at Seoul, but all their applications were firmly declined. The Duke of Genoa, making a tour of the world in an Italian man-of-war, touched at Fusan, hoping through the Japanese agents at that settlement to effect some communication with the king, hut the local officials refused to receive or forward his letters. Not discouraged, he went to Gensan, and spent some time in the harbor of Port Lazareff, establishing pleasant relations with the local authorities. He threatened that unless they transmitted his letter to the king at the capital he would land a force of marines and send it by them; but the most he could accomplish was to have the prefect of the port make a copy of his letter, with the promise to send it with his report of the visit to the governor of the province.[1]
But notwithstanding this outward show of a fixed determination to keep the "Land of the Morning Calm" in strict seclusion, influences were at work which were destined to bring about a change in the policy of the government. Members of the embassy to Japan, after seeing the advance of that country under foreign influence, had returned with modified views as to the true interests of their people. The presence at Seoul of Japanese and Chinese diplomatic officials and of soldiers armed and drilled in Western style were affording an insight, even though imperfect, of the benefits of modern civilization.
In 1881 a Korean attached to the Chinese legation in Japan sent a notable memorial to the king, which attracted great attention at the court of Seoul. He
- ↑ U. S. For. Rel. 1879, p. 612; Griffis's Corea, 426, 428; Gundry's China, 245.
