3-021-488 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Envoys of the Japanese Prince of Nagato paying the indemnity for the Affair of Simonosaki, 1865. 'The half-independent, feudal Princes of Japan have learnt, it is to be hoped, by this time that they will be compelled to make ample compensation for any outrages upon the persons or property of British subjects residing within their territories. In the Number of this Journal for Feb. 20, 1864, a sketch by our Artist at Yokohama, Mr. Wirgman, was engraved, which showed the envoys of the Prince of Satzuma paying to Colonel Neale the sum of 100,000 dols., demanded by way of pecuniary satisfaction for the murder of Mr. Richardson. We have now been furnished by Mr. Wirgman with another and very similar Illustration...It represents the Envoys of another Japanese Prince, him of Nagato, waiting at the Oriental Bank, Yokohama, and counting over the money sent by them, to be paid in to the account of her Majesty's Government, as an indemnity for the Prince of Nagato's hostile behaviour in attempting to stop the passage of the Strait of Simonosaki to European vessels. The scene is not, perhaps, so imposing as some of those pompous ceremonies of the Japanese Empire which our Artist has so well displayed; but it is an event of some historical importance'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.