Shimo-no-seki and demonstrated Japanese helplessness to resist Western weapons. At the same time two youths of the Choshiu clan, Ito and Inouye[1] returning from England, whither they had been sent to study means of expelling foreigners, began to propagate vigorously among their clansmen the liberal convictions acquired on their travels. Choshiu, in short, was converted, as Satsuma had already been, and the advocates of national unification found at length an opportunity to bring the two clans together. They could not have succeeded, however, in engaging Satsuma to espouse any scheme hostile to the Tokugawa had not the latter's leading officials alienated the Satsuma chief, first by a display of groundless suspicion, and afterwards by deciding to send a second expedition against Choshiu, although Satsuma had been one of the leaders of the former expedition and had endorsed its results. These things had gradually cooled Satsuma's friendship towards the Yedo Court, and when, in 1867, the Shōgun Keiki obtained a rescript authorising the severe punishment of Choshiu, Satsuma secretly entered into an alliance with the latter. Capital as the incident was, its importance escaped the knowledge of the Yedo Court. But the Shōgun soon had ample evidence that among all the feudatories he could no longer count certainly upon the loyalty of more than three or four, the whole of
- ↑ See Appendix, note 44.
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