Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/267

Rh the rest having been estranged either by his treatment of the Chōshiu question or by his radical innovations.

It was at this juncture that Yōdō, chief of Tosa, a clan scarcely less important than either Satsuma or Chōshiu, addressed to the Shogun a remarkable memorial, setting forth the helplessness of the position in which the Yedo Court now found itself, and urging that, in the interests of good government and in order that the nation's united strength might be available to meet the contingencies of its new career, the administrative power should be restored to the Emperor. Yōdō was one of the great men of his time. Reference has been frequently made in these pages to the action taken or the attitude assumed by the "feudatories" at such and such a juncture. But it must be noted that the feudatories themselves—in other words, the feudal chiefs—exercised little influence on the current of events in Tokugawa days. From the Shōgun downward, the nobles were enervated, incompetent, and often semi-imbecile individuals, educated in such a manner as to be without perception of the world of men and things, and sedulously taught to indulge their sensuous proclivities at the sacrifice of every useful capacity or wholesome impulse. There were exceptions, of course. Nariaki and Rekkō of Mito, Shimazu Samuro of Satsuma, Shungaku of Yechizen, Kanso of Nabeshima,