Among the other events of the spring months of 1907 was one which, while in itself considered, was relatively unimportant, was destined to become of no small political influence upon the Japanese policy in Korea and upon the relation of the Emperor and the court circle to that policy. This was the sudden departure, after selling his effects at auction, of Mr. Homer B. Hulbert. It does not belong to the story we have to tell, to speak of the previous history of this gentleman in Korea, or of his views on historical subjects when involving the character of the Japanese, except so far as the statement of the facts and truths of history makes such reference—mostly indirect—indispensable. But on this particular occasion what transpired of Mr. Hulbert’s transactions with the Emperor is so intimately connected with the political events of the period that some special mention of them cannot properly be omitted. Immediately on my return from Chemulpo, Wednesday, May 8th, I found the excitement of the day was over the following questions: “What was Mr. Hulbert’s motive for leaving Seoul so suddenly? Where is he going? and What is his business?” Now the _Korean Daily News_, the violently anti-Japanese paper which was currently believed to receive the support of Mr. Hulbert, in the forms of friendship with its editor, writing some of its editorials, and interest in its receiving subsidies, had just published as a despatch from Paris (dated May 3d) the following illuminating statements: “Korea will also participate in The Hague Peace Conference”; but then again: “It is reported that Japan will represent Korea at the Conference.” The conjecture, therefore, was very promptly made by those in the diplomatic service in Seoul that the Emperor had again given another large sum of money to the same hands, with the same hope, as formerly, of procuring foreign assistance or even intervention. This was, however, hard to credit even by those most suspicious; for, from the Japanese point of view, such a transaction would have been on the recipient’s part very like “obtaining money under false pretences,” and on the giver’s part, a breach of the compact with Japan which might seriously impair, or even endanger, the imperial interests. That such a commission was a breach of treaty-obligations will be made perfectly clear when we come to narrate the true history of the compact made in November, 1905.