ers of state were attacked in the streets, while surrounded by
their retainers, and on each occasion many lives were lost in the fight
which ensued. Indeed, continuing to follow English official authority,
it would appear that the American treaties cost the lives of two
tycoons, one regent, and several ministers and nobles, for the most part
by self-evisceration. The assassination of the Gotairo, or regent, is
fresh in the minds of the public. It took place at noon, while he was in
the midst of his guard, on his way to the palace. His head, we are
informed, was exposed at the execution ground at Miako, there being
placed over it the inscription: 'THIS IS THE HEAD OF A TRAITOR WHO HAS
VIOLATED THE MOST SACRED LAWS OF JAPAN--THOSE WHICH FORBID THE ADMISSION
OF FOREIGNERS INTO THE COUNTRY,'--but which the Japanese affirm was
never written. The sentence, however, seems to express the motives of
the murderers. It is the aristocracy of the empire that is fiercely
arrayed against an abandonment of the policy of isolation: that the
populace is not particularly hostile, is evinced by the comparative
immunity of foreigners from violence at the ports of Hakodadi and
Nagasaki.

Why should the ruling classes seek to abrogate the treaties and defy
foreign powers? The Daimios are not ignorant of the prowess and
resources of the country against which they particularly array
themselves: they are a well-informed and astute class, and cannot fall
to see that feudalism and commerce are antagonistic--that free
intercourse with foreigners is incompatible with the existence of the
present form of government: and therefore many of them would fain revert
to the conservative policy of isolation. More than four years ago, the
writer of this article, then in Japan, although his opportunities of
observation were limited, published the opinion that a revolution would
be the inevitable result of the concessions that had been extorted from
the tycoon; that civil war could hardly fail to take place, by which the
government would be brought under the sway of one ruler, tycoon, mikado,
or some powerful daimio, which would lead to the destruction of the
feudal system, and to the introduction of Christian civilization, a
consummation which we in the interest of the Japanese may devoutly wish,
but which the daimios, having full knowledge of the same, must in
self-defence resist to the last. Hence the English base their charge
that the attacks on foreigners