he has also made it appear that the signatures and the Imperial seal upon the document were fraudulently obtained. Meantime, he has sedulously (and, we believe, with such sincerity as his nature admits) cultivated and cherished the friendship of the Japanese Resident-General who negotiated, and who has administered affairs under, the Treaty. How he lost his crown, at the hands of his own Ministry, for his last violation of the most solemn provisions of the same treaty, is now a matter of universal history.
Marquis Ito arrived at Seoul, as the Representative of the Japanese Government, to conclude a new Convention with Korea, during the first week of November, 1905. He was the bearer of a letter from his own Emperor to the Emperor of Korea, which frankly explained the object of his mission. What follows is the substance of His Japanese Majesty's letter.
"Japan, in self-defence and for the preservation of the peace and security of the Far East, had been forced to go to war with Russia; but now, after a struggle of twenty months, hostilities were ended. During their continuance the Emperor of Korea and his people, no doubt, shared the anxiety felt by the Emperor and people of Japan. In the mind of His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, the most ab-
the papers of the United States, which makes his commission by the Korean Emperor to lodge an appeal with President Roosevelt the cause of hastening the Japanese Government in their iniquitous coup d'état. The truth is that the Japanese Government had made all the preparations for Marquis Ito's departure, and the plan afterward carried out had been carefully formulated, weeks before it was known that Mr. Hulbert was going to the United States. The Marquis was only waiting the return of Baron Komura to Japan before leaving for Korea. No thought whatever was at any time given to Mr. Hulbert. It is, in general, late now to say that the efforts of those "friends of Korea," who have taken the Korean ex-Emperor's money while holding out to him the hope of foreign intervention, have done him and his country, rather than Japan, an injury impossible to repair.
