He may have shared the views of his retainers, but he was not
prepared to assert them by taking up arms against his own family. In
the face of this instruction the conservative samurai had no choice
but to disperse or commit suicide. Some twenty of them, however, made
their way to Yedo bent upon killing Ii Kamon no Kami, whom they
regarded as the head and front of the evils of the time. The deed was
consummated on the morning of the 24th of March, 1860, as Ii was on
his way to the shogun's castle. All the assassins lost their lives or
committed suicide.

ATTITUDE OF THE JAPANESE SAMURAI

The slaying of Ii was followed by several similar acts, a few against
foreigners and several against Japanese leaders of progress. Many
evil things have been said of the men by whom these deeds of blood
were perpetrated. But we have always to remember, that in their own
eyes they obeyed the teachings of hereditary conviction and the
dictates of patriotism towards their country as well as loyalty
towards their sovereign. It has been abundantly shown in these pages
that the original attitude of the Japanese towards foreigners was
hospitable and liberal. It has also been shown how, in the presence
of unwelcome facts, this mood was changed for one of distrust and
dislike. Every Japanese patriot believed when he refused to admit
foreigners to his country in the nineteenth century that he was
obeying the injunctions handed down from the lips of his most
illustrious countrymen, Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, and Iemitsu--believed, in
short, that to re-admit aliens would be to expose the realm to
extreme peril and to connive at its loss of independence. He was
prepared to obey this conviction at the cost of his own life, and
that sacrifice seemed a sufficient guarantee of his sincerity.

THE FIRST FOREIGNERS

It must be conceded, too, that the nineteenth-century foreigner did
not present himself to Japan in a very lovable light. His demeanour
was marked by all the arrogance habitually shown by the Occidental
towards the Oriental, and though the general average of the oversea
comers reached a high standard, they approached the solution of all
Japanese problems with a degree of suspicion which could not fail to
be intensely irksome to a proud nation. Even the foreign
representatives made it their habit to seek for trickery or abuse in
all Japanese doings, official or private, and though they doubtless
had much warrant for this mood, its display did not