Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/240

Rh elicited frequent complaints from foreigners, and helped to confirm their rooted suspicion that the Government sought to place every possible obstacle in their way, with the ultimate object of inducing them to turn their backs upon Japan, as the first English colonists had turned their backs on it early in the seventeenth century. In short, all the circumstances of Japan's renewed intercourse with foreign nations tended to accentuate the traditional conservatism of one side and the racial prejudice of the other.

The death of the Prince of Mito, which took place in the autumn of 1860, gave another blow to the already frail fabric of the Shoguns Government, for although this remarkable nobleman had acted a part inimical to the Yedo Court, his influence upon the turbulent samurai had been wholesome. He had succeeded in restraining them from acts of violence, especially against the persons of foreigners, and when his powerful hand was withdrawn, the situation became more uncontrollable, and the lives and properties of foreigners began to be exposed to frequent perils. A brief gleam of sunshine fell upon the Shōgun's cause when he received the Emperor's sister in marriage in 1861. But in order to effect this union of the two Courts, the Yedo statesmen had fresh recourse to their dangerous policy of duplicity and temporising; they pledged themselves to comply with the