During November the dissatisfaction throughout Korea with the measures which were taken and proposed increased, and the position became so strained, owing to the demand of the Foreign Representatives and of all classes of Koreans that the occurrences of the 8th of October must be investigated, and that the fiction of the Queen being in hiding should be abandoned, that the Cabinet unwillingly recognized that something must be done. So on 26th November the Foreign Representatives were invited by the King to the Palace, and the Prime Minister, in presence of His Majesty, who was profoundly agitated, produced a decree bearing the King’s signature, dismissing the special nominees of the mutineers, the Ministers of War and Police, declaring that the so-called Edict degrading the Queen was set aside and treated as void from the beginning, and that she was reinstated in her former honors; that the occurrences of the 8th October were to be investigated by the Department of Justice, and that the guilty persons were to be tried and punished. The death of Her Majesty was announced at the same time. At the conclusion of this audience, Mr. Sill, the United States Minister, expressed to the King “his profound satisfaction with the announcement.” Mr. Hillier followed by “congratulating His Majesty on these satisfactory steps, and hoped it would be the beginning of a time of peace and tranquillity, and relieve His Majesty from much anxiety.” These good wishes were cordially endorsed by his colleagues. The measures proposed by the King to reassert his lost authority and punish the conspirators promised very well, but were rendered abortive by a “loyal plot,” which was formed by the Old Palace Guard and a number of Koreans, some of them by no means insignificant men. It had for its object the liberation of the sovereign and the substitution of loyal troops for the _Kun-ren-tai_. Though it ended in a fiasco two nights after this hopeful interview, its execution having been frustrated by premature disclosures, its results were disastrous, for it involved a number of prominent men, created grave suspicions, raised up a feeling of antagonism to foreigners, some of whom (American missionaries) were believed to be cognizant of the plot, if not actually accessories, and brought about a general confusion, from which, when I left Korea five weeks later, there was no prospect of escape. The King was a closer prisoner than ever; those surrounding him grew familiar and insolent; he lived in dread of assassination; and he had no more intercourse with foreigners, except with those who had an official right to enter the Palace, which they became increasingly unwilling to exercise.