Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/229

Rh truly willing to implement its treaty engagements, was compelled by the exigencies of domestic policy to simulate an attitude of unwillingness; and many of the samurai, honestly solicitous for the national safety, endeavoured to restore the traditional isolation by throwing obstacles in the path of smooth intercourse, and by acts of violence against the persons and property of foreigners. Such conditions were not calculated to inspire trustfulness. But it must be admitted that there was little inclination to be trustful. The Foreign Representatives and foreigners in general seem to have approached the discussion of Japanese problems with all the Occidental's habitual suspicion of everything Oriental. It will readily be conceived, for example, that after the assassination of the Tairō, Ii, no little concern was felt by the Yedo Government. They perceived a strong probability that the desperate men who had wrought the deed, or their equally desperate comrades, might turn their swords against foreigners. The danger of such a contingency was made real by intelligence that six hundred rōnin had banded themselves together, and, led by the Mito samurai, were about to attack the foreign settlement at Kanagawa and the Legations in Yedo. All possible precautions were at once taken by the Japanese officials. New barriers were erected, additional guards were posted, and warnings were conveyed to