Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/391

Chapter XII. GOVERNMENT. Laws. On the subject of Corean laws, we can give no special infor- mation, and must be satisfied with general remarka The Coreans permit no intercourse with other nations, — not even with the Chinese, except by special government permission, and under the most stringent supervision. At the time of their greatest power in Peking, the Jesuits were encouraged to go to Ck)rea, into which their science was opening as wide a door as it had done in China ; but as the Jesuit fatal tendency to meddle with state affairs manifested itself in the latter country, with an unfortunate effect upon their mission work, they were forbidden Corea ; and as lately as the last few years, the Jesuits, hiding among their converts in Corea, were subjected to a bitter persecution, from which only two French priests escaped, and which carried off large numbers of their followers. China had done otherwise in persecuting ; for the government took the utmost precautions to save the western priests from the populace, and had them safely escorted to the Portuguese in Macao ; while they persecuted only their own subjects who refused to submit to the ordinaiy laws and magistrates of their native land. The Corean successful defence against the French fleet, which steamed up the Han to revenge the murder of these priests, led to stricter rules than ever against any contact with the "foreign nation," — for all westerns are lumped into one " outer kingdom," both in China and Corea. On this notion was based the law forbidding the introduction of cottons, which, though English, were supposed to be in close connection with the kingdom whose ships they had drivenoff, and which kingdom would