From the first the character of the expedition was suspected, because the men were rather too heavily armed for a peaceful trading voyage. It was believed in China that the royal coffins in the tombs of Ping-an, wherein more than one dynasty of Chō-sen lay buried, were of solid gold; and it was broadly hinted that the expedition had something to do with these.
The schooner, whether merchant or invader, leaving Chifu, took a west-northwest direction, and made for the mouth of the Ta Tong River. There they met the Chinese captain of a Chifu junk, who agreed to pilot them up the river. He continued on the General Sherman during four tides, or two days. Then leaving her, he returned to the river’s mouth, and sailed back to Chifu, where he was met and questioned by the firm of Meadows & Co.
No further direct intelligence was ever received from the unfortunate party.
The time chosen for this “experimental trading voyage” was strangely inopportune. The whole country was excited over the expected invasion of the French, and to a Corean—especially in the north, where not one in ten thousand had ever seen a white foreigner—any man dressed in foreign clothes would be taken for a Frenchman, as were even the Japanese crew of the gunboat Unyo Kuan in 1875. An armed vessel would certainly be taken for a French ship, and made the object of patriotic vengeance.
According to one report, the hatches of the schooner were fastened down, after the crew had been driven beneath, and set on fire. According to another, all were decapitated. The Coreans burned the wood work for its iron, and took the cannon for models.
During this same month of August, 1866, the Jewish merchant Ernest Oppert, in the steamer Emperor, entered the Han River, and had secret interviews with some of the native Christians, who wrote to him in Latin. Communications were also held with the governor of Kang-wa, and valuable charts were made by Captain James. One month later, in September, the French war-vessels made their appearance.
The U. S. steamship Wachusett, despatched by Admiral Rowan to inquire into the Sherman affair, reached Chifu January 14, [[393]]1867, and is said to have taken on board the Chinese pilot of the General Sherman, and the Rev. Mr. Corbett, an American missionary, to act as interpreter. Leaving Chifu January 21st, they cast anchor, January 23d, at the mouth of the large inlet opposite Sir James Hall group, which indents Whang-hai province. This estuary they erroneously supposed to be the Ta Tong River leading to Ping-an city, whereas they were half a degree too far south, as the chart made by themselves shows.
Map Illustrating the “General Sherman” Affair.
A letter was despatched, through the official of Cow Island, near the anchorage, to the prefect of the large city nearest the place of the Sherman affair, demanding that the murderers be produced on the deck of the Wachusett. The city of Ping-an was about seventy-five miles distant. The letter probably went to Hai-chiu, the capital of the province. Five days elapsed before the answer arrived, during which the surveying boats were busy. Many natives were met and spoken to, who all told one story, that the Sherman’s crew were murdered by the people, and not by official instigation.[4] [[394]]