The Bombardment of Kagoshima, also known as the , was a military engagement fought between Britain and the Satsuma Domain in Kagoshima from 15 to 17 August 1863. The British were attempting to extract compensation and legal justice from daimyo Shimazu Tadayoshi for the 1862 Namamugi Incident, when a Royal Navy fleet commanded by Sir Augustus Leopold Kuper was fired on from Satsuma coastal batteries near Kagoshima. The British responded by bombarding the city in retaliation, but were unable to gain a conclusive victory and retreated two days later. The Satsuma declared victory and after negotiations fulfilled some British demands for the Namamugi Incident. Background On 14 September 1862, a confrontation occurred in Japan between a British merchant, Charles Lennox Richardson, and the entourage of Shimazu Hisamitsu, father and regent of Satsuma daimyo Shimazu Tadayoshi. After Richardson ignored warnings to stay out of the entourage's way while travelling on a road near Kawasaki, Kanagawa, he was killed by Hisamitsu's retainers under the traditional Kiri-sute gomen right, which allowed samurai to kill anyone in a lower social class for perceived disrespect. Richardson's murder sparked outrage from Westerners in Japan due to its violation of the extraterritoriality they enjoyed under terms of the "unequal treaties". Edward St. John Neale, the British chargé d'affaires, demanded from the Bakufu (the central government of the Tokugawa shogunate) an apology and indemnity of £100,000 as reparations for Richardson's murder; the sum demanded by Neale represented roughly a third of the annual revenues of the Bakufu. Neale also threatened to the Japanese capital of Edo with a naval bombardment if the indemnity was not paid, and further demanded that the Satsuma Domain arrest and place on trial the perpetrators of Richardson's murder, along with £25,000 compensation for the surviving victims of the incident and the relatives of Richardson. At the time, the Bakufu was led by Ogasawara Nagamichi, governing in the absence of Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi, who was then in Kyoto. Eager to resolve the dispute over Richardson's murder, Ogasawara entered into a negotiation with France and Great Britain on 2 July 1863 onboard the French Navy warship Sémiramis. The European participants in the negotiations were Neale, Gustave Duchesne de Bellecourt, Benjamin Jaurès and Sir Augustus Leopold Kuper. Ogasawara issued an apology for the murder and paid the indemnity demanded by Neale. However, the Satsuma Domain refused to comply with Neale's demands for an apology, £25,000 in