The newly appointed Shogun had had abundant opportunities of observing the gathering disposition of his countrymen to seek the restoration of the sovereign to the direct rule of his dominions and the abolition of the system of government by delegate which had for two and a half centuries prevailed. The transfer of the active duties of government to the hands of the real monarch had become a matter easy of accomplishment, moreover, by reason of the fact that the policy of the Kioto Government and that of the Shogun no longer differed in respect of the treatment of the foreigners who sought to establish intimate diplomatic and commercial relations with Japan. In January 1867, the Emperor Komei fell a victim to smallpox, five weeks after he had appointed Tokugawa Keiki to the office of Shogun. Though the Bakufu was declining rapidly, the hour had not arrived for its final extinction, but no one could better judge of the hopelessness of the situation, perhaps, than the Shogun Keiki, who had for several years acted as guardian to the late occupant of the position, and had been also Minister of Justice (Giyobukiyo) in the time of Iyesada. Despite the patriotic willingness of the Shogun Keiki to recognise from the very outset the need which was beginning to be felt of a thoroughly unified administration, the northern clans, which had been faithful to the Tokugawa house and had ever made its cause their own, were far from being reconciled to the reorganisation of the government as it was sought to constitute it, and appealed to arms against the domination of the Satsuma and Choshiu combination that had by this time obtained vast influence at Court. Civil war followed, but the strife was desultory in character until the later months of the year, by which time the Shogun had satisfied himself of his inability to effectively chastise the recalcitrant lord of Choshiu, and was compelled to accept defeat. As, moreover, his position as Shogun was manifestly under such conditions intolerable, he tendered to the Emperor his resignation of the office that had been in his family for 264 years. The Prince of Tosa had returned to his castle at Kochi in October 1867, and had written to the Shogun in the following terms:— “It appears to me that although the government and penal laws have been administered by the military class ever since the Middle Ages, yet since the arrival of foreigners we have been squabbling amongst ourselves, and much public discussion has been excited. The East and the West have risen in arms against each other, and civil war has never ceased, the effect being to draw on us the insults of foreign nations. The cause of this lies in the fact that the administration proceeds from two centres, and because the Empire’s ears and eyes are turned in two different directions. The march of events has brought about a revolution and the old system can no longer be obstinately persevered in.