Welsh Journals

a basic ability to speak and understand the language and he took care to dress in Korean fashion. During his stay at Chefoo he had made friends with two Korean traders and he made the journey in their company and visited the home district of one of them and this despite the ferocious persecution of Roman Catholic Christians which would culminate in the deaths of seven European priests and the scattering or killing of thirty thousand lay people in 1866. Nevertheless, he remained in the country for two and a half months, returning to Beijing in January 1866. Robert Jermain Thomas's Second Visit to Korea When news of the massacre filtered through to mainland China, the French decided (according to a letter which Thomas sent to the LMS) 'to send an expedition immediately to rescue two missionaries who are supposed to be living amongst the Corean mountains, to demand satisfaction for the massacre, and open Corea, closed for so many years, to the commerce of the West'. But they needed a guide and an interpreter and Thomas was the only person known to have these credentials so the French Ambassador requested him to accompany the Admiral on an expedition. It is rather surprising that the young missionary agreed to go considering that the purpose of the expedition was partly military and commercial. He was however supported, at least initially, by his superior and friend Joseph Edkins But en route to Chefoo he was told the bad news by the French consul that a small insurrection had taken place in Saigon and that the Admiral had left Chefoo for Hongkong but would probably return in a month. Thomas did not wish to be idle for that length of time so he joined an American ship, the General Sherman, on her voyage to Korea. He was welcomed as an interpreter and navigator but he also made the journey as a missionary who wished to distribute scriptures and to preach, if the opportunity arose, to the Koreans. So he joined a crew of twenty-three consisting of the ship s owner, W. B. Preston, Page its master and Wilson the owner's friend all Americans and Hogarth an Englishman and nineteen Malay and Chinese sailors. The ship had been hired by a British company and was one-hundred-and-eighty feet long and fifty feet wide. There was also a lifeboat, sixteen feet long and eleven feet wide. She sailed from Chefoo on 9 August, 1866. The Korean authorities must have had wind of the expedition because it issued a directive asking for defensive measures to be taken in hand along the coast and, 'If anyone suspicious appears, he must be captured, examined and executed as a warning', and they were, of course, fearful of a French revenge attack. So it was known that the voyage of the General Sherman would be a risky one. In the light of this information the LMS committee in Beijing resolved that Thomas was proceeding to Korea without its concurrence. Joseph Edkins, its secretary, expressed his anxiety in his letter to Mullens, Joint Foreign Secretary of the LMS: In the present alarm felt in Corea in the fear of a French invasion, any European appearing on the coast would be regarded with extreme suspicion, and be liable to capture and ill-usage'.