ENLIGHTENED GOVERNMENT
tion, that is to say, at the close of 1875, the Koreans completed their rupture with Japan by firing on the boats of a Japanese war-vessel engaged in the peaceful operation of coast-surveying. No choice now remained except to despatch an armed expedition against the truculent kingdom. In this matter Japan showed herself an apt pupil of Occidental methods, such as had been practised against herself in former years. She assembled an imposing force of warships and transports, but instead of proceeding to extremities, she employed the squadron—which was by no means so strong as it seemed—to intimidate Korea into signing a treaty of amity and commerce and opening three ports to foreign trade. That was the beginning of Korea's friendly relations with the outer world, and Japan naturally took credit for the fact that, thus early in her new career, she had become an instrument for extending the principle of universal intercourse opposed so strenuously by herself in the past. But the incident only accentuated the dissatisfaction of the conservative samurai. They did not want treaties of commerce, and they held it a national humiliation that the country should have negotiated on equal terms with a little State which they regarded as a tributary and which acknowledged China as its suzerain.
It was at this stage that the Government deemed itself strong enough to adopt extreme measures with regard to the samurai. Three
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