Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/243

Rh of foreign complications. So crushed, however, was the spirit of the Yedo officials that instead of stoutly repudiating this extravagant interpretation of their Prince's title, they advised him to apologise for his failure to discharge the duty it indicated; and they carried their placating system to the length of removing from the governing body any ministers disapproved by the Kyōtō Court.

Throughout all their temporising simulations of anti-foreign purpose, the Shōgun's advisers placed their trust in time. They believed that before the necessity arose to give practical effect to their pretended policy, some method of evasion would present itself. But the Kyōtō conservatives resolved to defeat that scheme of procedure. They induced the Emperor to issue an edict in which, after alluding to the "insufferable and contumelious behaviour of foreigners, to the loss of prestige and honour constantly menacing the country," and to the sovereign's "profound solicitude," His Majesty openly announced the Shōgun's promise to make full preparations for expelling foreigners within ten years, and declared that, in order to secure the unity required for achieving that purpose, an Imperial Princess had been given to the Shōgun in marriage. This edict was in effect a commission warranting every Japanese subject to organise an anti-foreign campaign. It publicly committed the Yedo Court to a policy which the latter had neither power