re in the attack upon the hateful Hojo
capital. He prayed to the Sea-god to withdraw the sea and allow him to
pass with his troops. Then he flung his sword into the waves in token of
his earnestness and of the dire necessity in which he found himself.
Thereupon the tide retreated and left a space of a mile and a half, along
which Nitta(129) marched upon Kamakura.

The attack was spirited and was made from three directions simultaneously.
It was resisted with determined valor on the part of the Hojo. The city
was finally set on fire by Nitta, and in a few hours was reduced to ashes.
Thus the power and the arrogant tyranny of the Hojo family were sealed. It
had lasted from the death of Yoritomo, A.D. 1199, to the destruction of
Kamakura, A.D. 1333, in all one hundred and thirty-four years. It was a
rough and tempestuous time and the Hojo have left a name in their country
of unexampled cruelty and rapacity. The most unpardonable crime of which
they were guilty was that of raising their sacrilegious hands against the
emperor and making war against the imperial standard. For this they must
rest under the charge of treason, and no merits however great or
commanding can ever excuse them in the eyes of their patriotic countrymen.

The restoration of Go-Daigo to the imperial throne, under so popular an
uprising, seemed to betoken a return to the old and simple system of
Japanese government. The intervention of a shogun between the emperor and
his people, which had lasted from the time of Yoritomo, was contrary to
the precedents which had prevailed from the Emperor Jimmu down to that
time. It was the hope and wish of the best friends of the government at
this time to go back to the original precedents and govern the country
directly from Kyoto with the power and authority derived from the emperor.
But the emperor was not equal to so radical a change from the methods
which had prevailed for more than a century. He gave great offence by the
manner in which he distributed the forfeited fiefs among those who had
aided his restoration. To Ashikaga Taka-uji he awarded by far the greatest
prize, while to Kusunoki and Nitta, who had in the popular estimation done
much more for him, he allotted comparatively small rewards. Among the
soldiers, who in the long civil wars had lost the ability to devote
themselves to peaceful industries, this disappointment was most
conspicuous. They had expected to be rewarded with lands and subordinate
plac