A succession of murders and outrages occurred, which awakened the fears of the foreign residents. It is plain enough now that this state of things was not so much due to the want of effort on the part of the government to carry out its agreements with foreign nations, as to the bitter and irreconcilable party hatred which had sprung up in consequence of these efforts. The feudal organization of the government, by which the first allegiance was due to the daimyō, rendered the condition of things more demoralized. It was an old feudal custom, whenever the retainers of a daimyō wished to avenge any act without committing their lord, they withdrew from his service and became _ronins_. Most of the outrages which occurred during the years intervening between the formation of the treaties and the restoration were committed by these masterless men. Responsibility for them was disclaimed by the daimyōs, and the government of Yedo was unable to extend its control over these wandering swash-bucklers. There was no course for the foreign ministers to pursue but to hold the shōgun’s government responsible for the protection of foreigners and foreign trade. This government, which was called the _bakufu_,(279) had made the treaties with the foreign powers, as many claimed, without having adequate authority, and had thus assumed to be supreme in matters of foreign intercourse. It was natural therefore that the representatives of the treaty powers should look to the _bakufu_ for the security of those who had come hither under the sanction of these treaties. It was in consequence a bloody time through which the country was called to pass. The prime minister and the head of the _bakufu_ party was Ii Kamon-no-kami,(280) the daimyō of Hikoné in the province of Mino. On account of the youth of the shōgun he was created regent. He was a man of great resolution and unscrupulous in the measures by which he attempted to carry out the policy to which he was committed. By his enemies he was called the “swaggering prime minister (_bakko genro_).” Assured that the foreign treaties could not be abrogated without dangerous collisions with foreign nations, he sought to crush the opposition which assailed them. The daimyō of Mito, who had been the head of the anti-foreign party at Yedo, he compelled to resign and confined him to his private palace in his province. Numerous other persons who had busied themselves with interfering with his schemes and in promoting opposition in Kyōto, he also imprisoned. Suddenly on the 23d of March, 1860, Ii Kamon-no-kami was assassinated as he was being carried in his _norimono_ from his _yashiki_ outside the Sakurada gate to the palace of the shōgun. The assassins were eighteen _ronins_ of the province of Mito, who wished to avenge the imprisonment of their prince. They carried the head of the murdered regent to the Mito castle, and after exhibiting it to the gloating eyes of the prince, exposed it upon a pike at the principal gate.