The walls of Corean isolation, so long intact, had been sapped by the entrance of Christianity and the French missionaries, and now began to crumble. With the Russians on the north, and the sea no longer a barrier, the Japanese began to press upon the east, while China broke through and abolished the neutrality of the western border. The fires of civilization began to smoke out the hermit.

The revolutions of 1868 in Japan, culminating after a century of interior preparation, abolished the dual system and feudalism, and restored the mikado to supreme power. The capital was removed to Tōkiō, and the office of Foreign Affairs—a sub-bureau—was raised to a department of the Imperial administration. One of the first things attended to was to invite the Corean government to resume ancient friendship and vassalage.

This summons, coming from a source unrecognized for eight centuries, and to a regent swollen with pride at his victory over the French and his success in extirpating the Christian religion, and irritated at Japan for adopting western principles of progress and cutting free from Chinese influence and tradition, was spurned with defiance. An insolent and even scurrilous letter was returned to the mikado’s government, which stung to rage the military classes of Japan, who began to form a “war-party,” which was headed by Saigo of Satsuma. Waiting only for the return of the embassy from Europe, and for the word to take up the gage of battle, they nourished their wrath to keep it warm.

It was not so to be. New factors had entered the Corean problem since Taiko’s time. European states were now concerned in Asiatic politics. Russia was too near, China too hostile, and Japan too poor; she was even then paying ten per cent. interest to London bankers on the Shimonoséki Indemnity loan. Financial ruin, and a collision with China might result, if war were declared. [421]In October, 1873, the cabinet vetoed the scheme, and Saigo, the leader of the war party, resigned and returned to Satsuma, to nourish schemes for the overthrow of the ministry and the humiliation of Corea. “The eagle, even though starving, refuses to eat grain;” nor would anything less than Corean blood satisfy the Japanese veterans.

In 1873, the young king of Corea attained his majority. His father, Tai-wen Kun, by the act of the king backed by Queen Chō, was relieved of office, and his bloody and cruel lease of power came to an end. The young sovereign proved himself a man of mental vigor and independent judgment, not merely trusting to his ministers, but opening important documents in person. He has been ably seconded by his wife Min, through whose influence Tai-wen Kun was shorn of influence, nobles of progressive spirit were reinstated to office, and friendship with Japan encouraged. In this year, 1873, an heir to the throne was born of the queen; another royal child, the offspring of a concubine, having been born in 1869.

The neutral belt of land long inhabited by deer and tiger, or traversed by occasional parties of ginseng-hunters, had within the last few decades been overspread with squatters, and infested by Manchiu brigands and Corean outlaws. The depredations of these border ruffians both across the Yalu, and on the Chinese settlements—like the raids of the wild Indians on our Texas frontier—had become intolerable to both countries. In 1875, Li Hung Chang, sending a force of picked Chinese troops, supported by a gunboat on the Yalu, broke up the nest of robbers, and imbibed a taste both for Corean politics and for rectifying the frontiers of Shing-king. He proceeded at once to make said frontier “scientific” by allowing the surveyor and plowman to enter the no longer debatable land. In 1877, the governor of Shing-king proposing, the Peking Government shifted the eastern frontier of the empire twenty leagues nearer the rising sun, on the plea that “the width of the tract left uncultivated was of less moment than the efficiency of border regulations.” By this act the borders of China and Corea touched, and were written in Yalu water. The last vestige of insulation was removed, and the shocks of change now became more frequent and alarming. By contact with the living world, comatose Corea was to be galvanized into new life.

Nevertheless the hostile spirit of the official classes, who tyrannize the little country, was shown in the refusal to receive envoys of [422]the mikado because they were dressed in European clothes, in petty regulations highly irritating to the Japanese at Fusan, and by the overt act of violence which we shall now narrate.

Since 1868 the Japanese navy, modelled after the British, and consisting of American and European iron-clads and war vessels, has been manned by crews uniformed in foreign style. On September 19, 1875, some sailors of the Unyo Kuan, which had been cruising off the mouth of the Han River, landing near Kang-wa for water, were fired on by Corean soldiers, under the idea that they were Americans or Frenchmen. On the 21st the Japanese, numbering thirty-six men, and armed with breech loaders, stormed the fort. Most of the garrison were shot or drowned, the fort dismantled, and the spoil carried to the ships. Occupying the works two days, the Japanese returned to Nagasaki on the 23d.

The news of “the Kokwa [Kang-wa] affair” brought the wavering minds of both the peace and the war party of Japan to a decision. Arinori Mori was despatched to Peking to find out the exact relation of China to Corea, and secure her neutrality. Kuroda Kiyotaku was sent with a fleet to the Han River, to make, if possible, a treaty of friendship and open ports of trade. By the rival parties, the one was regarded as the bearer of the olive branch, the other of arrows and lightning. With Kuroda went Inouyé Bunda of the State Department, and Kin Rinshiō, the Corean liberal.

General Kuroda sailed January 6, 1876, amid salvos of the artillery of newspaper criticism predicting failure, with two men-of-war, three transports, and three companies of marines, or less than eight hundred men in all, and touching at Fusan, anchored within sight of Seoul, February 6th. About the same time, a courier from Peking arrived in the capital, bearing the Imperial recommendation that a treaty be made with the Japanese. The temper of the young king had been manifested long before this by his rebuking the district magistrate of Kang-wa for allowing soldiers to fire on peaceably disposed people, and ordering the offender to degradation and exile. Arinori Mori, in Peking, had received the written disclaimer of China’s responsibility over “the outpost state,” by which stroke of policy the Middle Kingdom freed herself from all possible claims of indemnity from France, the United States, and Japan. The way for a treaty was now smoothed, and the new difficulties were merely questions of form. Nevertheless, while Kuroda was unheard from, the Japanese war preparations went vigorously on. [423]

Kuroda, making Commodore Perry’s tactics his own, disposed his fleet in the most imposing array, made his transports look like men-of-war, by painting port-holes on them, kept up an incredible amount of fuss, movement, and bustle, and on the 10th landed a dazzling array of marines, sailors, and officers in full uniform, who paraded two miles to the treaty-house, on Kang-wa Island, where two high commissioners from Seoul, Ji Shinken and In Jiahō, aged respectively sixty-five and fifty, awaited him.

One day was devoted to ceremony, and three to negotiation. A written apology for the Kang-wa affair was offered by the Coreans, and the details of the treaty settled, the chief difficulties being the titles to be used.1 Ten days for consultation at the capital were then asked for and granted, at the end of which time, the two commissioners returned, declaring the impossibility of obtaining the royal signature. The Japanese at once embarked on their ships in disgust. They returned only after satisfactory assurances; and on February 27th the treaty, in which Chō-sen was recognized as an independent nation, was signed and attested. The Japanese then made presents, mostly of western manufacture, and after being feasted, returned March 1st. Mr. Inouyé Bunda then proceeded to Europe, visiting, on his way, the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, at which also, it is said, were one or more Corean visitors.

The first Corean Embassy, which since the twelfth century had been accredited to the mikado’s court, sailed in May, 1876, from Fusan in a Japanese steamer, landing at Yokohama May 29th, at 8 A.M. Two Neptune-like braves with the symbols of power—huge iron [424]tridents—led the procession, in which was a band of twenty performers on metal horns, conch-shells, flutes, whistles, cymbals, and drums. Effeminate-looking pages bore the treaty documents. The chief envoy rode on a platform covered with tiger-skins, and resting on the shoulders of eight men, while a servant bore the umbrella of state over his head, and four minor officers walked at his side. The remainder of the suite rode in jin-riki-shas, and the Japanese military and civil escort completed the display. They breakfasted at the town hall, and by railroad and steam-cars reached Tōkiō. At the station, the contrast between the old and the new was startling. The Japanese stood “with all the outward signs of the Civilization that is coming in.” “On the other side, were all the representatives of the Barbarism that is going out.” On the following day, the Coreans visited the Foreign Office, and on June 1st, the envoy, though of inferior rank, had audience of the mikado. For three weeks the Japanese amused, enlightened, and startled their guests by showing them their war ships, arsenals, artillery, torpedoes, schools, buildings, factories, and offices equipped with steam and electricity—the ripened fruit of the seed planted by Perry in 1854. All attempts of foreigners to hold any communication with them, were firmly rejected by the Coreans, who started homeward June 28th. The official diary, or report by the ambassador of this visit to Japan, was afterward published in Seoul. It is a colorless narrative carefully bleached of all views and opinions, evidently satisfying the scrutiny even of enemies at court.

During the autumn of this year, 1876, and later on, in following years, the British war-vessels, Sylvia and Swinger, were engaged in surveying portions of the coast of Kiung-sang province. Captain H. C. Saint John, who commanded the Sylvia, and had touched near Fusan in 1855—long enough to see a native bastinadoed simply for selling a chicken to a foreigner—now found more hospitable treatment. His adventures are narrated in his chatty book, “The Wild Coasts of Nipon.” An English vessel, the Barbara Taylor, having been wrecked on Corean shores, an attaché of the British Legation in Tōkiō was sent to Fusan to thank the authorities for their kind treatment of the crew.

The Japanese found it was not wise to hasten in taking advantage of their new liberties granted by treaty. Near Fusan, are thousands of graves of natives killed in the invasion of 1592–97, over which the Coreans hold an annual memorial celebration. Hitherto the Japanese had been rigorously kept within their [425]guarded enclosure. Going out to witness the celebration, they were met with a shower of stones, and found the road blockaded. After a small riot in which many words and missiles were exchanged, matters were righted, but the temper of the people showed that, as in old Japan, it would be long before ignorant hermits, and not over-gentle foreigners could live quietly together.

Saigo, of Satsuma, dissatisfied with the peaceful results of Kuroda’s mission, and the “brain victory” over the Coreans, organized, during 1877, “The Satsuma Rebellion,” to crush which cost Japan twenty thousand lives, $50,000,000, and seven months of mighty effort, the story of which has been so well told in the lamented A. H. Mounsey’s perspicuous monograph. Yet out of this struggle, with which Corea manifested no sympathy, the nation emerged with old elements of disturbance eliminated, and with a broader outlook to the future. A more vigorous policy with Chō-sen was at once inaugurated.

Under the new treaty, Fusan (Corean, Pu-san) soon became a bustling place of trade, with a population of two thousand, many of whom, however, were poor people from Tsushima. Among the public buildings were those of the Consulate, Chamber of Commerce, Bank, Mitsu Bishi (Three Diamonds) Steamship Company, and a hospital, under care of Dr. Yano, in which, up to 1882, four thousand Coreans and many Japanese have been treated. A Japanese and Corean newspaper, Chō-sen Shimpo, restaurants, places of amusements of various grades of morality, and a variety of establishments for turning wits and industry into money, have been established. The decayed gentry of Japan, starting in business with the capital obtained by commuting their hereditary pensions, found it difficult to compete with the trained merchants of Tōkiō and Ozaka. Great trouble from the lock of a gold and silver currency has been experienced, as only the copper and iron sapeks, or ‘cash,’ are in circulation. In Corean political economy to let gold go out of the country is to sell the kingdom; and so many rogues have attempted the sale of brass or gilt nuggets that an assaying office at the consulate has been provided. The government of Tōkiō has urged upon that of Seoul the adoption of a circulating medium based on the precious metals; and, perhaps, Corean coins may yet be struck at the superb mint at Ozaka. While gold in dust and nuggets has been exported for centuries, rumor credits the vaults at Seoul with being full of Japanese gold koban, the [426]mountains to be well packed with auriferous quartz, and the rivers to run with golden sands.

Among the callers, with diplomatic powers, from the outside world in 1881, each eager and ambitious to be the first in wresting the coveted prize of a treaty, were two British captains of men-of-war, who arrived on May 21st and 28th; a French naval officer, June 16th, who sailed away after a rebuff June 18th; while at Gensan, June 7th, the British man-of-war, Pegasus, came, and saw, but did not conquer.

After six years of mutual contact at Fusan, the Coreans, though finding the Japanese as troublesome as the latter discovered foreigners to be after their own ports were opened, have, with much experience learned, settled down to endure them, for the sake of a trade which undoubtedly enriches the country. The Coreans buy cotton goods, tin-plate, glass, dyes, tools, and machinery, clocks, watches, petroleum, flour, lacquer-work, iron, hollow-ware, and foreign knick-knacks. A good sign of a desire for personal improvement is a demand for bath-tubs. Soap will probably come next.

The exports are gold dust, silver, ox hides and bones, beche-de-mer, fish, rice, raw silk, fans, cotton, and bamboo paper, ginseng, furs of many kinds, tobacco, shells for inlaying, dried fish, timber, beans and peas, hemp, jute, various plants yielding paper-stock, peony-bark, gall-nuts, varnishes and oils, and a variety of other vegetable substances having a universal commercial value.

Even Riu Kiu has seen the benefits of trade, and five merchants from what is now the Okinawa ken of the mikado’s empire—formerly the Loo Choo island kingdom—came to Tōkiō in February, 1882, to form a company with a view to establishing an agency in Fusan, and exchanging Corean products for Riu Kiu sugar, grain, and fish.

Gensan (Corean, Won-san) was opened May 1, 1880. In a fertile region, traversed by two high roads, with the fur country near, and a magnificent harbor in front, the prospects of trade are good. The Japanese concession, on which are some imposing public buildings, includes about forty-two acres. An exposition of Japanese, European, and American goods was established which was visited by 25,000 people, its object being to open the eyes and pockets of the natives, who seemed, to the Tōkiō merchants, taller, stouter, and better looking than those of Fusan. One twenty-sixth of the goods sold was Japanese, the rest, mostly cotton [427]goods and ‘notions,’ were American and European. The busy season of trade is in autumn and early winter. For the first three months the settlers were less troubled by tigers than by continual rumors of the approach of a band of a thousand “foreigner-haters,” who were sworn to annihilate the aliens on the sacred soil of Chō-sen. The bloodthirsty braves, however, postponed the execution of their purpose. The Japanese merchants, so far from finding the Coreans innocently verdant, soon came in contact with monopolies, rings, guilds, and tricks of trade that showed a surprising knowledge of business. Official intermeddling completed their woe, and loud and long were the complaints of the mikado’s subjects. Yet profits were fair, and the first anniversary of the opening of the port was celebrated in grand style. Besides dinners and day fireworks, the police played the ancient national game of polo, to the great amusement of the Coreans. Among the foreign visitors in May, 1881, was Doctor Frank Cowan, an American gentleman, and surgeon on the Japanese steamer Tsuruga Maru, who made a short journey in the vicinity among the good-natured natives. Besides spying out the land, and returning well laden with trophies, he records, in a letter to the State Department at Washington, this prophecy: “Next to the countries on the golden rim of the Pacific, … to disturb the monetary equilibrium of the world, will be Corea.” “The geological structure is not incompatible with the theory that the whole region [east coast] is productive of the precious metal.”

To regulate some points of the treaty, and if possible postpone the opening of the new port of In-chiŭn (Japanese, Nin-sen) a second embassy was despatched to Japan, which arrived at Yokohama, August 11, 1880. The procession of tall and portly men dressed in green, red, and pink garments of coarse cloth, with Chinese shoes, and hats of mighty diameter, moved through the streets amid the rather free remarks of the spectators, who commented in no complimentary language on the general air of dinginess which these Rip Van Winkles of the orient presented. The Coreans remained in Tōkiō until September 8th. Perfect courtesy was everywhere shown them, as they visited schools and factories, and studied Japan’s modern enginery of war and peace. The general attitude of the Tōkiō press and populace was that of condescending familiarity, of generous hospitality mildly flavored with contempt, and tempered by a very uncertain hope that these people might develop into good pupils—and customers.

Chō-sen did not lack attentions from the outside world—Russia, [428]England, France, Italy, and the United States—during the year 1880. Whether missionaries of the Holy Synod of Russia attempted to cross the Tumen, we do not know; but in the spring of 1880, a Muscovite vessel appeared off one of the ports of Ham-Kiung, to open commercial relations. The offer was politely declined. The Italian war-vessel Vettor Pisani, having on board H. R. H. the Duke of Genoa, arrived off Fusan, August 1, 1880, at 1 P.M.—a few hours after the Corean embassy had left for Japan. One survivor of the Italian ship, Bianca Portia, wrecked near Quelpart in 1879, had been kindly treated by the Corean authorities and sent to Nagasaki. The duke, through the Japanese consul, forwarded a letter of thanks to the governor of Tong-nai, who, however, returned the missive, though with a courteous answer. After seven days, the Vettor Pisani sailed northward, and avoiding Gensan and the Japanese consul, anchored off Port Lazareff, where, during his six days’ stay, he was visited by the local magistrate, to whom he committed a letter of application for trade. Some native cards of silk-worm’s eggs were also secured to test their value for Italy. After a three days’ visit to Gensan the ship sailed away, the Italian believing that negotiations with the Coreans would succeed better without Japanese aid, and congratulating himself upon having been more successful than the previous attempts by the British, and especially by the French (Captain Fourmier, of the Lynx) and American (Commodore Shufeldt) diplomatic agents, whose letters were returned unread.

The Government of the United States had not forgotten Corea, and Japan had signified her willingness to assist in opening the hermit nation to American commerce. On April 8, 1878, Senator Sargent, of California, offered a resolution that President Hayes “appoint a commissioner to represent this country in an effort to arrange, by peaceful means and with the aid of the friendly offices of Japan, a treaty of peace and commerce between the United States and the Kingdom of Corea.” The bill passed to a second reading, but, the Senate adjourning, no action was taken. In 1879, the U. S. steamship Ticonderoga, under Commodore R. W. Shufeldt, was sent on a cruise around the world in the interests of American commerce, and to make, if possible, a treaty with Corea. Entering the harbor of Fusan, May 14, 1880, Commodore Shufeldt begged the Japanese consul, who visited the ship, to forward his papers to Seoul. The consul complied, but, unfortunately, neither the interpreters nor the governor of Tong-nai—preferring present [429]pay and comfort to possible future benefit—would have anything to do with such dangerous business. Japanese rumor asserts that the Coreans seeing the letter addressed on the outside to “the King of Corea,” declined to receive it, partly because their sovereign was “not King of Korai” but “King of Chō-sen.” Under the circumstances, the American could do nothing more than withdraw, which he did amid the usual salute from a Corean fort near by. A second visit being equally fruitless, the Ticonderoga again turned her stern toward “the last outstanding and irreconcilable scoffer among nations at western alliances,” and her prow homeward.

The Corean embassy, failing in their attempts to have the Japanese go slowly, Hanabusa, the mikado’s envoy at Seoul, now vigorously urged the opening of the third port, and, after much discussion, In-chiŭn,2 twenty-five miles from Seoul, was selected; in December, 1880, Hanabusa and his suite, crossing the frozen rivers, went thither, and selected the ground for the Japanese concession.

The old questions upon which political parties in the hermit nation had formed themselves, now sank out of sight, and the new element of excitement was the all-absorbing question of breaking the seals of national seclusion. The “Civilization Party,” or the Progressionists, were opposed to the Exclusionists, Port-closers, and Foreigner-haters. Heading the former or liberal party were the young king and queen, Bin Kenko, Bin Shoshoko, Ri Saiwo, and other high dignitaries, besides Kin Giokin and Jo Kohan, former envoys to Japan. The leader of the Conservatives was the Tai-wen-kun, father of the king and late regent. The neutrals clustered around Kin Koshiu.

Physically speaking, the Coreans see the sun rise over Japan and set over China, but morally, and in rhetoric, their sun of prosperity has ever risen and set in China. Some proposed to buy all machinery, arms, and government material in China, and imitate her plans and policy, and conform to the advice of her statesmen. The other side urged the adoption of Japanese methods and materials. The pro-Chinese gentry imitated the Peking mandarins in [430]details of dress, household decoration, and culture; while all their books conveying Western science must be read from Chinese translations. The pro-Japanese Coreans had their houses furnished with Japanese articles, they read and studied Japanese literature and translations of European books, and when out of Corea the most radical among them wore coats and pantaloons. The long and hot disputes between the adherents of both parties seriously hampered the government, while precipitating a revolution in the national policy; for serious debate in a despotic country is a sign of awakening life.

About this time, early in 1881, a remarkable document, composed by Kwo-in-ken, adviser to the Chinese Minister to Japan, had a lively effect upon the court of Seoul. It was entitled “Policy for Corea.” It described the neighbors of Chō-sen, and pointed out her proper attitude to each of them. From Russia, devoted as she is to a policy of perpetual aggrandizement at the expense of other countries, and consumed by lust for land, Corea is in imminent danger. China, on the contrary, is Corea’s natural ally and friend, ever ready with aid in men and money; both countries need each other, and their union should be as close as lips and teeth. For historical and geographical reasons, Corea and Japan should also be one in friendship, and thus guard against “Russia the ravenous.” The next point treated is the necessity of an alliance between Corea and the United States, because the Americans are the natural friends of Asiatic nations. Pointing out the many advantages of securing the friendship of the Americans, and making a treaty with them first, the memorialist urges the Coreans to seize the golden opportunity at once.

About the same time, Li Hung Chang, China’s liberal statesman, wrote a letter to a Corean gentleman, in which the advice to seek the friendship of China and the United States was strongly expressed, and a treaty with the Americans urged as a matter of national safety. Many, though not all, of the members of the embassies to Japan returned full of enthusiasm for Western civilization. It soon became evident that the king and many of his advisers were willing to make treaties. In Peking, the members of the embassy, before the winter of 1881 was over, began diplomatic flirtations with the American Legation. At that time, however, neither Minister J. B. Angell, in Peking, nor John A. Bingham, in Tōkiō, had any authority to make a treaty with Corea. While the way was thus made ready, the representations of Messrs. Bingham [431]and Angell to the State Department at Washington impressed upon our Government the necessity of having a diplomatic agent near at hand to take advantage of the next opportunity. Hitherto the only avenue of entrance seemed through the Japanese good offices; but the apparent willingness of Coreans in Peking, the experience of the Italians in the Vettor Pisani at Fusan and Port Lazareff, the advice of Chinese statesmen to Corea to have faith in the United States, and to open her ports to American commerce, convinced the American minister at Peking that China, rather than Japan, would furnish the better base of diplomatic operations for breaking down the Corean repulsive policy.

The Government at Washington responded to the suggestion, and in the spring of 1881, Commodore Shufeldt was sent by the State Department to Peking as naval attaché to the Legation, so as to be near the American Minister and be ready with his experience, should a further attempt “to bring together the strange States of the Extreme Sea” be made.

Shortly after the presentation of Kwo-in-ken’s memorial in Seoul, a party of thirty-four prominent men of the civilization party, led by Giō Inchiu and Kio Yeichoku, set out from Seoul to visit Japan and further study the problem of how far Western ideas were adapted to an oriental state.

The proposition to open a port so near the capital to the Japanese, and to treat with the Americans, was not left unchallenged. The ultra-Confucianists, headed by Ni Mansun, stood ready to oppose it with word and weapon. In swelling Corean rhetoric, this bigoted patriot from Chung-chong proved to his own satisfaction that all the nations except China and Corea were uncivilized, and that the presence of foreigners would pollute the holy land. Gathering an array of seven hundred of his followers, he dressed in mourning to show his grief, and with the figure of an axe on his shoulders, in token of risking his life by his act, he presented his memorial to the king, and sat for seven days in front of the royal palace. He demanded that In-chiŭn should not be opened, the two Bin should be deposed, and all innovations should cease.

The popular form of the dread of foreigners was shown in delegations of country people, who came into Seoul to forward petitions and protestations. Placards were posted on or near the palace gates, full of violent language, and prophesying the most woful results of Western blight and poison upon the country which had ever been the object of the special favor of the spirits. [432]

Another party of two thousand literary men, fanatical patriots, had assembled at Chō-rio to go up to Seoul to overawe the progressive ministers, but were met by messengers from the court and turned back by the promise that the party about to visit Japan under royal patronage should be recalled. For a moment the king had thrown a sop to these cerberian zealots, whose three heads of demand would keep Chō-sen as inaccessible as Hades.

The order came too late, the progressionists had left the shores, and were in Nagasaki. Thence to Ozaka, where some remained to study the arts and sciences; the majority proceeded to Tōkiō to examine modern civilization in its manifold phases. Unlike Peter the Great, some of these reformers began with themselves, clothing mind and body with the nineteenth century. Dropping the garments of picturesque mediævalism, they put on the work-suit of buttoned coat and trousers and learned the value of minutes from American watches. The cutting off their badge of nationality—the top-knot—was accompanied with emotions very similar to those of bereavement by death.

Giō Inchiu3 after his return from Japan was despatched on a mission to China, where his conference was chiefly with Li Hung Chang. He returned home by way of Fusan, December 29, 1881. He had now a good opportunity of judging the relative merits of Japan and China. His patriotic eye saw that the first need of Corean reform was in strengthening the army; though the poverty of the country gave slight hope of speedy success.

The results of this mission were soon apparent, for shortly after, eighty young men, of the average age of twenty, were sent to Tientsin, where they are now, 1882, diligently pursuing their studies; some in the arsenal, learning the manufacture of firearms, others learning the English language. A returned Chinese student—one of the number lately recalled from New England—while severely sarcastic at the Corean government’s “poor discrimination in selecting the country from which her students could profit most,” added, “they possess a far better physique for the navy than any of our future imperial midshipmen.” [433]