s Nariaki, the old prince of
Mito. He belonged to one of the San Kay (three families), out of which
Iyeyasu ordered the Shogun to be chosen. He was connected by marriage
with the families of the Emperor and the highest Kuges in Miako, and
with the wealthiest Daimios. In power the Mito family thus ranked high
among the Daimios. Among the scholars the Prince of Mito was popular.
The prestige of his great ancestor, the compiler of Dai-Nihon-Shi, had
not yet died out. The Prince of Mito was thus naturally looked up to
by the scholars as the man of right principles and of noble ideas. A
shrewd, clever, and scheming old man, the Prince of Mito now became
the defender of the cause of the Emperor and the mouthpiece of the
conservative party.

At the head of the Bakufu party was a man of iron and fertile
resources, Ii Kamon No Kami. He was the Daimio of Hikone, a castled
town and fief on Lake Biwa, in Mino. His revenue was small, being only
three hundred and fifty thousand koku. But in position and power none
in the empire could rival him. He was the head of the Fudai Daimios.
His family was called the Dodai or foundation-stone of the power
of the Tokugawa dynasty. His ancestor, Ii Nawo Massa, had been
lieutenant-general and right-hand man of Iyeyas. Ii Kamon No Kami,
owing to the mental infirmity of the reigning Shogun, had lately
become his regent. Bold, ambitious, able, and unscrupulous, Ii was the
Richelieu of Japan. From this time on till his assassination on March
23, 1860, he virtually ruled the empire, and, in direct contravention
to the imperial will, negotiated with foreign nations, as we have
seen, for the opening of ports for trade with them. He was styled the
"swaggering prime minister," and his name was long pronounced with
contempt and odium. Lately, however, his good name has been rescued
and his fame restored by the noble effort of an able writer, Mr.
Saburo Shimada.[6] But this able prime minister fell on March 23,
1860, by the sword of Mito ronins, who alleged, as the pretext of
their crime, that "Ii Kamon No Kami had insulted the imperial
decree and, careless of the misery of the people, but making foreign
intercourse his chief aim, had opened ports." "The position of
the government upon the death of the regent was that of helpless
inactivity. The sudden removal of the foremost man of the empire was
as the removal of the fly-wheel from a piece of complicated machinery.
The whole empire stood aghast, expectin