Since 1839, the government had tripled its vigilance, and doubled the guards on the frontier. No one could pass the gate at Ai-chiu who had not a passport stamped with the chief inspector’s seal, bestowed only after the closest scrutiny and persistent cross-questioning. On it was written the name and place of birth and residence of the holder, and after return from China or the fair it must be given up. The result of these stringent regulations was to drive the missionaries to find a path seaward. In December, 1844, of seven converts from Seoul, attempting to get to the Border Gate, to meet Ferreol, only three were able to pass Ai-chiu. The other four, who had the wig, hair pins, and mourning costume of a widower for Ferreol, were unable to satisfy their questioners, and so returned. At the Border Gate, Ferreol, after seeing the caravan pass, ordered Andrew Kim to enter alone, while he returned and sailed soon after to Macao. Andrew, with the aid of his three friends, who met him at a lonely spot at some distance from Ai-chiu, reached Seoul, January 8, 1845.
As soon as resources and opportunity would permit, Andrew collected a crew of eleven fellow-believers, only four of whom had ever seen the sea, and none of whom knew their destination, and equipped with but a single compass, put to sea in a rude fishing-boat, April 24, 1845. Despite the storms and baffling winds, this uncouth mass of firewood, which the Chinese sailors jeeringly dubbed “the Shoe,” reached Shanghae in June. Andrew Kim, never before [[366]]at sea except as a passenger, had brought this uncalked, deckless and unseaworthy scow across the entire breadth of the Yellow Sea.
After the ordeal of the mandarin’s questions,[2] and visits and kindly hospitality from the British naval officers and consul, he reached his French friends at the Roman Catholic mission.
The beacon fires were now blazing on Quelpart, and from headland to headland on the mainland, telegraphing the news of “foreign ships” to Seoul. From June 25th until the end of July, Captain Edward Belcher,[3] of the British ship Samarang, was engaged in surveying off Quelpart and the south coast. Even after the ship left for Nagasaki, the magistrates of the coast were ordered to maintain strict watch for all seafarers from strange countries. This made the return of Andrew Kim doubly dangerous.
Bishop Ferreol came up from Macao to Shanghae, and on Sunday, August 17th, Andrew Kim was ordained to the priesthood. On September 1st, with Ferreol and Marie Antoine Nicholas Daveluy, another French priest, he set sail in “the Shoe,” now christened the “Raphael,” and turned toward the land of martyrdom. It was like Greatheart approaching Giant Despair’s Castle.
The voyage was safely, though tediously, made past Quelpart, and through the labyrinth of islands off Chulla. On October 12th, the Frenchmen, donning the garb of native noblemen in mourning, and baffling the sentinels, landed at night in an obscure place on the coast. Soon after this Daveluy was learning the language among some Christian villagers, who cultivated tobacco in a wild part of the country. The bishop went to Seoul as the safest place to hide and work in, while the farmer-sailors, after seven months’ absence, returned to their hoes and their native fields. [[367]]
[1] By poetic justice, the chief instigators of this persecution came each to a bad end. Of the court ministers, one, having provoked the king’s jealousy, was obliged by royal order to poison himself at a banquet, in December, 1845, and the other, falling into disgrace, was sent to exile, in which he shortly died. The chief informer, who had hoped for reward in high office, obtained only a minor position, with little honor and less salary. He was afterward exiled, and in 1862, having headed a local uprising, was put to death, his body was minced up, and the fragments were exhibited through the provinces. [↑]
[2] So fearless and generous a soul as Andrew Kim, who could yet follow the ethics and example of his teachers in repeatedly practising deception and violating his country’s laws at Ai-chiu, scrupled not to lie to the mandarin at Shanghae, and tell him that he and his crew had been accidentally driven out to sea. As in the later case of the robbery of the regent’s tomb, “the end justified the means.” [↑]
[3] The voyage of this officer, which added so much to science, resulted in making Quelpart and Beaufort Islands, Port Hamilton, and Mount Auckland as well known in geography as the names of Her Majesty’s servants were known in British politics. The visitors were treated with courtesy, and even their survey-marks, stakes, and whitewashed stones were carefully set up when washed away by the storm, or disturbed by cattle. The Coreans, however, drove their beeves well away from the Englishmen, who longed for fresh meat. [↑]