Icarus affair

The Icarus affair was an incident involving the murder of two British sailors in Nagasaki, Japan in 1867, leading to increased diplomatic tensions between Britain and the Tokugawa shogunate.

On August 5 Robert Foad and John Hutchings, from the British warship HMS "Icarus", were killed by a swordsman in the Marayuma precinct. The men, both aged 23, had been drinking, and were sleeping near the entrance to a "tea house". cite book|title=Japan Goes to War:A Chronology of Japanese Military Expansion|url=http://books.google.com.au/books?id=t2-OmUA-EscC&pg=PA39&dq=nagasaki+icarus&lr=&sig=dghc9TgQv1s88FRTbrNzHjvlFLE|author=Perkins, Dorothy|year=1997|publisher=DIANE publishing|id=ISBN 0788134272] cite web|title=Like a lighthouse on a stormy night:The Seamen's home of Nagasaki|url=http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/earns/home.html|author=Earns, Lane. R.|work=Crossroads: A Journal of Nagasaki History and Culture] The British Consul in Nagasaki, Marcus Flowers, blamed the Tokugawa "bakufu" for failing to protect the men and believed that the "Kaientai" led by Sakamoto Ryoma was behind the killings.cite web|author=Burke-Gaffney, Brian and Lane R. Earns|title= Tales of the Nagasaki International Cemeteries|work=Nagasaki - People, places and scenes of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement 1851-1941|url=http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/earns/seaman.html] This belief was based on rumours that the men had been seen in the area, combined with the departure of a Tosa steamer from Nagasaki soon after the incident. Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu was pressured by Sir Harry Parkes, head of the British Legation in Edo to find the culprit. An agreement was reached that the governor of Nagasaki would be dismissed and 500 men would be sent to police the foreign quarter. Subsequently, Parkes sailed to Tosa, arriving on September 3, 1867. There he was met by the "bakufu" commissioners who had arrived earlier.cite book|author= Daniels, Gordon|title= Sir Harry Parkes: British Representative in Japan 1865-83|url=http://books.google.com.au/books?id=HS5UOlc_y3wC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=parkes+icarus&source=web&ots=3n1Het2Feu&sig=6xQOBRFNYmHlpNyCfBv69KB_9bk&hl=en#PPA65,M1|publisher=Routledge|year=1996|id=ISBN 1873410360] No evidence was found that the "Kaientai" were involved and the charges were dropped on October 4.

It was revealed one year later by the Tosa samurai that a samurai of the Chikuzen clan had murdered the men, and shortly after committed ritual suicide. The Chizuzen subsequently paid compensation to the sailors' families in England.

The affair diminished British trust and confidence in the "bakufu" and their control over Kyūshū, a factor leading to the Meiji Restoration the following year.

See also

*Anglo-Japanese relations

References