“During this time the Bakufu borrowed the name and authority of the Emperor to hide the traces of thefts of lands and men, being forced to use the Imperial name as a screen, since the relations and duties of the vassal to his lord cannot be laid aside after ten thousand years. Now the Great Government has been newly restored, and the Emperor in person undertakes the direction of affairs. This is indeed a rare and mighty event. We have the name of an Imperial Government: we must also have the fact. Our first duty is to illustrate our faithfulness and to prove our loyalty. When the line of Tokugawa arose it divided the country among its kinsfolk, and there were many who thus founded the fortunes of their families. They waited not to ask whether the lands and men that they received were the gift of the Emperor. For ages until this day, they continued to inherit these lands. Others said that their possessions were the prize of their spears and bows, as if they had broken into store-houses and stolen the treasures that they contained, boasting to the soldiers round them that they had done this regardless of their lives. Those who break into store-houses are known by all men to be thieves, but those who rob lands and steal men are not looked upon with suspicion. How are loyalty and faith confused and destroyed! Now that men are looking for an entirely new Government, the Great Body and the Great Strength must neither be lent nor borrowed. “Our dwelling-place is the Emperor’s land: the food which we eat is grown by the Emperor’s men. How can we call it our own? We now reverently offer up the list of our possessions and men, with the prayer that the Emperor will take good measures for rewarding those to whom reward is due and for mulcting those to whom punishment is due. Let the Imperial commands be issued for altering and remodelling the territories of the various clans. Let the civil and criminal codes, the military laws down to the rules for uniform and the construction of engines of war, all proceed from the Emperor; let all the affairs of the Empire, great and small, be referred to him. After this, when the internal relations shall be upon a true footing, the Empire will be able to take its place side by side with the other countries of the world. This is now the most urgent duty of the Emperor, as it is that of his servants and children. Hence it is that we, in spite of our own folly and vileness, daring to offer up our humble expression of loyalty upon which we pray that the brilliance of the heavenly Sun may shine, with fear and reverence bow the head and do homage, ready to lay down our lives in proof of our faith.”