Consequences of The Namamugi Incident
The incident sparked a scare in Japan's foreign community, which was based in the Kannai district of Yokohama. Many traders appealed to their governments to take punitive action against Japan. Britain demanded reparations from the Government (£100,000, eventually paid) and from the Daimyo of Satsuma (together with the arrest, trial and execution of the perpetrators, which never took place). Satsuma prevaricated and Britain eventually engaged Satsuma a year later in what subsequently became known to the Japanese as the Anglo-Satsuma War. A squadron went to Kagoshima, capital of the Satsuma domain to demand reparation for the Namamugi Incident. Meeting further prevarication, they seized several Satsuma vessels as hostage against payment, and were unexpectedly fired on by Satsuma forts. The squadron retaliated, and the naval bombardment of Kagoshima ensued. This claimed five lives among the people of Satsuma (which had largely been evacuated prior to the unheralded attack on the British squadron), and 11 lives among the British (including, with a single cannon shot, both the Captain and Commander of the British flagship HMS Euryalus). Material losses were substantial, with around 500 houses burnt in Kagoshima, and three Satsuma steamships sunk. The conflict caused much controversy in the British House of Commons, but Acting Vice Admiral Augustus Leopold Kuper's conduct was eventually commended by the House. Kuper was promoted Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1864 "for his services at Kagoshima".
Satsuma admired the superiority of the Royal Navy and sought a trading relationship with Britain as a result. Later that year, they paid the £25,000 (GB£16,000,000 in 2011 pounds) compensation demanded by the British Government, borrowing (and never repaying) the money from the bakufu - the shogun's government that had only five years to run before being replaced by the restored government of Emperor Meiji.
The incident was the basis of James Clavell's novel Gai-Jin.
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