With the support of Kyushu based trader…
June 1863 CE
The Chōshū students disguised as English sailors are put aboard the Jardine, Matheson & Co. vessel Chelswick for a thousand ryō each with the reluctant agreement of the ship's captain, J. S. Gower.
The five depart Yokohama on June 27, 1863, bound for Shanghai where they will be sheltered on an opium storage ship before dividing into two groups for the extended voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to London.
While Inoue Masaru, Yamao Yōzō and Endō Kinsuke travel to Europe as passengers on the 915 ton three-masted tea clipper Whiteadder, Inoue Kaoru and Itō Hirobumi, destined to be two of the greatest Japanese statesmen of the age, are mistakenly assumed to be eager to earn their passage as crew and are put to work as deckhands on a grueling one hundred and thirty-day day journey aboard the 525 ton sailing ship Pegasus.
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Clockwise from top left: Endō Kinsuke, Nomura Yakichi, Itō Shunsuke, Yamao Yōzō, and Inoue Monta, photographed in 1863
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