In fact, Mizuno's bakufu had already made it clear that given a
choice between a Japan armed to the teeth and one helpless against
foreign attack, it would prefer the latter to the former, with its implicit
threat to internal stability. So much was apparent in a remarkable
exchange of letters between Tokugawa Nariaki and Mizuno's government
in 1843. "If you allow daimyo and shipowners to build stout
ships," Nariaki argued, "it will not cost you a copper," adding later
that to prohibit large ships simply because they might be misused was
"like forcing everyone to wear wooden swords because a madman has
unsheathed his in the palace." It was a reasonable point, but so, too,
was the counterargument: "If we permit everyone to build warships,"
read the bakufu rejoinder, "who can tell what evils may ensue? The
daimyo of the west country and elsewhere may begin to conspire and build unorthodox vessels; this will have a significant impact on our
administration of the law.