Ouye-tsougi then received orders to rebuild also, at his cost, the grand entrance to the same temple. As this new expense would have entirely ruined him, he begged to be dispensed from it, but at first without effect. Fortunately he was related to the prince of Owari, who interested himself in his behalf, and who, having sent for Fota-sagami-no-kami, ordinary counsellor of state, represented to him that it was unjust to require such heavy sacrifices from a prince possessing so little power and property, and above all to impose on him a fresh burden, after he had just borne one that was so oppressive. He therefore insisted that Ouye-tsougi should be relieved from the charge of rebuilding the entrance. Fresh arrangements were in consequence made, and the task was transferred to the prince of Kokera.
The grooms of the prince of Owari[1] had rendered themselves formidable by the outrages which they committed publicly, and in open day, upon those who happened to offend them. In the 11th month of the fourth year Foreki (1754), a man, going alone, and without attendant, met eight of these grooms in the street at Sinagawa. He happened unfortunately to jostle one of them. The latter loaded him with abuse, which he bore with patience, at the same time begging pardon for what had happened; but they all fell upon him and beat him unmercifully. The wretched man could scarcely crawl to the guard-house, where he stated that he was in the service of Misou-no-yamassiro-no-kami, and that having gone out upon urgent business, he had fallen in with a troop of villains, who had reduced him to the state in which he appeared; adding, that he could not walk, and desiring to have a palanquin to carry him to his master's house, where he died soon after his arrival.
Yamassiro loved his servants and his soldiers as his children. Incensed at this atrocity, he caused strict search to be made for the discovery of the perpetrators, and having ascertained that they were Owari's grooms, he repaired to the palace of the prince, informed him of what had happened, and
- ↑ On the south coast of Nifon, to the south-east of the great lake, which is called in Chinese, Phi-pha-hou.
