Kome's Sense of Politics

The court was not provided with a Japanese language copy of the letter Perry arrived with until August 16. Shortly thereafter, the emperor's advisors met to consider what the letter meant. It would be some time before the foreigners became an all-consuming issue for Kome. The mother of Emperor Meiji Nakayama Yoshiko Tokil ordered diviners to exercise her demons and Buddhist monks to read sutras in her name.