Keiki, known historically as Yoshinobu, the last of the shoguns, was a man of matured intellect and high capacities. He had been put forward by the anti-foreign Conservatives for the succession to the shogunate in 1857 when the complications of foreign intercourse were in their first stage of acuteness. But, like many other intelligent Japanese, he had learned, in the interval between 1857 and 1866, that to keep her doors closed was an impossible task for Japan, and very quickly after taking the reins of office he recognized that national union could never be achieved while power was divided between Kioto and Yedo. At this juncture there was addressed to him by Yodo, chief of the great Tosa fief, a memorial setting forth the hopelessness of the position in which the Yedo court now found itself, and urging that, in the interests of good government and in order that the nation's united strength might be available to meet the exigencies of its new career, the administration should be restored to the emperor. Keiki received this memorial in Kioto. He immediately summoned a council of all the feudatories and high officials then in the Imperial city, announced to them his intention to lay down his office, and, the next day, presented his resignation to the sovereign. This happened on the 14th of October 1867. It must be ranked among the signal events of the world's history, for it signified the voluntary surrender of kingly authority wielded uninterruptedly for nearly three centuries. That the shogun's resignation was tendered in good faith there can be no doubt, and had it been accepted in the same spirit, the great danger it involved might have been consummated without bloodshed or disorder. But the clansmen of Satsuma and Choshu were distrustful. One of the shogun's first acts after assuming office had been to obtain from the throne an edict for imposing penalties on Choshu, and there was a precedent for suspecting that the renunciation of power by the shogun might merely prelude its resumption on a firmer basis. Therefore steps were taken to induce the emperor, then a youth of fifteen, to issue a secret rescript to Satsuma and Choshu, denouncing the shogun as the nation's enemy and enjoining his destruction. At the same time all officials connected with the Tokugawa or suspected of sympathy with them were expelled from office in Kioto, and the shogun's troops were deprived of the custody of the palace gates by methods which verged upon the use of armed force. In the face of such provocation Keiki's earnest efforts to restrain the indignation of his vassals and adherents failed. They marched against Kioto and were defeated, whereupon Keiki left his castle at Osaka and retired to Yedo, where he subsequently made unconditional surrender to the Imperial army. There is little more to be set down on this page of the history. The Yedo court consented to lay aside its dignities and be stripped of its