Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/318

 ana 294 GOBEJL stand even now that there are national differences and conflicting interests in the west Hence the missionaries would have been supposed to be in league and communication with the war ships. And need we be astonished if men, supposed to be the secret agents of a foreign power, having designs on Corean land and freedom, were put to death, and perhaps thousands of their converts, or '^ Corean-foreigners,"" made to suffer the same £stte ? The Coreans should, undoubtedly, know better ; and they cannot be excused for murder on such grounds, yet their conduct becomes explicable when we understand its cause. M. de Bellonet was French minister in Peking at that time ; and in his natural anger at the murder of his fellow-countiymen, he " bullied " the Chinese government, and declared the Corean king dethroned from the day of that murder. He ordered up the French squadron, under Admiral de Boze, who sailed with seven men of war to Ganghwa, the island taken by the Manchus. He took this island ; but on 26th October, 1866, he was driven back from an attempt on the river towards Seoul He had to retire, and the Coreans rejoiced in their triumph. M. de Bellonet was recalled for his violent language and hasty conduct But if M. Dallet is an authority, France is not yet done with Corea. The American ship, the " General Sherman,*' — ^with her owner, master and mate, American subjects ; her supercargo, and Bev. Mr Thomas, a young missionary, British subjects, and a crew of Malays, — sailed from Chefoo for the Pingyang river, after they had heard of the French massacre. She sailed up the Pingyang liver (Datong) in August, 1866, going up four tide& All accounts agreed that she had been left high and diy, having, in a high tide, diverged from the channel of the river ; that the Europeans were kindly treated for some days ; but after news from the capital, they were enticed on shore and put to death, the ship surrounded, and set on fire. In 1868, another vessel went up the Han river under charge of a young American, eager to immortalise his name as a successful body-lifter. But he was an imsuccessful one ; though a French priest told him he could hold the body of a dead king to any ransom.