of civil war. The lamp of history at
that time was set in a dark lantern, and very few of the foreigners,
diplomatic, missionary, or mercantile, then in the islands, had any
clear idea of what was going on, or why things were moving as they
were. It may be safely said that only a handful of students, who had
made themselves familiar with the ancient native records, and with
that remarkable body of native literature produced in the first half
of this century, could see clearly through the maze, and explain the
origin and meaning of the movement of the great, southern clans and
daimios against the Tycoon. It was in reality the assertion of the
Mikado's imperial and historic claims to complete supremacy against
the Shogun's or lieutenant's long usurpation. It was an expression of
nationality against sections. The civil war meant "unite or die."
Carleton naturally shared in the general wrong impressions and
darkness that prevailed, and neither his letters nor his writing give
much light upon the political problem, though his descriptions of the
scenery and of the people and their ways make pleasing reading. In
reality, even as the first gun against Sumter and the resulting civil
war were the results of the clash of antagonistic principles which had
been working for centuries, so the uprising and war in Japan in
1868-70, which resulted in national unity, one government, one ruler,
one flag, the overthrow of feudalism, the abolition of ancient abuses,
and the making of new Japan, resulted from agencies set in motion over
a century before. Foreign intercourse and the presence of aliens on
the soil gave the occasion, but not the cause, of the nation's
re-birth.

The new government already in power at Kioto, under pressure of
bigoted Shintoists, revamped the ancient cult of Shinto, making it a
political engine. Persecution of the native Christians, who had lived,
with their faith uneradicated, on the old soil crimsoned by the blood
of their martyr ancestors, had already begun. Carleton found on the
steamer going North to Nagasaki one of the French missionaries in
Japan, who informed him that at least twenty thousand native
Christians were in communication with their spiritual advisers. At sea
they met the Japanese steamer named after Sir Harry Parkes, the able
and energetic British minister, who was one of the first to understand
the situation and to recognize the Mikado. This steamer had left
Nagasaki three weeks previously,