Description

徳大寺 実則 [Sanetsune Tokudaiji] (1840 – 1919), Author. / Joaquim José DA GRAÇA (1825 – 1889), Recipient.

Manuscript, Tokyo, beginning of July, Meiji 15 [1882].

 

Manuscript: 2 pp., quarto (25.5 x 20.5 cm), Japanese text in black pen on one side of a single folding sheet of cream coloured stationary bearing the blind-stamp of the Imperial Japanese Court (the sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum), accompanied by its original envelop (22.5 x 10.5 cm), bearing mss. address on same stationary (Very Good, letter overall clean and bright, just some light wear and very minor toning along old folds; envelope with light creasing and minor toning).

 

Portugal was the first Western country to have any meaningful contact with Japan, which commenced when a group of Portuguese sailors were shipwrecked in Japan in 1543.   This kickstarted almost a century of intense commercial and cultural exchange between Portugal and Japan.  First, the countries established what the Japanese called the Nanban Trade (南蛮貿易 / Nanban bōeki, meaning the “Southern barbarian trade”), from 1543 to 1614, whereby Portuguese ships conducted a brisk commerce, purveying Western guns and munitions in exchange for such things as silk, silver and fine crafts, etc.  Macau, established as a Portuguese base in Southern China, in 1557, became critical waypoint and for trade between Japan and Portugal and its colonies.

Second, following Francis Xavier’s visit to Japan in 1549-51, thousands of Japanese were converted to Christianity under the influence of the Jesuits who founded missions, concentrated in Kyushu.  The Jesuits also played a crucial role in commerce, as in 1571 they established Nagasaki as Portugal’s main trading port in Japan.  By the end of the 16th century there were 300,000 Japanese Christians.

The Tokugawa Shogunate regime that took over Japan in 1603, soured on the Portuguese-Jesuit presence.  It gradually enacted laws that restricted foreign, and especially Portuguese, trade and Christianity.

The denouement of Portugal’s first period of activity in Japan came with the Shimabara Rebellion (1637-8), whereupon Portugal supported a revolt of Christians and rōnin against the Shogunate.  In 1639, in the wake of the Shogunate’s suppression of the revolt, the regime expelled the Portuguese and Jesuits from the country and banned Christianity, which hitherto became a beleaguered underground faith.  The Shogunate then robustly enacted the policy of Sakoku (鎖国; meaning ‘chained country’), whereby for the next two centuries Japan cut itself off almost entirely from the outside world, save for a narrow channel of trade with the Netherlands.

Yet, some legacies of the former Portuguese presence endured, in the form of underground Christianity, food (ex. tempura) and language (ex. many loan words).

In 1853, U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry entered Tokyo Bay, sailing in with a fleet of steam-powered vessels, that the Japanese called the ‘Black Ships’, bearing an ultimatum to the Shogunate to open Japan to foreign trade.  This resulted in the Treaty of Kanagawa (1854), whereby Japan agreed to ease its Sakoku policy.  This in turn led to the ‘Ansei Treaties’ of 1858 (named after the incumbent emperor), whereby Japan signed separate accords of ‘Amity and Commerce’ with the United States, Netherlands, Russia, Great Britain and France.  These treaties opened Japan to international trade and permitted the presence of resident foreign diplomats and merchants, albeit under controlled circumstances.

Due to the intervention of the Netherlands, Japan invited Portugal to sign a treaty of ‘Amity and Commerce’.  To negotiate the terms of this accord and to sign it on behalf of the king, Portugal dispatched to Edo (Tokyo) Isidoro Francisco Guimarães, 1st Viscount of Praia Grande de Macau, the long-serving Governor of Macau (in office, 1851-63), who is today perhaps best known for legalizing gambling in the colony.

Guimarães arrived in Edo on July 12, 1860, aboard the Portuguese corvette Dom João I, and once on shore he stayed at the residence of the British Minister Rutherford Alcock.  During his negotiations with senior Japanese officials, he tried to gain a reduction in Japan’s 35% tariff on wine but was rebuffed.  However, he managed to secure the same level of access to Japan’s markets and related privileges that the emperor had granted to the other Western powers during the Ansei Treaties.

The treaty, called in Portuguese, the Tratado de Paz, Amizade e Commercio entre Sua Magestade el Rei de Portugal e Sua Magestade o Imperador do Japão, was signed in Edo on August 3, 1860, and would be ratified on April 8, 1862.

The treaty marked Portugal’s commercial and cultural return to Japan after an absence of 221 years!  The first Portuguese Consul in Japan was José Loureiro, who was otherwise the representative of the commercial enterprise Dent & Co., based in Yokohama.  He assumed office late in 1860.

The shogunate responded by sending a diplomatic mission to Lisbon in 1862, which saw the format ratification of the 1860 treaty, and did much to establish goodwill to what was the oldest West-East relationship.

During the succeeding period, expanding trade with Japan became Portugal’s greatest economic imperative in the Far East, as Luso-Chinese relations were in poor state.  China continued to question Portugal’s sovereignty over Macau and so refused to grant Portugal “most favoured nation” trading status, this stifling their mutual commerce.  Meanwhile, Macau’s maritime trade was being throttled by competition from Hong Kong, and while the former Governor Guimarães’s creation of the legal and taxable gaming industry in the colony helped to stench the bleeding, Macau was in desperate need of new prospects.

Through the 1860s and ’70s, Portugal established consular offices in the Japanese ports as designated by the 1860 treaty, leading to a marked increase in Luso-Japanese trade.  Indeed, Japan’s rapidly growing industrial economy craved the European goods and tropical commodities that the Portuguese Empire produced.  However, these Portuguese inroads were haphazard and not well coordinated.  For Portugal to really ‘up its game’ in Japan, it needed a coherent diplomatic-trade strategy that had the blessing of the Meiji court.

 

Enter Joaquim José da Graça and His Mission to Tokyo

Joaquim José da Graça (1825 -1889) was a career military officer, colonial administrator and highly skilled diplomat.  Born in Alcântara (Lisbon), after graduating from military academy he became an infantry officer and was posted in Angola for many years.  There, he gained the respect of his superiors for his phenomenal diplomatic skill when dealing with the often-difficult stakeholders in that county.  This led Da Graça to be appointed as the Interim Governor of Angola (serving from June 26 to September 4, 1870).

As ameliorating trade relations with China and expanding its successful relationship with Japan were top Portuguese priorities, in 1879, Joaquim José da Graça was appointed to the dual role of Governor of Macau and the Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of China, Japan, and Siam, making him Portugal’s ‘supreme fixer’ in the Far East (he would serve in those roles from November 28, 1879 to April 23, 1883).

In January 1881, seeking to improve Luso-Chinse trading terms, Da Graça’s visited the Chinese Emperor’s top representative in Southern China, the Viceroy of the two Kuangs, in Canton.  However (perhaps predictably), he could not make any headway.  This made expanding Portugal’s commercial interactions with Japan even more urgent.

In 1882, Da Graça embarked upon a grand embassy to Japan, the goal of which was to convince the Meiji Emperor to allow Portugal to establish a ‘first class consulate’ (a de facto embassy) in Tokyo, which could coordinate and expand Portugal’s diplomatic and trading endeavours in Japan, to bring this activity to a higher volume and intensity.  While the Japanese were open to this notion, it represented a concession to their sovereignty, such that they would have to be convinced that the potential economic rewards to Japan were worthwhile.

A contemporary newspaper described the Macau delegation’s departure for Tokyo, at the end of April 1882:

“His Excellency Governor Joaquim Jose da Graça departed on 30th April by the ‘White Cloud’ for Hong Kong, to proceed to Japan. His Excellency goes as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary from the Court of Portugal, and takes with him as Secretary of Legation Mr. A. J. Bastos, jun.; as Chinese Interpreter, Mr. E. Marques, and as English Interpreter, Mr. Arthur Milner. A better selection of officers could hardly have been made by his Excellency, as the above gentlemen are well known by their talents and abilities.” (The London and China Telegraph, June 14, 1882, vol. XXIV, no. 980).

The Portuguese delegation arrived in Tokyo on May 8, 1882, and were treated with lavish hospitality by their Japanese hosts.  They were taken on tours of many places and were the guests of honour at several banquets and events.  Along the way, Da Graça would have had the opportunity to advance overtures to senior Japanese officials to gauge whether his proposals would meet with the Imperial Court’s approval.  Yet, this was all prelude to the main event, which would occur almost two months hence, being an audience with the Meiji Emperor.  Such an occasion was described as one of the most elaborate and sophisticated formality, and awesomely impressive.  It was the greatest possible honour for Da Graça to be invited to such a reception, and it would be there that his efforts would succeed or fail.

Joaquim Jose da Graça’s host at the Imperial Palace would be the Court’s High Chamberlain, Sanetsune Tokudaiji [徳大寺 実則] (1840 – 1919), who was the Emperor’s ‘Gatekeeper’, and a man who served as one of the Meiji sovereign’s most trusted aides for his entire 44-year-long reign.  Born into a noble family in Kyoto, as a young man he was a member of a conservative reactionary court faction called sonnō jōi (“Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarian”) that called for Japan to reject Westernization and foreign influence (his politics would later mellow!).  In 1863, liberal factions forced him to flee Tokyo into internal exile.

Upon the advent of Meiji regime, Sanetsune Tokudaiji was bought in from the cold.  He was welcomed to the Imperial Court and made a made a dainagon (a counsellor of the first rank).

Over the coming years, Sanetsune Tokudaiji increasingly gained the Emperor’s trust, eventually becoming his ‘righthand man’.  In 1884, he was created a koshaku (Marquis) and the High Chamberlain of the Court and subsequently was made a prince.  In 1891, he was elevated to become the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan, the head of the Imperial Household.  Sanetsune Tokudaiji was known to be fiercely protective of the Emperor, shielding his ‘sacred person’ from politics and the ‘ugly’ decision-making process of government.  Sanetsune Tokudaiji retired in 1912, upon the death the Meiji Emperor.

 

The Manuscript Invitation in Focus

Present here is an amazing original artefact of the Imperial Japanese Court from the glorious days of the Meiji Emperor, and of the history of Japan’s incipient diplomatic relationships with Western powers.

It is the original manuscript invitation, written in the name of Sanetsune Tokudaiji, that was hand-delivered at the beginning of July 1882, to Governor and Minister Plenipotentiary Joaquim José da Graça, inviting him to attend an audience with the Meiji Emperor at court, on July 5 next.

The invitation is drafted in an elegant yet easy calligraphy, written entirely in Japanese, on fine court stationary, of thick cream-coloured paper, bearing the blind-stamped imperial symbol of the sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum.  The letter is housed within a manuscript addressed envelope of the same stationary.

Importantly, the present artefact is an incredible survivor, as only a handful of original manuscript invitations to an audience with the Japanese Emperor remain to the present day.  It is also a seminal piece of the ‘main event’ of one of the great developments in Portuguese-Japanese relations and, more broadly, Japan’s continued opening to the West.

 

The text of the letter reads, as translated from the Japanese (please forgive any minor errors!):

I hereby write to Your Excellency, as we are currently awaiting your arrival. On the fifth day [of this month], Your Excellency will be honoured.   The grand ceremony will be held at 2 PM. The attire and clothing provided are available within the Imperial Household Department. After a period of rest, I will be able to respectfully await your arrival. July 5, Meiji 15 (1882), Chamberlain of the Imperial Household, Tokudaiji Sanenori Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Portuguese Empire Your Excellency Joaquim José da Graça

 

The text on the accompanying envelope reads:

Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Portuguese EmpireJoaquim José da Graça Your ExcellencyTokudaiji Sanenori, Ministry of the Imperial Household  

 

Epilogue: Da Graça’s Efforts Meet with Success 

Joaquim José da Graça’s mission to Japan returned to Macau with lavish ceremony on August 6, 1882.  The endeavour was hailed as a great success, as Japan assented to the lion’s share of Portugal’s wish list.  As a result, Portugal opened its maiden ‘first class consulate’ in Tokyo on December 20, 1883.  Led by the veteran diplomat José Loureiro (who was Portugal’s first consul in Tokyo, appointed in 1860), the consulate would be by far and away the largest Portuguese diplomatic mission in Asia.  In the years following, the Tokyo mega-consulate was able to facilitate a significant increase in Luso-Japanese trade, to the benefit of both parties, while providing an economic lifeline to Macau.

Of interest, during the era of Joaquim José da Graça’s diplomatic push in Japan, there arose a great cultural fascination in Portugal (and to an extent Macau) for all things Japanese.  This included the publication of Portuguese-language works in Japan, such as that by the Yokohama-based merchant Polydoro Francisco da Silva, Reminiscencias do Japão (Yokohama: Imprensa Mercantil, 1884), a beautifully illustrated memoir/travelogue, which was intended for the Portuguese audience.  Portuguese Japanophilia peaked with the literary works of Wenceslau de Moraes (1854-1929), the diplomat and author who lived his last 30 years in Japan.

 

References: N/A – Manuscript seemingly unrecorded.  Cf. Eri FUKUDA, ‘As relações entre Portugal e o Japão através do Diário do Governo e Nihongaikobunsho (1860-1897)’, Master’s Dissertation, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (2023), esp. pp. 31-40.