Reference has already been made to the constant anxiety of the Court to keep foreigners away from the neighbourhood of the Capital. The sensation created, therefore, by the appearance of foreign ships of war in the Bay of Ōsaka can readily be imagined. It was a repetition of what had occurred when Perry came. The action taken by the Court was the same. The demands of the foreign representatives were referred, as in Perry’s case, to a council of feudal nobles. These having concurred in the view already put forward by the Shōgun, and strengthened by his offer to resign, should this be desired, the Court intimated its intention to accept the advice. When, however, the necessary decree was issued, it was found to contain a clause making the sanction dependent on the alteration of certain points in the treaties which did not harmonize with the Imperial views, and insisting on the abandonment of the stipulation for the opening of Hiogo. The decree was duly communicated to the foreign representatives. But the Shōgunate in doing so, baffled it may be by the task of endeavouring to reconcile Imperial instructions with the fulfilment of Treaty obligations, or using, perhaps unconsciously, the disingenuous methods of the time, concealed the clause which robbed the sanction of much of its force. The treaties were sanctioned, it explained, but the question of the port of Hiogo could not be discussed for the moment. As for the tariff, instructions would be sent to Yedo to negotiate the amendment desired. This omission on the part of the Shōgunate to represent things as they really were misled foreign governments, and caused serious misunderstanding in the sequel. The promise regarding the tariff was duly kept. It was fulfilled in the following year (1866) by the signature in Yedo of the Tariff Convention. A point to be noted in this instrument is the declaration regarding the right of individual Japanese merchants, and of daimiōs and persons in their employ, to trade at the Treaty Ports and go abroad, and trade there, without being subject to any hindrances, or undue fiscal restrictions, on the part of the Japanese Government or its officials. Its insertion was due to the determination of foreign governments to put an end to official interference with trade—a relic of the past, when all foreign commerce was controlled by the Shōgunate—and to their wish, in view of the reactionary measures threatened by the Court, to place on record their resolve to maintain the new order of things established by the treaties. Owing to the Shōgunate’s monopoly of foreign trade, which was what its control had virtually amounted to, the profits of commerce had swelled the coffers of the Government to the detriment of clan exchequers—a feudal grievance which was not the least of the causes responsible for hostility to the Yedo Government, and, indirectly, for anti-foreign feeling.