Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/203

 eigners. Full accounts of all these incidents have already been published.

This treaty was the signal for an outburst of national indignation. The former conventions—the plural is used because Russia, Holland, and England had secured for themselves treaties similar to that concluded by Commodore Perry—had been of very limited scope: they merely opened three harbours of refuge to foreign vessels. It had been possible for the Shōgun's ministers to represent them in the light of acts of charity, and in that sense they had been understood by a large section of the nation. But the treaty of 1858 provided for the coming of foreign merchants, indicated places of residence for them, and definitely terminated Japan's traditional isolation. There could be no mistake about its meaning. Hence the announcement of its terms evoked fierce protests from all quarters, and a powerful anti-foreign agitation was organised with the Prince of Mito at its head.

Mito, ever since the days of its second feudal chief, the celebrated Kōmon, had been a nursery of anti-feudal politicians. At the time when the American ships cast anchor at Uraga, the fief was in the hands of Rekkō, a man scarcely second to Kōmon in ability and of far more radical views. It is doubtful whether Rekkō believed sincerely in the possibility of continued national seclusion. He certainly allowed his