The treatment accorded to the adherents of the Tokugawa cause when hostilities finally ceased in the spring of 1869, was marked by a generosity as wise as it was unlooked for. In Japan up to that time little consideration had been shown to the defeated party in civil wars. The defeated side, moreover, in opposing the Imperialists had earned the unfortunate title of rebels (_Chōteki_), reserved for those who took up arms against the Crown. In this instance moderate counsels prevailed. The territories of the daimiō of Aidzu, the backbone of Tokugawa resistance, and those of another northern chieftain, were confiscated; eighteen other daimiōs were transferred to distant fiefs with smaller revenues; while in a few cases the head of a clan was forced to abdicate in favour of some near relative. Retribution went no further. Later on, when the feudal system was abolished, the same liberality was displayed in the matter of feudal pensions, being especially noticeable in the case of two large sections of the military class, the _Hatamoto_ and the _Gokénin_, who formed the hereditary personal following of the Tokugawa Shōguns. The generosity shown by the Government led to much discontent in the military class in many clans. This was notably the case in Satsuma, where there were other grounds for dissatisfaction. The position of the Satsuma clan had always been somewhat different from that of other clans. Its situation at the south-western extremity of the kingdom, far from the seat of authority, had favoured the growth of an independent spirit, and the clan had long been noted for warlike qualities. Though subdued by the military ruler who preceded the Tokugawa Shōguns, and professing fealty to the Tokugawa House, the clan had preserved an appreciable measure of importance and prestige, if not independence, which the Shōguns in question had been careful to respect. The previous head of the clan had before his death in 1859 adopted as his heir his brother’s son, then a child of five years. The affairs of the clan had been to a large extent controlled ever since by this brother, Shimadzu Saburō, a name familiar to foreigners in connection with the outrage which led to the bombardment of Kagoshima; but he was in poor health, and at the time when the new Government was formed the control of clan matters had largely passed into the hands of the elder Saigō, a man of commanding personality, whose daring defiance of the Tokugawa authorities in the stormy days preceding the Restoration had made him a popular hero, and of other influential clansmen. Both Shimadzu and the elder Saigō were thorough conservatives, opposed to all foreign innovations. But there was a strong progressive group in the clan led by such men as Ōkubo and the younger Saigō, who were far from sharing the reactionary tendencies of the older leaders. This division of feeling in the clan was one of the causes of the dissensions in the ministry which