Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/216

 assurances the Emperor issued the following rescript:—

The two Courts seemed to be now publicly pledged to an anti-foreign policy. Yet the issue of the rescript was regarded as a victory for Yedo. The Tairō himself knew, of course, that his opportunism had placed him in a position which might at any moment become impossible. He had sought to obtain the unconditional consent of the Emperor to the treaties, but finding that to insist would involve a final rupture between the sovereign and the Shōgun, he had accepted a compromise which not only represented him in a false light from the foreigners' point of view, but must also eventuate in serious embarrassment, unless preparations could be made to secure fresh concessions from Kyōtō before the real attitude of the Shogunate towards foreigners and the