effect that the orders which had been received by the Shogun from Kioto were peremptory, and required the closing of the recently opened ports. The foreigners were to be driven out, because the people of Japan were not desirous of holding intercourse with foreign countries. The Minister added that the discussion of this subject had been left to him “by his Majesty,” by which term was meant the Shogun, who had figured in the early treaties,—that for example made by the Earl of Elgin on behalf of Queen Victoria, dated 26th August 1858,—as “his Majesty the Tycoon of Japan.” The Shogun’s government was at this time trying to sit on two stools simultaneously, for while the notification was given to the foreign representatives in obedience to the orders received from Kioto there was palpably no intention of giving effect to them in any shape, even had the Bakufu then possessed the strength requisite to bring about the strangers’ exclusion. On this point the presence of war vessels at Yokohama warranted the Bakufu officials in entertaining serious doubts. At all events the Shogun’s Government soon afterwards had to express regret for the deplorable affair near Tsurumi, on the highroad from Yokohama to Yedo, when an Englishman lost his life, and in offering an apology the Bakufu expressed a hope that nothing might again arise to imperil the friendly relations between Britain and Japan. When it was urged that the murderers should be brought to justice the Bakufu was fain to acknowledge that it had not the power to punish the Satsuma clan which had been guilty of the crime, and thereupon Admiral Kuper was sent to Kagoshima to bombard the Satsuma chieftain’s forts. The engagement took place on the 11th of August, a fortnight before the Elgin treaty was signed at Yedo, the breach between the Shogun and the southern clans being at that time practically complete. The bombardment spurred the Satsuma clan to the attainment of greater military strength, for their leaders were quick to grasp the importance which Satsuma would acquire, in connection with those coming events which even then were casting long shadows athwart the political path, by being first in the field with approximately efficient naval and military forces. Western appliances were imported and foreign inventions largely drawn upon to increase Satsuma’s effective strength, and from being hostile to foreigners the attitude of the clansmen became almost friendly, a circumstance that was partly due, it may have been, to the consciousness of the Satsuma leaders that in spite of their antiquated weapons they had made no mean fight of it when assailed in their stronghold by the modern British ships of war.