PARKES, Her Britannic Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary , Minister Plenipotentiary to Their Excellencies the Foreign, January 7, 1870

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On arriving at Nagasaki on the 3d instant, the undersigned learned with deep concern that the local government had issued orders for the immediate removal of nearly the whole of the male population of the village of Urakami, amounting to about seven hundred men, for the sole reason that they continue, as they have done for along time past, to make professions of the Christian faith. These orders had been issued in the most sudden and peremptory manner; the first notice was given on the evening of the 1st instant, when the men in question were summoned to appear in the government office at Nagasaki, on the following day, in order to be put aboard two steamers, then waiting to receive them, and to convey them away from their homes and families to the places selected for their exile.

They had committed no offense, but, on the contrary, had industriously followed their agricultural pursuits; and only twenty days before the issue of the above order they had paid in the taxes due on the harvest which they had just husbanded. On hearing that they were to be torn from their homes, many of these poor people fled in dismay to the adjoining hills, while about one hundred and fifty presented themselves at the government office. Thus their families were suddenly deprived of means of support, and a peaceful village was converted into a scene of general distress.

Immediately on receiving this painful intelligence, the undersigned sought an interview with the chikongi of Nagasaki, Nomura Gio, who visited him on the afternoon of the 3d instant, accompanied by Watanabe Daichie, of the censorate. The undersigned regretted to find that these officers confirmed the correctness of the above statement.

They were acting, they said, upon orders received from Yeddo, and Watanabe had been specially sent from the capital to see to the execution of these orders, which were to the effect that the remainder of the Christians within the jurisdiction of Nagasaki, numbering, according to their estimate, between one and two thousand souls, were all to be sent into exile.

The undersigned explained with much earnestness to these officers the assurance which he and the ministers of the treaty powers had received on the subject a year ago from the government of his Majesty the Tenno, and pointed out that the steps they were now taking were wholly opposed to those assurances. The Tenno’s government had promised the foreign representatives, in a letter written in January last, that their treatment of the native Christians would be marked by the progressive spirit of the age; that they were sensible that it would be an offense to all those Christian nations with whom Japan wished to cultivate friendly relations to prosecute Japanese subjects simply because they professed the religion of those nations, and that the government of the Tenno had determined to maintain no longer the old severe laws against Christianity, but would adopt in place of them a mild and lenient course of action. Although the undersigned was not called on to discuss with local officers a subject which had already been so fully considered with the Japanese government, he did not fail to point out to them that the persecution of native Christians would bring discredit upon their country, and might gravely prejudice the relations of Japan with foreign states, as the latter could scarcely fail to regard such proceedings as unfriendly to themselves.

Nomura Goi and Watanabe retired to consider the remonstrances of the undersigned but on visiting him again on the morning of the 4th they informed him that no other course was open to them but to carry out their orders.

The undersigned repeated his conviction that their action must be founded upon some misconception of the orders of the supreme government. He, therefore, urged that further proceedings should be delayed, and that Watanabe should accompany the undersigned to Yeddo, to confer with the supreme government, but, unfortunately, Nomura Goi and Watanabe declined to entertain this proposal.

It only remains, therefore, for the undersigned to forward this protest against the proceedings of these officers to their excellencies the Japanese ministers for foreign affairs, in order that it may be laid without delay before the government of his Majesty the Tenno. He expects to return to Yokohama in a few days, and he will then join his colleagues, the representatives of the other treaty powers, in such further steps as they and he may think it advisable to adopt. But in the mean time he trusts that the Tenno’s government will at once see the necessity of disavowing and putting a stop to the proceeding of the Nagasaki officers. He abstains from offering comment upon the dangerous consequences which a revival of the persecution of native Christians is calculated to occasion, until he is informed whether the Japanese government is really responsible for so ill-advised a measure. He cannot suppose it possible that after treating this important question with such commendable moderation during the past year, the government of his Majesty the Tenno should have suddenly entered on a contrary course, opposed alike to the assurances they had given to the foreign representatives and to the spirit of enlightenment and of progress by which they have declared themselves to be guided. By such a course Japan could not fail to forfeit the good opinion of all western states, and to throw doubt upon the earnestness of her professed desire to cultivate friendly relations with those states.

Their excellencies cannot suppose that the undersigned, in presenting this remonstrance to the government of the Tenno, seeks for a moment to interfere in the internal affairs of Japan; but the unfortunate proceedings of the Nagasaki officers above detailed justify him in pointing out to his Majesty’s government that they should be prepared, as he trusts is the case, to abstain from acts by which the feelings of all the treaty powers wall be outraged, if they really seek to maintain with those powers the cordial understanding which the undersigned hoped had been established.

The undersigned avails, &c.