On the 6th of November 1868, when the British Minister, the late Sir Harry Parkes, was reviewing the British garrison at Yokohama, a Japanese equestrian, wearing the native robes of white silk which befitted his rank as a _kuge_ or Court noble,—his horse led by two grooms or “bettos,” and attended by forty soldiers in blue serge uniforms, with black cloth caps,—a man of slight physique, and particularly juvenile in appearance,—sat placidly in his saddle watching with an interested air the movements of the foreign troops as they executed a series of evolutions and marched past the representative of Queen Victoria. The visitor, who had come from Tokio to attend the review, was Prince Sanjo, the first Prime Minister of Japan, and leader of the newly formed Government of the Restored Imperial Rule. A few minutes later Sir Harry, with a well-turned compliment on the skill of Japanese swordsmen, and a graceful acknowledgment of his indebtedness personally to the valour of one of their number, handed to the Japanese statesman the sword sent by the British Queen for presentation to Mr Nakai Kozo, in memory of the day when Nakai and Goto Shojiro, as is elsewhere related at length, saved the life of the British Minister when he was attacked by outlaws in the streets of Kioto in March of the same year. Prince Sanjo passed on the gift to Mr Nakai with his own congratulations to the recipient on the performance of a brilliant feat of arms, and thus closed an incident that served to remind those present of an exceptionally stormy period in the history of the nation, and which happily was then giving place to comparatively settled conditions. Prince Sanjo had come from Kioto to Yedo, thenceforward to be the capital of the Empire under the title of Tokio, in the month of June, in attendance on the Emperor, who then removed to the former headquarters of the Shogunate and gave to the place its new name. Sanjo was at that time _Fuku-Sosai_, ranking next to the Emperor’s uncle, Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, who occupied in the first administration formed under the Restored Imperial regime the position of _Sosai_—_i.e._ Supreme Director of the Government. The decisions of the So-sai were unchallengeable, and it was an office which only a prince of the blood might hold. Sanjo had always, even during the lifetime of the present Emperor’s father, sided with those who recognised the need of reforms, and when, in the autumn of 1868, the Department of the So-sai was abolished and the Dai-jo-kwan, or Supreme Governing Council, was constituted, thus resuscitating an ancient advisory body that had had a prior existence in the eighth century, he succeeded to the post of president, or _Dai-Jo-Dai-Jin_, thereof, and occupied it from that time forth until the dissolution of the Council on the reconstitution of the Government in the year 1886. [Illustration: PRINCE SANJO SANETOMI]