MITFORD MUST SURELY have breathed a sigh of relief at making it back to Britain in one piece, having survived both one of the most dangerous overseas postings imaginable, and the journey back. He was now enjoying good health again and with plenty of wonderful stories to tell. If he had picked the right time to go to Japan, he had also chosen a good time to leave it – there would be no more really exciting events involving the Western diplomats there, and back in Europe the Japan boom was raging, meaning that everybody wanted to talk to him. Having left Britain a low-ranking diplomat, on his return he found himself a figure of some importance.

Mitford was able to pick up where he had left off with his most important connection, the Prince of Wales, who invited him to stay with him at Abergeldie Castle in Scotland for nearly a month. Queen Victoria sent for him to see her at nearby Balmoral. She was the only person Mitford admitted to being frightened of, but she was ‘most gracious’ and put him at his ease. He was impressed by her knowledge of Japan, gained by reading Parkes’ dispatches: ‘I was able, of course, to tell her a good deal that was outside of what was contained in dispatches; but her knowledge of those was marvellous.’ Talking about a recent massacre of Christians in China, she agreed with him that Westerners should not try to interfere with native people's religious beliefs: ‘I am afraid’ she told him, ‘that sometimes the missionaries are rather injudicious.’

Mitford's expertise about Japan was also valued by others. The Japanese Government wanted to start building railways and needed to raise capital overseas to do so. In August 1869, Itō Hirobumi had told Mitford they hoped to borrow ￡3 million, offering a ten-year lease of the mines on the island of Sado as a guarantee. In London, this seemed a very unsafe proposition because Japan was such an unknown quantity. Mitford was virtually the only person in Britain who knew the country as it had become after the Meiji Restoration.