¹ For a brief biographical sketch of Shōnan see Sansom, G. B., The Western World and Japan, New York, 1951, pp. 266–9.Google Scholar

² On Hayashi Shihei see Boxer, C. R., Jan Compagnie in Japan, 1600–1817, The Hague, 1950, pp. 18–19, 41–3;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Keene, Donald, The Japanese Discovery of Europe, New York, 1954, pp. 47–55.Google Scholar On Honda Toshiaki see ibid. (Keene), pp. 73 ff.

³ Cf. Takeo, Itazawa, Oranda fūsetsusho no kenkyū, No. 3 of Nihon kobunka kenkyūjo hōkoku, Tokyo, 1937. It was reported that in the mid-nineteenth century, copies of the Illustrated London News, among others, were being received at the Edo shogunal headquarters.Google Scholar

⁴ A useful summary of these works is given in Ike, Nobutaka, The Beginnings of Political Democracy in Japan, Baltimore, 1950, pp. 25–8.Google Scholar

⁵ Quoted in Masatada, Yamazaki, Yokoi Shōnan, Vols. I–II (Tokyo, Meiji Shoin, 1938), Vol. I, Denki-hen (‘Biography’), p. 104.Google Scholar

⁶ See the text of this letter in Greene, D. C., ‘Correspondence between William II of Holland and the Shōgun of Japan, A.D. 1844’, in Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. 34, 4 (06 1907), pp. 110–14.Google Scholar

⁷ Shōnan was said to have advocated vaccination against smallpox. Motoda mentioned that the vaccination of his (Motoda's) children was successful. Yamazaki also wrote that some of Shōnan's pupils became the leaders at the Higo domain in western medicine and artillery.Google ScholarCf. Yamazaki, , op. cit., Vol. I. 1110.Google Scholar

⁸ Ibid., Vol. II, Ikō-hen (‘Extant Writings’), pp. 135–6.

⁹ See ibid., pp. 204–5 for text of Shōnan's letter to Fujita Tōko. A translation of the main part of Nariaki's statement is given in Beasley, W. G., Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, 1853–1868, London, 1955, pp. 102–7. It was an official reply to the Tokugawa Senior Council's unprecedented request for advice from the various daimyo. The occasion was the formulation of a policy toward foreign intruders and the making of a decision as to what to do about the letters Perry delivered. Inobe Shigeo has made an analytical study of the replies by the various officials and feudal houses.Google Scholar See ‘Perry torai no sai ni okeru kokuron no kisū, in Shirin, Vol. 13 (1928), pp. 343–70. Inobe's categories and his arithmetic are not altogether consistent, however.Google Scholar According to Beasley, , loc cit., twenty-two of the fifty-nine daimyos replying thought that intercourse in one form or another would have to be approved. Some of these suggested opening the ports for a limited number of years only. One would permit no trade but would permit foreign vessels to take on provisions in Japanese ports. Ii Naosuke (1815–1860) of Hikone recommended that only Nagasaki be opened for the provisioning of foreign ships while at the same time he urged that Japan should send out ships to seek the kind of trade which would benefit Japan. Another sizeable group from the fifty-nine daimyos urged that the American demands be rejected and that Japan prepare for war. These included Nariaki, Keiki, Shungaku, and the daimyos of Yanagawa, Hizen, Chōshū and Tosa. Two of the remaining fifty-nine could make no suggestions beyond declaring that they would support whatever decision was made by the shogunate, while all the rest, including the Higo and Satsuma daimyos, replied evasively by advocating that both trade and hostilities be avoided until Japan could defend herself.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Text is in Bakumatsu gaikoku kankei monjo, Vol. II, pp. 264–6 of the Dainihon komonjo.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 211–13. The text of Higo's reply by Narimori, Hosokawa (daimyo 1827–1860) is also given in Yamazaki, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 271–2.Google Scholar

¹² Excerpts from Nagaoka Kemmotsu's memorial to the daimyo is given in ibid. (Yamazaki), pp. 276–9.

¹³ Text is in Yamazaki, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 11–14. The ‘Iryō ōsetsu’ ‘On Receiving the Foreigners’) was written under the following circumstances: In the autumn of 1853, when the Russian naval commander Putiatin arrived at Nagasaki, news reached Higo that Kawaji Toshiaki, an outstanding shogunal official, was to be sent from Edo to meet Putiatin. Because Shōnan knew Kawaji personally—they had first met at Edo in 1839—Nagaoka Kemmotsu suggested to Shōnan that he go to Nagasaki to gather first-hand information on developments in foreign relations. Kawaji, however, did not go to Nagasaki at that time. Hence, Shōnan wrote his views in the above tract, which he sent to Kawaji.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Cf. Eijirō, Honjō, ‘Hashimoto Sanai no keizai shisō’, in Keizai ronsō, Vol. 51 (1940), pp. 366–8. Honjō, citing Inobe's Bakumatsu shi no kenkyū, states that among the high shogunal officials, those who favoured an alliance with Russia were Egawa Eiryū (Tarōzaemon), Tsutsui Masanori, Kawaji Toshiaki and Abe Masahiro.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Yamazaki, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 215–7.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 217.

¹⁷ Yamazaki, , op. cit., Vol. I, p. 335.Google Scholar

¹⁸ That Shōnan made much use of the Hai-kuo t'u-chih is evident from a close check between data on foreign countries in his Kokuze sanron (full text is in Yamazaki, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 29–56.Google Scholar An annotated translation by the author of this article is found in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 23, 1968) and the information in the Hai-kuo t'u-chihGoogle Scholar. For detailed bibliographical data on this latter work see Fairbank, J. K., Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, p. 179.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Yamazaki, , Vol. I, pp. 336–7.Google Scholar

²⁰ Nagai Uta was a retainer of the Chōshū domain at Hagi. Besides favouring foreign intercourse, he was also a proponent of close cooperation between the shogunate and the Imperial court. The discrediting of both of these policies at Chōshū impelled Nagai to expiate his responsibility for them in an honourable way by committing suicide by disembowelment. For Sakuma Shōzan see Sansom, , op. cit., pp. 235–9.Google Scholar

²¹ An interesting discussion of western studies in the years immediately after 1853 is found in Smith, T. C., ‘The Introduction of Western Industry to Japan during the Last Years of the Tokugawa Period’, in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. XI (1948), pp. 130–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²² Text is given in Beasley, , op. cit., pp. 149–55.Google Scholar

²³ Ibid., pp. 183–9.

²⁴ Nariaki's views are presented in his communication to the Tokugawa Senior Council at the end of 1857 (or early in 1858). This document is translated by Beasley, op. cit., pp. 168–9. Shungaku's document to the Senior Council is given on pp. 179–80. It favours aggressive expansion by Japan.Google Scholar

²⁵ Norman, E. H. in his Japan's Emergence as a Modern State, New York, 1940, footnote, p. 41, has abstracted figures from a table of rice prices appended toGoogle ScholarEijirō's, HonjōTokugawa bakufu no beika chōsetsu, Tokyo, 1924, pp. 414–55.Google Scholar A standard unit of rice priced at 84.8 momme in 1854 rose to 106.3 momme by 1857, to 203 momme by 1860, and, despite extreme fluctuations, continued its general upward trend until it reached the exorbitant price of 1300 momme in 1866 before dropping. Norman also cites prices of other products from Takao's, Tsuchiya ‘Bakumatsu dōran no keizaiteki bunseki’, in Chūō kōron, Vol. 47, No. 1110 1932, p. 83. ‘In the interval between 1860 and 1867 the unit price of barley rose from 90 momme to 290, soy beans from 164 momme to 797.52, vegetable oil from 560 to 2,418, and salt from 2.19 to 21.0.’Google Scholar

²⁶ See note 18, above. Specific page references are omitted in the subsequent paragraphs.Google Scholar

²⁷ Jimusaku (‘A Plan for Current Problems’), 1843. Full text is in Yamazaki, Vol. II, pp. 65–80.Google Scholar

²⁸ Cf. Eijirō, Honjō, ‘Views in the Taxation on Commerce in the Closing Days of the Tokugawa Age’, in Kyoto University Economic Review, Vol. 16, No. 3 (07 1941), pp. 1–15.Google Scholar

²⁹ In Yamazaki, , Vol. II, p. 82.Google Scholar

³⁰ Ibid., p. 36; translated in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 23, p. 164.Google Scholar

³¹ For a summary of this problem see Yanaga, Chitoshi, Japan Since Perry, New York, 1949, p. 33.Google Scholar

³² Yamazaki, , Vol. II, p. 47;Google Scholar translation in Monumenta Nipponica. Vol. 23, p. 176.Google Scholar

³³ The text of the Kaigun mondō sho is in ibid., pp. 19–28. It is believed that Shōnan intended to send this tract to Katsu Kaishū (1823–99), the leading naval authority in the shogunate (and later in the Meiji government), who happened to be in Nagasaki at that time. The paragraphs on financing the navy are on p. 24.

³⁴ Ibid., p. 82.

³⁵ Text is in the Bakumatsu gaikoku kankei monjo, Vol. 18, pp. 415–19.Google Scholar

³⁶ Yukie, Nakane (1807–1877) was from a 700-koku retainer family at Echizen. His early studies of sonnō (loyalist) doctrines under Hirata Atsutane at Edo made him a strong supporter of the Imperial throne in common with Shōnan. He won recognition at Echizen for his clear thinking on the advantages and disadvantages of foreign intercourse during the debates following Perry's arrival in Japan.Google Scholar

³⁷ Sanai, Hashimoto (1834–1859) was a son of a surgeon of the Japanese school. Sanai, from only his thirteenth year, assisted his father as an apprentice. Later, at twenty-one, he studied under Sugita Seikei (1817–59), grandson of the pioneer scholar of Dutch medicine, Gempaku. Sanai entered the Echizen administration in 1855. A month later he was sent to Edo to serve as Shungaku's secretaryGoogle Scholar. Two days after the date of the Echizen document Sanai, wrote a letter to Murata Ujihisa at Fukui, Echizen—text is in Hashimoto Keigahu zenshū, Tokyo, 1939, Vol. I, pp. 550–1—relating how Shungaku, himself laboured over the draft of the reply to the shogunal Senior Council before asking Sanai to review it. This would be the reverse of the usual practice in which documents were first drafted by the retainer-secretary, then reviewed by the domain chief. At this time, Shungaku was still in his thirtieth year.Google Scholar

³⁸ Yamazaki, , Vol. II, pp. 35–6;Google ScholarMonumenta Nipponica, Vol. 23, p. 163.Google Scholar