Abe Masahiro (December 3, 1819, Edo (now Tokyo) - August 6, 1857, Edo) was the chief senior councillor ("rōjū") in the Japanese government at the time of the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry. Against the shogun's wishes, and the wishes of many other government officials, he worked to open Japan to the West, signing the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854, and other unequal treaties shortly afterwards. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Abe Masahiro. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Masahiro