Bombardment of Kagoshima

• Date: 1863/7
• Japanese: 薩英戦争 (Satsu-Ei sensou, lit. "Anglo-Satsuma War")

The Bombardment of Kagoshima, also known as the Anglo-Satsuma War, was a brief conflict which took place in 1863/7, in which British Royal Navy vessels shelled the castle town of Kagoshima, headquarters of Satsuma han.

The Bombardment came in the aftermath of the Namamugi Incident the previous year, in which a British merchant, Charles Lennox Richardson, was killed by Satsuma samurai after failing to make way for the daimyô's entourage, as they met on a road in Yokohama. Numerous negotiations took place in the months after the incident, with tensions eventually leading to the arrival of a number of British warships in Kagoshima harbor in the seventh month of 1863. The acting British consul, Edward St. John Neale, attempted for three days to negotiate some sort of settlement, but when no agreement could be reached, the ships opened fire. Engaging in combat with a number of modern steamship warships Satsuma had purchased from British merchants in 1860-1863, the British ships suffered some considerable damage, but nevertheless managed to destroy much of the city before withdrawing, arriving back in Yokohama two days later. Though much of the city had been destroyed, the domainal lord, Shimazu Tadayoshi, claimed victory, and successfully represented to the Imperial Court that he had acted in accordance with the edict issued two months earlier by Emperor Kômei to expel the barbarians. Even so, seeking peace and the continuation of trade with the British, Satsuma officials borrowed money from the shogunate to pay the British an indemnity for Richardson's murder; in the 9th month, they presented the British at Yokohama with the equivalent of 100,000 Mexican silver dollars in reparations.

References

• Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagement, Harvard University Press (2009), 194-195.