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

FRANCE.

BOURSE, Dec. 3.—The market under the favour
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 as follows:

41 per Cents .. 94 b 0
Do. end month....
3 por Cents
Do. end month 67
Credit Mobil-ler 1020
00. end month 1028 75
Bank Shares 3360
Credit Fonder 1190
Roman —

Italian Loan 7l 50
Do. end month 7l 79
,New ditto 7l
Do. end month —
Russian
Austrian .. 77
Spanish Threes —
Rome Debt • —
Deferred

BAIL'

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

rAYB.
Cash. Amount.
955 965
955 .. 962 50

913 75 .. 920 -
871 25 .. - -
498 75 .. - -
680 - .. 681 25
506 25 .. 505 -
475 - .. 475 -
395 - .. 392 50
385 - .. 391 25
510 - .. 513 75
513 75 .. 515 . -
603 75 .. 610 -
297 50 .. 302 50

THE PEACE SOCIETY ON JAPAN.

The following memorial has been presented to
her Majesty the Queen, 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 empress
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-
-1 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 Charge 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 Prince. 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 Chargé d'Affaires instructed Vice-Admiral
Kuper at once to have recourse to measures of coercion. In
the execution of these orders Vice-Admiral 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 describes the
conflagration he had created as " continuing with unabated
ardour up to the time of the departure of the squadron, 48
hours subsequent to the first attack." And finally, in writ-
ing to the Charge d'Affaires on the 17th, he states that " the
fire, which is still raging, affords reasonable ground for
believing that the entire town of Kagosima is now a mass
of ruins." Your Majesty's memorialists are informed that
the town of Kagosima, like all Japanese ton ns, owing to
the frequency of earthquakes in that country, is built of
wood, and 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 given, by which they sight 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 tremendous act of vengeance, inflicted by British arms,
cannot be justified on any ground, they will not say co
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 Kagosima, situated at a consider-
able distance from the scene of the outrage, were in no re-
spect implicatsd in the guilt.
Your Majesty's memorialists are profoundly convinced
that acts like these, unhappily of too frequent occurrence
in thosa 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 dishonoroutt;
Christian profession before the face of the world , and
may
we to Um)
we not justly apprehend that they may "Peevour our
righteous displeasure of Him by whose signal fist
c..untry has been raised to such unextunPled
prosperity? power and
The Committee of the Peace Society,u_ ‘tihaeersetfore, most
jy
m mto with-
humbly, but roost earnestly, entreaty , r '
°great outrage, perpe-
hold your royal saucticu from this
trated, in your Majesty's name, on the unolfencling people
of Kagosima. m rialists, as in duty bound, wilt
Ana your Msje,sty
'8
jne LSEPH. (EASE, President.
ever pray, Sco,
SAMUEL GURNEY, Treasurer.
UICIIARD) Secretary,