Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/184

to the great joy of all present, the intention of the Emperor receiving the representatives of the Powers in the palace in Kyoto.

That this sudden opening-up was decided partly by the necessity of not making the Powers incline towards the Tokugawa party is evident; but that the general feeling was still opposed to foreign intercourse is demonstrated by the murder of fourteen Frenchmen in Sakai on the 15th of February, by the Samurais under the Daimyo of Tosa. The affair, however, was soon settled by the payment of an indemnity and the prompt punishment of the culpable. The ill-advised patriots were made to commit harakiri before the eyes of the French Minister, but his endurance did not hold out to the end of the ghastly scene, for, on the eleventh man disembowelling himself, he implored that the punishment of the remaining nine men should be mitigated. They were therefore banished to distant islands.

The French and the Dutch Ministers were received in audience of the Emperor on the appointed day, but the retinue of the English Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, was attacked on the way by another party of mistaken patriots; and though the Minister himself was not hurt, yet some of the Japanese escort were wounded, among whom was the famous Nakai, afterwards Governor of Shiga-ken, and member of the House of Peers, who received a sword and pension from Queen Victoria.

In July of the same year the seat of the Imperial Government was transferred to Tokyo (formerly Yedo).

After much fighting, the northern provinces were subdued, and on the 3rd of December Lord Iwakura, Minister of the Right, received the representatives of the United States, France, England, Italy, Holland, and Prussia, in Yokohama, and expressed to them the wish that their Governments should now give up the position of neutrality. A verbal note to the same effect was sent to them the next day, and on the 28th the foreign Ministers announced the cessation of neutrality. Thus ended the eventful first year of the New Era.

In July, 1869, the form of the Imperial Government was definitely fixed, and a regular Foreign Office (Gwaimusho) instituted as one of the six departments of Daijokwan (the Great Imperial Government). The department Ministers were not the associates, but the subordinates, of the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Left and the Right, being the revival of the old Imperial Government modelled after the Chinese system. Lord Sawa was appointed the first Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Terashima Vice-Minister.