He ordered Terasawa, governor of Nagasaki, to assemble all the Jesuits and ship them off by the first convenience to China. This, in truth, seems to have been the only resource left to him if he wished to retain the government of the country, or to preserve it from once more undergoing all the horrors of a civil war. If he had heard of the doings of Philip II. in the Netherlands during the few years since the first arrival of these foreign priests in Japan, he might have learned lessons of more decided measures for refractory subjects, and have carried out his wishes in ridding Japan of them by a more summary method of persecution. During the summer of 1598 Taikosama was attacked by dysentery, and was so ill that his life was despaired of. His son (real or supposed) was then about six years of age. He saw that, in all probability, the power, after leaving his own hands, would fall into those of Iyeyas, now ruler of the eight provinces around Yedo. He therefore determined to strike up a family alliance between his son and the granddaughter of Iyeyas, thinking he would thereby induce the latter to throw his whole weight into the scale on behalf of his own grandchild and her husband, and that thus the power would descend to his own family. The marriage was immediately celebrated; and Iyeyas swore that he would turn the government over to Taiko’s son so soon as he was able to rule by himself. Still further to strengthen the party of his son, he appointed five governors of the country (as Gotairo), and four others, to be about the boy, with instructions to obey Iyeyas, to acknowledge his son as sovereign so soon as he came of age, to continue all the lords in their places as he had appointed, and to oppose all innovations on the laws now established. To strengthen the position of his son still further, he appointed boards of officers, Tchiuro and Goboonyo, or five rulers. On his deathbed, such little animosity as he may have had toward the foreign priests seems to have been mitigated, as he sent for, or allowed, Father Rodriguez to visit him, when he thanked the father for the trouble he had taken in visiting him in health as well as in sickness. A temporary amendment enabled him to rouse himself, when his chief thoughts ran upon strengthening the citadel of Osaka, where 17,000 houses were pulled down to build the wall, which was a league in circuit. He only survived a few days, dying upon September 15, 1598; all his nobility, according to the fathers, “being much better pleased to see him on the list of dead gods than in the land of living men.” CHAPTER V GOVERNMENT OF IYEYAS With the removal of Taikosama, the hopes of the Roman Catholic party revived. Once more the keystone of the arch was removed, and the ordinary institutions of the country were found unequal to the crisis.