Final Negotiations and Convergence
Satsuma however later negotiated and paid ₤25,000 (which they borrowed from the bakufu and never repaid, due to the fall of the bakufu in 1869 and its replacement by the Meiji administration). They never produced or identified Richardson's killers, but despite this, the reparation received was enough to obtain an agreement by Britain to supply steam warships to Satsuma.
The conflict actually became the starting point of a close relationship between Satsuma and Britain, which became major allies in the ensuing Boshin War. From the start, the Satsuma Province had generally been in favour of the opening and modernization of Japan. Although the Namamugi Incident was unfortunate, it was not characteristic of Satsuma's policy, and was rather abusively branded as an example of anti-foreign sonnō jōi sentiment, as a justification to a strong European show of force.
An interesting historical footnote to this incident was that a young Heihachiro Togo was manning one of the cannons used to defend the port, and is reported to have attributed his future career as head and 'father' of the Imperial Japanese Navy to this moment.
Read more about this topic: Bombardment Of Kagoshima
Famous quotes containing the words final and/or negotiations:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)
“But always and sometimes questioning the old modes
And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,
Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual
Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,
Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)