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hama, so that in the eyes of the Coreans Japan was an accomplice in the attack. Again, when in 1868 Herr von Brandt, Prussian Minister in Tokyo, visited Fusan in a man-of-war, it was the Japanese living there that rendered him aid, so that the Japanese were, in the eyes of the Coreans, the ally of the much-hated foreigners.

In 1869 the new Imperial Government sent out a Commission of investigation to Corea, with special instructions to inquire into her relations with China and Russia, and the Commission returning the next year, its members eagerly explained the necessity and feasibility of warlike chastisement. The Daimyo of Tsushima, having resigned the post of the medium of communication between Japan and Corea, a direct mission was sent out in October, 1869, for the purpose of negotiating directly with the Corean Government; but they absolutely refused to receive it, and when the mission proceeded to the capital without invitation, they accused its members of having ‘intruded into forbidden precincts.’ The mission came away leaving behind a document of severe reproach. In August, 1871, Hanabusa, Chief Secretary of the Foreign Office, was sent out with two men-of-war to remonstrate with the Corean Government, but their downright refusal to have anything to do with him forced this tenacious diplomat to come away with empty hands.

In the same year Frederick F. Low, United States Minister in Peking, accompanied by Commodore John Rogers, commanding the United States squadron in Asiatic waters, proceeded to Corea with the mission of negotiation for the treaty of peace and commerce with that country, but the Coreans fired at the American vessels, and forced them to retreat after having inflicted some injuries on the forts. Tai-in-kun’s hatred of foreigners, Japanese included, became stronger than ever, and anti-foreign epitaphs were now posted up throughout the peninsula.

In Japan this was already the fourth year of the new Imperial Government, and the psychological moment was attained when the ex-Samurai politicians, tired of the long quiet after so many years of excitement and danger, and dissatisfied with the apparent gradual weakening of manly national spirit under the influence of Western intercourse, eagerly longed for some stirring events in which their belligerent patriotism could again be brought into direct display. Hence, the question of war or peace with Corea was clearly on the order of the day.

That there was ground enough to chastise Corea nobody doubted, but the peculiar condition in which Japan found itself just at this moment made this apparently simple ques-