Captain du Petit Thouars in the _Dupleix_ was left to watch over French interests. He was one of the most charming of men, an ornament to the French Navy. He died in 1890 (?) as Vice-Admiral at Brest, having rendered brilliant service on shore during the war of 1870. As soon as our respective ministers’ backs were turned I went to him and pointed out how absurd and harmful were the jealousies and intrigues which had gone on between the two Legations. I told him that I would keep him accurately informed as to anything that might happen on shore, and hoped that he, being in the roadstead on board his ship, would let me know of any maritime movement that might take place. I said that we still had to deal with a crisis which was far from settled, and that I could not conceive that our interests should not be identical. He quite agreed, and so we determined to work together in the common cause. He was as loyal as his own sword, and we became fast friends. During those critical months neither of us could often leave his post, so we seldom met; when we did it was a privilege to be the friend of such a man. It was, as I have said, a solitary life that I led—the life of a recluse. How my London friends would have stared at my surroundings! I rigged up a table at which to write, and a chair—those were indispensable; otherwise my long, narrow room was innocent of furniture other than two handsome screens, still in my possession, which shut off my bedless sleeping-place, where I lay like a Japanese gentleman on a quilt, and slept the sleep of the man that is mentally and physically tired out. My verandah opened on to a slip of garden not much larger than a good-sized dining-table—a little gem in its way, with a miniature Mount Fuji, a shrine to Inari sama, a forest, a waterfall plashing into a lake, in which were several fan-tailed gold-fish. I hardly expect to be believed when I write that one day, as I was sitting at work, I saw a huge otter come sneaking into my little paradise. I cocked my Spencer rifle—the friend that I always kept at hand, for there were plenty of scowling Jō-i about—but the enemy heard the click and bolted before I could get a shot at him. It was a strange invasion in a city of some half million of souls! Apart from the ordinary work of our relations with the Foreign Office there were two matters which Sir Harry had specially entrusted to me. The one was to insist upon the publication, without delay, of the new law with regard to attacks upon foreigners, and the second was to watch over the case of the Urakami Christians. Neither of these was an easy matter to deal with. It will be seen from my translation of the law that it was an edict which must have needed great courage on the part of the new Government to draw up and still greater courage to publish, as they had promised to do, throughout the Empire. It said: