mitford, A.B., xii-xiii, 34, 109, 133, 156, 159, 165, 167, 178, 194, 264; comments on the diplomatic/consular service, 14, 46; observations about HP, 15, 28, 131, 137, 154, 201; journeys

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in Japan, 145, 149, 153; meeting with the Shogun, 147, 148; and the Kobe incident, 163, 164; comments on Emperor Meiji, 169–170; and the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit, 185, 186 Mongkut, King, 57–58, 70; and Queen Victoria, 59, 60, 68–69; and HP, 61, 68, 69, 71–72 Morrison, John Robert, 13, 14, 15, 24 Muirhead, William, 111 Myburgh, Francis, 164 Nagasaki, 131, 153, 199, 215, 237; HP there, 130, 154; and the Hidden Christians there, 177, 178, 180 Nakai Hiroshi, 166, 167–168 Nanjing, 18, 124, 125, 126; HP there, 19, 21, 23, 111–112, 116 Nanjing, Treaty of, 28, 32, 38; HP’s presence at its signing, xi, 19, 20, 22; terms, 21–22, 23, 27, 30, 31, 76, 84 Nanao, 159; HP’s visit to 152, 153 Neale, Colonel, 128, 129 Newton, Dr, 199 Niigata, 201; opening to foreign trade, 138, 151, 152, 153, 159 Nikko, 194, 201 Ningbo, 21, 32; Taiping occupation, 116–117 Ningpo. See Ningbo Oakley, Horace, 55–56 O’Conor, Nicholas, 250, 251 Odawara, 206 O’Driscoll, John, 194 Okuma Shigenobu, 179 Okura Kihachiro-, 227 Oneida, 191–193 Opium trade, viii-ix, 6, 7, 8, 47, 216, 237 Opium War, First, viii, xi, 7, 19, 26, 33, 36, 76

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Opium War, Second, viii, xi, 88, 90, 95, 107; starting of, xi, 73, 74–77, 117, 260; in Guangzhou, 77–80, 84–87; reaction in Britain to, 80–82; around the Peiho forts, 90, 91–94; and HP’s imprisonment during, 96–104, 120, 222, 260; and the destruction of the Summer Palace, 104–106; Chinese bitterness towards HP over, 230, 246, 260, 263 Osaka, 135, 142, 148, 151, 153, 173, 178, 188; opening to foreign trade, 130, 137–138, 145, 156, 158, 159; HP there, 137–138, 145–146, 159–162, 164, 172, 194; HP meets the Shogun there 144, 145, 146 Outrey, Ange-Maxime, 175; and Hidden Christians, 179 Pallegoix, Jean-Baptiste, 57 Palmerston, Lord, 81–82; and Hong Kong, 23, 39; and China, 27, 55, 76, 81–82, 104; and HP, 47, 48, 49, 53, 109, 114, 122, 129 Paris, 34 Parkes, Catharine. See Lockhart, Catharine Parkes, Douglas, 141, 183, 222, 262 Parkes, Fanny, xv, 63, 118, 139, 142, 192, 210, 212, 254, 261, 265; depressions, xiv, xv, 208, 260; courtship and marriage, 63–66; relationship with HP, 67, 91, 114, 119, 122, 126, 194, 209, 211, 218, 219; in Siam, 69–71; in China, 73, 78–79, 87; correspondence with HP, 90, 91–92, 93, 94, 95, 98, 103, 104, 108, 109–110, 114, 115–116, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129–130, 167, 168, 185–186, 187, 190, 209, 211, 212–213; as a mother,

INDEX

122, 123, 126, 141, 182, 183– 184, 191, 197–198, 203–204, 219, 261; journeys in Japan, 141, 145, 148–149, 155, 194; death, 216, 217–220, 224 Parkes, Frances, 204, 208, 219, 221, 222, 238, 261, 262–263 Parkes, Harry (father of HP), xv, 1–4, 8, 63 Parkes, Harry Rutherford, 122, 139, 208, 221, 222, 261; ill health, 182–183, 197, 203 Parkes, Isabella. See McClatchie, Isabella Parkes, John (uncle of HP), xv, 4–5, 7, 8 Parkes, Rev John (grandfather of HP), xv, 2 Parkes, Lillian, 197, 203, 208, 219, 221, 222, 238, 261, 262 Parkes, Louisa, 255 Parkes, Mabel, 220, 257; birth and childhood, 126, 139, 183; with HP, 222, 224, 238; correspondence with HP, 240, 242, 248, 249; marriage, 246– 247, 248, 261–262 Parkes, Minnie (Marion), 261; birth and childhood, 91, 139, 142, 183, 203; with HP, 219, 220, 221, 222–223, 224, 228, 231, 238–239, 247; correspondence with HP, 114, 221, 239, 240, 242, 249; marriage, 247–248, 261; HP’s death and legacy, xiii, 250, 251, 252, 257; Parkes, Mary Ann, 3, 4 Parkes, Nellie (Ellen), 79, 87, 139, 142, 191; death and grave, 183, 197–198, 219, 254, 261 Patteson, John, 52–53 Pauncefote, Sir Julian, 150 Peiho Forts, 89, 93–94, 97, 239 Peking. See Beijing Perkis, Mr, 249 Perkis, Mrs, 248

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

INDEX

Perry, Commodore, 87 Petitjean, Fr. Bernard, 178 Pierce, President Franklin, 70 Pinklao, King, 60 Plumer, Ann, 64 Plumer, Eliza, 191 Plumer, Hall, 220 Plumer, Marianne, 64–65, 66 Plumer, Sir Thomas, xv, 63, 64 Plumer, Thomas Hall, xv Plunkett, Francis, 227, 252 Postal services, 207 Pope-Hennessy, John, 215, 227 Port Hamilton. See Geomundo Port Lazareff. See Wonsan ˘ Pottinger, Henry, 16–17, 20–21; and HP, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 45 Putian. See Huinghua. Putyatin, Count, 78

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Qishan, 39 Qiying, 19, 20, 38, 39 Railways, 47, 264; construction of in Japan, 187–189, 205 Reed, Edward, 215–216 Roches, Léon, 178, 179, 264; rivalry with HP, 137, 145, 160– 161, 166; and Shogun, 145, 160, 163–164 Royal Academy of Art, 213 Royal Asiatic Society, China Branch, 51–52, 232 Royal Geographical Society, 52, 120; HP addresses, 61 Russell, Lord (Lord John Russell until 1861), 81, 109, 118, 139, 140, 195, 296n1; instructions to HP, 128, 129, 135, 207 Sado Island, 151, 159 Saigo- Takamori, 171 Saigo- Tsukumichi, 218 St. Lawrence’s Church, xi; and HP’s wedding, 65–66; and

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the Parkes family funerals and graves, 198, 217, 219, 254, 261 St. Paul’s Cathedral, 257 Sakai incident, 165, 166 Sakyamuni, 57 Salisbury, Lord, 81, 210, 211, 214 Sanjo- Sanetomi, 195 Satow, Ernest, 143, 166, 167, 171, 175, 181, 184, 194, 215, 222, 228, 232, 241, 251, 257, 264; as HP’s interpreter, xiii, 131, 132, 147, 152; critical of HP, xiii, 136, 146, 154, 159, 160– 161, 162, 172, 179, 201, 217, 224–225, 232, 240; difficult relationship with HP, 131–132, 133; praises HP, 131, 251, 263; observations about Japan and the Japanese, 134–135, 144, 164, 165; journeys in Japan, 145, 149, 151–153, 154; and the Meiji Restoration, 159, 160, 161–162, 171 Satsuma domain, 141, 159, 162, 166 Senggelinqin, 97–98 Seoul, 239, 240, 242 Sevenoaks, 220 Seymour, Rear Admiral Michael, 77–78, 79, 80, 84, 89 Shamian Island, 87 Shanghai, 11, 32, 42, 49, 117, 150, 252, 254; and the First Opium War, 8, 12, 17, 21; HP visits, 18, 88, 114, 115, 116, 139, 238; HP interpreter there, 40, 43, 44, HP Consul there, 123–124, 129; statue of HP there, 258, 259, 260 Shimonoseki, 128, 139 Shufeldt, Commander, 237, 238, 240 Siam, 57–61, 65–72, 73, 198 Siebold, Alexander von, 132, 133, 194 Singapore: HP visits, 61, 67, 222

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Singh, Nal, 97, 99, 102 Solari, Tommaso, 258–259 Sri Lanka: HP visits, 45, 223 Stanley, Lord. See Derby, 15th Earl of Stanton, Rev Vincent, 8 Stirling, Admiral, 236 Stoddart, Anna, 218 Stonewall Jackson, 174 Straubenzee, General Van, 86–87 Suez, 45, 67, 203 Summer Palace: destruction of, 104–106, 113 Taiping, 12, 91, 124, 178; and HP, 110, 111–112, 113–114, 116– 117; HP’s opinion of, 111–112, 121, 125 Taiwan, 49–50 Taki Zenzaburo-, 164 Talbot, William, 222 Tariffs: in China, 21; in Japan, 140–141, 206, 207, 210–211, 226, 228; in Korea, 236 Telegraph, 231, 252; in Japan, 187, 190, 264; connecting Japan and Europe, 206–207, 211, 235 Temple of the Fragrant World. See Xiangjie Si Tempo-zan, 161 Terashima Munenori, 207 Thailand. See Siam Thatcher, Margaret, 154 Thom, Robert, 26, 28 Tianjin, 108, 115, 242, 252; and the Second Opium War, 94, 95, 96 Tianjin, Treaty of, 88, 95, 110; ratification, 89, 96 Tientsin. See Tianjin To-kaido-, 141, 177, 188 Tokugawa Iemochi. See Iemochi, Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. See Yoshinobu, Shogun Tokyo (Edo until 1868), 134, 138, 142, 146, 154, 173, 188, 189,

INDEX

209, 211, 228, 229, 235; and the Meiji Restoration, 161, 163, 164, 171; Emperor Meiji and, 171, 173–174; railway to, 188–189, 205; Legation there, 194, 199–200 Tongzhou, 96–97 Tosa domain, 153–154, 162, 165, 167 Trench, Power Henry le Poer, 231 Tsuruga, 148, 151, 159 Unyo-, 235 Urakami, 177 Uwajima, Inkyo of, 169 V&A Museum, 195 Van Valkenburgh, Robert, 174, 180, 193 Venereal diseases, 198–199 Victoria, Queen, xiii, 81, 203, 212, 253, 257; and China, 8, 96, 99, 105, 230, 246; HP meets, 47, 60, 66, 201, 221–222; and Siam, 59, 60, 67, 68–69, 70; and the way she was referred to, 99, 208, 238; and Japan, 146, 148, 167, 172, 184, 187, 196, 201, 203, 208; and Korea, 243, 245 Vladivostok, 182 Voltaire, 105 Wade, Thomas, 101, 229, 257; as a colleague of HP’s, 94, 108, 114, 115, 116; as a rival of HP’s, 128–129, 191 Waldemar, Prince, 213 Wanstall, Mary. See Gutzlaff, Mary Watson, R.G., 205 Westminster Abbey, 254 Wheatstone, Charles, 61 Whitelaw, William, 154 Wilkinson, Hiram Shaw, 194, 221 Wilkinson, Prudence, 194 Willes, Vice-Admiral George, 236–237, 252

A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,

INDEX

Willis, William Dr, 67, 141, 155, 165, 183, 198–199; observations about HP, 16, 66, 133, 134, 175, 183, 205, 219, 251; and Fanny Parkes, 66, 155, 183–184 192, 218, 219 Wolseley, Field Marshal Viscount, 127 Wonsan, ˘ 234 Woosung. See Wusung Wuhan. See Hankou Wusung, 17 Xiamen. See Amoy Xiangjie Si, 247

Yokohama, 139, 141, 190, 193, 200, 207, 213, 215, 217, 225, 258; HP there, 130, 134, 135, 149, 155, 194, 204, 224, 231; fire there, 141–142; communications to and from, 188, 189, 205, 206; British military there, 134, 198–199 Yokohama Foreign Cemetery, 193 Yokosuka, 145, 193 Yoshinobu, Shogun: meetings with HP, 144–145, 146, 147–148, 160, 161; overthrow, 156, 159, 163, 171 Zappe, Eduard, 239, 240, 241, 242 Zhapu, 17 Zhenjiang, 19, 111 Zhifu, 242, 248 Zhoushan, 8, 21, 116; HP there, 23–25, 27, 90

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Yamashina, Prince, 169 Yangtze river, 18, 88, 110–111, 113–114, 123 Ye Mingchen, 74–75, 77–78, 79, 80, 84, 85–86

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The Author ™

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ROBERT MORTON HAS a PhD from the University of Queensland in creative writing, an MA in linguistics from the University of York and a BA in history from the University of Sussex. He has been a professor in the Faculty of Commerce at Chuo University in Tokyo since 2000. He edited and annotated the 1861–1869 diaries of Mitford’s colleague, Ernest Satow, with Ian Ruxton (published by Eureka in 2013) and his prize-winning A.B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State was published in 2017 by Renaissance Books.

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Copyright © 2020. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved. A Life of Sir Harry Parkes : British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885, Amsterdam University Press,