A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

From 1836 onward, through successive years, one bad harvest followed another until the prices of rice and other cereals rose to unprecedented figures. The Bakufu were not remiss in their measures to relieve distress. Free grants of grain were made in the most afflicted regions; houses of refuge were constructed where the indigent might be fed and lodged during a maximum period of 210 days, each inmate receiving in addition a daily allowance of money which was handed to him on leaving the refuge, and this example of charity was obeyed widely by the feudatories. It is on record that twenty thousand persons availed themselves of these charitable institutions in Yedo alone. One particularly sad episode marks the story. Driven to desperation by the sight of the people's pain and by his own failure to obtain from wealthy folks a sufficient measure of aid, although he sold everything he himself possessed by way of example, a police official, Oshio Heihachiro, raised the flag of revolt and became the instrument of starting a tumult in which eighteen thousand buildings were destroyed in Osaka. In a manifesto issued before committing suicide in company with his son, Heihachiro charged the whole body of officials with corrupt motives, and declared that the sovereign was treated as a recluse without any practical authority; that the people did not know where to make complaint; that the displeasure of heaven was evinced by a succession of natural calamities, and that the men in power paid no attention to these warnings.

The eleventh shogun, Ienari, after fifty-one years of office, resigned in favour of his son, Ieyoshi, who ruled from 1838 to 1853. Ienari survived his resignation by four years, during which he resided in the western castle, and, under the title of o-gosho, continued to take part in the administration. As for Ieyoshi, his tenure of power is chiefly notable for the strenuous efforts made by his prime minister, Mizuno Echizen no Kami, to substitute economy for the costly luxury that prevailed. Reference has already been made to this eminent official's policy, and it will suffice here to add that his aim was to restore the austere fashions of former times. The schedule of reforms was practically endless. Expensive costumes were seized and burned; theatres were relegated to a remote suburb of the city; actors were ostracized; a censorship of publications checked under severe penalties the compilation of all anti-foreign or immoral literature, and even children's toys were legislated for.

At first these laws alarmed people, but it was soon found that competence to enforce was not commensurate with ability to compile, and the only result achieved was that splendour and extravagance were more or less concealed. Yet the Bakufu officials did not hesitate to resort to force. It is recorded that storehouses and residences were sealed and their inmates banished; that no less than 570 restaurants were removed from the most populous part of the city, and that the maidservants employed in them were all degraded to the class of "licensed prostitutes." This drastic effort went down in the pages of history as the "Tempo Reformation." It ended in the resignation of its author and the complete defeat of its purpose.

TOKUGAWA NARIAKI

Contemporaneous with the wholesale reformer, Mizuno, was Tokugawa Nariaki (1800-1860), daimyo of Mito, who opposed the conciliatory foreign policy, soon to be described, of Ii Naosuke (Kamon no Kami). Nariaki inherited the literary tastes of his ancestor, Mitsukuni, and at his court a number of earnest students and loyal soldiers assembled. Among them were Fujita Toko (1806-1855) and Toda Tadanori, who are not less remarkable as scholars and historians than as administrators.

RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES

Japan now began to make the acquaintance of American citizens, who, pursuing the whaling industry in the seas off Alaska and China, passed frequently in their ships within easy sight of the island of Yezo. Occasionally, one of these schooners was cast away on Japan's shores, and as a rule, her people were treated with consideration and sent to Deshima for shipment to Batavia. Japanese sailors, also, were occasionally swept by hurricanes and currents to the Aleutian Islands, to Oregon, or to California, and in several cases these mariners were sent back to Japan by American vessels. It was on such an errand of mercy that the sailing ship Morrison entered Yedo Bay, in 1837, and being required to repair to Kagoshima, was driven from the latter place by cannon shot. It was on such an errand, also, that the Manhattan reached Uraga and lay there four days before she was compelled to take her departure. It would seem that the experiences collected by Cooper, master of the latter vessel, and published after his return to the United States, induced the Washington Government to essay the opening of Japan. A ninety-gun ship of the line and a sloop, sent on this errand, anchored off Uraga in 1846, and their commander, Commodore Biddle, applied for the sanction of trade. He received a positive refusal, and in pursuance of his instructions to abstain from any act calculated to excite hostility or distrust, he weighed anchor and sailed away.

GREAT BRITAIN AND OTHER POWERS

In this same year, 1846, a French ship touched at the Ryukyu archipelago, and attempted to persuade the islanders that if they wished for security against British aggression, they must place themselves under the protection of France. England, indeed, was now much in evidence in the seas of southern China, and the Dutch at Deshima, obeying the instincts of commercial rivalry, warned Japan that she must be prepared for a visit from an English squadron at any moment. The King of Holland now (1847) intervened. He sent to Yedo a number of books together with a map of the world and a despatch urging Japan to open her ports. This was not done for Japan's sake. The apparent explanation is that the trade at Deshima having ceased to be worth pursuing, the Dutch East India Company had surrendered its monopoly to the Netherlands Government, so that the latter's advice to Japan is explained. But his Majesty's efforts had no immediate result, though they doubtless augmented Japan's feeling of anxiety.

Twelve months later, the Preble, an American brig under Commander Glynn, anchored off Nagasaki and threatened to bombard the town unless immediate delivery was made of fifteen foreign seamen held by the Japanese for shipment to Batavia. The castaways were surrendered, and Commander Glynn found evidence to prove that Japan was by no means ignorant of American doings in Mexico, and that she was beginning to comprehend how close the world was approaching her shores. Once again in the following year (1849), the King of Holland wrote, telling the Japanese to expect an American fleet in their waters twelve months later, and to look for war unless they agreed to international commerce. This was no empty threat. The Washington Government had actually addressed to European nations a memorandum justifying an expedition to Japan on the ground that it would inure to the advantage of all, and the King of Holland appended to his letter a draft of the treaty which would be presented in Yedo. "All these things render it obvious that in the matter of renewing their relations with the outer world, the Japanese were not required to make any sudden decision under stress of unexpected menace; they had ample notice of the course events were taking."