e was being played at Kyoto between
the shogun's friends and his enemies. The stake was a momentous one,
namely, to determine whether the present dual government was to continue
and who was hereafter to wield the destinies of the empire.

The government of the shogun had long been convinced that it was necessary
to make the best of the presence of foreigners in the country and that it
was vain to make further exertions for their expulsion. But a vast number
of the feudal retainers of the daimyos were still bitterly hostile, and
took frequent occasion to commit outrages, for which the government was
held responsible. Besides the cases which have been already mentioned, a
new legation which the British government had built in Gotenyama, a site
which the Japanese government had set apart in Yedo for foreign legations,
was burned to the ground in 1863. In the same year the temple buildings in
Yedo which the United States had leased for a legation were burned. Twice
the shogun's castle in Yedo had been destroyed by fire. A murderous attack
was made upon British subjects in Nagasaki; Lieutenant de Cannes of the
French troops was assassinated in 1864; and in the same year Major Baldwin
and Lieutenant Bird, two British officers, were murdered at Kamakura.

These repeated outrages seriously disturbed the Yedo government, and led
to several attempts to curtail the privileges which by the treaties were
secured to foreigners. The last proposition of the kind which was made was
one conveyed to the French government by an embassy sent out in 1864. They
presented a request to have the port of Kanagawa closed up and trade to be
confined to Hakodate and Nagasaki. They received no encouragement,
however, and returned with their eyes "opened by the high state of
material and moral prosperity which surrounded them," and reported the
complete failure of their attempts at persuasion. "The _bakufu_
reprimanded them for having disgraced their functions, and, reducing their
incomes, forced them to retire into private life."(297)

It is necessary now to trace the course of events at Kyoto. According to
the theory of the government of Japan the emperor was the supreme and
unlimited ruler and the shogun was his executive. The maintenance of the
emperor and his court was a function of the shogun, and hence it was
almost always possible for him to compel the emperor to pursue any policy
which he might desire.

At the time now under review Komei, t