This is a very different version of the story; it is told by the responsible minister of a great Power, a man of singular ability and circumspection. This version I, who was on the spot, though not myself under what was only saved from being a deadly fire by the ignorance of the use of the rifle’s sights, fully confirm—and it is indirectly endorsed by the action taken not only by the whole body of foreign ministers but also by the Government of the Mikado. Against that you have to set the mutterings of irresponsible hearsay, to which, unfortunately, Mr. Longford has lent the support of his authority as historian and ex-consul. To sum up—the attack was made by a clan known to be specially hostile to all intercourse with the West; it was directed against all the treaty Powers, whose flags were flying on the building set apart for their use and whose ministers were engaged peaceably with a great number of their fellow-subjects in laying out the future settlement under treaty rights, escaping death by a miracle. The outrage was deliberate, and absolutely unprovoked, the story of the breaking of the procession being an afterthought. We heard nothing of it at the time, and that was the view which the Japanese themselves took of it, for the guilty officer was condemned to _hara-kiri_, and the rest of the sad story is told in my “Tales of Old Japan.” I have only dwelt upon it because I wished to clear up a story which, as told in Mr. Longford’s book, would remain a blot upon the memory of men, who, after long and anxious debate, by a vote of the majority took upon themselves a grave responsibility, in which they were fully justified by the incontrovertible evidence which, to my knowledge, they sifted with the most painstaking care. Mr. Longford fixes upon Sir Harry Parkes the responsibility of the death sentence. Wrong again!