Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, K. C. B., G. C. M. G., Sometime Her Majesty's Minister to China and Japan, Vol. 2 of 2: Minister Plenipotentiary to Japan by F. V. Dickins, to China by S. Lane-Poole
If in endeavouring thus to elucidate his career and enable those who have no Special knowledge of Japanese affairs justly to appreciate its greatness, I seem to have given more prominence sometimes to the biographer than to his subject, I can only plead that there is very little in this volume which is not founded upon Sir Harry's own despatches, notes, memoranda, and drafts; though of course the full responsibility for every statement and Opinion is my own.
So far as the scanty leisure my official duties have left me allowed, I have thus tried to give as full and faithful a presentment of Sir Harry's life in Japan and of his work there and in Korea as the far from copious materials at my disposal have permitted. From Sir Rutherford Alcock, sometime Sir Harry Parkes' chief, and previously Minister to Japan and to China, I have received the most cordial aid and counsel at every stage of my labours. To Mr Satow, now Minister at Tangier; to Mr W. G. Aston, formerly Japanese Secretary to h.ivi. Legation in Japan; to Mr freeman-mitford, m.p.; and to Baron von Siebold, I have to express my heartiest thanks for the constant kindness with which they have responded to my requests - sometimes I fear entailing much labour and research for assistance in putting together these memorials of their former chief. To Mr Y. Uchida, of Legation in London, I have had constant recourse for information, always most kindly and courteously given. In particular I have to thank him for much of the information con tained in the notices [have added in the Appendix of the great Japanese statesmen of the Revolution. To Mr Arthur Winstanley, sometime President of the Yoko hama Chamber of Commerce, and to Mr Chamberlain need I say it - a deep debt of gratitude is owing.
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