Thirdly, that their right to the sovereignty of Liuchiu was formally acknowledged by China in 1874, by the payment of an indemnity to Japan for the slaughter of the shipwrecked Liuchiuans by the Formosan savages. To this we may add the pregnant fact that no protest was offered by the Chinese to the conquest of Liuchiu in the first instance, nor was any made until quite recently, when the Islands were brought under the more direct control of the Japanese Government by being incorporated with an existing ken; a consideration which appears to be overlooked in the documents before us, probably because the Japanese are aware that they permitted their Liuchiuan subjects to continue certain tributary relations with China which were flagrantly inconsistent with the fealty they owed to the Emperor of Japan.