In spite of his natural amiability this ruler has frequently shown a cold-blooded and calculating cruelty, made more conspicuous by ingratitude and treachery; and his reign has been throughout characterized by a callous disregard of the sufferings of the people through the injustice of his own minions. To quote again the estimate of a foreign minister: “His Majesty loves power, but seems color-blind when it comes to the faculty of distinguishing between the true and the false. He would rather have one of the Government Departments pay 20,000 _yen_ in satisfaction of a debt which he owes than pay 5,000 _yen_ out of his own purse.[43] And he allows himself to be cheated with the same sense of toleration which he has for those who cheat the Government, provided that the culprit has the saving grace of a pleasing deportment.” One of his most able and upright Korean officials once declared: “It is true I am devoted to His Majesty, and I am sure he likes me; but if I were to be executed for some crime of which I was completely innocent, and a friend were to come to His Majesty, while he was at dinner, and implore his intercession, if it meant any danger, even the slightest, to him, he would leave me to my fate and go on eating with a good appetite.” During the Boxer troubles in China a plot was devised by the reigning favorite of the Emperor, Yi Yong-ik, to kill all the foreigners in Korea; the plot was exposed, but the favorite did not suffer in his influence over the Emperor. Over and over again, in earlier days, the missionaries have appealed to him in vain to secure their converts against robbery and death at the hands of imperial favorites. It was formerly his custom to have at stated intervals large numbers of persons executed—inconvenient witnesses, political suspects, enemies of men in power. This custom of indiscriminate “jail-cleaning” was, as far as it was safe and allowable under the growing foreign influences, continued down toward the present time.