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AMERICAN DIPLOMACY IN THE ORIENT

and assumed his duties in the height of the agitation against foreigners. When his legation was burned, he took up his residence in another house and refused to leave the capital, although his European colleagues had withdrawn to Yokohama, where they were under the protection of their men-of-war. Finally the government informed him that it could no longer protect him, and he was escorted by a large armed force to a Japanese steamer and taken to Yokohama. He secured from the Shogunate a payment of $10,000 to the mother of Mr. Heusken, the murdered secretary of legation; also $10,000 for losses on account of the burning of the legation; and various other sums for injuries suffered by American citizens and vessels. He, however, sought to exercise the utmost moderation in his attitude towards the government, and carried his friendly spirit so far as to awaken the suspicion of the British and some other ministers of his complicity with the Japanese.[1]

The Mikado's party had become so strong as to lead the Shogun to obey the summons to Kioto to confer with the emperor, a visit which was without precedent in the past three centuries. From Kioto the Shogun issued an order, which was delivered to the foreign representatives, "to the effect that the ports are to be closed and the foreigners driven out, because the people

  1. U. S. Dip. Cor. 1861, 1862, 1863, subject, "Japan"; Nitobe, 75; 1 Reed's Japan, 255–267; Rein's Japan, 349; Alcock, vol. 1, chaps, xi., xiv., xvi., xvii., vol. 2, chaps, ii., iii., viii.; Griffis's Mikado, 591; 1 Adams's History of Japan, 138, etc.; The Story of Japan, by David Murray, New York, 1894, p. 344. For Prince Ii, The Life of Ii Naosuki, by Shimada Saburo, Tokio, 1888.