to Court and broken in an hour, and would count himself fortunate if he
escaped with his life.

The Korean people are eminently pacific. Up to a point, they endure hard
thing's uncomplainingly. It would have been better for them had they not
suffered wrongs so tamely. The Yi method of government killed
ambition--except for the King's service--killed enterprise and killed
progress. The aim of the business man and the farmer was to escape notice
and live quietly.

Foreigners attempted, time after time, to make their way into the country.
French Catholic priests, as far back as the end of the eighteenth century,
smuggled themselves in. Despite torture and death, they kept on, until the
great persecution of 1866 wiped them and their converts out. This
persecution arose because of fear of foreign aggression.

A Russian war vessel appeared off Broughton's Bay, demanding on behalf of
Russians the right of commerce. The King at this time was a minor, adopted
by the late King. His father, the Tai Won Kun, or Regent, ruled in his
stead. He was a man of great force of character and no scruples. He slew in
wholesale fashion those who dared oppose him. He had the idea that the
Christians favoured the coming of the foreigner and so he turned his wrath
on them. The native Catholics were wiped out, under every possible
circumstance of brutality, and with them perished a number of French
Catholic priests. By one of those contradictions which are constantly
happening in real life, the crew of an American steamer, the _Surprise_,
who were wrecked off the coast of Whang-hai that year were treated with all
possible honour and consideration, and were returned home, through
Manchuria, officials conducting them and the people coming out to greet
them as they travelled through the land.