Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/252

Rh time, couriers arrived almost daily, urging that unless the Shōgun returned at once to settle the complication with the British, war could not be avoided. The extremists welcomed the prospect. Nothing could have suited them better than that a British fleet should demolish the last vestiges of the Yedo administration. They have just been seen stipulating that the Shōgun should return to his capital within a fixed number of days for the purpose of expelling foreigners. But now that there was a prospect of his destruction being furthered by holding him in Kyōtō, they held him there. An Imperial decree was published directing that if the "English barbarians" wanted a conference, they should be invited to repair to Osaka harbour, there to receive a point-blank refusal; that the Shōgun should remain in Kyōtō to assume the direction of defensive operations, and that he should accompany the Emperor to the shrine of the God of War, where a "barbarian-quelling sword" would be handed to him.

Under such circumstances, the Shōgun had recourse to the last refuge of the helpless: he fell sick; and Yedo, being thus left to its own resources, chose the only practicable route, paid the indemnity demanded for the Richardson murder, and left the British to exact from Satsuma whatever further redress they deemed necessary. This the British did so effectually, in July (1863), that all idea of measuring strength with the Occident disappeared completely from