National Archives

I was really excited to get out of the office yesterday for a visit to the National Archives in Kew. Bright sunshine for the second day in a row seemed to lift everyone's mood.

After registering for a Reader's Ticket, you can order documents. Then you wait 40 minutes for their retrieval, after which time and without any pen, pencil or erasers you can enter the Reading Rooms. You reserve a seat at a hexagonal desk and a locker corresponding to the seat number. That's where you find the documents you ordered.

So I found myself poring over letters and trade reports and court notes from nearly 150 years ago, from early Meiji Japan. It all comes bound in great thick leather binders that are literally coming apart at the seams and flaking. Some of the more delicate are housed in large, sturdy cardboard boxes.



I had to find stuff for work, so that the makers of a documentary about a Japanese hero called Sakamoto Ryoma could cook up their own version of truth, but I found myself getting a little distracted by all the stories and evidence and turn-of-phrase of late nineteenth century diplomats.

Letters began with things like, 'My dear Mr. Fletcher' and 'I have the honor to forward in triplicate the accounts of this Consulate for the period from 20th to 31st December 1867 and to request your sanction to the four items of expenditure stated in the list included in the accounts, the total amount of which is seventy-three dollars and forty-eight cents...'



...Sir, i have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your despatch of the 22nd instant, in which you...

...I have the honor to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient
humble servant...

Sir, British Consulate, Kanagawa July 16 1868

I have the honor to enclose translation of a despatch which I have received from the Japanese authorities at this port informing me that bands of ronins [sic] hostile to the existing Government are assembled at certain villages in the neighborhood between Hatchoji on the one side, and the line of the tocaido [sic] or high road in this vicinity on the other.
The Imperial forces, it is stated, are about to proceed against these armed bands but in the meantime the Japanese authorities state that it is advisable to abstain from making excursions into the country until peace shall have been restored...

...Copy
Translation
Sentence of Saegusa Shigeru a ronin
On the occasion of the English Minister going to Court, you having previously agreed with an accomplice, drew your sword, attacked him, and inflicted wounds. - In committing this at of violence tending to interrupt Foreign relations, just at the moment when the government is being remodeled, you have acted in contempt of the Imperial Court. For the heinousness of your crime, your name and swords are forfeited, an after being put to death by the sword, your head will be publicly exposed during three days.
Third month (27th March - 25th April)
(Signed) Board of Punishments
Translated by -(signed) Ernest Satow...

...being privy to the abominable design, they tried all the resources of friendship to dissuade the perpetrators from the commission of the act, but that in abstaining from reporting the matter to the Government they were guilty of a grave offense, for which they were condemned to perpetual exile to an isolated island...

And from Ernest Satow's diary, marked, 'Private' throughout:
...evidently with the object of ridiculing us out of our case, but he got a flea in his lug and shut up making most diabolical faces...