reign
attitude. His mission was quite unsuccessful, the utmost concession
obtained by him being that the problem of the treaty should be
submitted to the feudatories. Another question raised on this
occasion in Kyoto was the succession to the shogunate. The twelfth
shogun, Ieyoshi, had died in 1853, and was succeeded by Iesada, a
physically incompetent ruler. Iesada had been married to the daughter
of the Satsuma feudatory, as planned by the former Bakufu premier,
Abe, who hoped thus to cement friendly relations with the great
southern baron, a hereditary enemy of the Tokugawa. There was no
issue of the marriage, and it being certain that there could be no
issue, two candidates for the shogunate were proposed. They were
Keiki, son of Nariaki of Mito a man of matured intellect and high
capacities, and Iemochi, son of Nariyuki of Kii, a boy of thirteen.
Public opinion supported the former, and his connexion with the house
of Mito seemed to assure an anti-foreign bias. Chiefly for the latter
reason, the Court in Kyoto favoured his nomination.

But Keiki was not really an advocate of national seclusion. Had the
succession been given to him then, he would doubtless have adopted a
liberal policy. On the other hand, his appointment would have been
equivalent to the abdication of Iesada, and in order to avert that
catastrophe, the shogun's entourage contrived to obtain the
appointment of Ii Kamon no Kami to the post of prime minister in
Yedo. This baron was not less capable than courageous. He immediately
caused the young daimyo of Kii to be nominated successor to the
shogunate, and he signed the Harris treaty. A vehement outcry ensued.
It was claimed that the will of the Imperial Court had been set at
nought by signing the treaty without the sovereign's sanction, and
that unconditional yielding to foreign demands was intolerable. The
Mito baron headed this opposition. But it is observable that even he
did not insist upon the maintenance of absolute seclusion. All that
he and his followers demanded was that a delay should be imposed in
order to obtain time for definite preparation, whereas the premier,
Ii, was for the immediate opening of the country.

THE FOURTEENTH SHOGUN, IEMOCHI (1858-1866)

Iesada died in 1858, and the reluctance of the Imperial Court to
sanction the succession of Iemochi was evidenced by a long delay in
the transmission of the necessary Imperial document. During that
interval, the feudatories of Mito