Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/202

 came silent. For three years and a half no presage could have been discerned of the storm destined soon to burst over the country. It seemed indeed as though the Shōgun's administration was about to enter upon a new era of stability, for Abe, with profound sagacity, succeeded in winning the alliance of the Tokugawa's hereditary enemy, the Satsuma chief, then the most powerful feudatory in Japan, by contracting a marriage between the latter's daughter and the Shogun, and further secured the loyal coöperation of the Prince of Mito, a man of exceptional capacity and reputation.

It is unnecessary to describe in detail how the first Consul-General of the United States in Japan, Mr. Townsend Harris, reached Shimoda in 1856; how he made his way to Yedo in 1857, in spite of strenuous official opposition; how he had audience of the Shōgun, and afterwards delivered in the house of the prime minister, Hotta, feudal chief of Bitchiu—the great Abe had died three months previously—a speech of six hours' duration, which brought a flood of light to the minds of his hearers, and won for the cause of foreign intercourse the permanent allegiance of a group of leading politicians; and how, finally, by adroit diplomacy in which the menace of a British fleet's probable arrival played a large part, he succeeded in concluding, in 1858, the first treaty that granted genuine commercial privileges to for-