Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/216

 tern of law. The example thus set by the four great barons produced an epidemic of imitation. Out of the two hundred and seventy-six feudatories then borne on the feudal role, only seventeen failed to make a similar surrender.

A more picturesque incident could scarcely be conceived, nor one less consistent with the course that human experience would have anticipated. Here and there in the pages of history may be found names of men memorable for patriotic altruism, but nowhere can be found another instance of such a wholesale spirit of self-sacrifice as that displayed by the feudal chiefs of Japan. It is difficult to analyse the motives that swayed them. In the case of Shimazu, Daimyō of Satsuma, and Yodo, Daimyō of Tosa, the act must be frankly placed to the credit of noble patriotism. These were men of intellect and ambition. The exercise of power had been a reality to them, and the pain of surrendering it must have been correspondingly keen. But their coadjutors, the chiefs of Chōshiu and Hizen, obeyed the suggestions of their principal vassals with little if any appreciation of the probable cost of obedience. The same remark applies to all the other feudatories with rare exceptions. Long accustomed to abandon the management of their fiefs to seneschals and leading clansmen, they followed the familiar guidance at this crisis without serious thought of consequences. The great majority of them, indeed, were so little