Not the least important event of 1885 was the completion under Chinese patronage of the Seoul-Peking telegraph line by which Korea was for the first time put into quick communication with the rest of the world. At the dictation of China a commissioner, Yi Chung-ha was sent north to meet a Chinese commissioner and determine the exact boundary between Korean and Chinese territory along the Tu-man River.
A customs service had been begun by von Mollendorf on an independent basis but in July of 1885 he was dismissed from service in the Foreign Office and two months later he was relieved of work in the Customs because of unwarrantable schemes into which he had drawn that department of the government. The whole service was thereupon put under the management of Sir Robert Hart the Inspector General of the Chinese Customs. An entirely new staff of men was sent from China. H. N. Merrill was made Chief Commissioner and Chemulpo, Fusan and Wŭnsan were put in charge of men directly from the Chinese Customs staff. This was a guarantee of excellent management but it proved to be the strongest lever China had in the carrying out her ambitious plans in the peninsula. Before the close of the year Gen. Foote without giving specific reasons retired from the United States Legation and returned to America, Ensign Geo. C. Foulk becoming Charge d’Affaires.
In the early months of 1886 Yi To-jă, Sin Keui-sŭn, Hong Chin-yu, An Chŭng-su and Kyöng Kwang-guk were banished to distant islands for complicacy in the plot which led to the emeute of 1884.
In February the king by royal edict abolished the hereditary transmission of slaves and the use of slave labor by the guilds in the work on the palaces. This was a measure of far-reaching import had it been carried out in full; but we find that it had to be re-enacted in 1894.
The government desired to secure the services of a foreign expert as adviser to the Home and Foreign Offices and with the sanction of Li Hung-chang, the Chinese Viceroy, Judge O. N. Denny, ex-Consul-general of U. S. to China, was called and he arrived in the spring of 1886 just in time to be present at the signing of the treaty with France. He had for some years been on rather intimate terms with the Great Viceroy and it is probable that the latter hoped to use the Judge in forwarding Chinese interests in Korea. If so he found himself grievously mistaken for the United States as well as Japan and France, had recognized the independence of Korea, and Judge Denny devoted his energies to the maintenance of that independence. Yuan the Chinese commissioner[commissioner] had taken up his residence in Seoul and had dubbed himself “Resident” in opposition to the Korean claim to independence. The Peking government, forgetting or ignoring the fact that whenever Korea had gotten into trouble she (China) had always disavowed responsibility and had practically disclaimed suzerainty, now began to bolster up her claims and to use every means to make good her pretensions. The dominant party which had ridden into power on the shoulders of the Chinese put no obstacles in the way and thus Judge Denny found himself blocked in his efforts to better the condition of the country.
It was generally understood that the right of Japanese and Western foreigners to reside in Seoul was based on the most favored nation clause in the treaties and that if the Chinese removed from Seoul the others could be compelled to do likewise. The Chinese, therefore, hoping, it is said, to secure more exclusive power in the capital by the removal of other foreigners began to agitate the question of removing all their nationals to Yong-san near the river three miles from Seoul. For a time it appeared as if this might be done but the large vested rights of the Japanese in the capital as well as the interests of others caused a counter agitation which frustrated the scheme.
Geo. C. Foulk, Ensign in the U. S. Navy, had long been in connection with the Legation in Seoul. Early in 1881 he had suggested to the government the advisability of founding a school for the instruction of young Koreans in Western languages and sciences, and consequently the United States Secretary of State was requested by the Korean government to secure three men as instructors; but the emeute of that year had deferred the matter. In 1886 it was again brought up and in July three men who had been selected by the U. S. Commissioner of Education arrived at the Korean Capital. A terrible epidemic of cholera devastated the city that summer and as many as seven or eight hundred deaths occurred daily. It was in September that the Royal English School was opened.
Chinese claims to suzerainty emboldened the Chinese merchants to attempt to evade the customs regulations and the result was a serious affray in Chemulpo when the Chinese tried to evade the export on ginseng. The Chinese Commissioner tried to uphold them in it but a vigorous protest to Li Hung-chang righted the matter and the offenders were deported and the Customs Service was vindicated.
It was in this year that the trading station Whe-ryŭng on the Tu-man River was established for convenience of trade with Russia but it was not made an open port. About this time the school founded by the American Methodist Mission received royal recognition and the king conferred upon it the name Pai Chai Hak Tang or “Hall for the Rearing of Useful Men.”
Contrary to the wishes of the Chinese a Korean Minister to America was appointed in the person of Pak Chöng-yang, but in attempting to start for America he was intercepted by the Chinese just outside the South Gate and compelled to return. Two months later, however, he succeeded in getting away. He was received in Washington with all the punctiliousness due to a Minister from any sovereign power. This helped in a certain way to forward Korea’s claim to independence but America’s well-known policy of non-interferance in foreign matters largely neutralized its effect.