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tion very complex. Japan was yet only a few years ahead of feudalism, and though the leading men in the Government were enlightened, the mass of the ex-Samurai class was not. The districts were still governed by the Daimyos, whose title was changed to that of Governor, appointed by the Emperor, but whose real power rested on the authority they enjoyed as hereditary lords of the counties and chiefs of the local Samurais. There was as yet no Imperial army, and the Government could only dispose of the contingents supplied by the Daimyos. This last trace of feudalism and decentralization had to be done away with before any great undertaking could be launched, but it demanded the greatest possible prudence to work out such a momentous social reorganization.

There was also the financial difficulty. The finance of the Tokugawa Government was in the most wretched condition, and so were also the finances of most of the Daimyos, some of whom issued paper money beyond all hope of redemption. Coinage was irregular, and owing to the difference of ratio between gold and silver from the ratio in Europe and America, gold had almost disappeared from the empire. The salaries of civil and military officers, hitherto paid in rice, had now to be paid in money, and the system of taxation demanded complete reorganization. All this required time, and before finance was regulated nothing could be undertaken that called for any expanded outlay.

Such being the case, it was very natural that, with regard to the question of Corea, the opinion of the men in power should have been divided.

Formerly the island of Yeso formed a feudal possession of the Daimyo of Matsumaye, and the northern limit of this possession was undefined. The Russian ships often making their appearance in the northern seas in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the Tokugawa Government directed their attention northward as early as 1780, when the two explorers Tokunai Mogami and Jinzo Kondo were sent out to explore the islands of Iturup, Urup, Kunashiri, etc. In 1785 a party of ten men was sent out to Sakhalin, and in 1799 Sakhalin and the greater portion of Yeso were laid under the direct government of Tokugawa. Already some fishermen’s villages were founded on Sakhalin.

In 1804 a Russian mission headed by Lezanoff arrived in Nagasaki, with a number of shipwrecked Japanese, and, presenting a letter and presents from the Emperor of Russia, asked for the opening of trade with Japan; but being refused,