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his action itself was concerned, his menace only caused a great indignation throughout the whole country.
Among the Shogun’s Government, and also amongst outside politicians, two antagonistic opinions were struggling against each other concerning the settlement of this grave question—one in favour of the enclosure of ports against foreign ambition, termed ‘Sako,’ the other in favour of opening the country to international relations, termed ‘Kaikoku.’ The former maintained that the national peril should be coped with after the manner of Iyeyasu, who closed up all the ports of Japan in order to check the secret entrance and venomous attempts of the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries; the other opinion was that Japan’s integrity could be best secured by the opening of the country, and that her practical isolation from all international relations was opposed to the development of civilization, and hence unfavourable to her national interests and progress. Both parties had naturally the same purpose to accomplish, but in regard to its execution one was negative, the other positive.
The late Emperor Komei (1847–1867) and the greatest part of his Court were inclined to the former opinion, and, indeed, the enclosure of the ports was the predominant opinion of the country.
In 1854 (1st year of Ansei) Commodore Perry entered the harbour of Uraga with a more powerful fleet than in the preceding year. The Shogun’s Government did not wish to endanger the country by entering into a conflict with the Americans, and the preliminary convention of friendship and commerce was concluded at Kanagawa in 1854 between the plenipotentiaries of Japan and of the United States of America. Similar conventions were signed by the representatives of Japan on the one hand, and those of Great Britain in 1854, of Russia in 1855, and of Holland in 1836, on the other. The Shogun’s Government acted entirely against the public opinion of the people, and its credit and reputation began to fall.
When the negotiations for concluding a new treaty with the United States of America began in 1858 (5th year of Ansel), a strong opposition against its draft sprang up, even from the inner circle of the Shogun’s Government and among the most powerful of the Daimyos, all of whom could not consent to the existence of extraterritorial jurisdiction in Japan. They brought up the question with so much vigour that they began to dispute about the extent to which the Shogun was accredited by the Emperor with the exercise of the sovereign power. Being unable to resist the public tendency, the thirteenth Shogun, Iyesada (1854–1858), begged the Emperor’s own decision of the matter. But before any definite decision was given him