The Sakai incident (堺事件 Sakai Jiken) was the killing of 11 French sailors from the French corvette Dupleix in the port of Sakai near Osaka, Japan in 1868.
On March 8, 1868, a skiff sent to Sakai was attacked by samurai of the Tosa clan; 11 sailors and Midshipman Guillou were killed (a monument in Kobe is now erected to their memory).[1] At the time, the port of Sakai was not open to foreign ships, and the Tosa troops were in charge of policing the city.
The French captain Dupetit Thouars protested so strongly that an indemnity of 150,000 dollars was agreed upon, the culprits were arrested, and 20 of them were sentenced to death by seppuku at Myōkoku-ji. However, the style of execution was so shocking to the French that, after 11 were carried out, the captain requested a pardon, sparing nine of the samurai. This allowed the French and Japanese parties to reconcile.
This incident was dramatised in a famous short story, Sakai Jiken, by Mori Ōgai.