In the third year of the Bunkio era, which was that corresponding to A.D. 1863, Sakuma was invited to visit Kioto, then the centre of learning, as indeed it had ever been, and the city in which dwelt the absolute monarch of Japan, the Ten-shi himself, but again he rejected all overtures to change permanently his place of abode. The following year the title of the era was altered to Genji, so often from one cause and another was it desirable at that period to change these era names. Once more Sakuma was urged to go south, and this time he consented to make the journey to the ancient capital, arriving there in the spring of 1864. It was at that epoch that the latent animosity to foreigners, begotten of racial prejudice and ill report combined, reached its height, and attacks on strangers were not at all infrequent, both in the capital and the provinces. “Loyalty to our Emperor, and expulsion of foreigners” was the cry that animated the masses of the people, who were totally incapable, no doubt, of judging for themselves, and were urged to deeds of violence by the specious arguments of skilled agitators, unable to form any conception of the ignominy that a policy of deliberate persecution was certain to entail for their country. Kioto became infested with men of the “ro-nin” class, outlaws by choice, having obtained from their feudal lords permission to detach themselves from their masters’ service and to become free-lances prepared to undertake deeds of violence for which the barons to whom they ordinarily owed allegiance should not be held responsible to the State. It mattered little whether the “ro-nin” had been dismissed from his lord’s employ for some personal shortcoming or had sought temporary or permanent leave of absence. His lord was no longer liable for what might occur. And it was not in Kioto alone that these men had assembled, for Yedo was almost equally in favour with them as a convenient lurking-place, and the persons and property of foreigners were often assailed, to the extent that life became most insecure. Within a brief space of time a whole series of assassinations took place, including the killing of Mr Richardson on the Tokaido seven miles from Yokohama the slaughter of Dankichi, an interpreter to the American Embassy, of Mr Heusken, attached to the British Embassy in a similar capacity, and of several others. The chapter is so painful a one in Japanese history, and Japan so long ago repented in sackcloth and ashes for the crimes of which her people were then guilty, that it is needless to offer, and would perhaps be ungenerous in an English-reading public to demand, a detailed account to-day of these deplorable occurrences. Suffice it to say that Sakuma himself, for the ostensible reason that he firmly adhered to his opinion,—despite the opposition of a numerous and powerful body of his fellow-countrymen who advocated the abrogation of the treaties and the return to a policy of complete isolation,—that the