Meantime, although there was no great outward show politically, the underground fires of revolution were silently gathering strength. The Tycoon had resigned his office—in fact abolished it—though he still in some inconsistent way claimed to be conducting affairs, and of course remained at the head of the Tokugawa clan. The Daimios, with Satsuma, Chōshiu and Tosa at their head, were said to be arming, and even to have established a camp at Ōsaka. The Tosa people asserted that the Tycoon, in his resignation, had only followed the advice contained in a memorial from their clan, dated in October, which they showed to Satow. The document advocated the establishment of a Parliament consisting of an upper and lower house, the erection of schools of science and learning in the great cities, and the negotiation of new foreign treaties. The emissaries of the Daimios were more than ever keen to obtain instruction in Parliamentary procedure. They were evidently all anxiety to stand well with us. [Illustration: OLD JAPAN. _From a water-colour drawing by C. Wirgman._] CHAPTER XXI JAPAN. CIVIL WAR On the 30th of November at daylight, Satow and I, in our usual characters as diplomatic stormy petrels, sailed for Ōsaka to make all preparations for the opening of that city and Hiōgo on the first day of that new year which was to come big with the birth of a new power and fraught with events as momentous, perhaps, as any that the history of the world has seen. We reached Ōsaka on the 3rd of December, and were at once plunged in the political whirlpool. Besides that we had to prepare quarters for the Minister and his staff and the mounted escort, with fifty men of the 9th Regiment. Much building of palisades, bonded warehouses, custom houses, etc., was going on at what was to be the future foreign settlement. This was going a little too fast, and we had to put a stop to any further work until the Ministers should arrive. They might have a good deal to say upon the subject, especially as to the palisades, which were not a very encouraging indication of the intentions of the Government to promote intercourse between West and East. On the 7th we had an interview with members of the Tycoon’s Council of State who were on their way to Yedo, and whom he had ordered to see us. We did not get much information out of them except that the Tycoon’s resignation was merely the carrying out of an intention formed long ago. We were not convinced, nor were we shaken in our belief that he had been driven to it by the persistent attitude of the clans.