Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/231

Rh example of this distrust—that the question of choosing a successor to the Shōgun Iyesada caused a political crisis which resulted in the removal of some of the chief officials of the Yedo Court and the accession of Ii Kamon-no-Kami to power. It has further been shown that Ii was a man of singular enlightenment and liberality, and that to his fearless action were due the conclusion of the first commercial treaty and the definite inauguration of foreign intercourse. Yet, three years later, the Foreign Representatives, in a memorandum explaining the state of affairs in Japan, saw in the crisis which called Ii to office nothing but "the disgrace and removal of the men who had been engaged in the original negotiation of the treaty," and the transfer of the administrative power to the anti-foreign party.

On January th,, Mr. Heusken, Acting Secretary and Interpreter of the United States Legation in Yedo, was set upon and assassinated by a band of rōnin in a suburb of the city. Ando was then charged with the conduct of foreign affairs on behalf of the Yedo Government—the same Ando whose habitual caution was that, if the rōnin wanted to shed blood, they should kill him, or kill even the Shōgun, rather than raise their hand against foreigners. Ando's statement to Mr. Townsend Harris, the United States Representative, after the murder of Heusken was: "It is a source