Lake Biwa, on which stands Hikoné, is often in poetry termed the Sea of Omi. It washes the shore of what in feudal times were the lord of Hikoné’s estates.

At the time when the dissensions between the supporters of the Bakufu and the nominally anti-foreign faction were at their height, the young Shogun was but fifteen years old, and was able to render his party but little help in the crisis in its fortunes which had been reached. An effort was made to bring about a fusion of the interests by the marriage of the Shogun to the Mikado’s sister, the Princess Kazu, on 11th March 1862, the hope being that it might thus be feasible to present a united front to the incursions of the Westerners, but the union failed for the time being to have any political results in the direction anticipated, and the divergence of views on the question of the admission of strangers remained as pronounced as at first. In this attempt to reconcile the conflicting interests of parties the prince of Satsuma, acting through his uncle, Shimadzu Saburo, and on the advice of Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi, elsewhere referred to in this book, had exerted all his influence but without avail. On the other hand a vast amount of jealousy was created between the Chiefs of Satsuma and Choshiu, for the Baron Mori, the lord of Choshiu, was at this time wholly in favour of the expulsion of foreigners.

Matters were in this condition, when the least spark might lead to an explosion, in the summer of 1863, at the moment when the Shogun, possibly as a consequence of the Kioto Court influence brought to bear through his connection by marriage with the imperial house, decided to proceed to the Mikado’s capital and submit himself entirely to the Emperor Komei’s commands. He expressed his concurrence in the Court party’s views on the subject of the abrogation of the treaties, and was willing that the aliens should be driven out of the land. Whether he was sincere in this attitude or not is a question that it is not easy to answer, but at all events there was a personal quarrel at Kioto between the young Shogun and Mori, the Choshiu chieftain, which ended disastrously for Mori, who was sent down by the Emperor Komei to his own dominions in the west and Iyemochi remained in favour. The Choshiu clan was from that hour in direct antagonism to the Shogun’s party, and the baron Mori’s retainers were so indignant at what they considered to be the insult put upon their lord at Kioto that they marched to that city and attacked it The present ruler of Japan was only very young at the time, and it was a novel experience, no doubt, to hear the rattle of musketry in close proximity to the palace walls. The Choshiu clansmen were encountered and worsted by the soldiers of the Shogun, who had been ordered by imperial edict to punish Choshiu for the outrage, and at the same time the chief of the insubordinate clan was by the Emperor’s command deposed.

The Choshiu baron remained obdurate, and in pursuance of his hostile attitude towards foreigners, and presumably with the idea of embroiling the Shogun’s government with Western powers, he persevered in the practice, despite all remonstrance, of firing on such vessels as attempted to pass the Straits of Shimonoseki. He set the Shogun’s authority completely at defiance, and raised in the south-west of Japan the standard of revolt. At the head of a numerous army the Choshiu leaders, one of whom was the present Marshal Yamagata, again set out for Kioto, and were met by the Shogun’s forces led by Iyemochi himself, who was certainly not deficient in courage, though his health, even at that time, was far from satisfactory. The series of engagements which followed terminated badly for the Shogun’s supporters, for the Choshiu men were better armed, and had been drilled on something like Western principles, as the result of a study of military books translated from the Dutch. They also bore rifles of the “Tower” and other patterns which probably had been brought to Japan from Europe, by way of China.

The first step towards the fall of the Shogunate had in reality been taken when the admission was made that the power of the Shogun had its limitations, for the doctrine which had prevailed for centuries, and to which the supremacy of the Tokugawa house was traceable, was that the holder of this high office enjoyed complete freedom of action without reference to the monarch at Kioto and was to all intents and purposes the executive head of the State. The visit paid to Kioto by the Shogun Iyemochi at the instigation of the imperial counsellors struck at the root of this theory of absolute power and led to the open revolt of some of the provincial magnates against the authority of the Bakufu, a title, by the way, which, as applied to the Yedo Government, sufficiently demonstrated its military character, since Baku signified the curtain which was used in camp to screen the Generalissimo’s quarters from the vulgar gaze, and Fu meant “seat of government.” Once the principle became admitted that the Shogun was like other of the nation’s most puissant nobles, only a vassal of the Ten-shi, the way was paved in a measure for the restoration of the real monarch to the exercise of his rightful prerogatives and the re-establishment of that direct rule which had existed in former years prior to the usurpation of regal power by the Ashikaga and Tokugawa Shoguns. It may be said, therefore, that the thin end of the wedge with which the fabric of the Yedo government was ultimately to be sundered and overthrown was inserted in 1863. The actual outcome of the Shogun’s visit to Kioto was the issue of an imperial notification to the Ministers of Foreign Powers at Yedo that all strangers would be expelled from the Empire. The announcement came from the Department for Foreign Affairs in the Bakufu, and was to the effect that the orders which had been received by the Shogun from Kioto were peremptory, and required the closing of the recently opened ports. The foreigners were to be driven out, because the people of Japan were not desirous of holding intercourse with foreign countries. The Minister added that the discussion of this subject had been left to him “by his Majesty,” by which term was meant the Shogun, who had figured in the early treaties,—that for example made by the Earl of Elgin on behalf of Queen Victoria, dated 26th August 1858,—as “his Majesty the Tycoon of Japan.” The Shogun’s government was at this time trying to sit on two stools simultaneously, for while the notification was given to the foreign representatives in obedience to the orders received from Kioto there was palpably no intention of giving effect to them in any shape, even had the Bakufu then possessed the strength requisite to bring about the strangers’ exclusion. On this point the presence of war vessels at Yokohama warranted the Bakufu officials in entertaining serious doubts. At all events the Shogun’s Government soon afterwards had to express regret for the deplorable affair near Tsurumi, on the highroad from Yokohama to Yedo, when an Englishman lost his life, and in offering an apology the Bakufu expressed a hope that nothing might again arise to imperil the friendly relations between Britain and Japan. When it was urged that the murderers should be brought to justice the Bakufu was fain to acknowledge that it had not the power to punish the Satsuma clan which had been guilty of the crime, and thereupon Admiral Kuper was sent to Kagoshima to bombard the Satsuma chieftain’s forts. The engagement took place on the 11th of August, a fortnight before the Elgin treaty was signed at Yedo, the breach between the Shogun and the southern clans being at that time practically complete. The bombardment spurred the Satsuma clan to the attainment of greater military strength, for their leaders were quick to grasp the importance which Satsuma would acquire, in connection with those coming events which even then were casting long shadows athwart the political path, by being first in the field with approximately efficient naval and military forces. Western appliances were imported and foreign inventions largely drawn upon to increase Satsuma’s effective strength, and from being hostile to foreigners the attitude of the clansmen became almost friendly, a circumstance that was partly due, it may have been, to the consciousness of the Satsuma leaders that in spite of their antiquated weapons they had made no mean fight of it when assailed in their stronghold by the modern British ships of war.

The waning Shogunate had despatched a mission to Europe the previous year to beg for an extension of time in regard to those provisions of the treaties which included the opening of additional ports to foreign trade, for it was felt that the Bakufu had trouble enough on its hands without arousing further opposition by the fulfilment of the strict letter of the compacts which had been entered into with the Western powers. That mission was successful inasmuch as the opening of Kobé-Hiogo was postponed until the 1st of January 1868, and the British Government gave assurances of its unwillingness to take any steps that might embarrass the Government of the Shogun. But a fresh source of trouble had speedily developed itself in Choshiu, by the baron’s arbitrary treatment of shipping at Shimonoseki, and when, after the united squadrons of the Western powers had compelled the defenders of the forts in the straits to haul down their flag, and an indemnity had been exacted, the Bakufu became more than ever discredited, and its downfall accelerated. As with Satsuma, so with Choshiu, the fighting led to the foes becoming far better friends than had seemed to be possible, and in 1864 the baron Mori signified his willingness that any of his ports in Choshiu should be opened to the commerce of the strangers. It was not until many years after this that Shimonoseki was actually opened, but the delay was not due to the reluctance of the clan. During those prolonged contests with the Bakufu the clans of Satsuma and Choshiu were secretly allied, and the rivalry which might have been utilised to enable the Shogunate to triumph over Choshiu by enlisting the help of the Satsuma clan in the execution of the imperial command given to the Shogun Iyemochi to punish Choshiu was not in reality to be obtained by reason of this private compact between the two daimios. The bond of union was, of course, a common desire to bring about the abolition of the Viceregal office and restore the personal rule of the Emperor. The abstention of the Satsuma clan from interference on the side of the Shogunate probably saved the Choshiu clan from the defeat that would otherwise, it is to be believed, have overtaken them in the end. It was the policy of the Satsuma chieftain to allow the Shogunate to be worsted.

Difficulties multiplied, and the Shogun Iyemochi had taken up his residence in the castle of Osaka, after paying a second visit to the Emperor at Kioto, at the end of 1864, so the foreign ministers had to journey thither when they desired to communicate personally with him in his retreat. By this time some of the more powerful among the provincial daimios had fallen away from their allegiance to the Shogun, and had ceased to attend the Court at Yedo or to reside there during the prescribed six months of the year. Satsuma, for instance, did not occupy his yashiki after September 1862, until he paid it a visit in the early seventies, and others among the Yedo mansions of the provincial lords remained unoccupied from that time forward until they were turned to account as Government offices after the Restoration. The Shogun’s entourage lost the pomp and circumstance of state in 1864, with the removal of his retinue to Osaka, and the internecine strife which culminated in the battle of Uyeno in 1868 was entered upon soon afterwards.

In 1866, however, while the Shogun’s men were contending for the mastery with the retainers of Choshiu, the Emperor Komei decided to ratify the treaties that the Shogun had made, and thenceforward the relations of the Bakufu with the representatives of Occidental powers were characterised by greater cordiality than had for some time past existed. The British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, who had succeeded Sir Rutherford Alcock at Yedo, sent Messrs Mitford and Satow to Osaka with a message to the Shogun, and the mission ended with mutual satisfaction; the Shogun wrote to the Emperor at Kioto urging the opening of the port of Kobé-Hiogo to trade as early as practicable. The Emperor Komei finally gave his consent, and even expressed himself at this time as favourably disposed towards the fulfilment of the treaties. The right of native merchants to hire foreign vessels to trade either at the open ports or abroad was established in 1866, and thus Japanese foreign trade was set free from the restrictions which had checked its development.

As an illustration of the amicable relations which had by this time grown up between the Japanese authorities and foreigners, it may be related how, on the 21st of March 1866, 800 samurai troops, under the command of Kubota Sentaro, marched out of Yokohama in company with the British from the camp on the Bluff for a field day in the country towards Kamakura. The Japanese soldiers who thus for the first time in the history of the two nations bore their part in an Anglo-Japanese Alliance were men belonging to the Shogun’s forces, and their officers had acquired a knowledge of Western drill from their studies at the British camp, under the guidance of the officers of the Lancashire Fusiliers, then forming the garrison of the Yokohama foreign settlement. Less than two years before the Shogun’s troops had participated in similar manœuvres, but only to a very slight degree, as at that time the Japanese had been armed with the bow and arrow and wore chain armour, in the ancient style. Two years’ drill had made the Shogun’s men so efficient that their shooting with the rifle astonished the British spectators by its rapidity, and by the ease with which the men handled their weapons, comparatively unaccustomed as they undoubtedly then were to modern firearms. Among those who were in this way the pioneers of the Japanese modern military organisation were many personal friends of the first Ambassador to the Court of St James, Viscount Hayashi.

In August 1866, the Shogun Iyemochi, whose health had for a long time past been failing, died at Osaka, his end having been accelerated, it is beyond doubt, by the vicissitudes of the last year or two, and the effort demanded of him when personally taking the field at the head of his army against the troops of the contumacious lord of Choshiu. Notwithstanding the fast-growing power of the Shogunate’s political adversaries, the moment was scarcely fitting for attempting its entire overthrow, and in December of that year the Shogun Keiki, seventh son of the prince of Mito, a branch of the Tokugawa family, and adopted son of the Hitotsubashi family—i.e. the Owari branch of the same Tokugawa house—was duly invested with all the dignities of his exalted office. He had been nominated Shogun, as already explained, in 1858, by the then prince of Mito his father, but had been passed over owing to the strenuous opposition of the Regent, whose hostility to the Mito prince Nari-aki has been alluded to, and its effects described.

The newly appointed Shogun had had abundant opportunities of observing the gathering disposition of his countrymen to seek the restoration of the sovereign to the direct rule of his dominions and the abolition of the system of government by delegate which had for two and a half centuries prevailed. The transfer of the active duties of government to the hands of the real monarch had become a matter easy of accomplishment, moreover, by reason of the fact that the policy of the Kioto Government and that of the Shogun no longer differed in respect of the treatment of the foreigners who sought to establish intimate diplomatic and commercial relations with Japan.

In January 1867, the Emperor Komei fell a victim to smallpox, five weeks after he had appointed Tokugawa Keiki to the office of Shogun. Though the Bakufu was declining rapidly, the hour had not arrived for its final extinction, but no one could better judge of the hopelessness of the situation, perhaps, than the Shogun Keiki, who had for several years acted as guardian to the late occupant of the position, and had been also Minister of Justice (Giyobukiyo) in the time of Iyesada.

Despite the patriotic willingness of the Shogun Keiki to recognise from the very outset the need which was beginning to be felt of a thoroughly unified administration, the northern clans, which had been faithful to the Tokugawa house and had ever made its cause their own, were far from being reconciled to the reorganisation of the government as it was sought to constitute it, and appealed to arms against the domination of the Satsuma and Choshiu combination that had by this time obtained vast influence at Court. Civil war followed, but the strife was desultory in character until the later months of the year, by which time the Shogun had satisfied himself of his inability to effectively chastise the recalcitrant lord of Choshiu, and was compelled to accept defeat. As, moreover, his position as Shogun was manifestly under such conditions intolerable, he tendered to the Emperor his resignation of the office that had been in his family for 264 years.

The Prince of Tosa had returned to his castle at Kochi in October 1867, and had written to the Shogun in the following terms:—

The full name of the writer of this remarkable epistle was Yama-no-uchi Yodo, daimio of Tosa province.

It was not until the close of December 1867 that the Emperor received the formal abdication of the Shogun’s powers, and it was foreseen that among his adherents there would be many who would resist to the uttermost what they could but regard as their chieftain’s degradation, voluntary or otherwise. For the resignation of his prerogatives involved also the surrender of his lands and possessions, and his followers’ fortunes were so inseparably linked with his that it meant to them the deprivation in like manner of all those privileges on which they had thereunto placed the highest value. The Satsuma and Choshiu leaders were willing to avail themselves, however, of their proximity to the throne by seizing the person of the Emperor, and this coup d’état was carried out.

On the 3rd of January 1868, suddenly appeared an imperial edict giving to the three chiefs of Satsuma, Tosa, and Geishiu the charge of the Nine Gates of Kioto,—in other words the guardianship of the Emperor’s palace,—an office which had previously been held by the Lord of Aidzu, a northern province, and who ceased to occupy it by reason of his having espoused the cause of the Shogun in the Kai-koku versus Jo-I discussion.

It is due to Aidzu to acknowledge that the clan, from the time when, in 1862, it had been given the charge by the Shogun Iyemochi of the imperial city, had evinced the utmost loyalty and energy in its defence. In repelling the attack of the Choshiu men in 1864 the Aidzu chieftain’s retainers had shown the greatest bravery and determination, and as honest, staunch protectors of the Emperor’s person and guardians of the palace the clansmen had had no sympathy with the agitators who had sought to sow discord between the monarch and his deputy. Both sides, indeed, had reason to value the lord of Aidzu’s fidelity to the trust reposed in him. When, therefore, the edict appeared by which Aidzu was relieved of his functions, the adherents of the Shogunate were incensed, for they saw, or believed that they saw, in the coup d’état the clearest possible indications of a Satsuma and Choshiu intrigue. The rescript is remarkable as having definitely decreed the end of the old regime, and it brought about the ascendency of the southern clans, for which the way had been paved in great measure during the previous Emperor’s reign. The old distinctions between the court lords (kuge) and the territorial magnates were at one stroke swept away, new titles were introduced, and while some of the princes, the kuge, and many of the samurai, found places under the new regime, the adherents of the Tokugawa were for the most part dismissed from office and their positions given to men of the opposing side.

Acting under the authority of the sovereign, the perpetrators of the coup d’état proceeded to set up a provisional government, and the Shogun was directed to surrender his fiefs and hold himself entirely at the disposal of the Emperor, whose pleasure would in due course be made known to him. This decisive stroke was delivered by the combined agency of the leaders of the clans of Satsuma, Choshiu, Hizen, and Tosa, and the Shogun was on the verge of yielding to the demand made upon him when hostilities broke out between his adherents and the followers of the Satsuma chieftain. The Shogun was in this way driven into the position of seeming antagonism to the Imperial Government as provisionally constituted, and the fact that he was in great measure the victim of circumstances was in after years most generously recognised by his imperial master. The Shogun, acting no doubt on the advice tendered to him by his supporters, quitted Kioto on horseback, accompanied by only a few mounted attendants, on the 6th January, and reached the castle of Osaka early in the morning of the 7th, just four days after the coup d’état and though he has by some been blamed for allowing himself to be ousted from his position at the Emperor’s side, as the principal adviser of his sovereign, it is difficult to censure him for so doing seeing that the monarch had already begun to issue decrees without consulting his customary adviser. In fact, the decree which was issued as a result of the coup d’état expressly stated that thenceforward everything connected with the government of the country would emanate from the Cho-Tei—i.e. the Imperial Court at Kioto—and strict obedience to the terms of the proclamation was enjoined upon all. The chiefs of the Aidzu and other clans which held allegiance to the Tokugawa side throughout its vicissitudes were summoned to a conference the night previous to the Shogun’s departure for Osaka, and a letter was written to the Cho-Tei by the Shogun in which he declared that it being evident that some deceiver stood at the young sovereign’s side he would, for the safety of the nation, resume the duties of his office, and the better to secure for himself due freedom of action he would remove to the city of Osaka, where he could in his Majesty’s interests venture to take upon himself once more the direction of affairs as Shogun. History relates that at the meeting of his supporters held in the Shogunal palace at Kioto it was urged on his Highness that it would be better to retain control of the neck of the bottle by holding Osaka, the key of Kioto, than wait to fall into the trap which had been set for them. The formal resignation of the Shogun had been tendered by him to the Emperor at the close of 1867, but not definitely accepted, and when it was found that he had quitted the capital an imperial messenger was despatched to Osaka to request his return and the lords of Owari and Echizen were ordered to furnish an escort. Preparations were at once made to obey the sovereign’s command, but the Aidzu and Kuwana clansmen, who had followed their chiefs to Osaka, declared that they would form the escort necessary, and set out in the van of the force which was to constitute the Shogunal procession on the short journey northward. The Shogun himself was to start with the last of his little army, some four days later than the vanguard. To the experienced eyes of the Satsuma and Choshiu leaders, who now had entirely the ear of the young ruler, and whose troops were at this time in full possession of the capital, this march back of the Shogun’s whole army had for them the most sinister of meanings, and accordingly their combined regiments were thrown forward, to challenge the advance of the Tokugawa men, as far as Fushimi, a village seven miles from Kioto on the highway east of the river Yodo. The Commander-in-chief of these imperialist forces was the prince who then bore the title of the Ninnaji-no-miya, a close relative of the Emperor, and before him was carried the gold brocade banner which is emblematic of delegated sovereign authority. The prince afterwards took by imperial order the name of Higashi Fushimi-no-miya, and he is elsewhere referred to as having subsequently spent some time in England. Marshal Saigo Takamori, as he afterwards became, held a position equivalent to that of Chief of Staff in modern campaigns. The main body of the Shogun’s army marched by the Fushimi-kai-do, or eastern road, though a portion took the western one, and there was a contingent of the followers of the lord of Idzumi on that road also, on whose fealty the Shogun believed he might rely. As the sequel showed, the defection of this force was his undoing, for at the critical moment it allowed itself to be won over bodily by the imperialists. At the village of Fushimi the Shogun’s men found that barriers had been erected to stay their progress, and though when challenged the leading company made answer “this is the procession of his Highness the Shogun, who is going to Kioto by the Emperor’s express command,” passage was refused by the imperialist guard. The Shogun’s men were ordered to advance, and an engagement commenced which lasted for three whole days without intermission. The treachery of the men of Tsu, retainers of Todo Idzumi-no-kami, turned the scale, and the Shogun’s army was compelled to retreat from Fushimi towards Osaka, where the Chiefs of Aidzu and other clans loyal to the Tokugawa house found the warships belonging to their side, under the command of Admiral Enomoto, lying off the mouth of the Yodo at Tempo-san. The Shogun himself received the distressing news of the defeat of his forces at Fushimi when about to set out with the last of his army for Kioto, on the 27th of January 1868, and on the afternoon of that day, realising that irremediable disaster had befallen his arms, he quietly took his departure from Osaka castle attended by a few faithful friends, and safely reached the Kaiyo Maru.

This was a Dutch-built frigate which had been purchased for him in Europe and brought out to Japan shortly before. In order to reach the ship the Shogun had had to take boat at the Shin-Sei bridge in Osaka, whence the distance to Tempo-san is about four miles by river.

But before he set out he penned a letter to the foreign representatives then present in Osaka, to the effect that the battle having gone against him, they must provide for their own safety, and they accordingly did so to the best of their ability. The British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, was staying in a temple in the northern part of the city, and, with his mounted escort of ex-constables of the London police, he rode into the newly established foreign settlement at Kawaguchi that night. At this crisis in the affairs of Japan it was advisable, to prevent mishap, that the British and other foreign ministers should be well guarded, and Sir Harry had with him in addition to his own escort a detachment of the Ninth Regiment, then quartered at Yokohama, always at his disposal. The ships of the powers also lay at Tempo-san, within hail, but the weather being at the moment exceptionally stormy the ministers could not get aboard the vessels. It has to be recorded that Osaka city was held by the men of Choshiu, who showed every disposition to befriend the foreign residents and protected them against any possible violence of the mob, though only four years had elapsed since the bombardment of Shimonoseki by the allied squadrons, and that incident could not have been entirely forgotten. The Tokugawa men had quitted Osaka on the day following the departure of the Shogun, and the mob seized the opportunity, prior to the entry of the Choshiu troops, to pillage the castle and set it afire. The men wounded in the battle of the 27th painfully made their way along the roads from Fushimi, and many were attended by the medical officer of the British Legation who had accompanied Sir Harry Parkes from Tokio. Dr Willis, the genial Irishman and accomplished surgeon here alluded to, is doubtless remembered to this day by many of his patients. He was at a later date in charge of the hospital at Kagoshima, belonging to the Satsuma clan, and was universally respected in Japan. When, in 1877, the clan was declared to be in rebellion, and all foreigners in the country and at out-ports were directed to repair to the nearest “treaty port” for safety, where they would be under the protection of their own warships, he declined to quit his post at the hospital, where he could be of use to his Satsuma friends, and the British cruiser sent to bring away the foreign residents had to leave him behind. But as a bombardment was imminent a Japanese government steamer was sent to fetch him away, and he was then induced to yield.

Although the Shogun had embarked on the Kaiyo Maru on the 27th January at Tempo-san, she did not immediately sail for the gulf of Tokio, but took part in the memorable sea-fight which occurred near Kobé shortly afterwards. Late on the 27th the dwellers in the newly opened foreign settlement saw from the esplanade that the Kaiyo Maru, together with the Ban-riyo Maru (which was in reality the Emperor yacht that Queen Victoria had presented to the Shogun), and Fusiyama, a steamer that the Shogunate had bought, arrived from Osaka, at a time when there were three vessels of the prince of Satsuma’s little fleet in Kobé harbour. When their adversaries steamed in the Satsuma ships were preparing to leave, but they waited until dawn, and then got under weigh. The Kaiyo immediately sent two shots after them, and one of the Satsuma vessels, originally named the Kiang-su, turned and slowly steamed round the harbour, as a challenge, and then followed her consorts the Scotland and the Lotus. The three Shogunate vessels instantly accepted the gage of battle, and all six ships disappeared below the horizon to the southward. The fight took place in Awa bay, which faces Kobé, on the Shikoku coast, about forty miles from that now well-known and flourishing port. The Scotland was sunk, and another of the Satsuma ships took fire. No precise knowledge is obtainable as to what damages the remaining vessels received but the Kaiyo Maru, Emperor yacht, and Fusiyama were able to reach Shinagawa, close to Tokio, on the 4th of the ensuing month, exactly a week after they left Kobé. Immediately on his arrival there the Shogun landed and went to his castle, now the imperial residence.

Yedo, now Tokio, was at that time still the headquarters of the Shogunate, and while stirring events had taken place in the vicinity of the Ten-shi’s capital of Kioto, scarcely less exciting incidents had had to be recorded in respect of the Shogun’s centre of authority in the north. The duty of keeping the peace in Yedo had been assigned to the dai-mio Sakai Sayemon-no-jo, a magnate whose income was that of 150,000 koku.[1] To assist in the work he had engaged a number of ro-nin, or masterless samurai, whom he dubbed the Shin-Cho-gumi, lit.: newly raised company, and installed as a species of police. Finding that the dwellers in the Satsuma Yashiki at Mita, adjoining Shiba, where now stands the Shiba palace, were somewhat addicted to burglary, he determined to put a stop to such irregularities, and demanded of the clansmen then resident in the yashiki that the culprits should be surrendered to justice. In the temper of the samurai of all classes in those days of storm and stress a peremptory demand of this nature was tantamount to a challenge to a trial of strength, and a desperate combat ensued at Mita, in which fifty of the Satsuma men were killed outright. Some contrived to make good their escape to a Satsuma vessel that was at the moment in the harbour of Shinagawa (one of the three that afterwards fought at Awa Bay) and she quickly got up steam and weighed anchor. Four Shogunate ships lying off Shinagawa fired on her as she passed them, and two—the Eagle and the Dumbarton—were able to take up the chase. The Eagle and the Satsuma vessel had a long running fight, following an encounter in Mississippi Bay, near Yokohama, which the residents of that port were privileged to witness on the Sunday afternoon, and in the end the Satsuma champion sped away to the southward and the Eagle returned to her anchorage at Shinagawa. In the Mita fight between the Shin-Cho-gumi and other Shogunate men and the retainers of Satsuma the yashiki was practically burned to the ground and the bodies of the fallen were cremated within its walls. It goes without saying that the deadly animosity which existed between the Satsuma and Tokugawa followers was in no sense diminished by these active hostilities.

In resigning into the hands of the Emperor a power that had for two and a half centuries been wielded by the Tokugawa family the Shogun Keiki issued the manifesto which is here reproduced according to a translation made at the time, though the dignity and force of the original composition are necessarily somewhat impaired.

The Shogun had lost no time in making known to his imperial master at Kioto his desire to submit unreservedly to the sovereign’s will, for a courier was despatched from Yedo shortly after the arrival of the Kaiyo Maru at Shinagawa anchorage. But it turned out that after the Shogun’s departure from Osaka an imperial messenger in the person of the baron Higashi Kuze was sent to Kobé to assure Sir Harry Parkes and the other foreign representatives that the engagements which had been entered into by Japan with their respective governments would be observed to the letter, and the imperial despatch contained an announcement of the Shogun’s resignation. The memorable document was dated the 3rd of February,—the day before the Shogun reached Yedo. Not only was the imperial rescript of the most welcome,—because reassuring,—character, but it bore for the first time in the history of Japan the sign-manual of the Emperor in the form of his personal name of Mutsuhito. Never before in the lifetime of the monarch had the personal name been appended to a state paper, it being customary to attach the great seal alone, but on this occasion both the great seal and that bearing the ruler’s own name were affixed to the document of which Higashi Kuze (now Count) was the bearer. The text thereof was as follows:—

The Emperor’s relative Ninnaja-no-Miya, afterwards Prince Higashi Fushimi, then became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and he wrote to all the foreign ministers notifying to them the fact of his appointment, and stating that it was the Emperor’s express mandate to him that all existing agreements made by the Bakufu with foreign countries should be respected.

For a while the Shogun retired to the temple of Uyeno, but on the decision of the Emperor being made known to him he went first to Mito, and not long afterwards to Shidzuoka, the chief town of Suruga province, at that time also known by its ancient name of Sumpu. He directed his followers without exception to adopt a similar course and submit themselves to the imperial will, yielding the Ten-shi implicit obedience from that time forward. In the vast majority of cases, however, this excellent counsel fell on deaf ears, for the adherents of the Tokugawa house were for the most part resolved by this time to carry on the struggle to an end.

On the retirement of Tokugawa Keiki the third son of Prince Tayasu, of the Mito branch of the family, by name Kamenosuké, at that time only five years of age, became the lineal head of the house. He is now Prince Iyesato, the President of the Tokio House of Peers, and bears the title of Kō-shaku, lit.: Duke, though by courtesy styled Prince, there being in Japan a distinction between those who bear the simple title of Prince and the Imperial Princes of the Blood Royal.

More recently the Emperor, in the abundance of that magnanimity which has ever distinguished him, called the former Shogun, who is to-day in his sixty-ninth year, to the Imperial Palace at Tokio, and conferred upon him likewise the rank of Kō-shaku, a title similar to that borne by Prince Tokugawa Iyesato, who, as explained, represents the older (Tayasu) branch of the Tokugawa family, so that there are now two noblemen who hold this rank in what in pre-Restoration days was the viceregal line of Tokugawa Shoguns who claimed descent from Iyeyasu the Law-giver.

Prince Tokugawa Keiki, during his retirement at Shidzuoka, was often visited by those who had shared the fortunes of the Shogunate, but he entirely refrained from all interference with politics, and lived the life of a country gentleman, finding his recreation mainly in fishing, and showing his sympathy with the hard-working agricultural population in a way that won for him the respect and regard of all classes. When the Emperor sent for him to visit Tokio, a few years ago, he set out amid demonstrations of esteem on the part of the populace in Suruga which must have convinced him by their spontaneity that if in the course of events he had been compelled to relinquish the semi-regal state in which he had dwelt at the capital, he had retained in the hearts of his fellow-subjects of the Ten-shi a place of highest honour, and that the affection for his person evinced at every stage of the journey by those who were in former days his henchmen had flourished unabated throughout the lapse of close upon four decades. A writer once described the Shogunal entourage in terms which, after all the changes that Japan has undergone during the last quarter of a century, read somewhat strangely, but they serve to convey most vividly to the mind that magnificence by which, in the pre-Restoration period, the Court of Yedo was distinguished. There was a direct contrast between it and the almost severe simplicity of the Kioto Dai-ri, which housed the real monarch, in his complete seclusion, while his vicegerent performed most of the duties of sovereignty in a city 400 miles distant. The quotation is from an account given by one of his Highness’s own pages, and affords an interesting sketch of the daily routine in the Shogunal palace, or Nijo, at the Western Capital.

The usual form of address, we are told, was Go Zen (Your Highness), and there were in the palace no fewer than fifty pages, whose duties were to attend on the Shogun at all times, to wait at table, dress his hair in the fashion peculiar to that time, and, when invited to do so, take part in equestrian and other exercises. The Shogun habitually rose at eight o’clock, and made his toilet for the day. He never wore any garment twice, the whole of his raiment being renewed each day. At breakfast seven or eight dishes were placed before him, but he ate sparingly at all meals, and at ten o’clock he saw his ministers in council (the Go-ro-ju, or assembled honoured elders). Having devoted the forenoon to affairs of state he usually, at midday, went to the “male quarters” of the palace to ride, shoot, or play polo,—in Japanese “da-kiu”—being skilled in archery, and a sure shot with the pistol. On the lake he had a boat in which he rowed himself, and he was expert in fishing with a casting-net. At four o’clock he usually returned to the ladies’ palace, and listened to their playing on the koto or Biwa (the samisen was always too vulgar an instrument to have entry to the palace) and at 6 P.M. the evening repast of choice viands was served in great variety. His highness dined alone, having many ladies to wait on him, as well as pages, and the banquet often lasted until 11 P.M., with music and classic dances at intervals during the evening. He had no companions, for the reason, no doubt, that his rank prevented his associating on terms of equality with even the feudal lords, who were obliged by an inflexible etiquette to bow their heads to the floor when in his august presence, and to remain in that attitude throughout an interview. It is recorded that in 1866 a photograph of the Shogun was taken in his palace of Nijo at Kioto by an officer of an English man-of-war then in Japanese waters, his Highness wearing at the time his robes of ceremony, and it would be interesting to learn that the portrait still exists. The Nijo was built by the first Shogun of the Tokugawa line, the “Law-giver” Iyeyasu, and it was designed to be as much a fortress as a palace. The gorgeous gateways, resplendent in lacquer and gilding, leading to the inner apartments, remind one in their wealth of embellishment of those wonderful temple gates and halls at Nikko, constructed not long afterwards by Iyeyasu’s grandson, the magnificent Iyemitsu, and in the splendid audience chamber, where the Shogun sat on a dais to receive the homage of the feudal barons, the visitor catches a glimpse, as it were, of the pomp and circumstance which to the end of the Bakufu’s existence as a power in Japan surrounded the person of the “Last of the Shoguns.”

For fifteen years prior to its extinction the foreign policy of the Tokugawa Shogunate had been that which was found acceptable to the Emperor Mutsuhito on his accession, thus the necessity for the “Tycoon’s” intervention to secure imperial recognition for the treaties was no longer apparent, and it was inevitable that the position he held should eventually become untenable, apart from all other considerations of political exigency. The predominance of the Bakufu as a military despotism attained its zenith, to judge by the available history of the period, in the days of Iyemitsu, and in proportion as the individual strength and influence of the numerous feudal barons who owed it allegiance were found to increase, the real power of the Tokugawa house steadily diminished. While it lasted, however, the Bakufu did much to render Japan a prosperous country, studiously fostering the arts of civilisation in general, and diligently seeking to promote secular education. It established academies as far back as 1857 for the study of foreign languages and science, supplemented by a school of medicine in 1858.