One of the measures taken by the pro-Japanese government, which excited great feeling and probably did more than anything else to arouse protest, because so cruelly calculated to wound the desolate and stricken king, was a decree sent through the whole land in the king’s name declaring the queen a wicked woman and degrading her to the lowest rank. This they asked the king to sign and seal, but shaken as he was, he absolutely refused so to insult his dead consort, and the cabinet were obliged to forge his signature, and seal the paper themselves. This act bore the stamp of the Tai Won Kun, whose insatiable hate was not satisfied with the murder of the queen, but followed her with insults to the grave. In the midst of these days of confusion and excitement, the loyalist party, or at least some of them, made an attempt to rescue the king. This all his friends ardently desired, but it was very difficult to accomplish, as his majesty was surrounded constantly by spies and guards, whose interest as well as whose business it was to keep him under the strictest surveillance. Numbers of Koreans came to my husband with various schemes for the accomplishment of the king’s release, seeking his advice and aid, but while he was very willing to express his sympathy with their object and his disapproval of the rebel government, he did not consent to any part in any of their projects, partly because he did not know whom to trust, and partly because none were such as he, a missionary, could take part in or support. I do not doubt, however, that if he could have seen a way to do so, he would gladly have sacrificed much to have assisted the king to escape to a place of safety, where he could establish his own government without fear of the combinations formed against him.