This tragedy made a more vivid impression on the world at large than previous ones had done, for several reasons. The cumulative effect of so many cold-blooded massacres was beginning to tell, and the Japanese cup was nearly full. There was a lady in the case who galloped seven miles for dear life, her horse falling twice under her. The chief victim was a fine specimen of a young Englishman, and very popular. The crime touched the general foreign community in Japan in a special manner, since the party belonged to, or were the guests of, Yokohama, where there were also newspapers and press correspondents to make literature of the event. Some friction was created between the foreign community and the British representative by the ghastly circumstances of this murder. The community, seeing their own comrades slaughtered without mercy, were incensed, and called for vengeance, which they deemed to be within reach, for the Daimio's retinue were sleeping at Hodogaya, a station but a few miles off. There was force enough afloat and on shore to effect the capture of the murderers red-handed, and the residents called for this to be done. Reasons of policy and expediency influenced Colonel Neale in a contrary sense, in which he was fully supported by the Foreign Office when the reports reached England. The Richardson murder, like that at the British Legation, had its special characteristics, though of a different order. The outrage was unpremeditated; the Government was not implicated: it was a fortuitous collision between the spirit and traditions of two opposed civilisations. The deed might be construed as the natural punishment of a breach of good manners--for Japanese etiquette, of which the party seemed to have been ignorant, required them to dismount--or, as the spontaneous expression of feudal Japan's deep hatred of the foreigner, concentrated in the act of a single moment. There was no need on this occasion to hazard guesses as to the responsible author of the crime, or to keep up a long train of make-believe negotiations. The _cortège_ belonged to the Prince of Satsuma, and was escorting his father, Shimadso Saburo, who went afterwards to the Mikado and said he had been grossly insulted by the foreigners on the road, and had ordered them to be cut down.[8] The problem was thus reduced to its simplest expression. The circumstances supplied precisely what was wanting to give shape and point to Admiral Hope's proposal to "nip this assassination-system in the bud"; and a month after the event he followed up his previous despatch to the Admiralty by a detailed scheme of reprisals, with the amount and precise distribution of the force required to give effect to it. And he concludes his despatch appropriately with the remark, that "should it be found necessary to use measures of coercion especially against Satsuma, ... the position and confirmation of his principality render him peculiarly open to attack."