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Updated: June 27, 2025
A long letter was prepared in Chinese for the American officers; it was revised and corrected by Sákuma, and signed by Yoshida, under the name of Urinaki-Manji, and by the soldier under that of Ichigi-Koda.
I had come upon a report made public by the Naval Department of Japan in which was quoted a letter written by Lieutenant Sakuma, from the bottom of Hiroshima Bay, where his submarine had struck and failed to rise again. Most of his crew lay dead in the sunken vessel, and he himself was slowly and painfully succumbing to strangulation.
And Sakuma was in a position to help Yoshida more practically than by simple countenance; for he could read Dutch, and was eager to communicate what he knew. While the young Ronyin thus lay studying in Yeddo, news came of a Russian ship at Nangasaki. No time was to be lost. Sakuma contributed "a long copy of encouraging verses and off set Yoshida on foot for Nangasaki.
There is some nicety of feudal custom here that escapes my comprehension. In Yeddo, with this nondescript political status, and cut off from any means of livelihood, he was joyfully supported by those who sympathised with his design. One was Sakuma- Shozan, hereditary retainer of one of the Shogun's councillors, and from him he got more than money or than money's worth.
A long letter was prepared in Chinese for the American officers; it was revised and corrected by Sakuma, and signed by Yoshida, under the name of Urinaki-Manji, and by the soldier under that of Ichigi-Koda.
And Sákuma was in a position to help Yoshida more practically than by simple countenance; for he could read Dutch, and was eager to communicate what he knew. While the young Ronyin thus lay studying in Yeddo, news came of a Russian ship at Nangasaki. No time was to be lost. Sákuma contributed "a long copy of encouraging verses"; and off set Yoshida on foot for Nangasaki.
Mitsukuri. "The ancestral policy of self-contentment must be done away with. If it was adopted by your forefathers, because it was wise in their time, why not adopt a new policy if it in sure to prove wise in your time." Sakuma Shozan, wrote in 1841, assassinated 1864. "And slowly floating onward go Those Black Ships, wave-tossed to and fro." Japanese Ballad of the Black Ship, 1845.
That night he who had been to explore the secrets of the barbarian, slept, if he might sleep at all, in a cell too short for lying down at full length, and too low for standing upright. There are some disappointments too great for commentary. Sákuma, implicated by his handwriting, was sent into his own province in confinement, from which he was soon released.
Now, he had scarce returned from Nangasaki, when he was sought out by a new inquirer, the most promising of all. This was a common soldier, of the Hemming class, a dyer by birth, who had heard vaguely of Yoshida's movements, and had become filled with wonder as to their design. This was a far different inquirer from Sakuma- Shozan, or the councillors of the Daimio of Choshu.
A steady, respectable man, with an eye to the world's opinion, Sakuma was one of those who, if they cannot do great deeds in their own person, have yet an ardour of admiration for those who can, that recommends them to the gratitude of history. They aid and abet greatness more, perhaps, than we imagine. One thinks of them in connection with Nicodemus, who visited our Lord by night.
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