The immediate result of this outrage by partisans of the _Jo-I_ or “Expulsion of the Foreigners” faction was a proclamation by the Emperor to the effect that attacks of the kind were infamous and detestable, and that a samurai guilty of a like offence in future would be first degraded and then decapitated as a malefactor by the common executioner, the head of the criminal to be exposed to public gaze for a prescribed period. And this proclamation had a wonderful effect, for it not only placed upon record the plain fact that deeds of such a character were abhorrent to the young ruler of the empire, but the punishment entailed by the indulgence in a crime of this kind was to the samurai of so terrible a nature, in respect of the degradation,—not the forfeiture of his own life—that there were subsequent to the issue of the imperial edict hardly any cases of assault on foreigners, and the antipathy to the _Kai-koku_ policy, which favoured the entry of the strangers, gradually diminished with the lapse of time. On the third day of the third moon,—at that time the old-fashioned mode of reckoning derived from China centuries before was in vogue,—the British minister again set out for the Dairi, and this time the journey was accomplished without mishap, his reception by the Emperor being of the most cordial kind. His Majesty expressed personally his horror of the proceedings which had debarred him from previously receiving the representative of Queen Victoria, and Sir Harry had every reason to be gratified by the evident concern manifested by the sovereign. The day was according to the old calendar a most auspicious one, being the Girls’ Festival or Sekku and the 26th of April by Western reckoning. The Gregorian calendar was adopted in Japan in 1872. Queen Victoria sent richly mounted swords to Goto and Nakai, bearing the inscription in each case—“From Victoria, Queen of England, in remembrance of the 23rd of March 1868.” As no more appropriate gift to a samurai of Japan than a fine sword could have been imagined, the recipients of these tokens of their prowess were individually delighted, and Count Goto of to-day, who is the son of Goto Shojiro, prizes the weapon in recollection of the skilful swordsmanship which enabled his father to save the British Minister’s life. That the combat was of the most determined character, in which assailants and defenders put forth all their strength and skill may be judged from the account given afterwards of the affair by Mr Nakai Kozo, who was for many years on the staff of the Foreign Office and a most witty and charming companion. “I was only able to see out of one eye, owing to the blood flowing from my wound in the head, but I kept on hacking away at the fellow in front of me, and at last saw that I had cut his head off, which I showed to Sir Harry to let him know that at least one of his assailants was duly accounted for.”