In the 1580s Japan began to extricate itself from a barely imaginable 100-year civil war. Fighting had not been continuous, nor everywhere, but bloodshed had been prevalent enough to form what has been called a ‘culture of civil war’.1 The capital, Kyoto (kyōto means ‘capital’) was reduced to ruins. Its historic grid had been wiped away. The sovereign, ancestor of today’s emperor of Japan, had long since ceased to enjoy his ancient titles, and was known metonymically merely as ‘the palace’, though in truth, he was as likely to be lodging in a warlord’s mansion. People at the time defined their world as gekokujō, ‘those below overthrowing those above’ – the literal meaning of revolution.

INTRODUCTION

SIR STAMFORD RAFFLES, ‘founder of Singapore’, is a famous historical figure in the history of South-East Asia. His intensive, if brief, engagement with Japan in 1811–15, as Lieutenant-Governor of Java, is less well known. He was then called Thomas Raffles. He turned his middle name into his first in 1817 in time for a knighthood.

Dr Ainslie is quite unknown, and even his name has been confused, since Raffles, who sent him to Nagasaki as British Commissioner, referred to him as ‘David’ although his first name was in fact Donald.

The ‘Adventure to Japan’, as Raffles called it, came to nothing. London was guardedly enthusiastic and the Government of India, under Gilbert Elliot, Earl of Minto, was prepared to be convinced. But in late 1813, Francis Rawson-Hastings, Earl of Moira, took over as Governor-General, and attitudes hardened. The experiment, which included two voyages, yielded nothing, but is nevertheless revealing of attitudes in the period, and dovetails with many significant events. It is a case study in why history seen only through successes will always be incomplete.

Raffles's life is well documented. However little is known of Donald Ainslie. He entered Edinburgh University in 1795, and received an MD in 1801, going straight to Asia, where he was employed by the East India Company as an Assistant Surgeon. Ainslie was thus a few years older the Raffles (who was born in 1781). It seems probable that he was related to Montague Ainslie who had interests in Bengal and so may have invited Anslie to India. After some years there, in late 1807 Ainslie was promoted to Surgeon. By the time he was employed by Raffles, he was Chief Surgeon at Batavia (Jakarta), an office attached to the Binnen hospitaal (‘outer hospital’), or the newer of Batavia's two medical establishments, built in 1743. Chief Surgeons had the role of overseeing sanitation of ships as well as treating on-land patients, so this was a prominent civic position. It is most unlikely that Ainslie would have been employed in this role under the Dutch, so he surely moved to Java in the wake of the English take-over in 1811.

Raffles selected Ainslie because of his status of physician, which was no more than a means to impress the Japanese with his learning.

INTRODUCTION

ALL STORIES HAVE a two sides and those of military encounter particularly so. Truth is often the first victim of war. The ‘Phaeton Incident’ illustrates this. British documents and Japanese ones entirely fail to match in their interpretations of events. Moreover, there is a third angle, for the Dutch were middlemen in conveying the British intentions to the Japanese and, it will be suggested, they doctored them in the process.

The principal British document has not generally been consulted by historians, although it is short and readily available. The Dutch record has recently become accessible in English, although in the original language has long been in print, and often used before; the prime account, by the head of the Dutch station in Japan, was compiled and published only in 1833, from notes kept at the time, or perhaps from memory. There are three types of Japanese document, firstly an official compilation, consisting of period documents put together for the shogunate at the end of the Edo Period, the Tsūkō ichiran (Overview of maritime encounters), secondly two journals made by persons present, and finally a contextualising overview composed by a well-known scholar in Edo.

All agree on the main sequence of events: on 4 October 1808, or 15th of the 8th month by the Japanese calendar, Fleetwood Pellew, a young commander in the Royal Navy, took HMS Phaeton into Nagasaki Bay. The ship did little more than lie in the roadstead, although it took two Dutchmen prisoner, legitimately, as the Low Countries and Great Britain were at war; they served as interpreters, but were soon released as a goodwill gesture to Japan; the Phaeton also launched some boats to scout the bay. The British requested, and received, supplies of food and water. Almost exactly forty-eight hours later, they sailed out. No shots were fired from either side. Yet the repercussions of this brief intrusion would be huge and last for decades. In the night after the ship’s departure, 6 October, the governor of Nagasaki (Nagasaki bugyō ), Matsudaira Zusho-no-kami Yasuhide (some documents call him Yasuhira), took his life to make amends for allowing the first ever European man-of-war to enter Nagasaki, and then to leave again untouched. It is a touch ironic that ‘Yasuhide’ can be understood to mean ‘peaceful Britain’.