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318 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
While the view we have stated was the honest
opinion of many Japanese of the years 1858-60, it
must be remembered that to a few progressive men
then, and many of them now, it was not a true judgment
upon
li Kamon no Kami, whose motives were
not bad. He sincerely loved his country, and wished
to open it peacefully to western civilization. The
foreign vessels, British, Dutch, Russian, and French,
were now visiting the coast of Japan in increasing
numbers, and nearly all of them demanded that
treaties should be made. Above all, Mr. Townsend
Harris, the American minister, who had come from
Shimoda to live permanently in Yedo, visited frequently
the headquarters of the premier, and demanded
that the Yedo government should hurry
up the authorities in Kyoto to take immediate action
and make a commercial treaty. The prime minister,
being afraid that some accident would happen by
which Japan would be involved in war, as were China
and India, and be invaded or conquered, determined
himself to expedite matters. In fact, he resolved to
do this if necessary even at what seemed to be the
expense of all propriety, and in defiance of the opinion
of men who thought themselves as well able to
judge as himself. He therefore put his seal and
signature to a new treaty, without the sanction of the
Mikado. He knew that the Japanese were not then
prepared to resist the pressure brought upon them.
When the prince of Echizen, and other lords who
were blood relations
of the Tycoon, found out that
" the swaggering prime minister " had made a treaty