For fifteen years prior to its extinction the foreign policy of the Tokugawa Shogunate had been that which was found acceptable to the Emperor Mutsuhito on his accession, thus the necessity for the “Tycoon’s” intervention to secure imperial recognition for the treaties was no longer apparent, and it was inevitable that the position he held should eventually become untenable, apart from all other considerations of political exigency. The predominance of the Bakufu as a military despotism attained its zenith, to judge by the available history of the period, in the days of Iyemitsu, and in proportion as the individual strength and influence of the numerous feudal barons who owed it allegiance were found to increase, the real power of the Tokugawa house steadily diminished. While it lasted, however, the Bakufu did much to render Japan a prosperous country, studiously fostering the arts of civilisation in general, and diligently seeking to promote secular education. It established academies as far back as 1857 for the study of foreign languages and science, supplemented by a school of medicine in 1858. III FUJITA TOKO Outside the Japanese Empire the name of Fujita Toko is but little known, yet he undoubtedly exercised an influence which tended greatly towards the making of Modern Japan, if only by reason of his pronounced hostility to the Regency of the Bakufu and his steadfast, unwearying inculcation of the doctrines of loyalty to the real sovereign and constant preparation for national defence. That he was in advance of his age is clear, for he lived in an era when Japan was secluded from the outer world, and was mainly dependent on such information regarding it as filtered through from Holland by way of the Dutch settlement at Nagasaki. Fujita was a renowned Chinese scholar and teacher of the classics, born in the third year of the Bunkwa period (1806), at Mito, in eastern Hondo, the seat of one branch of the Tokugawa family which for 250 years virtually ruled the country from Yedo. Mito is distant from the capital some fifty-five miles by railway, and is now the chief town of the Ibaraki prefecture, with a population of about 35,000, but in the time of Fujita it was accessible only by road through Tsuchiura, a town at the extremity of the large inlet or lagoon named Kasumi-ga-ura which penetrates from the Pacific a long way inland just to the north of Cape Inuboye. Mito itself is about twelve miles from the coast and is a flourishing agricultural centre, famed for its output of barley, beans, millet, and buckwheat. Tobacco is also extensively cultivated in this region, which is at the present day in the enjoyment of exceptional facilities of communication, for sea-going steamers call at Choshi, an anchorage at the mouth of the river Toné, close to Cape Inuboye, and smaller craft ply between Choshi and the towns situated along the Toné or on the shores of Kasumi-ga-ura, in addition to the branch railway from Oyama on the main line to the