In 1609 and 1611 Ieyas granted the Dutch the right of trading all over the island, but his son, Hidetada, being suspicious of their good intentions, closed all harbours to them, excepting those of Hirado and Nagasaki in the island of Kiu-Siu, and, furthermore, prohibited the Japanese from leaving their country under any pretext. From 1637 the Dutch and the Chinese alone were authorized to trade in Japanese waters, and then only through the port of Nagasaki. Confined within the narrow limits of the island of Deshima, condemned to submit to the most abject humiliations, and never allowed to go ashore excepting once a year on a special mission to Yedo, when they conveyed presents to the Shogun, before whom they had to crawl upon their hands and knees, the agents of the Dutch East India Company entertained with Japan commercial relations of the scantiest kind. With this sole exception, Japan, which had acted in so liberal a manner towards foreigners, became in a short time a sealed book to the outer world. CHAPTER II JAPAN AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1868 Progress demoralized in Japan under the Shoguns Tokugawa—Imperial Court, Mikado and _kuges_, feudal society, Shogun, Daimios, _samourai_, and people—Foundation of the political régime—Military preponderance of the Shogun—Seclusion of the Mikado—Divisions among the Daimios—Exclusion of strangers—Artistic development and economy—Progress of civilization—Decline of the Shogunate—Position of Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century—Foreigners begin to re-enter the country in 1854—Scandal created by the opening of the ports—The Court and the clans in the south-west provinces hostile both to Western civilization and the Shoguns—Fall of the Shogunate—Restoration of the Mikado and introduction of European civilization. We have already seen that the Emperor, or Mikado, was deprived of all authority, and retained only the outward attributes of his Imperial dignity. He dwelt in his palace of Gosho surrounded by 155 _kuges_, or noble families, all of whom were descended from the Imperial house, but whose duties were merely ceremonial. In order to prevent any possibility on their part of the _kuges_ interfering with him, Ieyas reduced the Court to absolute poverty. He fixed the civil list of the Mikado—according to custom, in kind—at 9,000 _kokus_,[15] or 44,550 bushels of rice; as to the _kuges_, many of them lived in the most straightened circumstances. To still more completely isolate the Mikado the feudal princes were never on any pretext allowed to enter Kioto.