MASSACRE

Despite the fair amount of attention bestowed on the 'Anglo-Japanese Conversation' - the secret negotiations between the British government and the Japanese ambassador at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War - it is only with the discovery of these two documents that it can be established that the two countries continued with informal negotiations until the fall of Nanking.

A letter of the first importance, as Baty had been since 1916 foreign legal adviser to the Japanese Government (following the death of Henry Willard Denison), and had been part of the Japanese delegation to the 1927 Geneva disarmament conference. Such was Baty's support for the Japanese position that the British Government seriously considered trying him for treason following the Second World War, choosing instead to revoke his British citizenship. 5pp., 4to. The first five pages of the letter only, and so lacking the signature, although Baty is without doubt the author.

4pp., 8vo. On the rectos only of four leaves stapled together at one corner. In fair condition, on aged paper with wear at foot. Printer's slug at foot of final page. The first page begins: 'KILLED 425 WOUNDED 1764 | This list of wounded only includes gunshot and bomb wounds. Very many of those kicked almost into pulp in the streets and left for dead are not included here.

For biographical information about Commander Plowden, see the Times obituary quoted at the end of this description. All five items in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Item One: Typed copy of letter from 'Trevor' to 'Mother and Pater'. 2pp., 4to. Headed 'Copy'. With envelope addressed to Miss Martin Wood, c/o Lt. Gen Phelps, Woodbourne Grange, Edgbaston. (As Item Three shows, this copy was made by Plowden's mother for his aunt.) 'I told you we expected to go to the Black Sea from here and we did very shortly afterwards, to Odessa.

In black 19.5 cm square sleeve, with striking cover design showing the aftermath of Sharpeville, and notice 'The American Committee on Africa receives royalties from the sale of this record.' The four songs are Tina Sizwe (We, The Brown Nation); Nkosi Waqcine (God Save the Volunteers); Asikatali (We Do Not Care If We Go To Prison); Liyashizwa (Pass-Burning Song). Very good, lightly-aged, with the record itself (in brown paper sleeve) seemingly unplayed. The twelve-page booklet is stapled, with illustrated cover and three photographs of the Sharpville Massacre.

An important contemporary engraving, apparently unrecorded, with no record of the engraver S. Pearse, or of the Comus Press (probably connected with 'The Comus', a periodical launched in Bengal in 1857). On one side of a piece of wove paper, roughly 22.5 x 28 cm. On lightly-spotted and aged paper. Discreet repair to tear which had split the item in two. A crude but accurate representation of the well and environs, with the following text beneath: 'THE WELL AT CAWNPORE. S. Pearse.| Into which the bodies of the Women and Children were thrown after the Massacre.

Inchbald ran a 'gentleman's boarding academy'. The recipient Ward (1781-1871) was a master cutler and diarist, and one of the founders in 1822 of the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society. Three pages, 4to. Dusty but in very good condition, with small piece of second leaf of bifoliate cut away in opening the red wax seal. '[...] I write to you [...] to impose upon you some possibly irksome task. - Things are here in a Train towards the establishing [of] a public library & reading room.