Scottish Samurai by Alexander McKay

Author:Alexander McKay [McKay, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857867308
Publisher: Canongate Books

Whatever the case, it is clear that there was no love lost between the two.

Glover was still busy in Scotland when Montblanc’s mercenaries arrived in Nagasaki on 19 October 1867. A group of Satsuma officials were waiting for them. They later sailed for Kagoshima where the Satsuma daimyo thanked Montblanc for his services at the World Exhibition and presented him with his personal sword in a tsuba which was decorated with the Satsuma crest. This period would be the pinnacle of the Count’s work with Satsuma.

The French Minster, Leon Roches, still close to the shogun, was very embarrassed by Montblanc’s activities. He was asked for an explanation of his fellow national’s connections with the rebellious Satsuma clan. Roches could claim only that Montblanc had no official status with the French government and he could do nothing about his contract with Satsuma. Later Roches told Sir Harry Parkes that Montblanc was deceiving Satsuma and that the French had issued passports to the Count and his party by mistake. The French Minister went further. In a report to Paris he wrote that he had been told that some leading members of the Satsuma clan considered Montblanc an intriguer and wanted him banned from their domain. These ‘leading members’ had surely been influenced by Glover & Co., almost certainly under orders from Tom, still in Britain but no doubt well informed. Those left running Glover & Co. in Japan had been furious about Montblanc’s dealings with Satsuma and the effect it would have on their own business and may well have used their high-level contacts – and the personal debts of honour Satsuma owed their boss – with the clan to discredit the Count. These attacks on Montblanc’s credibility were in the end successful and when Glover talked as an old man about ‘nailing his coffin’ it was to these events he was surely referring. The only winners in the battle for Satsuma business were the Japanese who now had Glover and Montblanc competing. Perhaps sensing the threat of Montblanc, Glover would extend the credits of Satsuma and his other Japanese customers to the point of his own bankruptcy.

Early in December 1867, with the shogunate in a state of collapse and Glover steaming back from Britain, Montblanc left Nagasaki and was later reported in the retinue of the Satsuma daimyo. This news, when delivered to Tom, would not have helped his peace of mind.

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