With the support of Kyushu based trader Thomas Blake Glover, arrangements are made through his local agent, a Mr. Weigal, to secure passage for the five students on one of the many British trading ships calling at the port of Yokohama.

The Chōshū students disguised as English sailors are put aboard the Jardine, Matheson & Co. vessel Chelswick for a thousand ryō each with the reluctant agreement of the ship's captain, J. S. Gower.

The five depart Yokohama on June 27, 1863, bound for Shanghai where they will be sheltered on an opium storage ship before dividing into two groups for the extended voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to London.

While Inoue Masaru, Yamao Yōzō and Endō Kinsuke travel to Europe as passengers on the 915 ton three-masted tea clipper Whiteadder, Inoue Kaoru and Itō Hirobumi, destined to be two of the greatest Japanese statesmen of the age, are mistakenly assumed to be eager to earn their passage as crew and are put to work as deckhands on a grueling one hundred and thirty-day day journey aboard the 525 ton sailing ship Pegasus.