The signed by Britain and Japan, on 16 July 1894, was a breakthrough agreement; it heralded the end of the unequal treaties and the system of extraterritoriality in Japan. The treaty came into force on 17 July 1899. From that date British subjects in Japan were subject to Japanese laws instead of British laws. The jurisdiction of the British Supreme Court for China and Japan, the British Court for Japan under it and consular courts in each treaty port ceased on that date, save for pending cases which were allowed to continue. British subjects from that date became subject to the jurisdiction of Japanese courts. Background In February 1853 Russia discovered that a US fleet led by Commodore Matthew Perry was to leave Norfolk for Japan. Tsar Alexander II then organized an expedition and entrusted its command to Admiral Yevfimiy Putyatin. The Russian delegation arrived in Nagasaki on 12 August 1853, a month after the Americans, and began a series of negotiations that would lead to the signing of the Treaty of Shimoda with the Tokugawa Shogunate on 7 February 1855. The American and Russian maneuvers however had not gone unnoticed. During a parliamentary question on 23 June 1854, Lord John Russell stated that the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir John Bowring, had been ordered to keep a close eye on Commodore Perry's activities in Japan. Commander of the East Indies and China Station James Stirling, however, did not consider such an initiative a priority at the time. The outbreak of the Crimean War forced the British to review the project. Admiral Stirling was commissioned to capture or sink the Tsar's Pacific Fleet. The Admiralty made it a priority to prevent the Russians from using Japanese ports, but Stirling thought this was an excellent opportunity to make an agreement with the Land of the Rising Sun. When he arrived in the port of Nagasaki on 7 November 1854, he took the opportunity to enter into negotiations with the Japanese authorities. The negotiations mainly concerned war matters and regulated naval traffic in Japanese waters for the duration of the conflict, in effect almost closing the country again to foreign vessels. On 14 October 1854, the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty was signed, an agreement that did not, however, grant any obvious commercial advantages to the British. Lord Elgin mission The 1854 Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Friendship received mixed opinions at home. The Foreign Office