a fact that many of Japan’s foremost statesmen were originally members of the Jo-I organisation, though it certainly is not from that to be inferred that they were at any period of their careers downright hostile to foreigners. The famous motto was adopted essentially as a matter of policy. Anxieties were multiplied for the Baku-fu when an Englishman, who formed one of a party out riding on the highroad between Yokohama and Yedo, was cut down and killed by swordsmen belonging to the retinue of the Prince of Satsuma. That was in September 1862, and it brought matters to a climax. The British Charge d’Affaires, Colonel Neale, demanded instant reparation, but though indemnities were paid to Mr Richardson’s relatives, both by the Shogun’s government and the daimio of Satsuma, the actual assailants escaped justice. A little while prior to this outrage the chiefs of Satsuma and Choshiu had united in a league for the “subjugation and expulsion of the Barbarians,” and as loyal retainers of their respective lords many of the men who have since been most prominent in the establishment of a new Japan were greatly embarrassed, for while their convictions led them to the adoption of every art and science that was likely to render Japan a strong nation, their strict obedience to their chieftain’s views would have entailed the complete abandonment of their hopes of profiting by the experience and knowledge of the Occident, since it would have involved a return to conditions which had prevailed in the years preceding 1853. Those Choshiu men in particular, who were known to favour the introduction of Western arts, went, therefore, with their lives in their hands, and one to whom reference will be made at a later stage, bears to this day the marks of cuts which he received in an attempt made upon his life by some of his fellow-clansmen, whose ideas on the subject of foreign intercourse were not identical with his own. I allude to Count Inouye, whose cheek was sliced by an antagonist’s weapon whilst he was stoutly defending himself against an altogether unexpected onslaught by a Yamaguchi samurai. The alliance of the two great Southern daimios for the repudiation of the treaties and the expulsion of aliens was not of a lasting character, nor was it intended, perhaps, that it should live long, for the object, no doubt, was to exert pressure on the Shogun rather than to wage war on the strangers. Nevertheless the attitude assumed towards foreigners, to be consistent, could not be other than one of hostility for the time being, and accordingly we find the lords of the two provinces named drifted soon afterwards into open defiance of the Occidentals’ naval power and the actions of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki, the first as a consequence of the daimio’s refusal to punish his people for the Richardson murder, and the second as the result of persistency in firing on passing European vessels, ensued, in 1863 and 1864. How far