That the government regarded such outrages with alarm is certain. They took the earliest opportunity to express their distress that the legation under their protection had thus been invaded. They assured Mr. Alcock with the most pitiable sincerity that “they had no power of preventing such attacks upon the legation, nor of providing against a renewal of the same with a greater certainty of success.” “They could not,” they said, “guarantee any of the representatives against these attempts at assassination, to which all foreigners in Japan were liable, whether in their houses or in the public thoroughfares.”(285) They pretended to punish, and yet were afraid openly to punish the persons engaged in this attack.(286) They promised to do what they could for the protection of the foreign representatives; but their measures necessarily consisted in making the legations a kind of prison where the occupants were confined and protected. And yet, with all these assurances of danger, the foreign representatives seem to have been singularly ignorant of the real difficulties with which the government had to deal. This was due, no doubt, to the want of candor on the part of the Japanese officials in not explaining frankly and fully to them the political complications which existed between the governments of Yedo and Kyōto. They represented a widespread discontent to have grown up since the negotiation of the treaties, owing to the increased price of provisions, the derangement of the currency, and the danger of famine. In view of these pressing difficulties they asked for the postponement of the time fixed by the treaties for opening a port on the western coast and Hyōgo on the Inland sea, and for the establishment of definite concessions in the cities of Yedo and Ōsaka. These modifications of the treaties were finally accepted, and it was arranged that the opening of the ports named above should be postponed for a period of five years from the first of January, 1863. This postponement of the opening of the ports was the chief reason for sending to foreign countries their first embassy. This set out from Yokohama in January, 1862, and visited the United States, then England, and the other treaty powers. They were everywhere received with the utmost kindness and distinction. The immediate object of their mission was, as we have seen, accomplished. The opening of additional ports was deferred on condition that in those already opened the obstacles which had been put in the way of trade should be removed.