Phaeton Incident

• Date: 1808/8/25-28

The British frigate HMS Phaeton disguised itself as a Dutch vessel and entered Nagasaki harbor late in the eighth month, 1808, in an effort to plunder Dutch vessels located there. The effort was ultimately unsuccessful, but represented a dramatic failure on the part of the shogunate, and of the domains of Saga han and Fukuoka han, to effectively defend Nagasaki (and by extension, Japan's harbors, and Japan as a whole). The harbor defenses, consisting primarily of cannon roughly a century old and limited in number (the battery closest to the Phaeton held only seven cannon), were not only technologically & numerically inferior to the task, but were sorely inadequately manned as well. Where roughly a few hundred men might have been necessary to effectively man the batteries that existed, only 50-60 men from Saga were in fact present.

Nagasaki bugyô Matsudaira Yasuhira committed suicide in the aftermath of the event, the only example in the entirety of the Edo period of a Nagasaki bugyô having to kill himself for defense-related reasons.

The Incident

The Phaeton was the first British man-of-war to enter Nagasaki harbor. It was captained by Fleetwood Pellew, with a Lt. C.B. Stockdale as second-in-command. The frigate was 141 feet long, armed with 48 cannon, and crewed by roughly 250 men.

Historian Noell Wilson identifies two major weaknesses in the organization of Nagasaki's defense. Firstly, the manner in which Saga and Fukuoka han shared responsibility for the defense of Nagasaki was ambiguous and inefficient. Second, the Nagasaki bugyô, a shogunate official, nominally had command of the defense of the harbor, and of the Saga and Fukuoka troops assigned there, but had no troops of his own, and had rather limited powers within Saga or Fukuoka domains themselves, outside of the city or harbor of Nagasaki itself.

While the defense of other "gateways" to Japan at this time was entrusted entirely to individual domains (namely, the Sô clan of Tsushima han and the Shimazu clan of Satsuma han, respectively, in guarding against foreign incursions in/via Tsushima and the Ryukyus), an arrangement much like that at Nagasaki was employed in Ezo in the 19th century, where the Tsugaru clan and Nanbu clan shared responsibility, and in Edo.

White sails were spotted on 8/15, and assumed to be Dutch, even though the Dutch, who normally arrived in the 6th or 7th month, almost never came to Nagasaki this late in the season. It was for that same reason - the fact that no European ships were expected so late in the season - that only 50-60 samurai from Saga han were on duty, even though policy demanded 1,000 be present throughout the summer trading season (6th-9th months). The Dutch had already come for the season, and so most of the troops had returned to Saga already.

The Dutch East India Company at this time used a wide variety of ships - including those from other countries - so, when the British warship Phaeton raised a Dutch flag, nothing was perceived as being unusual at first. The ship was permitted to approach, and to enter the harbor. It anchored at a spot called Kôsaki, and Japanese inspectors went to greet the captain and to inspect the ship. They found that it was much more heavily armed than a typical merchant vessel, with 38 eighteen-pound cannon, eight 32-pound carronades (a type of cannon), and two more carronades of unknown caliber. By contrast, the largest cannon the Japanese had nearby was only a 12-pounder. If a battle were to break out, the Japanese would be not only severely out-gunned, but outnumbered, even here in their own home port, the 250 British crew outnumbering the Saga samurai roughly five-to-one.

The Japanese were presumably still sorting out the foreigners' identities and intentions, and what to do with them, when the Phaeton lowered a boat with fourteen or fifteen sailors. The sailors then proceeded to seize the Dutchmen who had accompanied the Japanese inspectors (in order to help them properly greet foreign visitors), leading them back to the Phaeton at gunpoint. They demanded water and provisions, threatening to kill Gerrit Schimel, the Dutch secretary they'd abducted, and to burn the Japanese and Chinese ships in the harbor if these demands were not met.

Nagasaki bugyô Matsudaira Yasuhira considered a number of ways to destroy the Phaeton, but abandoned them all for lack of manpower, lack of sufficient force, or just general infeasibility. The Japanese cannon emplacements were seriously inferior to even this solitary British warship, both in number of cannon, and in their size and age (read: level of technology). Yet, even these were far from fully manned. Many emplacements did not have enough men to move or maneuver the guns, and many posts lacked commanders.

In the end, the bugyô provided the British water, two cows, four sheep, and other food & provisions. The British released their captives and left the following morning. Matsudaira committed suicide that night, and a few hours later 8,000 troops arrived from Fukuoka han to serve as reinforcements and to attack the Phaeton, which was now gone.

References

• Wilson, Noell. "Tokugawa Defense Redux: Organizational Failure in the Phaeton Incident of 1808." Journal of Japanese Studies 36:1 (Winter 2010). pp1-32.