Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/247

Rh and they carried submissiveness to the length of punishing many of their ablest officials and stanchest partisans on the ground that the serenity of the Imperial mind had been disturbed by their procedure. Historians indicate the year 1867 as the date of the fall of the Shogunate, because the administrative power was then finally restored to the Emperor. But it may be asserted with greater accuracy that the Shogunate fell in the year 1862, when the Yedo Court made the radical surrender here indicated. Nor was that the only mistake. The Shōgun's ministers, underestimating the value of the Satsuma chief's friendship, paid no attention to his advice, nor took any care to strengthen his good disposition by courteous treatment. He recommended that the Shōgun should decline to proceed to Kyōtō, and should reject all proposals pointing to the expulsion of foreigners; but the Yedo Court neither heeded his counsel nor showed towards him the same consideration that they had displayed to the Chōshiu chief, with whom his relations were notoriously strained.

It was thus with feelings considerably estranged that the Satsuma chief set out on his return journey to Kyōtō. On the way an incident happened which was destined to have far-reaching consequence. A party of British subjects, three gentlemen and a lady, persisted in an attempt to ride through the Satsuma chief's cortège, ignorant that the custom of the country