former’s ardent desire always to adhere to the fairest principles of international conduct was, for once, frustrated by the rash act of a handful of their brethren at Seul. The pernicious influence of the Queen passed away, and the power of the reform Cabinet was for the moment assured, but only at the expense of a revolting crime which the Japanese will never cease to lament. It is probable that the murder of the Queen, as apart from the rise of Tai-wen-kun, was premeditated, and also that Minister Miura had been prevailed upon to connive at the guilt. The Japanese Government at once recalled and tried him and forty-seven other suspected persons, and prohibited Japanese from visiting Korea without special permission. Mr. (now Baron) Komura, who presently succeeded to the Ministry at Seul, seemed to reverse the policy of his predecessors and abstain from active interference. The Korean Cabinet also appeared powerless to check the Russian party, whose power was growing apace. Prominent politicians out of office frequently conferred at the Russian Legation, where some of them were even said to have taken refuge from the law. There a leader of this party (who till May of the present year represented Korea at St. Petersburg) matured a plan to overthrow the Cabinet, or, in case of failure, to abduct the King and the Crown Prince to Vladivostok. The plan, however, was discovered on November 28,[497] only to be followed by another, which proved successful. In January, 1896, there took place a slight uprising in Northern Korea, at the instigation, it was said, of pro-Russian leaders. When the major portion of the army had been sent out of the capital to suppress the alleged rebellion, 127 Russian marines with a cannon suddenly landed at Chemulpo on February 10, and immediately entered Seul. The next day, before dawn, the King, with the seal of the state, as well as the Crown Prince and Princess and some court ladies, fled in disguise to the Russian Legation, where the King remained for a twelvemonth, till February 20 of the following year. At his arrival at the Legation, an edict was issued proclaiming the Cabinet Ministers guilty of treason, and ordering their decapitation. Another edict canceling the order appeared too late, for the Prime Minister and two other Ministers had been murdered on the streets in broad daylight, and their heads exposed by the wayside, while three others had fled to Japan for life.[498] The murders of February, 1896, would have come down to history as more atrocious than the crime of October 8, 1895, had it not been for the fact that the latter involved the life of a queen.