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and such statesmen as Ito, Inouye, Yorimichi, Okuma, and Matsukata, came into prominence. Inouye became Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs in September, 1878.

The internal political history of Japan during the years that followed the Kagoshima civil war is characterized by the great activity of public opinion, demanding the prompt establishment of a constitutional form of government. All forcible means of effecting change in the Imperial Government being now out of question, persons discontented with the current state of affairs looked upon the opening of a popular assembly as the only means of giving effect to their political ideals. This movement resulted in the great Imperial proclamation of the 12th of October, 1881, promising 1890 to be the year in which the Japanese Constitution was to be promulgated, and in the sending of Ito with a numerous suite of officials and students to Europe in order to make the necessary investigations for the future Constitution of the empire (February, 1882).

In Corea the state of things during the four or five years following the signing of the first treaty with Japan was much the same as that in Japan during the years that followed the first signing of the temporary treaty of peace and friendship with the United States. The same antagonism arose between the foreign and anti-foreign parties in Corea as in Japan, with one important difference, that while in Japan the contest was dictated by purely patriotic, unselfish motives on both sides, in Corea it was mingled with personal, selfish motives, utilizing or trying to utilize the momentous political event as means of concentrating the governing power in the hands of a particular faction in the Court. This fact, added to the weakness of character of her King, made the history of Corea between 1876 and 1882 extremely low, and even barbarous.

In 1877 Hanabusa was sent to Corea in the capacity of Chargé d’Affaires, and in 1880, the building of the Japanese Legation in Seoul having been completed, Hanabusa became Minister Resident. Though intercourse was thus established on a formal basis, yet both the Government and the people of Corea refused to have anything to do with the Japanese, whom they scorned as much as before. Once, in October, 1878, the Corean Government imposed a high prohibitive tariff on all imports, with the object of annihilating the trade with Japan in Fusan, and annulled the measure only on the remonstrances of Hanabusa and the Japanese Consul in Fusan that it was a breach of treaty engagements. Again, in April, 1879, when the Commandant, officers, and men of the Japanese man-of-war Hanabusa were taking a walk through the streets of Torai, near Fusan, a mob gathered around them and attacked them with stones, so that the crew had to defend