Official notification., this 18th day of February, 1868

Official notification.

Whereas the undersigned has been officially informed that hostilities have commenced in this country between his Majesty the Mikado and the Tycoon, and whereas a strict and impartial neutrality should be observed by all British subjects in the contest between the said contending parties, the undersigned, her Britannic Majesty’s envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary in Japan, hereby calls upon all subjects of her Majesty to abstain from taking part in any operations of war against either of the contending parties, or in aiding or abetting any person in carrying on war for or against either of the said parties, and to avoid the infringement of any British law or statute made and provided for the purpose of maintaining neutrality in foreign or civil contests, or of the law of nations relating thereto.

The undersigned hereby publishes, for the information of her Majesty’s subjects, the following three sections of the statute made and passed in the fifty-ninth year of his Majesty King George III, commonly called the foreign enlistment act; and further warns all subjects of her Majesty that if any one commits any violation or contravention of the law of nations relating to neutral or belligerent rights, as, for example, by entering into the military service of either of the said contending parties in any capacity, or by serving in any capacity on board any ship or vessel of war or transport of or in the service of either of the said contending parties, or by enlisting or engaging in any such service, or by procuring or attempting to procure other persons to do so, or by fitting out, arming, or equipping any ship or vessel to be employed as a ship of war or transport by either of the said contending parties, or by carrying officers, soldiers, dispatches, arms, military stores or material, or any article or articles considered and deemed to be contraband of war, according to the law or modern usage of nations, for the use or service of either of the said contending parties, then, and in all such cases, every British subject so offending will incur and be liable to the several penalties and penal consequences imposed or denounced by the statute aforesaid or by the law of nations, and may forfeit all claim to her Majesty’s protection, and to the rights and privileges of the treaty concluded between Great Britain and Japan.