Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/218

 mistaken by the Ansei judges for bonds of political conspiracy. They were directed to convict, and they convicted. The Yedo Court, under Ii's guidance, had concluded that the elements engaged in misleading the Throne must be ruthlessly crushed, and from the point of view of public expediency, they doubtless acted wisely. But the impression produced upon the public at large was that many zealous patriots had been done to death or disgraced, and it will readily be conceived that these things did not detract from the unpopularity of foreign intercourse.

Some decisive measure had now to be adopted with regard to the Imperial edict mentioned above; that is to say, the edict issued at the instance of the anti-foreign party when the news reached Kyōtō that the sovereign's indication had been disregarded in the matter of the accession to the Shogunate and that a treaty had been concluded with foreign Powers. The edict had been practically superseded, as shown above, by a later rescript, declaring union between Yedo and Kyōtō and temporarily sanctioning the treaty. Moreover, it had not been publicly promulgated. The original document, conveyed secretly to the Mito mansion in the Koishikawa suburb of Yedo, had been carried thence to Mito, and placed in the ancestral tomb of the family, where a strong body of samurai guarded it night