A few months after the death of Iemochi, on the 3d of February, 1867, Emperor Kōmei also died from an attack of small-pox. He is said to have been strongly prejudiced against foreigners and foreign intercourse, and it was claimed at the time of his death, that when he sanctioned the foreign treaties the divine nature left him to fall a prey to the ravages of ordinary disease. His son Mutsuhito, then in his fifteenth year, succeeded him and is now the reigning emperor, the one hundred and twenty-first of his line. [Illustration] The Reigning Emperor. It was thought that the death of an emperor of strong prejudices and of a mature age would naturally favor a more complete control by the new shōgun. It was not to be anticipated that an emperor, still only a youth, would pursue the same policy as his father, and undertake to assume a real and active part in the government of his country. But the shōgun and his friends underrated the influences which were gathered at Kyōto, and which now went far beyond an anti-foreign sentiment and were chiefly concerned with schemes for restoring the imperial power and unifying the form of government. The daimyō of Tosa, who was a man of liberal sentiments and of great penetration, addressed a letter to the shōgun in October, 1867, in which he frankly says: “The cause [of our trouble] lies in the fact that the administration proceeds from two centres, causing the empire’s eyes and ears to be turned in two different directions. The march of events has brought about a revolution, and the old system can no longer be persevered in. You should restore the governing power into the hands of the sovereign and so lay a foundation on which Japan may take its stand as the equal of other countries.”(310) [Illustration] Imperial Crests.