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Ernest Satow is best known as the author of the fascinating A Diplomat in Japan which describes the years 1862Events January-March January 10 End of term for John Gately Downey, 7th Governor of California. He is succeeded by Amasa Leland Stanford. January 30 The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched. February 1 Julia Ward Howe's " Battle Hy- 18691869 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). Events March 1 North German Confederation issues 10 gr and 30gr value stamps, printed on goldbeater's skin May 10 Transcontinental Railroad completed at Promontory, Utah. May 15 Wo when Japan was changing from rule by the Tokugawa shogunateThe Tokugawa shogunate or Tokugawa bakufu (also known as the Edo bakufu) was a feudal military dictatorship of Japan established in 1603 by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family until 1868. This period is known as the Edo period to the restoration of Imperial rule. Within a week of his arrival as a young student interpreter aged 19, the Namamugi IncidentThe Namamugi Incident (, Namamugi Jiken) (also known sometimes as the Kanagawa Incident and archaically as the Richardson Affair was a samurai attack on foreign nationals in Japan on September 14, 1862, which resulted in the bombardment of Kagoshima in 18 (Namamugi Jiken) in which a British merchant was killed on the TokaidoTokaido (literally, East Sea Route) is the name of several things: National Route 1, which links Tokyo and Osaka; The Tokaido Main Line, which links Tokyo and Kobe; One of the Edo Five Routes, which linked Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto along the shore (see be took place on September 14, 1862. Satow was on board one of the British ships which bombarded Kagoshima in 1863 to punish the Satsuma clan's daimyo ( Shimazu HisamitsuShimazu Hisamitsu 1817-87. De facto ruler of the Satsuma domain (now Kagoshima prefecture) in the years immediately preceding the Meiji Restoration of 1868.) for the murder of Charles Richardson and the refusal to pay an indemnity demanded as compensation.
In 1864 Satow was with the allied force (Britain, France, Holland and the USA) which attacked Shimonoseki to enforce the right of passage of foreign ships through the narrow Kanmon Strait between Honshu and Kyushu. Satow met Ito Hirobumi and Inoue Kaoru of Choshu for the first time just before the bombardment of Shimonoseki. He also had links with many other Japanese leaders, including Saigo Takamori of Satsuma.
Satow's Japanese language skills quickly became indispensable in the British Minister Sir Harry Parkes's negotiations with the failing Tokugawa shogunate and the powerful Satsuma and Choshu clans, and the gathering of intelligence. He was promoted to full Interpreter and then Japanese Secretary to the British legation, and he started to write translations and newspaper articles on subjects relating to Japan as early as 1864. In 1869 he went home to England on leave, returning to Japan in 1870.
Satow was one of the founder members at Yokohama in 1872 of the Asiatic Society of Japan whose purpose was to study the Japanese culture, history and language (i.e. Japanology) in detail. He lectured to the Society on several occasions in the 1870s, and the Transactions of the Asiatic Society contain several of his published papers. The Society is still thriving today.
After service in Siam ( 1884 - 1887), during which time he was promoted from the Consular to the Diplomatic Service , Uruguay (1889-93) and Morocco (1893-95), Satow returned to Japan as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on July 28, 1895, and stayed in Tokyo for five years (though he was in London for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and met her in August at Osborne, Isle of Wight). On April 17, 1895 the Treaty of Shimonoseki (text here) had been signed, and Satow was able to observe at first hand the steady build-up of the Japanese army and navy to avenge the humiliation by Russia, Germany and France in the Triple Intervention of April 23, 1895. He was also in a position to oversee the transition to the ending of extraterritoriality in Japan which finally ended in 1899, as agreed by the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation signed in London on July 17, 1894.
Satow was unlucky not to be named the first British Ambassador to Japan, an honour which was bestowed on his successor Sir Claude Maxwell Macdonald in 1905. Satow served as British Minister in Peking from 1900-1906. He was active in the negotiations to conclude the Final Protocol which settled the compensation claims of the Powers after the Boxer Rebellion. He also observed the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War ( 1904-1905) from his Peking post. In 1906 Satow was made a Privy Councillor and is listed on the Historic list of members of the Privy Council. In 1907 he was Britain's second plenipotentiary at the Second Hague Peace Conference.
Satow's extensive diaries and letters (the Satow Papers) are kept at the Public Record Office at Kew, West London in accordance with his last will and testament. Many of his rare Japanese books are now part of the collection of Cambridge University Library. In retirement ( 1906- 1929) at Ottery St Mary in Devon, England he wrote mainly on subjects connected with diplomacy and international law. In Britain he is less well known than in Japan, where he is recognised as perhaps the most important foreign observer in the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods.
Satow was never able as a diplomat serving in Japan to marry his Japanese common-law wife, Takeda Kane, by whom he had two sons, Eitaro and Hisayoshi. The Takeda family letters, including many from Satow to and from his family, have been deposited at the Yokohama Archives of History at the request of Satow's granddaughters.