Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/264

Rh of the change that had come over the spirit of the time. The most bigoted of the exclusionists were now beginning to abandon all idea of at once expelling foreigners and to think mainly of acquiring the best elements of their civilisation.

Pressing for immediate settlement when Keiki became Shōgun were two questions, the trouble with Chōshiu and the opening of Hyōgō to foreign trade. In the eyes of the great majority of the feudatories, notably the Satsuma chief, the former problem was the more important; in the eyes of the Shōgun, the latter. Twice the Emperor was memorialised in urgent terms to sanction the convention providing for the opening of Hyōgo at the beginning of 1868, and at length he reluctantly consented. At the same time an edict was obtained imposing severe penalties on Chōshiu. The former provoked a fresh ebullition among the anti-foreign politicians; the latter had a result still more disastrous to the Tokugawa, for it united against them the great clans of Satsuma and Chōshiu.

This is one of the turning-points of Japan's modern history. A few words are needed to make it intelligible.

In spite of the generally hostile sentiments entertained towards each other by the Satsuma and Chōshiu clans, each comprised a number of exceptionally gifted men whose ambition was to join the forces of the two fiefs for the purpose of