insist on execution of the sentences. The Bizen men were marching from Okayama to Osaka at the time when they allowed their anti-foreign ideas to outrun their discretion, the actual order to fire on the foreign residents being given by one Heiki Tatewaki, whose death was decreed by imperial edict and the then Governor of the port, the present Marquis Ito, was directed as his Majesty’s representative, to see the act of seppuku carried out in due form. [Illustration: THE ARMS MUSEUM AT TOKIO] But there were worse troubles to follow, for when, in the month of March, Sir Harry Parkes went to Kioto on the invitation of the Emperor, to attend, in company with the Ministers of France and Holland, the first imperial audience of the reign of Meiji, he and his retinue were suddenly attacked in a public thoroughfare there, by two outlaws, of the “ro-nin” type already described, and the British representative had personally a very narrow escape. But for the magnificent courage shown by the Japanese officers who had been sent to meet the Emperor’s guest, Goto,—who rode by Sir Harry’s side, and Nakai,—who was immediately in front, with a member of the Legation guard,—both of these Japanese gentlemen having instantly engaged the ro-nins with their swords so effectually that one of the assailants was slain on the spot, and the other taken prisoner, afterwards to be executed, it is probable that Sir Harry would have been killed. The eminent services rendered by Count Goto (as he afterwards became) to his country are elsewhere recorded in this volume. Queen Victoria decorated him, and likewise Mr Nakai, for their gallantry on this occasion, and the Emperor manifested his poignant regret for the outrage when the following month the British Minister was received at Court. The Ten-shi gave practical effect, moreover, to his abhorrence of these crimes by issuing a decree in which it was declared that all persons guilty in the future of murdering foreigners, or of committing any acts of violence towards them, would not only be transgressing the express commands of the Emperor, but would be the direct source of national misfortune, inasmuch as they would be committing the heinous offence of causing the national dignity and reputation for good faith to suffer diminution in the eyes of those Treaty Powers with which his Majesty had declared himself to be on terms of amity and friendship. The effect of such an edict on the minds of people so accustomed to obey their sovereign’s behests as are the Japanese could not be other than salutary, and although there were isolated cases in the years which ensued wherein attacks were made on strangers, the era of opposition to the entry of aliens was by this time practically at an end, and taken in conjunction with the abolition shortly afterwards of those anti-Christian edicts which had been promulgated by his predecessors on the throne it must be admitted that the Emperor speedily gave gracious and convincing