wishes of the Kyōtō conservatives by expelling foreigners from Japan within ten years. The embarrassments resulting from such a promise were more than sufficient to counterbalance any advantage that might have accrued from the reconciliation of the two Courts, and a further element of unrest was created by a widely entertained suspicion that the marriage represented the beginning of a plot to dethrone the Emperor. In truth, the situation was rapidly assuming a character that defied the feeble adjustments and compromises of the Shōgun's ministers. Kyōtō became the centre of disaffection. Thither flocked not only the genuinely anti-foreign agitators—the "barbarian expelling
party" (jōi-tō), as they were called,—but also the leaders of a much more formidable movement, which, having for its prime object the overthrow of the Shogunate, saw in the anti-foreign commotion an instrument capable of being utilised to that end. It would be an error to conclude that the promoters of the anti-Shōgun agitation were actuated solely by an intelligent perception of the evils of the dual system of government. Many of them assuredly detected its nationally weakening effects, their appreciation of that point having been quickened by a sense of the country's helplessness to resist the advent of foreigners. But the ruling motives with a large number were restless desire of change and hostility to
211
