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Inouyé and Ito knew only too surely what Iwould be the end of this. Less than six months ago they had left their prince as deeply imbued as he was with the conviction of the irresistible power of a Japanese clan, if it could only meet on equal terms with the forces of Great Britain. They were now hundreds of years in advance of their master in respect of knowledge. Their first and immediate duty was to go back to Japan and warn their prince of the hopelessness of the struggle upon which he had embarked. Like Saul of Tarsus, they had set forth on their journey full of anger, hatred, and contempt of "these new men," who disturbed the peace and order of the old régime. They would go back like Paul, humble and convinced of the power they had despised, and would hereafter become the foremost apostles of the Western civilization, to whose repulse from their shores they had devoted their young lives.

They called upon Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and Co., and explained the peremptory need of their return. But the members of the eminent and practical firm only shook their heads. These young Japanese had been consigned to their care with other goods from Japan. They were labelled "students," and

Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, & Co. had put them in the way of study: till fresh orders were received, they could not reship them for any port. This was a serious rebuff. But the two young Japanese had grown accustomed to rebuffs, and had already formed a habit of disregarding them. Their beloved prince was in peril, their country was in danger; they had but one duty to perform, which was with the least possible delay to return to their rescue. Since there were no other means of obtaining a passage, they, profiting by their experience on the Pegasus, shipped before the mast as common seamen, and, making the long voyage by the Cape of Good Hope, reached Shanghai in safety.

The next thing was to get to Japan, an enterprise even more difficult than the journey from Europe to Asia. They shrewdly suspected that the British Minister at Pekin would gladly accept their good offices in furthering the settlement of the difficulties their hot-headed prince had created. They appealed personally and directly to Sir Rutherford Alcock; told him of their conviction of the utter uselessness of the Prince of Chosiu's kicking against the pricks, and of their urgent desire to come face to face with him, and report the result of their observations in England.

The British Minister, touched by this mixture of simplicity and shrewdness, ordered Admiral Keppel, then in command of the British fleet in the Chinese seas, to land them as near the camp of the prince their master as was practicable. As soon as they got ashore they hastened to the prince, earnestly besought him to desist from a hopeless conflict, and in part succeeded in stopping him in his mad career. But they were more truly representatives of Japanese opinion when, eight months earlier, they had left the country in search of means to trample on the foreigner. The prince himself was helpless to stem the course events were taking. He had raised a spectre which he could not lay at will. As for the new and unexpected emissaries of peace, it fared hardly with them. Ito had to hide himself from popular indignation; Inouyé, falling into the hands of the angered samurai, was slashed, hacked, and left for dead by the roadside. He had just sufficient strength to crawl to his mother's house, where he was nursed back to life and carefully hidden. But to this day he bears on his face a memento of the terrible night.

Within four years of these events the inevitable end had come. The power of the Tycoon had crumbled to pieces. The

Mikado was restored to actual authority; the feudal system which had brought about this result in its turn miraculously melted away; and after a transformation scene the like of which has never before been enacted in the history of the world, Japan found itself under something approaching to constitutional government. In the growth of popular liberty, and, concomitantly, of national prosperity, which has since invigorated Japan, the hapless sailor apprentices have borne the principal share. The lessons they learned in Gower Street in 1864 have not faded from their memory. Abandoning all notions of conquering England, they determined as far as possible to imitate her. They have introduced into Japan railways, telegraphs, a postal service, and a thorough system of education. The dream of their early youth has been realized to the extent that Japan now has a navy of first-class ships, though their guns are not loaded to keep off foreigners. On the contrary, foreigners are welcomed throughout Japan, and foreign trade flourishes at half a dozen open ports.

The policy of the present Government, of which Mr. Ito and Mr. Inouyé are the founders and the sustaining forces, is deliberately and persistently directed towards extending this

VOL. II.

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sound and liberal movement. They are prepared to throw the whole of the country open to foreign trade, just as England is opened. But they ask that the work should be accomplished on something like the same conditions as it is rendered possible in this country. They demand that foreigners trading within the empire shall be subject to its laws, whilst they are willing to have those laws administered in the case of foreigners under conditions, as to the personnel of the tribunes, which shall secure the certainty of justice. As a preliminary to this state of things, there has lately been promulgated in Japan an adaptation of the Code Napoléon which has drawn forth encomiums from several eminent European jurists.

In addition, Japan demands some slight revision of the import duties, which, it is contended, do not, as at present imposed by treaty, leave to the Government of the country the bare means of subsistence, compelling them to make up deficiencies by increased charges upon their own people. Those treaties were exacted from an ignorant and irresolute Tycoon standing between the devil and the deep sea, having English, French, and Dutch ships thundering at the gates of Kobé, and around him the chiefs of the clans protesting

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