namamugi

Updated: May 24, 2025

At this time there occurred an incident which had the most far-reaching consequences. A party of British subjects, three gentlemen and a lady, met, at Namamugi on the Tokaido, the cortege of the Satsuma feudatory as he was returning from Yedo.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

This engagement the shogun found awaiting him on his arrival in the Imperial capital, and at the same time messages daily reached him from Yedo, declaring that unless he returned at once to Yedo to settle the Namamugi affair, war with Great Britain would be inevitable. But the conservatives would not allow him to return.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Illness saved the shogun from some of his perplexities and, in his absence, the Yedo statesmen paid the indemnity required by Great Britain for the Namamugi outrage and left her to exact whatever further redress she desired. Accordingly, in July, 1863, a British squadron proceeded to Kagoshima and bombarded it as already described.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era