On the 10th of December, 1614, Cocks, the English resident at Hirado, wrote to Saris that, since his departure, the emperor had banished all Jesuits, priests, friars, and nuns out of Japan, and had pulled down and burned all their churches and monasteries, shipping them away, some for Macao and others for Manila; that old King Hōin was dead, on which occasion three of his servants had cut themselves open to bear him company, according to a common Japanese fashion of expressing attachment and gratitude; that a civil war had broken out between the emperor and his imprisoned son-in-law; and that all Ōsaka, except the castle, where the rebels were entrenched and besieged, had been burned to the ground. Yedo had also suffered exceedingly by a terrible “tuffon” or hurricane, which the Christians ascribed to the judgment of God, and the pagan Japanese to the conjurations of the Jesuits. Sayer, another of the English Company, wrote, December 5, 1615, that the emperor had got the victory, with the loss—doubtless exaggerated—of four hundred thousand men on both sides. The death of Ōgosho-Sama,[101] in 1616, left his son Shōgun-Sama sole emperor. He continued to reside at Yedo, which, thenceforth, became the capital. He diligently followed up the policy of his three predecessors,—that of weakening the particular kings and princes so as to reduce them to political insignificance; nor does it appear that, from that time to this, the empire, formerly so turbulent, has ever been disturbed by civil wars, or internal commotions. He also began that system of foreign policy since pushed to such extremes. The English, by a new version of their privileges,[102] were restricted to the single port of Hirado, while the new emperor positively refused to receive a present from the viceroy of New Spain, or to see the persons who brought it. [Illustration: THE TOMB OF IYEYASU, NIKKŌ]