The incident sparked a scare in Japan's foreign community, which was based in the Kannai district of Yokohama. Westerners argued that Lennox was protected in Japan by extraterritoriality under the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty and were exempt from Japanese cultural requirements, meaning Richardson's death under "kiri-sute gomen" was illegal. Many Western traders appealed to their governments to take punitive action against Japan. The British government demanded reparations from the "Bakufu" and from the "daimyō" of Satsuma, together with the arrest, trial and execution of the perpetrators.