ly effected.

CONTINUED INTRIGUES IN KYOTO

The submissive attitude of the Bakufu towards the Imperial Court
encouraged the extremists in Kyoto to prefer fresh demands. Instead
of waiting for the shogun to repair to Kyoto, as he had pledged
himself to do in compliance with the edict mentioned above, they
contrived the issue of another rescript, requiring the Bakufu to
proclaim openly the adoption of the alien-expelling policy, and to
fix a date for its practical inception. Again the Bakufu yielded.
They did not, indeed, actually take the steps indicated in the
rescript, but they promised to consider its contents as soon as the
shogun arrived in Kyoto. The extremists, however, could not reconcile
themselves to even that delay. In the spring of 1863, they
constrained Keiki, who had been appointed guardian to the shogun and
who was then in Kyoto, to give an engagement that on the shogun's
return to Yedo decisive measures to put an end to foreign intercourse
should be begun. This engagement the shogun found awaiting him on his
arrival in the Imperial capital, and at the same time messages daily
reached him from Yedo, declaring that unless he returned at once to
Yedo to settle the Namamugi affair, war with Great Britain would be
inevitable. But the conservatives would not allow him to return. They
procured the issue of yet another Imperial decree directing that "if
the English barbarians wanted a conference, they should repair to
Osaka Harbour and receive a point-blank refusal; that the shogun
should remain in Kyoto to direct defensive operations, and that he
should accompany the Emperor to the shrine of the god of War where a
'barbarian-quelling sword' would be handed to him." Illness saved the
shogun from some of his perplexities and, in his absence, the Yedo
statesmen paid the indemnity required by Great Britain for the
Namamugi outrage and left her to exact whatever further redress she
desired. Accordingly, in July, 1863, a British squadron proceeded to
Kagoshima and bombarded it as already described.

THE SHIMONOSEKI COMPLICATION

If the Satsuma men thus received a conclusive lesson as to the
superiority of Western armaments, the Choshu fief was destined to be
similarly instructed not long afterwards. It will have been perceived
that at this epoch the Imperial Court was very prolific in
anti-foreign edicts. One of these actually appointed the 11th of May,
1863, as the date for commencing the barbarian-expelling cam