The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-04 00:00:00

FRANCE.

BOURSE, Dec. 3.—The market under thefavour-
able impression of the financial report opened at an
improvement, but it was not long maintained in
consequence of the arrival of the English funds with
a decline. Threes, for the Account, after having
been done at 67fr. 10c., are now again at 66f. 95c.,
the price of yesterday. Mobilier show an advance,
being now at 1,030 fr. Railway market quiet, but
firm. The market closed 113 follows:--.

41 per Cents. 94 50
Do. end month
3 per Cents
Do. end month 67
Credit Mobilier 1020
Do. end month 1028 75
Bank Shares 3360
Credit Fonder ll9O
Roman —

Italian Loan 7l 50
Do. end month 7l 79
New ditto 7l
Do. end month —
Russian

Austrian
Spanish Threes —
Home Debt
Deferred

ILA IL-

Orleans
Northern
New ditto
Lyons and Mediterranean
New ditto
Geneva..
Southern ..
Western
Eastern
Sardinian
Austrian
Lombard
North of Spain
Saragostia
Ditto to Barcelona

rA.YB.
Cash. Account.
955 .. 965
955 .. 962 50

913 75 .. 929 -
871 25 .. - -

498 75 - -
680 - .. 681 25
506 25 .. 505 -
475 - 475 -
395 - .. 392 50
385 - 391 25
sio - 613 75
513 75 .. 515 -
608 75 610 -
297 50 .. 302 50

THE PEACE SOCIETY ON JAPAN.

The following memorial has been presented to
her Majesty the Queeta, by the Home Secretary, on
behalf of the Peace Society :

To THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,

The Humble Memorial of the Committee of the Peace
Society.
_ _

May it please your Majesty,—The Committee of the
Peace Society ask permission most respectfully to express
to your Majesty the feelings of deep sorrow and shame
with which they have read the accounts that have recently
reached this country of the proceedings of the British
squadron on the coast of Japan,

It would appear that in September, 1862, a party of
English subjects, while riding on the road from Yokohama
to Yeddo, were assailed by the armed retainers of a
Japanese daimio, when one of them was barbarously killed
on the spot, and two others were seriously wounded. For
this cruel outrage the British Government demanded repa-
ration from the Japanese authorities. In accordance with
the requisitions made by your Majesty's Foreign Secretary,
the Government of the Tycoon made a formal apology, and
paid into the hands of the British Charge d'Affaires at
Yeddo the sum of £lOO,OOO as an indemnity for the offence.
But, beyond the demands thus made on the central
Government of Japan, it was thought right to require fur-
ther amends from the Prince of Satsuma, whose servants,
it was alleged, had been the perpetrators of the acts com-
plained of; and, in case of refusal, the Chargé d'Affaires
was instructed by the Home Government to call upon the
senior naval officer on the station " to adopt such measures
of reprisal or blockade, or both, as he might judge best
calculated to obtain the end proposed." The particular
forms of coercion suggested by the Foreign Secretary were
the blockade of the port of Kagosima, and the seizure and
detention, till redress was obtained, of certain steam-ships,
the property of the Prime. It was lett to the judgment of
the naval officers to decide whether it would be possible or
advisable to shell the residence of the Prince.
In August last, Lieutenant-Colonel Neale, your Ma-
jesty's Charge d'Affaires in Japan, proceeded with the
British squadron, udder the command of Vice-Admiral
Kuper, to the port of Kagosima, the capital of the Prince
of Satsmua. On the 13th of that month he sent a despatch
to the Prince, making certain demands for redress, as pre-
scribed by your Majesty's Foreign Secretary. On the fol-
lowing day a reply was received from the Ministers of the
Prince, stating the difficulties in the way of conceding some

of the demands made; one of which was, as Lieutenant-

Colonel Neale explains it, that the Prince of Satsuma
should deliver up his own father to condign punishment,
and recommending further conference on the subject with
the Government of the Tycoon. But after he received this
communication, and without attempting any further nego-
tiation, the Charge d'Affaires instructed Vice-Admiral
Kuper at once to have recourse to measures of coercion. In
the execution of these orders Vice-Adiniral Kuper not only
seized the Prince's steamers, and shelled his palace, as the
Foreign Secretary had indicated, but destroyed the whole
town of Kagosima. Nothing can be more explicit than his
own language on this point. In summing up the injury
inflicted upon the possessions and property of the Prince of
Satsuma, he speaks not only of the disabling of many guns,
the explosion of magazines, and the serious damage of the
principal batteries, but of " the destruction by fire of three
steamers, five large junks, the Whole town of Kagosima,
and the palace of the Prince." He further deadtibes the
conflagration he had treated as " continuing with unabated
ardour up to the time of the departure of the squadron, 48
hours subsequent to the first attack." And finally, ifs writ-
ing to the Charge d'Affaires on the 17th, he states that " the
fire) which le still raging, affords reasonable ground for
believing that the entire toiYn of Kagosima is not,' a Maas
of ruins." Your Majesty's incrootialists ate itfOrtited that
the toWn of Kagosima, like all Japanese towns, ottlyie to
the frequency of earthquakes in that country, is built of
wood, anti that it has) Or had, a population of 150,000
or 180,000 inhabitants. Among those there must 'have
been a large number of aged persons, of infants and young
children, of the sick, the helpless, and the dying. No
warning whatever was gives, by which they Haight have
profited, to attempt to escape from the fearful fate which
awaited them. And when this vast and peaceful popula-
tion found their homes suddenly wrapped in the flames of
a universal and inextinguishable conflagration no imagina-
tion can adequately depict the .horrors of the scene that
must have ensued.

The committee respectfully submit to your Majesty that
this tremendou3 act of vengeance, inflicted by British arms,
cannot be justified on any ground, they will not say of
justice and humanity, but of international law, or even of
the laws of war. However heinous may have been the
criminality of those concerned in the act for which redress
was sought, the people of lagosima, situated at a consider-
able'distanco from the scene of the outrage, were in no re-
spect implicated in the guilt.
Your Majesty's memorialists are profoundly convinced
that acts like these, unhappily of too frequent occurrence
in those remote regions, are inflicting a deep and lasting
injury on the character of this country. Far from helping
they create an insurmountable barrier in the way of our
progress as the professed apostles of civilisation and Chris-
tianity in the East. They afford matter of just reproach
against us to other nations, and take from us the power of
remonstrance or rebuke with them, whatever acts of injus-
tice or oppression they may commit. 'they dishonour our
Christian profession before the face of the world and maymaywe not justly apprehend that they
may
e" "e
us
to til
righteous displeasure of Him by whose signal favour our
and
country has been raised to such unexampled power
prosperity?
The Committee of the Peace Societyr,
3 t to with-
humbly, moat
humbly, but most earnestly, entreat your
outrage, perpe-
hold your royal sanction from this ger
the unoffending people
trated, in your Majesty's name, on -
of Kagosima.
Ana your Majesty's mern
JnOSE •as in duty bound, will
r rialists,
PEPSl',President
ever pray, &c. -
OATIUEL GURNEY, Treasurer.
linuci RICHARD, Secretary,