spirit which the Shogunate aroused was turned against itself, and the Shogunate proved unable to steer through the crisis at last. At first the opinion of the educated class of the nation was conflicting, but a few were eager to see the necessary overthrow of the regime of the Shogun. The great part gradually concurred in denouncing the incapacity of the Shogunate to fulfil by itself the task which it was called upon to accomplish. Still many were in favour of supporting the Shogunate in order to enable it to carry through its traditional policy of seclusion. Some advocated even the closer union of the Shogunate with the Imperial court, which was now beginning to become again the influential political centre of the nation in opposition to the power at Yedo, so that there might have been a fear of the two powers coming into collision. The conclusion, however, of the treaty with the United States in 1858, and subsequently with other powers, bitterly disappointed these sincere friends of the Shogunate and emboldened its adversaries. Hitherto those who had diametrically opposed the Shogunate were men who had never been in any position politically responsible. In other words, they were doctrinaires, and not men of action, so that there could be no serious danger to the Shogunate so long as they contented themselves only with arguing about national affairs in highflown language. But the disappointment which the Shogunate gave to its friends, turned them into sympathisers with the radical opponents. The danger was thus shifted from foreign relations to the serious internal question, whether the Shogunate should be allowed to exist any longer or not. Those who wished for the revival of the imperial prestige or the overthrow of the existing regime, whatever form the revolution might take, wielded as their forcible weapon to attack the Shogunate the denunciation that the sacred Land of the Gods had been opened to the sacrilegious tread of hairy barbarians, and their slogan was so persuasive that it led the imperial court at Kyoto to issue an order urging the Shogunate to repudiate the already concluded treaties and to return to the time-honoured seclusion policy, a task of utter impossibility. To this august command from Kyoto, the Shogunate could but respond very obsequiously, being intimidated somewhat by the loud clamour of these conservative patriots. Or it may be said that the military government succumbed to the combined force of the court-nobles and the territorial politicians. The marriage of the fourteenth Shogun to one of the sisters of the Emperor Komei, in the year 1861, though concluded for the sake of the rapprochement of the Imperial court and the Shogunate, did not prove so serviceable in saving the tottering edifice of the Tokugawa regime as had been expected. Finding that the power and the resources of the Shogunate were inadequate to perform the duty which it had pledged itself to accomplish, Yoshihisa Tokugawa, the