Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/152

This era has been so named because it was marked by commotions, not merely between different factions among the Japanese, but also between Japanese and foreigners. The anti-foreign spirit that manifested itself in numerous assaults and conspiracies was so involved with internal dissensions that it is quite difficult to distinguish them. The assassination of Ii, the Shōgun's Prime Minister, who had the courage and the foresight to sign the treaties, was the natural sequence of the opening of three ports to foreign commerce. The conservative spirit, moreover, was still so strong that the Shōgun had to send an embassy, the first one ever sent abroad officially by Japan, to petition the treaty-powers to permit the postponement of the opening of other ports. The murder of Richardson, an Englishman who rudely interrupted the progress of the retinue of the Prince of Satsuma, was the pretext for the bombardment of Kagoshima; and the firing on an American vessel that was passing through the Straits of Shimonoseki was the excuse for the bombardment of Shimonoseki. About the middle of this period the Imperial sanction of the treaties was obtained, and a tariff convention was negotiated.