Ferreol, worn out with his labors, after lying paralytic for many months, died February 3, 1853; but in March, 1854, Janson, making a second attempt, entered Corea, having crossed the Yellow Sea in a junk, which immediately took back three native students for Macao. Janson died in Seoul, of cerebral fever, June 18, 1854.
In these years, 1853 and 1854, Commodore Perry and the American squadron were in the waters of the far East, driving the wedge of civilization into Japan, and sapping her walls of seclusion. The American flag, however, was not yet seen in Corean waters, though the court of Seoul were kept informed of Perry’s movements.
A fresh reinforcement of missionaries to storm the citadel of paganism, Bishop Simeon, François Berneux, with two young priests, Michel Alexandre Petitnicholas and Charles Antoine Pourthie, set sail from Shanghae in a junk, and, after many adventures, arrived at Seoul via Whang-hai, while Feron (of later buccaneering fame) followed on a Corean smuggling vessel, standing unexpectedly before his bishop in the capital, March 31, 1857. A synod of all the missionaries was now held, at which Berneux consecrated Daveluy as his fellow bishop. Maistre died December 20th. The faith was now spread to Quelpart by a native of that island, who, having been shipwrecked on the coast of China, was carried by an English ship to Hong-Kong, where he met a Corean student from Macao and was converted. The Roman Catholic population of Corea in 1857 was reckoned at 16,500.
Communication with the native Christians living near Nagasaki, and then under the harrow of persecution, took place. The cholera imported from Japan swept away over 400,000 victims in Corea. Thus does half the world not know how the other half lives. How many Americans ever heard of this stroke of pestilence in the hermit nation?
In 1860, war with China broke out, the French and English forces took the Peiho forts, entered Peking, sacked the summer palace of the Son of Heaven, a few thousand European troops destroying the military prestige of the Chinese colossus. The [[371]]Chinese emperor fled into Shing-king, toward Corea. The news produced a lively effect in Chō-sen, especially at court.[5]
The utter loss of Chinese prestige struck terror into all hearts. For six centuries, China, the Tai-kuk (Great Empire), had been, in Corean eyes, the synonym and symbol of invincible power, and “the Son of Heaven, who commands ten thousand chariots,” the one able to move all the earth. Copies of the treaty made between China and the allies, granting freedom of trade and religion, were soon read in Corea, causing intense alarm.
But the after-clap of news, that turned the first storm of excitement into a tempest of rage and fear, was the treaty with Russia. General Ignatieff, the brilliant and vigorous diplomatist then but twenty-eight years old and fresh on the soil of Cathay, obtained, in 1860, after the allied plenipotentiaries had gone home, the signature of Prince Kung to the cession of the whole Ussuri province. The tread of the Great Bear had been so steadily silent, that before either Great Britain or Chō-sen knew it, his foot had been planted ten degrees nearer the temperate zone. A rich and fertile region, well watered by the Amoor and Sungari Rivers, bordered by the Pacific, with a coast full of harbors, and comprising an area as large as France, was thus ceded to Russia. The Manchiu rulers of China had actually surrendered their ancestral homeland to the wily Muscovites. The boundaries of Siberia now touched the Tumen. The Russian bear jostled the Corean tiger.
With France on the right, Russia on the left, China humbled, and Japan opened to the western world, what wonder that the rulers in Seoul trembled?
The results to Corean Christianity were that, in less than a decade, [[372]]thousands of natives had fled their country and were settled in the Russian villages.
At the capital all official business was suspended, and many families of rank fled to the mountains. The nobles or officials who could not quit their posts sent off their wives and children. All this turned to the temporary advantage of the missionaries. In many instances, people of rank humbly sought the good favor and protection of the Christians. Medals, crosses, and books of religion were bought in quantities. Some even publicly wore them on their dress, hoping for safety when the dreaded invasion should come. The government now proceeded to raise war-funds, levying chiefly on the rich merchants, who were threatened with torture and death in case of refusal. A conscription of able-bodied men was ordered, and bombs, called “French pieces,” and small-bore cannon were manufactured. In a foundry in the capital heavy guns were cast after the model of those left by the wreck of the La Gloire. The Kang-wa forts were built and garrisoned. In the midst of these war preparations, the missionary body was reinforced by the arrival of four of their countrymen, who, by way of Merin Island, set foot on the soil of their martyrdom October, 1861. Their names were Landre, Joanno, Ridel, and Calais. This year the number of Christians reached 18,000.