The Right Honorable Earl of Clarendon to Sir H. J. Parkes, K. C. B, April 20, 1870
Earl of Clarendon to Sir H. J. Parkes, K. C. B.
Sir: I have received your dispatch No. 35 of the 26th of February, reporting your further communication with the Japanese government respecting the recent deportation of native Christians.
Her Majesty’s government entirely approve the course that you have taken in regard to that transaction, and you will continue to point out to the Japanese government the interest felt by all Christian nations in the fate of those converts who appear to be orderly and generally well-conducted persons, and to have committed no offense such would justify their arbitrary removal from their homes. But you will say further that although the Japanese government may have thought that measure expedient, her Majesty s government trust that it will redeem the promises that it has given to the foreign minister, and take effectual measures for securing from further persecution on account of their religious tenets the dispersed members of the Christian community.
It appears to her Majesty’s government that the representatives of foreign powers should fully avail themselves while scrupulously abstaining from giving their proceedings an offensive appearance in the eyes of the Japanese government and people of the offer made by the minister to allow free access to the localities, among which the Christians are distributed, and should take advantage of the opportunity thus afforded to them for impressing upon the daimios, to whose territories the Christians may have been removed severally, to treat their new dependents well and to abstain themselves from any further persecutions of them, and discountenance any such proceedings on the part of others.
On the other hand it appears to her Majesty’s government that the representatives, and more especially the French minister, from the influence which he can bring to bear on the Roman Catholic missionaries, might render most important service not only to the Christian converts but to the cause of Christianity in general by impressing on the converts the necessity of not setting themselves up on the strength of their conversion in opposition to the law of the empire. The converts, few in number and therefore weak should seek to reconcile their rulers to themselves by showing that the profession of the Christian religion is not incompatible with their duties as good subjects. Political no less than religious considerations may have influenced the government in its dealings with the Christian converts, and when it is made to appear that it need have no anxiety on the former grounds, it may very possibly be less inclined to trouble itself with the latter.