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They were the real rulers of Japan, though for convenience' sake, and with the object of preventing one or other of their fellows from usurping the emptied throne, they were content to do homage to the Tycoon. But when he thus proved faithless to all traditions of the country, some of them resolved to assert the personal independence which had always existed in fact. Foremost amongst these hot-headed chieftains was the Prince of Chosiu. He swore a great oath that, let the Tycoon do what he pleased and make such treaties as he thought fit in Tokio, the province of Chosiu should be held free from the contaminating touch of the foreigners. If the foreigners entered his territory, they should incontinently be slain. If foreign ships appeared off his coasts, they should be fired upon; to which end he built and armed forts.

Amongst his retinue were two young men of twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, one named Ito and the other Inouyé. They were of the samurai class, and their sagacity and courage had, even at this early age, raised them high in the counsels of their prince. They were daring enough to offer him advice, and when he talked of keeping the foreigners off with his puny forts, they gloomily

shook their heads. They had seen British ships at anchor in Yedo Bay, and had heard the roar of their guns.

"If," they said to the hot-headed chieftain, you should succeed in driving off an English vessel by the fire from your forts, what then? Within a week or two, others of greater strength would steam up, and in an hour you would not have a stone standing on another. The only thing to do is to beat England on her own ground: we must learn to sail ships and fight them, and with a fleet of our own we shall be able to keep our coast inviolate."

The prince listened to reason from these young but trusted counsellors, and a notable scheme was hatched. These two men, with three others of the same age and standing, were to go to England, to spy out the land, master the great secret of naval supremacy, bring it back to Japan, straightway create a fleet, and then let England, the United States, and France look out.

The first difficulty in realization of this plan barred the start of the young patriots. It was at this time a capital offence for any Japanese to attempt to leave the country without the permission of the Tycoon. The Tycoon, however, was not a man to be trusted.

He was gradually selling his birthright for successive messes of pottage, and patriotic Chosiu would have nothing to do with him. Japan should be saved in spite of him. In this dilemma young Inouyé came forward with his plan. He had often been down to Yokohama, watching with glowing eyes the evidences of the strength, activity, and, he was bound to admit, the intelligence of the detested foreigner. He had even scraped a personal acquaintance with some of them, amongst others a Mr. Gowen, then consul at Yokohama. What particular story he told this gentleman in order to induce him to assist in his escape I do not know. It is pretty certain that he did not tell him that he and his comrades were going over to England with the expressed purpose of taking preliminary steps for humbling the pride and power of Great Britain, and blowing its navies out of the sea. However that be, he induced the consul to ship them in the dead of the night in the guise of common sailors to Shanghai, where they could take a passage for England. The Prince of Chosiu had raised £1000 to meet the expenses of their expedition, a sum placed to their credit with the house of Jardine, Matheson, and Co., one of the pioneers of British trade in Japan.

Everything went well as far as Shanghai; but here a hitch occurred. Three of the party duly sailed as passengers, and reached England after a more or less pleasant voyage. Ito and Inouyé met with quite another fate. Being questioned as to their desires and intentions, Inouyé expended the greater part of his store of English in declaring that he "wanted to learn navigation." His heart was full and his mind engrossed by the object of his mission. Knowledge of navigation was the secret of England's greatness, and the foundation of the power which enabled her to be overbearing and insolent in Japan. He and his dear friend Ito would go and study navigation in its chief school. They would come back and spread it through Chosiu. Then should the star of the British Empire on the seas pale, and who knows but what it would be found worth while that Great Britain should be annexed, and should be even as Yezzo, or one of the countless islands that stud the Inland Sea?

Accordingly, when asked what they wanted to do, Inouyé answered, "Navigation;" and that being all the answer to be got out of him, he and his comrade were shipped as common sailors on board the good ship Pegasus, bound for the port of London. They

did not discover this till Shanghai had become a dim streak on the horizon, and they found themselves buffeted about, ordered in an unknown tongue to do impossible things. How they got through the voyage it is difficult to understand, though Mr. Inouyé, looking back at the episode from the eminence of the Foreign Office, talks of it pleasantly and cheerily. The sailors called him "Johnny," and the bo'sun had a keen eye to a sum of fifty dollars they happened to have with them when they went on board. Strange games of cards were played in the forecastle, in which they were invited to join. If they refused, they were thrashed; if they played, they lost their money. After a brief period of hesitation, during which their heads began to swell and their backs ached, they decided to lose their money. This once settled, they led quite a pleasant life. The sailors took pains to teach them their business, and, with the natural aptitude of the Japanese, they speedily became able seamen.

"I never see a sailing ship now," the Foreign Minister said, as he told me the story, "but I find myself scanning the rigging and running off the names of the ropes and spars, as I used to do on the Pegasus."

When they arrived in the port of London,

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