demanded the heads of the eight culprits. Owari admitted that his resentment was just; he declared his readiness to give him satisfaction, but said that he never would consent to sacrifice eight lives on account of the murder of one man. Yamassiro, still more exasperated by this answer, insisted on his demand, protesting, that unless he obtained complete justice, he would rip himself up before the face of the prince, and that his death would not go unrevenged. Owari, seeing that he was resolute, promised to satisfy him, and Yamassiro assuring him that he would not retire till the culprits were punished, the eight grooms were brought forth and their heads struck off. This example made their comrades more circumspect.
Though a prince is a sovereign in his own palace, and possesses absolute power over his subjects and dependents, yet he is equally at the disposal of the Djogoun with the meanest of them. Their secretaries, therefore, are in a state of continual anxiety, during the time of their residence at Yedo. Some of them have been known to cause the heads of their servants to be cut off for the slightest faults. Such was the case, about ten years since (1772), with Ki-no-tchounagon, prince of Kidjo, and a kinsman of the Djogoun's. This prince committed many cruelties, and sometimes put to death three or four persons with his own hand in one day. His mother having once severely reproached him for his barbarity, he clapped his hand to his sabre, but his people ran up and confined him in a distant apartment. As the Djogoun had not sufficient power to depose him, he applied to the Daïri, who immediately divested him of the title of Tchounaiçon. When he had thus become an ordinary prince, the Djogoun sent him a written order purporting that he deprived him of his title, and that since he was incapable of governing his province, he forbade him to quit Yedo. His uncle, a petty prince, with an income of five mankokf (£25,000), was intrusted with the government, till his adopted son should be of ae-e to succeed him; he then received orders to rip open his belly. At the Djogoun's it was asserted that he died a natural death.
