The first public man who gave this idea official expression was the Honorable Zadoc Pratt, then member of the House of Representatives from the Eleventh (now the Fifteenth) Congressional District of New York. As chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, he introduced in Congress, February 12, 1845, a proposition for the extension of American commerce by the despatch of a mission to Japan and Corea as follows:
“It is hereby recommended that immediate measures be taken for effecting commercial arrangements with the empire of Japan and the kingdom of Corea,” etc. (Congressional Globe, vol. xiv., p. 294).
The Mexican war was then already looming as a near possibility, and under its shadow, the wisdom of sending even a part of our little navy was doubted, and Mr. Pratt’s bill failed to pass.
None of the American commanders, Glyn, Biddle, John Rodgers, or even Perry, seem to have ventured into Corean waters, and Commodore Perry has scarcely mentioned the adjacent kingdom in the narrative of the treaty expedition which he wrote, and his pastor, the Rev. Francis L. Hawks, edited. In truth, the sealed country was at that time almost as little known as that of Corea or Coreæ, which Josephus mentions, or that province of India which bears the same name.
The commerce which sprang up, not only between our country and China and Japan, but also that carried on in American vessels between Shanghae, Chifu, Tien-tsin, and Niu-chwang in North China, and the Japanese ports, made the navigation of Corean waters a necessity. Sooner or later shipwrecks must occur, and the question of the humane treatment of American citizens cast on Corean shores came up before our government for settlement, as it had long before in the case of Japan.
When it did begin to rain it poured. Within one year the Corean government having three American cases to deal with, gave a startling illustration of its policy—with the distressed, kindness; with the robber, powder and iron; with the invader, death and annihilation. [[391]]
On June 24, 1866, the American schooner Surprise was wrecked off the coast (of Whang-hai?). The approach of any foreign vessel was especially dangerous at this time, as the crews might be mistaken for Frenchmen and killed by the people from patriotic impulses. Nevertheless Captain McCaslin and his men with their Chinese cook, after being first well catechised by the local magistrate, and secondly by a commissioner sent from Seoul, were kindly treated and well fed, and provided with clothing, medicines, and tobacco. By orders of Tai-wen Kun, they were escorted on horseback to Ai-chiu, and, after being feasted there, were conducted safely to the Border Gate. Thence, after a hard journey via Mukden, they got to Niu-chwang and to the United States consul. A gold watch was voted by Congress to the Rev. Père Gillie for his kindness to these men while in Mukden.
From a passage in one of the letters of the Corean Government, we gather that the crew of still another American ship were hospitably treated after shipwreck, but of the circumstances we are ignorant. Of the General Sherman affair more is known.
The General Sherman was an American schooner, owned by a Mr. Preston, who was making a voyage for health. She was consigned to Messrs. Meadows & Co., a British firm in Tien-tsin, and reached that port July, 1866. After delivery of her cargo, an arrangement was made by the firm and owner to load her with goods likely to be saleable in Corea, such as cotton cloth, glass, tin-plate, etc., and despatch her there on an experimental voyage in the hope of thus opening the country to commerce.
Leaving Tien-tsin July 29th, the vessel touched at Chifu, and took on board Mr. Hogarth, a young Englishman, and a Chinese shroff,[2] familiar with Corean money. The complement of the vessel was now five white foreigners, and nineteen Malay and Chinese sailors. The owner, Preston, the master, Page, and the mate, Wilson, were Americans. The Rev. Mr. Thomas, who had learned Corean from refugees at Chifu, and had made a trip to Whang-hai on a Chinese junk, went on board as a passenger to improve his knowledge of the language.[3] [[392]]