On the 18th of April, 1885, a Convention was signed which was intended to prevent in the future all recurrence of events similar to those of the previous December. The important point of this Convention is that both sides pledged themselves against armed interference in Korea except in pressing emergencies and after mutual consultation. This agreement, while it saved the “face” of China—a matter so imperatively important from the Chinese point of view—was a virtual abandonment of her claim of suzerainty; for it gave to Japan, which made no such claim, equal interest in the internal affairs of Korea and equal right to send troops into its territory, in case the judgment of both countries recognized such a need. The agreement also promised good for Korea herself, since it made the use of Chinese or Japanese soldiers in control of Korean affairs more unlikely for trifling reasons; and, on the other hand, it safeguarded her against other foreign armed intervention as the result of her domestic intrigues. The story of what followed and led up to the war with Japan is, briefly, as follows: The stipulations of this Convention were observed by Japan both in letter and in spirit, and by China, upon the surface at least. For a few years neither Power sent troops to Korea; and China ceased to flaunt the claim to suzerainty before her neighbor’s face. But she still cherished the fiction and sought to maintain by indirection, and by means peculiarly Chinese, what she had failed to uphold in the open. Thus, in 1887, as stated in Moore’s _Digest of International Law_: “The Chinese Government sought to prevent the departure of a Korean envoy to the United States on the ground of the dependent relation of Korea toward China. The American Minister at Peking was instructed to express surprise and regret at this action on the part of the Chinese Government. The envoy finally set out on his journey, but when he arrived in the United States the Chinese Minister at Washington wrote the Department of State to the effect that the Korean envoy would, on his arrival there, report to the Chinese Legation, and would be presented through it to the Department of State; after which he might apply for an opportunity to present his credentials to the President. “The Korean envoy, on the day after his arrival in Washington, addressed a note to Mr. Bayard, as Secretary of State, asking for an interview to arrange for the presentation of his credentials to the President. Such an arrangement was duly made, and the envoy was presented without the intervention of the Chinese Minister. ‘As the United States,’ said Mr. Bayard, ‘have no privity with the interrelations of China and Korea, we shall treat both as separate governments customarily represented here by their respective and independent agents.’”