he matter of foreign policy, so that when
the above two cabals were organized in Kyoto, the Choshu men attached
themselves to the extremists, the Satsuma to the moderates. The
latter contrived to have an Imperial rescript sent to Yedo by the
hands of the Satsuma feudatory, Shimazu Hisamitsu. This rescript
indicated three courses, one of which the shogun was asked to choose:
namely, first, that he himself should proceed to Kyoto for the
purpose of there conferring with the principal feudatories as to the
best means of tranquillizing the nation; secondly, that the five
principal littoral fiefs should be ordered to prepare coast defences,
and, thirdly, that Keiki of Mito and the feudatory of Echizen should
be appointed to high office in the Bakufu administration.

To obey this rescript was to violate the fundamental law of the
Bakufu, namely, that all interference in administrative affairs was
forbidden to the Kyoto Court. The only dignified course for the
shogun to take was to refuse compliance or to resign, and probably
had he done so he would have recovered the power of which he had
gradually been deprived by the interference of Kyoto. But his
advisers lacked courage to recommend such a course. At their
suggestion the shogun signified his willingness to comply with the
first and the third of the conditions embodied in the edict. The
Satsuma feudatory strongly counselled that the shogun should decline
to proceed to Kyoto and should reject all proposals for the expulsion
of foreigners, but the Bakufu ignored his advice.

THE NAMAMUGI INCIDENT

At this time there occurred an incident which had the most
far-reaching consequences. A party of British subjects, three
gentlemen and a lady, met, at Namamugi on the Tokaido, the cortege of
the Satsuma feudatory as he was returning from Yedo. Unacquainted
with the strict etiquette enforced in Japan in such situations, the
foreigners attempted to ride through the procession, the result being
that one, Mr. Richardson, was killed, and two of the others were
wounded. The upshot of this affair was that the British Government,
having demanded the surrender of the samurai implicated in the
murder, and having been refused, sent a naval squadron to bombard
Kagoshima, the capital of the Satsuma baron. In this engagement, the
Satsuma men learned for the first time the utter helplessness of
their old weapons and old manner of fighting, and their conversion to
progressive ideas was thorough