A panic.... Japanese envoy.... a counter demand.... Chinese troops arrive.... rioters captured.... the Regent kidnapped.... the Queen returns.... Foreign Office.... von Mollendorf.... minting.... American Minister.... various innovations.... special envoy to the United States.... the American farm.... treaties.... liberal and conservative parties drift further apart.... Pak Yung-hyo’s attempted reforms.... school for interpreters.... fears of the progressive party.... a crisis imminent.... understanding with the Japanese.... the dinner at the Post Office.... attempted assassination.... confusion.... Liberal leaders hasten to the palace.... Japanese called in.... conservative leaders put to death.... official changes.... Chinese demands.... the fight in the palace.... the king goes over to the Chinese.... liberals killed.... the Japanese retire to Chemulpo.... indemnity.... executions.... Japanese terms.... hospital.... missions.... Tientsin convention.... corruption.... von Mollendorf dismissed.... China takes over the customs.... Judge Denny engaged as adviser.... obstacles put in his way.... government English School.... mission schools.... Minister to the United States.... the “baby war.”

A few days after the flight of the Queen a rumor was circulated to the effect that a large body of men belonging to the peddlar’s guild had congregated outside the East Gate and were about to enter and loot the city. A panic seized the people, and men, women and children might be seen flying in all directions, some out into the neighboring country and some up the steep sides of the surrounding mountains. The gates being all locked the people forced the South Gate and the two West gates and thus made good their escape. The king himself was affected by the rumor and leaving the palace sought safety at the house of Yi Che-wan. But the panic ceased as quickly as it had begun, and within three hours the people were returning to their homes again. The extreme haste with which the people tried to get away is illustrated in the case of one old man who seized his little grand-son, as he supposed by the hand, and fled up a mountain but found to his dismay that he had taken the boy by the leg rather than by the hand and that the little fellow had succumbed to this harsh treatment.

On the fifth of the seventh moon Count Inouye arrived in Chemulpo as Japanese envoy and immediately sent word to have a high Korean official sent to Chemulpo to discuss the situation. Kim Hong-jip was sent, and as a result the Korean government was asked to pay an indemnity for the lives of the Japanese who had been killed. It appears that besides the Japanese military instructor five or six others had been killed, also a considerable amount of Japanese money had been seized and destroyed at the Japanese headquarters. The indemnity was placed at a million cash apiece for the Japanese who had fallen. This amounted to something like $2,500 each, a ridiculously small sum, but perhaps all the Japanese thought they could get. The ex-Regent replied that if the Japanese demanded this indemnity the Korean government would feel obliged to levy a tax upon all Japanese merchants doing business in Korea. This was practically a refusal to pay the indemnity and the envoy took his departure.

Hardly had he left before a Chinese force 3,000 strong arrived at Nam-yang off the town of Su-wun. They were commanded by Generals O Chang-gyung, Wang Suk-ch’ang, Ma Kun-sang and by a lesser officer named Wun Se-ga who was destined to play a leading part from this time on. These troops came, it can hardly be doubted, at the request of the conservative party and it was from this hour that that faction turned unreservedly towards China and gave the latter occasion for beginning a series of encroachments upon Korea’s practical independence which ended in the China-Japan war. These troops encamped all about the capital, some at Pa-o-ga outside the West Gate and some at the Ha-do-gam just inside the East Gate.

Some of the soldiers who had been most active in creating the disturbance lived at Wang-sim-yi three miles outside the East Gate. The Chinese made it their first work to seize these men by night. Ten of them were court-martialed and were torn to pieces by bullocks.

The Chinese general O Jang-gyung was told that the ex-Regent was at the bottom of the emeute, and he sent a letter informing the Emperor of this fact. The latter ordered him to seize the person of the offending party and bring him to China. The Chinese general thereupon visited the palace where the Prince Tai-wun was in full control and invited him to visit Yong-san on the river, where he said there was something important for him to see. Having once gotten him on board a Chinese boat there, under pretext of showing him over it, the anchor was quickly raised and the baffled Prince found himself on his way to China. When he arrived at Tientsin he was refused audience with Li Hung-chang but was banished by imperial decree to a place not far from Tientsin, where he was well cared for until his return to Korea three years later.

After this deus ex machina had spirited the ex-Regent away, an official, So Sang-jo, memorialized the throne stating that the Queen was still alive and ought to be brought back to the capital. It is said that Yi Yung-ik covered the space between the capital and her place of hiding, sixty-three miles, in a single day, carrying the message of recall. A large retinue of officials and soldiers were sent southward and brought the Queen back to Seoul where she arrived on the first day of the eighth moon. The people immediately doffed their mourning garb.

Toward the close of 1882 a Foreign Office was established in the capital and Kim Yun-sik was made Minister of Foreign Affairs. He invited P. G. von Mollendorf, a member of the customs staff of China, to act as adviser, and the Chinese generals Wang Suk-ch’ang and Ma Kun-sang were made attaches of the new department.

The year 1883 witnessed more advance in Korea than any year before or since. In May Gen. Foote, the first United States Minister, arrived and on the nineteenth of that month the treaty which had been drawn up at Chemulpo between Commodore Shufeldt and the Korean Commissioners was ratified. After this was done Gen. Foote left Korea to make preparations for the establishment of a legation in Seoul.

Kim Ok-kyun, one of the leading members of the progressive party was made “Whale Catching Commissioner” and departed for Japan to fit out an expedition to carry on this lucrative government monopoly along the Korean coast. He was selected for this work because of his intimate acquaintance with the Japanese. It was a move looking toward the development of Korea’s resources and was therefore in direct line with the wishes and plans of the progressionists. At about the same time a powder-mill was built outside the Northwest Gate, and a foreign mint was erected inside the Little West Gate. This was done with the aid of Japanese experts at a great and, as it proved, useless expense to the government. An office was founded for the printing and dissemination of useful literature on the subjects of agriculture, forestry, stock-raising and the like. The ports of Chemulpo and Wun-san were opened to foreign trade according to the stipulation of the Japanese and American treaties. In contrast to the progressive moves we find that eight men who were suspected of complicacy with the ex-Regent in the emeute of the preceding year were executed by poison. Of like character was the building of the Kwan-wang temple, devoted to the interests of sorceresses and exorcists who enjoyed the patronage of the Queen.

In the summer of 1883 Min Yung-ik was made special envoy to the United States. His second was Hong Yung-sik. Among his suite were Su Kwang-bom, Pak Un and others, all of whom were members of the progressive party or at least well affected toward it. This same summer the king founded the American Farm some ten miles east of Seoul and stocked it with foreign seeds and cattle, with the idea of providing Korean farmers with a sort of object-lesson in farming, and to provide seeds for distribution among the people. The United States Department of Agriculture sent a large stock of seeds by the hand of the special embassy of which Min Yung-ik formed the head.

Late in the autumn the German representative arrived and concluded a treaty on behalf of his government. A month later a treaty was ratified with Great Britain and a Consulate General was founded in Seoul.

With the opening of 1884 the state of affairs in the peninsula was something as follows. The progressive and conservative elements in the government were clearly differentiated. The innovations effected by the progressives had raised in them the hope of being able to speedily reorganize the government on a foreign basis, and the degree of their success marked the increasing suspicion and oppositionopposition of the conservative element. The latter were strengthened in their position by the presence and active support of the Chinese generals and troops, and the influence of the foreign adviser von Mollendorf was always on the side of Chinese interests. The ex-Regent was for the time being out of the war and a great stumbling-block to the Min faction was thus removed. The king and queen were both favorably inclined toward a progressive policy but the latter was gradually being drawn back into line with the conservative element of which the Min family was the leading representative. Min Yung-ik was still true to his better instincts and was an ardent supporter of the progressionist views but his return from America was the sign for a vigorous attack upon his enlightened views by the members of his family and he was being rapidly alienated from the party whose interests he had tentatively espoused. It was not, however, till later in the year that he broke away entirely from the progressive following.

The spring of 1884 saw the arrival of Ensign Geo. C. Foulk as naval attache of the American Legation. He rapidly became acquainted with the leading officials and it was through his advice and aid that several reformatory measures were promulgated. In the sixth moon the influence of the progressive party secured the position of Mayor of Seoul for Pak Yung-hyo, one of the most ardent of the reform party, and he immediately set to work at sanitary reforms and municipal improvements. He began by tearing down houses that had encroached upon the main road between the East and the West Gates. He had not proceeded far in this good work before he was blocked by the influence of the opposing faction. His next move was in the direction of dress reform and he succeededsucceeded in putting through a law prohibiting the use of the long sleeves, long hat-strings and long girdle strings. In these efforts he was seconded to a certain extent by Min Yung-ik, but at this point terminates the latter’s active interest in reforms, and from about this time the progressive leaders began to look upon him as a traitor to their cause. Here again personal interest came to injure a cause which, while good in itself, was discredited by the means used to effect its end. One sign of advance was the establishment of a school for the training of interpreters in English, under the charge of a competent foreign instructor.

In the autumn of this year 1884 twelve of the young men who had been sent to Japan to study military tactics returned to Seoul, among them being Su Cha p’il, known in later years as Dr. Philip Jaisohn, who though still a youth of about twenty years began to take an active part in the plans of the liberal or progressive party. By this time Min Yung-ik had practically taken his stand with the conservatives, and this tended in no small measure to draw away from the progressives the sympathy and support of the queen. It was becoming evident that the hopes of the liberals were to be dashed to the ground. Yuan, the Chinese commissioner, was staying at the barracks in front of the palace and was active in the interests of his own government, which meant that he urged on the conservative party in their oppositionopposition to reforms. It can hardly be wondered at then that the progressives looked more and more to the Japanese from whom they had imbibed their ideas of progress. Japan had recognized the independence of Korea and this naturally carried with it a desire to see Korea progress along the same lines that had raised Japan out of the rut of centuries to the more satisfactory plane of enlightened government.

How to stem the tide that had set so strongly against them was a difficult problem for the progressionist leaders to solve. From time immemorial the method of effecting changes in the Korea government had been to make an uprising, secure the person of the king and banish or executeexecute the leaders of the opposition. It must be remembered that at that time, so far as the mass of the people was concerned, the progressive party had little or no backing. On the other hand the conservatives had the ear of the king and were backed by a Chinese army. It was evidently necessary to secure military backing, and for this Japan alone was available. But it was manifestly impossible for Japan to come in and attempt to effect the change. It must be at the request of the Korean government, or at least of the king. It seemed that the only thing to do was to hasten a crisis, obtain possession of the person of the king and then see to it that Japan be invited to loan troops to preserve the new status.

Instead of waiting patiently and suffering temporary defeat with the hope of ultimate success, the progressive leaders determined to have recourse to the old method, and in so doing they made a fatal blunder. Even had they been successful the means they employed would have fatally discredited them in the eyes of all enlightened people.

It is generally accepted as true that the progressive leaders had a distinct understanding with the Japanese. A Japanese man-of-war was on the way to Chemulpo and was expected to arrive on the fifth or sixth of December and the uprising was set for the seventh of that month. The leaders in this movement had not been able to keep it entirely a secret, for some of them talked about it in a very excited manner ofof the Naval Attache of the American Legation and it came to the ears of the British Consul-general, who, meeting Yun T’a-jun on December fourth, asked him if he had heard that there was trouble in the air. That gentleman who was himself a strong conservativeconservative and a close friend of Min T’a-ho, hastened to the house of the latter and reported what he had heard. Min advised him to hasten to the house of one of the relatives of one of the progressionistsprogressionists and secure information if possible. He did so, and there happened to meet one of the leaders of the progressive party and intimated to him that he had heard that trouble was brewing. This man denied all knowledge of any such plan but the minute his caller had gone he hastened to the other progressionist leaders and told them that all was lost unless instant action were taken. News had just arrived that the Japanese gun-boat that was expected at Chemulpo had broken down and could not come. There were only a few hundred Japanese troops in Seoul at the time. But it seemed to these men that it would be better to risk the whole venture on a single cast than to wait passively and see the destruction of all their hopes and plans. The seventh of December was the appointed day but as this was a matter of kill or be killed it was decided to proceed at once to business. Hong Yung-sik had been made Post-master General and on this very night he was to give a banquet at the new post-office which was situated in that part of the city called Kyo-dong. It was decided to start the ball rolling at this point. The evening came and the guests assembled to the dinner. They were the Chinese leaders Yuan, Chin and Wang, United States Minister Foote and his secretary Mr. Scudder, the British Consul-general Aston, the Foreign Office Adviser von Mollendorf, the Koreans Hong Yung-sik, Kim Ok-kyun, Min Yung-ik, Pak Yung-ho, Su Kwang-bom, Kim Hung-jip, Han Kyu-jik, Pak ChÖng-yang, O Yun-jung and a few others. The Japanese Minister had excused himself on the plea of ill-health. It was noticed that Kim Ok-kyun rose and left the table several times and went out into the court-yard but no special significance was attached to this. The dinner began at an early hour, not far from six o’clock, and about seven o’clock an alarm of fire was sounded. A house immediately in front of the Post Office was in flames. Min Yung-ik, being one of the officials whose duty it was to superintend the extinguishing of conflagrations, rose from the table and hastened out, calling to his servants to follow. As he passed out of the inner gate, a man dressed in Japanese clothes leaped out of the shadow of the gate-way and struck at him savagely with a sword, wounding him severely in the head and in other parts of the body. He fell heavily to the ground and in the confusion that ensued the would-be assassin made good his escape. Von Mollendorf was not far behind, and seeing what had happened he hastened forward, lifted the wounded man in his arms and carried him back into the dining-room. The Koreans who were present fled precipitately making their exit not by the door but by way of the back wall.

The wounded man was conveyed to the residence of von Mollendorf which was in the vicinity, where Dr. H. N. Allen of the American Presbyterian Mission was soon in attendance.

The die had now been cast and there was no retreat. The leaders of the conspiracy, Kim Ok-kyun, Su Kwang-bom, Pak Yung-hyo, Hong Yung-sik and Su Cha-pil, hastened immediately to the palace known to us as “The Old Palace” where the king had resided since the insurrection of 1882. Entering the royal presence they announced that the Chinese were coming to take possession of the king’s person and that he must hasten to a place of safety. The king did not believe this report but as they insisted he had no recourse but to submit. The little company hastened along under the west wall of the palace until they came to a small gate leading into KyÖng-u Palace which adjoins the “Old Palace” on the west. As they proceeded Kim Ok-kyun asked the king to send to the Japanese Minister asking for a body-guard, but he refused. Thereupon Su Kwang-bom drew out a piece of foreign note-paper and a pencil and wrote in Chinese the words “Let the Japanese Minister come and give me his help.” This was immediately despatched by a servant. That it was a mere matter of form was evident when the little company passed into the KyÖng-u Palace, for there they found the Japanese Minister and his interpreter already in attendance and with them some two hundred troops drawn up in line. When the king appeared they saluted. There were present also the twelve students who had been in Japan. Word was immediately sent to Sin Keui-sun, Pak Yung-hyo and O Yun-jung to come and receive office under the reconstructed government. Within half an hour they were in attendance, excepting O Yun-jung who happened to be away in the country at the time.

Very early in the morning a royal messenger was sent with the myong-p‘a or “summoning tablet” to the houses of Min T‘a-ho, Min Yung-mok and Cho Ryung-ha, ordering them to appear at once before the king. They complied and hastened to the palace but no sooner had they entered the palace gate than they were seized and cut down in cold blood. Then the summonssummons was sent to Han Kyu-jik, Yi Cho-yun and Yun T‘a jun. They too were assassinated as soon as they entered the palace. A eunuch named Yu Cha-hyun was also put to death. It is useless to ask by whose hand these men fell. WhoeverWhoever wielded the brutal sword, the leaders of the so-called progressive party were wholly responsible. The twelve young men who had returned from Japan were all fully armed and it is more than probable that they took an active part in the bloody work. Not only was not the king consulted in regard to these murders but in the case of the eunuch it was done in spite of his entreaties and remonstrances.

These seven men who thus went to their doom were not entirely unconscious of what awaited them. When Cho Ryung-ha received the summons the inmates of his house pleaded with him not to go, but as it was the king’s summons he would not disobey even though he knew it meant death.

Just at daylight the king was removed to the house of his cousin Yi Cha-wun, escorted by the Japanese soldiers who surrounded him four deep. Kim Ok-kyun gave passes to those who were to be allowed to go in and out and only such had access to the premises. After remaining there some three hours the whole company returned to the “Old Palace.” In the reconstructed government Yi Cha wun and Hong Yung-sik were made Prime Ministers, Pak Yung-hyo was made General-in chief. Su Kwang-bom was made Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kim Ok-kyun Minister of Finance and Su Cha-p‘il Lieutenant-general. The rest of the young men who had studied in Japan were also given official position.

Before Yun T‘a-jun, Yi Cho-yun and Han Kyu-jik went to the palace and met their fate they sent word to Yuan warning him of the state of affairs and asking help, but he made no immediate move. As the morning broke thousands of Koreans came to him and said that the Japanese held the king a prisoner in the palace and begged him to interfere. Yuan replied by sending a messenger to the Japanese Minister demanding why he had surrounded the king with soldiers and had killed the ministers, and demanding that he immediately evacuate the place. Three hours passed and still no answer came; and at last Yuan and the two other Chinese leaders took a strong body of Chinese troops and several hundred Korean troops and proceeded to the palace. Entering by way of the Sun-in Gate and passing through the Ch‘ang-kyung Palace they approached the Po-t‘ong Gate which gave entrance to the “Old Palace,” but they found it strongly guarded by Japanese. Here a sharp encounter took place which lasted an hour, beginning about three o’clock in the afternoon. About ten each of the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans fell in this assault. As the darkness came on the Japanese began to fall back and taking the king and the newly appointed ministers they made their way to the extreme northeasterly portion of the palace grounds, not far from the Hong-wha Gate. The royal party took refuge in a summer house there and the Japanese stationed themselves behind trees and guarded the place, keeping up a lively fusillade with the Chinese who had followed them. Meanwhile the Crown Prince, the Queen and the king’s foster-mother had escaped in small closed chairs out the Sun-in Gate and had found refuge in the house of Yi Pom-jin in the village of No-wun, twenty li outside the East Gate.

The chances of success for the Japanese were becoming smaller and smaller and the king was anxiously looking for an opportunity of escaping from them and making his way to the Chinese side. At last, taking advantage of the extreme disorder that prevailed, he made his way to the Puk-chang Gate at the extreme northeastern part of the palace enclosure. Outside there was a crowd of Korean soldiers who wished to gain entrance and rescue the king from his captors. When the latter made his presence known inside the gate these soldiers effected an entrance and lifting His Majesty on their shoulders carried him in triumph to the North Temple just inside the Northeast Gate. Seeing that all hope of immediate success was gone, Pak Yung-hyoYung-hyo, Kim Ok-kyun, Su Kwang-bom,Kwang-bom, Su Cha-p‘il and a part of the company of military students accompanied the Japanese troops out the front gate of the palace to the Japanese Legation which was then situated in Kyo-dong. This was accomplished in the midst of great excitement.

Meanwhile Hong Yung-sik, Pak Yung-kyoYung-kyo, Sin Keui-sun and seven of the military students had followed the fortunes of the king. But no sooner did the party arrive at the North Temple than the people fell upon Hong Yung-sik and Pak Yung-kyoYung-kyo and hacked them to pieces before the king’s eyes. Hong Yung-sik attempted to hide in a closet behind His Majesty but the latter indicated by a nod of the head that he was concealed there and the people dragged him out and dispatched him on the spot. The seven students tried to effect their escape but were pursued and killed, one below Chong-no, and another at Yun-mot-kol.

No sooner had the morning dawned than the Japanese Minister formed his little company in a hollow square, placed the Korean refugees and the Japanese women and children in the center, fired the legation buildings and marched out through the city on their way to Chemulpo, shooting at any Koreans whom they happened to see in their way. They found the West Gate locked but they soon forced it and hurried away to the port. All the Japanese in Seoul did not escape thus, for there were a few living in Chin-go-ga. That same day the Koreans mobbed them and killed them all, men,men, women and children.

A Japanese merchant vessel happened to be lying at Chemulpo and the Minister with all his company boarded her, carrying the Koreans with them. The latter were hidden in the hold.

That same day, later in the afternoon, the king made his way to the Ha-do-gam where the Chinese had camped, and put himself under their protection. Cho Pyung-ho was sent to Chemulpo to ask the Japanese Minister not to leave, and to effect the arrest of the fugitives. In neither quest was he successful.

An anxious month passed by and at last the Japanese, Count Inouye, came with a guard of 600 troops and took up his quarters at the governor’s place outside the West Gate. Negotiations were at once begun and as a result the Korean Government agreed to pay an indemnity of 600,000 yen. Su Sang-u and P. G. von Mollendorf were sent as commissioners to Japan to arrange suitable terms for the renewal of friendly relations. To make good their protestations of regret at the killing of defenseless Japanese in Seoul four men who took part in that work were arrested and put to death. At the same time Yi Ch‘ang-gyu, Su Cha-Ch‘ang, Kim Pong-jung and five others who had been charged with complicacy in the plot were seized and executed.

On January ninth 1885 Kim Hong-Jip, Special Korean Commissioner, signed with Count Inouye a convention regarding the trouble of the preceedingpreceeding month, by the terms of which the government agreed to apologize to the Japanese emperor, to pay an indemnity of 110,000 yen, to execute the murderer of Lieut. Isobayachi, to give a site for a new Legation and 20,000 yen for its construction and to set aside a site for barracks for the Japanese guard. Early in the Spring the Japanese Legation was built, being the first foreign building in Seoul.

The year 1885 beheld many events of importance. The government hospital was founded under royal patronage by Dr. H. N. Allen of the American Presbyterian Mission. It beheld also the arrival of that great vanguard of civilization the Protestant Missionary. Dr. Allen had arrived in the previous year but now the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches of America sent a number of representatives into Seoul to secure property and begin preparations for the founding of regular evangelistic and educational work. In April the Chinese and Japanese signed the celebrated Tientsin Convention by the terms of which they both agreed to evacuate Korea and not to send troops there without previously notifying each other. It was the breaking of this convention by China which was one of the immediate causes of the Japan-China war. At this same time, England, fearing the occupation of Port Hamilton by Russia, sent a fleet of war vessels and occupied the place herself. She was finally induced to leave, but only after China had guaranteed to secure it against occupation by any other power. In October the treaty with Russia was signed and a Legation was established in Seoul. The ex-Regent was still in China, but the Chinese government now deemed it safe to send him back to the peninsula, and Min Chung-muk was sent to act as his escort.

Since the day when the Regent threw the finances of the country into confusion by the debasement of the currency and since the officials had learned how much the people would endure of unjust taxation, in the days when every means was adopted to wring from them the funds for the erection of the palace, official indirection had been on the rapid increase. The people were being imposed upon more and more. All the money that dishonest men paid to corrupt officials to purchase office had to be drawn from the people later by dishonest means. The main qualification of a successful prefect was the ability to judge when he had reached the limit of the people’s endurance. The year 1885 beheld a serious revolt in YÖ-ju where the prefect had overstepped the dead-line of the peoples’ patience. He was driven out and his ajun or clerk was killed. The prefect of Wun-ju also escaped death only by flight, while an ajun was killed.

Not the least important event of 1885 was the completion under Chinese patronage of the Seoul-Peking telegraph line by which Korea was for the first time put into quick communication with the rest of the world. At the dictation of China a commissioner, Yi Chung-ha was sent north to meet a Chinese commissioner and determine the exact boundary between Korean and Chinese territory along the Tu-man River.

A customs service had been begun by von Mollendorf on an independent basis but in July of 1885 he was dismissed from service in the Foreign Office and two months later he was relieved of work in the Customs because of unwarrantable schemes into which he had drawn that department of the government. The whole service was thereupon put under the management of Sir Robert Hart the Inspector General of the Chinese Customs. An entirely new staff of men was sent from China. H. N. Merrill was made Chief Commissioner and Chemulpo, Fusan and Wunsan were put in charge of men directly from the Chinese Customs staff. This was a guarantee of excellent management but it proved to be the strongest lever China had in the carrying out her ambitious plans in the peninsula. Before the close of the year Gen. Foote without giving specific reasons retired from the United States Legation and returned to America, Ensign Geo. C. Foulk becoming Charge d’Affaires.

In the early months of 1886 Yi To-ja, Sin Keui-sun, Hong Chin-yu, An Chung-su and KyÖng Kwang-guk were banished to distant islands for complicacy in the plot which led to the emeute of 1884.

In February the king by royal edict abolished the hereditary transmission of slaves and the use of slave labor by the guilds in the work on the palaces. This was a measure of far-reaching import had it been carried out in full; but we find that it had to be re-enacted in 1894.

The government desired to secure the services of a foreign expert as adviser to the Home and Foreign Offices and with the sanction of Li Hung-chang, the Chinese Viceroy, Judge O. N. Denny, ex-Consul-general of U. S. to China, was called and he arrived in the spring of 1886 just in time to be present at the signing of the treaty with France. He had for some years been on rather intimate terms with the Great Viceroy and it is probable that the latter hoped to use the Judge in forwarding Chinese interests in Korea. If so he found himself grievously mistaken for the United States as well as Japan and France, had recognized the independence of Korea, and Judge Denny devoted his energies to the maintenance of that independence. Yuan the Chinese commissionercommissioner had taken up his residence in Seoul and had dubbed himself “Resident” in opposition to the Korean claim to independence. The Peking government, forgetting or ignoring the fact that whenever Korea had gotten into trouble she (China) had always disavowed responsibility and had practically disclaimed suzerainty, now began to bolster up her claims and to use every means to make good her pretensions. The dominant party which had ridden into power on the shoulders of the Chinese put no obstacles in the way and thus Judge Denny found himself blocked in his efforts to better the condition of the country.

It was generally understood that the right of Japanese and Western foreigners to reside in Seoul was based on the most favored nation clause in the treaties and that if the Chinese removed from Seoul the others could be compelled to do likewise. The Chinese, therefore, hoping, it is said, to secure more exclusive power in the capital by the removal of other foreigners began to agitate the question of removing all their nationals to Yong-san near the river three miles from Seoul. For a time it appeared as if this might be done but the large vested rights of the Japanese in the capital as well as the interests of others caused a counter agitation which frustrated the scheme.

Geo. C. Foulk, Ensign in the U. S. Navy, had long been in connection with the Legation in Seoul. Early in 1881 he had suggested to the government the advisability of founding a school for the instruction of young Koreans in Western languages and sciences, and consequently the United States Secretary of State was requested by the Korean government to secure three men as instructors; but the emeute of that year had deferred the matter. In 1886 it was again brought up and in July three men who had been selected by the U. S. Commissioner of Education arrived at the Korean Capital. A terrible epidemic of cholera devastated the city that summer and as many as seven or eight hundred deaths occurred daily. It was in September that the Royal English School was opened.

Chinese claims to suzerainty emboldened the Chinese merchants to attempt to evade the customs regulations and the result was a serious affray in Chemulpo when the Chinese tried to evade the export on ginseng. The Chinese Commissioner tried to uphold them in it but a vigorous protest to Li Hung-chang righted the matter and the offenders were deported and the Customs Service was vindicated.

It was in this year that the trading station Whe-ryung on the Tu-man River was established for convenience of trade with Russia but it was not made an open port. About this time the school founded by the American Methodist Mission received royal recognition and the king conferred upon it the name Pai Chai Hak Tang or “Hall for the Rearing of Useful Men.”

Contrary to the wishes of the Chinese a Korean Minister to America was appointed in the person of Pak ChÖng-yang, but in attempting to start for America he was intercepted by the Chinese just outside the South Gate and compelled to return. Two months later, however, he succeeded in getting away. He was received in Washington with all the punctiliousness due to a Minister from any sovereign power. This helped in a certain way to forward Korea’s claim to independence but America’s well-known policy of non-interferance in foreign matters largely neutralized its effect.

The year 1888 beheld what is known as the “Baby War.” The report was spread abroad that the Europeans and Americans were stealing children and boiling them in kettles for food. It was also generally believed that the foreigners caught women and cut off their breasts in order to extract from them the condensed milk which was so commonly used among the foreign residents. The Koreans knew that the foreigners had no cows and they could explain the use of milk only on the above theory. The modus operandi was said to be as follows. The foreigners were possessed of a peculiar drug which became a powerful gas when introduced into the mouth. Approaching a Korean paper covered lattice door at the dead of night the operator would make a tiny hole in the paper and applying his mouth to it would blow the gas into the room. The effect would be that if there were a woman in the room she would waken and be seized with an uncontrolableuncontrolable desire to go outside. Once without the door, the foreigner would seize her, cut off her breasts and return to his home. It was believed that they had paid agents among the people to whom they taught the secret and whom they sent about the country to secure women’s breasts. Two suspicious looking men were set upon in Hong-ch‘un charged with being breast-hunters. They narrowly escaped with their lives. For a short time there was imminent danger of an uprising but a royal proclamation couched in trenchant language did much to calm the excitement and the danger subsided as suddenly as it had arisen. In Eui-ju there was a most destructive flood in which 300 lives were lost and 1927 houses were swept away.