HOWEVER, PARKES’ FATE was not to stay in China but to move to Japan where he was to be the British Minister, a curt letter dated 27 March 1865 from Lord Russell bringing the news. Russell told him he would be getting £3,000 a year (with another £1,000 outfit allowance), which would have seemed an extremely good salary. The present British Ambassador to Japan earns around £125,000 a year and £3,000 then would have felt like about double that. However, as we shall see, Parkes considered it to be nowhere near enough.

The vacancy had arisen because Rutherford Alcock, who had been made Britain's first representative in Japan in 1859, had been recalled by Russell for exceeding his instructions by bombarding Shimonoseki after the strait between Honshu and Kyushu had been closed to foreign shipping. When Alcock returned to Britain, he was able to explain himself, was deemed to have acted properly, and he was actually promoted, becoming Minister to China, replacing Bruce. He was being offered a lot more money than Parkes: ￡6,000 salary and ￡3,000 for outfit, in addition to his expenses in getting to China.

Parkes told Fanny, ‘I had felt that I might be thought of in connexion with it, still I fancied that Colonel Neale, and possibly also Wade, both of whom have served on the diplomatic side … might be held to be higher claimants.’

Lt. Col. Edward St John Neale had acted as Chargé d’Affaires in Japan while Alcock had been on leave from 1862 to 1864, which is why Parkes thought he might have had the stronger claim. Similarly, Wade had been Charge in China while Bruce was away.

Once again, Parkes was being promoted over the heads of more senior people. We keep going on about how young Parkes was for what he was doing, but once again this is true: thirty-seven was very young for such an appointment (Neale was fifty-three and Wade forty-seven). But Neale was felt not to be firm enough and did not command the respect of his subordinates. The British Legation doctor, for example, thought Neale's policy towards the Japanese was ‘pure supineness’ and he doubted ‘his courage, physical or moral’, adding, ‘He is much despised here and looked upon as an old woman’.