In 1827 the Crown Prince was appointed deputy king and the same year a son was born to him. But troubles continued. The government was obliged to remit taxes of seaweed, salt, ginseng and fish in Kang-wŭn Province. The following year a terrible freshet swept away whole villages in Ham-gyŭng Province and the king sent large quantities of grain to feed the destitute there.
Still troubles multiplied thick and fast. In 1830 the Crown Prince died. He is the grandfather of the present Emperor of Korea. The son who had been born to him is known as the Tă wŭn-gun, who died in the spring of 1898. The building in which the body of this Crown Prince was placed burned to the ground and nothing but the charred bones of the prince were recovered. Two years later, in 1832 an English vessel appeared off Hong-ju and its captain, Basil Hall, sent the king a letter saying that he had come to trade, but the king refused permission. As the flag of the ship bore the device “Religion of Jesus Christ,” some Roman Catholic converts boarded her, but when they found that they were protestants they beat a hasty retreat. It is said that several boxes of books were landed and that some of them were sent to the king, who promptly returned them. The foreigners who made this attempt to enter Korea were Gutzlaff and Lindsay.
During this year there were destructive fires and floods, but the greatest calamity of all was a famine that began at that time and continued for nine successive years, each year being accompanied with cholera. It is said that bodies were piled in heaps inside the South Gate. Many people are still living who remember that terrible time. The next year, in addition to famine and plague, the palace burned down. In the following year there was a devastating epidemic of native fever in Seoul, and a flood in Eui-ju which wrecked 2,000 houses. That summer, the people driven wild with hunger mobbed the government granaries but found nothing in them. They laid the blame on the Prime Minister and threatened his life. He fled precipitately to the country.
In the last moon of 1834 the king died and his grandson a boy nine years old came to the throne. He is known as Hön jong Tă-wang. His grandmother Kim became regent. She is known as Sun-wŭn Whang-ho. She immediately began a work of reform. The law that made the relatives of prefects’ clerks liable to punishment for their crimes was abrogated. Many burdensome taxes were remitted. The government revenue collectors were kept to a strict account for all the monies passing through their hands. A conspiracy, headed by one Nam Ong-jung, was put down with a strong hand. The people were commanded not to slaughter their cattle for food, for the only hope for future crops was the cattle, without which the land could not be tilled. All prefects were commanded to have regular office hours during which they should attend to government business exclusively.
In 1831 Pope Gregory XVI had made Korea a bishopric and appointed M. Bruguiere as Bishop. A Chinaman named Yu who was then in Europe was appointed to accompany him to Korea. This man Yu went ahead and found means of entering Korea secretly. M. Bruguiere worked three years in the attempt to enter the country by way of the north across the Yalu and at last died on the very border. Yu who had preceeded[preceeded] him desired to hold supreme power in the Korean church, and so put obstacles in the way of the entrance of the Bishop. But in the following year Pierre Philibert Maubant, who had been appointed to Korea, succeeded in entering the country and began work in Seoul at once, but of course in secret. By 1837[1837] two other French priests had arrived, including Bishop Imbert. It is said that at the time of his arrival there were 9,000 adherents of the Roman Catholic church.
While the king was still but fourteen years old, in 1839, there occurred a cruel persecution of the Catholics. Three foreigners were in Korea, as we have seen, and they were known to the Koreans as Pöm Se-hyŭng, Na-bă Do-ru and Chöng-ă Kak-bak-i.
The persecution began as usual with a change of ministry. Yi Chi-ŏn became Prime Minister. He hated Christianity and averred that the reason why there were so many Christians was that the work of extermination had not been thoroughly carried out in 1801. He demanded a house to house inspection. This was done and soon the prisons were full to overflowing. Hundreds were cruelly beaten, but the yamen-runners were not allowed to loot the houses of the prisoners, which cooled their ardor not a little. Finally the three foreigners were arrested. Being ordered to leave the country they firmly refused. Thereupon they were declared high criminals and were executed on Sept. 21st, 1839. This was followed by still severer persecutions[persecutions] and even the Koreans themselves grew tired of the horrors that were enacted. It is said that seventy were decapitated and that sixty died of beating and strangulation. This is but a fraction however of those who perished in consequence of this persecution.
The last ten years of the reign were marked principally by events connected with the Roman Catholic propaganda. In 1844 two more French priests entered the country by way of Quelpart after a most difficult and hazardous passage from China in a Korean junk. Two years later the French government sent a message to Korea by a gun-boat, complaining of the death of the three Frenchmen and threatening her with punishment if these cruel actions were continued. This only excited the Koreans the more against Christianity, for it seemed to imply that Roman Catholicism had behind it a temporal power, and was therefore of political significance. In consequence of this a new outbreak occurred which cost the lives of several more Koreans, while the two priests were obliged to hide away very closely in the country.
In the summer of 1847 two French boats, the frigate la Gloire and the corvette la Victorieuse set sail from the Gulf of Pechili to go to Korea and ascertain what had been the result of the former letter. These two boats both struck a mud-bank and when the tide went down they broke in two. The crews to the number of 600 escaped to the neighboring island of Kogeum off the province of Chŭl-la, and a pinace was immediately despatched to Shanghai for aid. The Koreans gave every assistance in their power and supplied them with food and other necessaries, and even offered to provide boats to take the men back to China. In fact the action of the Korean government was most creditable throughout. An English ship happened to come by and it carried the survivors all back to China. The Korean government, fearing further visits from the French, decided to answer the letter of the previous year. It was couched in the following terms:
“Last year we received a letter from the foreigners. It was addressed to the ministers of this realm and read as follows: ‘Three of our countrymen, Imbert, Chastan and Maubant, have been put to death by you. We come to demand why you have killed them. You will say perhaps that your law forbids foreigners entering your country, but if Chinese or Manchus should happen to enter your realm you would not kill them, but you would have them carried back to their own country. Why then did you not treat these men the same way? If they had been convicted of murder, sedition or a like crime we would have nothing to say, but they were innocent, and in condemning them unjustly you have committed a grave injury against the French government.’ To this letter we beg to reply as follows: In 1839 there were arrested here certain strangers who were brought into the country at a time unknown to us. They wore Korean clothes, they spoke the Korean language, they traveled by night and slept by day; they veiled their faces, concealed their whereabouts and consorted with men whom we consider rebels, godless men and enemies of the government. When brought before the tribunal they claimed that their names were Pierre No and Japanese Cang. Are these the men you refer to? When interrogated, they said nothing about being Frenchmen, and even if they had we could not have sent them back, for we did not know where your country is. What could we do but apply our law, which forbids secret entrance into our kingdom? On the other hand, their conduct in changing their names and wearing Korean dress shows that they had ulterior motives, and they cannot be compared to those who have been shipwrecked upon our shores. Such men we save if possible and aid to send back home. Such is our law. Had your fellow-countrymen been shipwrecked upon our coast, they would have received precisely the same treatment as Chinese, Japanese or Manchus under like circumstances. You say that these men were killed without cause and that we have committed a grave offense against the French government. This is most astonishing. We have never had any communication with France. We do not know even how far she is from Korea. What motive could we possibly have for injuring her? How would you act if a foreigner should enter your country secretly and in disguise and do what you consider evil? Would you leave him alone? If a Chinaman or a Manchu should come here and do as your people did they would be treated in the same manner as we did your people. In fact, we did put to death a Chinaman because he came here in disguise and changed his costume; and the Chinese government never said a word about it, for they knew this to be our law. Even had we known their nationality, their actions were so contrary to our laws that we could hardly have spared them, how much less then when we did know it. This matter hardly needs more explanation. Your letter was sent without the proper formalities and we are not bound to answer it. This is not a matter that a mere provincial governor can handle. As we are China’s vassal it is our duty to consult the court at Peking on all foreign matters. Tell this to your chief and do not be surprised that in order to show the true state of the case we have been led to speak thus plainly.”