ly of his adopter.

SEVERITY OF THE TOKUGAWA TOWARDS THE FEUDATORIES

Although Ieyasu and his successors in the shogunate did not fail to
provide large estates for their own kith and kin, they never showed
any leniency in dealing with the latter's offences. Ieyasu professed
to believe in the potency of justice above all administrative
instruments, and certainly he himself as well as his successors
obeyed that doctrine unswervingly in so far as the treatment of their
own families was concerned. They did not hesitate to confiscate
fiefs, to pronounce sentence of exile, or even to condemn to death.
Thus, in the year of Ieyasu's decease, his sixth son, Matsudaira
Tadateru, was deprived of his fief--610,000 koku--and removed from
Echigo to Asama, in Ise. Tadateru's offence was that he had unjustly
done a vassal of the shogun to death, and had not moved to the
assistance of the Tokugawa in the Osaka War. Moreover, when his elder
brother, the shogun Hidetada, repaired to the Imperial palace,
Tadateru had pretended to be too ill to accompany him, though in
reality he was engaged in a hunting expedition. This was the first
instance of the Bakufu punishing one of their own relatives.

Another example was furnished in 1623 when Matsudaira Tadanao, lord
of Echizen, was sentenced to confinement in his own house and was
ordered to hand over his fief of 750,000 koku to his heir. This
Tadanao was a grandson of Ieyasu, and had shown himself a strong
soldier in the Osaka War. But subsequently he fell into habits of
violence and lawlessness, culminating in neglect of the sankin kotai
system. His uncle, the shogun Hidetada, sentenced him as above
described. Under the administration of Iemitsu this unflinching
attitude towards wrongdoers was maintained more relentlessly than
ever. The dai nagon, Tadanaga, lord of Suruga and younger brother of
Iemitsu by the same mother, received (1618) in Kai province a fief of
180,000 koku, and, seven years later, this was increased by Suruga
and Totomi, bringing the whole estate up to 500,000 koku. He resided
in the castle of Sumpu and led an evil life, paying no attention
whatever to the remonstrances of his vassals. In 1632, Iemitsu
confiscated his fief and exiled him to Takasaki in Kotsuke, where he
was compelled to undergo confinement in the Yashiki of Ando
Shigenaga. Fourteen months later, sentence of death was pronounced
against him at the early age of twenty-eight.

Other instances might be qu