the country more than a year, he makes this entry: "Among the mysteries of this mysterious land, none is more puzzling to me than this Mikado." In 1858, after his treaty had been agreed upon, he records the great contempt with which the Mikado was spoken of by the Yedo officials, who claimed that he was "a mere cipher." And yet, when the authorities found it necessary to send his treaty to Kioto for approval, he began to suspect that the Shogun's government was an empty sham, and that the real ruler of Japan was the Mikado.[1]
The first few years after the treaties of 1858 were times of disorder and violence. Even the life of Mr. Harris was threatened while the negotiations were in progress. In 1859, during the visit of a Russian fleet, one of its officers and two men were killed in the streets of Yokohama. Early in 1860 an interpreter of the Russian legation was mortally wounded, and the captains of two Dutch vessels were hacked to pieces. In March, Ii, the regent of the Shogun, who had caused the treaties to be signed, was assassinated for the alleged reasons that he was "making foreign intercourse his chief aim," and had insulted the Mikado's decree. Then Mr. Heusken, the useful and worthy secretary of the United States legation, was murdered in the streets of Yedo in January, 1861. The next year the British legation was attacked by a foreign-hating mob and two of the British guards were killed. Bands of lawless men, ronins, were abroad stirring up
- ↑ Harris's Journal, 122, 270, 313; Chamberlain's Things Japanese, 385.
