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A NAVAL BATTLE. 357
blood and slaughter. That the Americans left the
helpless men unharmed when canister-shot and
carbine volleys could have dyed the waters red with
an awful loss of life, forcibly impressed certain Jap-
anese officers. The Christian idea of humanity,
and the moral courage of McDougal in calmly trying
such odds, alike impressed them even more than did
his physical courage. In the ordinary valor of brave
men the Japanese fall behind no people on earth.
They laugh at death and despise fear; but in the
higher levels of duty, in moral courage, in the ten-
derness of heart that in the Christian ideal is linked
with daring, the old samurai's ideal of Yamato
Damashii was conspicuously defective.
Meanwhile, adopting American arms, tactics, and
even clothing, the Choshiu clansmen set themselves
in undying opposition to the Tycoon and his author-
ity. Little as they knew it, they were beginning
the destruction of feudalism and of old
With Satsuma, Tosa, Hizen, Echizen, Mito,
Japan.
Owari,
and a few other clans, they were setting their faces
toward the New Japan, civilized, social, constitu-
tional, and Christian.