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In the disturbance which occurred at Peking last year, Sugiyama Akira, the Chancellor of Our Legation, was made the victim of a cruel assassination perpetrated by the soldiers of your country. His Majesty the Emperor of China, feeling profound regret at the incident, has been pleased to send you to Our Court on a special mission, with an Imperial letter in acknowledgment of the reparation which is due to Us. In accepting this message which you have been charged to deliver to Us, it behoves Us to express Our belief that the friendly relations between the two countries will in the future become closer and closer. It is Our earnest wish that the great work of reform, which depends on Your Sovereign, will soon be found in effective progress, and that the maintenance of permanent peace in Eastern Asia will be thereby secured. In submitting to His Majesty the result of your mission, you will not fail to state that We pray for his unbounded happiness and prosperity.

We, by the grace of Heaven, the Emperor of Japan, seated on the same Throne occupied by the same dynasty from time immemorial, do hereby make proclamation to all Our loyal and brave subjects as follows:

We hereby declare war against Russia, and We command Our army and navy to carry on hostilities against that empire with all their strength, and We also command all Our competent authorities, in pursuance of their duties and in accordance with their powers, to attain the national aim with all the means within the limits of the law of nations.

We have always deemed it essential to international relations, and made it Our constant aim, to promote the pacific progress of Our Empire in civilization, to strengthen Our ties with other States, and to establish a state of things which would maintain enduring peace in the extreme East and secure the future of Our dominion without injury to the rights and interests of other Powers. Our competent authorities have also performed their duties in accordance to Our will, so that Our relations with the Powers have been steadily growing in cordiality. It was thus entirely against Our expectation that We have unhappily come to open hostilities against Russia.

The integrity of Corea is a matter of constant concern to this Empire, not only because of Our traditional relations with that country, but because the separate existence of Corea is essential