Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/158

 Kang-wha and sailed away to China. The effect upon the regent and the people of Korea was electric. They had vanquished the very men who had stormed Peking and humbled the mighty Emperor. If the reader will try to view this event from the illinformed standpoint of the Korean court, he will see that their exultation was reasonable and natural. The last argument against a sweeping persecution was now removed, and the fiat went forth that Christianity was to be annihilated. No quarter was to be given; neither age nor sex nor condition was to weigh in the balance. From that date till 1870 the persecution raged with almost unabated fury, and it is probable that it involved the lives of nearly twenty thousand Koreans. This includes those who fled to the mountains and froze or starved to death.

In 1871 an American expedition was fitted out to go to Korea and attempt to conclude some sort of treaty with Korea relative to the treatment of American seamen who were cast upon the shores of the peninsula, but also, and mainly, to open up trade relations. Admiral Rogers was in charge, and the flotilla consisted of five vessels, - the Colorado, Alaska, Bernicia, Monocacy and Polos. Frederick F. Low, .the American minister at Peking, went with the fleet to carry on the diplomatic part of the undertaking. He knew very well, as is seen in the official correspondence, that it was a hopeless task, but he obeyed orders.

They reached the western coast of Korea at the end of May, and attempts were at once made to communicate with the government, but the regent shrewdly suspected that the expedition had to do with the massacre of the crew of the General Sherman, and determined to handle the Americans as he had the French. While the flotilla was waiting for an answer from Seoul, two of the smaller vessels were sent up the estuary between Kang-wha and the mainland to take soundings and make observations. This place was considered the very gate to the capital, and the extreme unwisdom of the act appeared when a small Korean fort on the island opened fire on the boats. The latter returned the fire, but