Doc. No. 98
Department of State
Washington
Commodore R.W. Shufeldt, U.S.N.
&c. &c. &c.
On Special Service at Peking

Sir:

Your communication in reference to the service upon which you were specially detailed, indicate your believe that a successful effort can now be made to open commercial relations with the Kingdom of Chosan. You are therefore furnished in this dispatch with the necessary instructions and such credentials as will attest your character and authority.
As the propriety of this renewed effort must to a very large degree be determined by your own discretion, governed by the condition of things, existing at the time of the receipt of this dispatch, it is proper that I should impress upon you that the government of the U.S. is not willing to subject itself to another refusal at the hands of His Majesty the King of Chosan. It is therefore only upon the assumption that you are in possession of evidence sufficient to furnish reasonable grounds for very confidant hope that you are authorized to put into execution the instructions now sent you. The government would be seriously dissatisfied if your anxiety to accomplish a work, in which I recognize, that you feel a natural and honorable interest, should so far mislead you as to subject the friendly advances of the U.S. to another repulse.
It is of course desirable, should you determine to prosecute the mission, that the letter from the President should be presented to His Majesty in person but as we have no reason to believe that access to the Capital will be allowed you, it is to be presumed that your negotiations will have to be conducted at Fusan with some representative of the government. You will take care that such representative is not an official of merely local or provincial consideration and you must be assured that any negotiator who may be appointed to assist you has full and direct authority from H.M. to discuss and sign a Treaty, and you will also require that the communication from the President be properly and honorably transmitted to the King, with a guarantee that it will be received and answered.
It may perhaps be judicious to put forward as the prominent purpose of your visit, a Treaty for the relief and protection of American vessels and crews who may be shipwrecked on the Corean coast, as the rare communications which we have already had with the Corean government have arisen from such recurrences and in any such negotiation you will take as your instruction the Treaty of May 17, 1880 with Japan, a copy of which accompanies this.
Should the temper and disposition of the Corean government be such as you anticipate, you will secure the right of trade at such port of ports as may be open. If I am rightly informed, the port of Fusan is at present the only port which is so open to foreign trade and even that trade is limited to subjects of the Emperor of Japan. I have no information as to what may be the limitations or conditions imposed upon this trade, but such a privilege would scarcely be satisfactory if it was anything less than the privilege of trade secured by Treaty to the citizens of the U.S. in the open ports of Japan and China.
Our experience with these Empires induces me to believe that a Tariff regulated by Treaty is not advisable and that you need only stipulate for an equality of duties, the rates being the same as those imposed upon native merchants or the most favored nations. But you will take special care to secure a provision that duties of import and export shall be paid only once for all at the ports of entry or shipment and that no further dues or internal taxes shall be levied or such merchandise in transition.
You will also endeavor to obtain the right of free travel into the interior for the purposes of trade under such regulations as you may deem fitting for the maintenance of a proper respect to the native laws and authorities and a sufficient and liberal protection of our own citizens.
In all cases of difference, or in the cases of commission of offences or crimes, you must insist upon the same exterritorial jurisdiction for Consuls and other officers, as is granted by the Government of Japan and China.
And in the Article which shall provide for the right of establishing Consulates, it is desirable that you should secure for the Consul the right of direct communication with the authorities at the Capital, until Diplomatic representation has been regulated, for you of course understand that Diplomatic representation is the necessary consequence of such a Treaty. The old and now happily terminated controversy with Japan and China over the right of Diplomatic residence at the Capital proves that no government can safely trust the persons and property of its citizens where it has not the right of equal and direct communication with the government which deals with them.
With these instructions, the Treaties with China, Japan, and Siam which are sent you, will be sufficient guide in your negotiations.
In your own experience and recognized ability, the Department has great confidence. While no political or commercial interest renders such a Treaty urgent, it is desirable that ports of a country so near to Japan and China should be open to our trade and to the convenience of such vessels of our Navy as may be in the waters, and it is hoped that the advantages resulting from the growing and friendly relations between those great Empires and the U.S. will have attracted the attention and awakened the interest of the Corean government. I look forward, therefore with confident expectations to the success which you anticipate, but in the negotiations upon which you may enter, the government desires that you shall avoid a complicated Treaty containing minute and multifarious provisions and that you shall distinctly refuse a prolonged and controversial discussion. If the government of Corea (or Chosan) is willing to open its ports to our commerce as China and Japan have done, we will with pleasure establish friendly relations, but we do not propose to force or to entreat such action.
Instructions will be sent from the Navy Department by the mail, to the Admiral commanding the Asiatic squadron, to place at your disposal such vessels as he can spare from the fleet. As it is to be presumed that he will cheerfully and cordially cooperate with you, your movements will to a reasonable extent, conform with such arrangement as he shall deem most judicious. You will be accredited to H.M. the King of Chosan, with your rank in the Navy and as Special Envoy from the United States.
While I do not feel disposed to put an absolute limit upon the time during which you may wait the result of your negotiations, the Government would not consider it compatible with a proper sense of its own dignity that you should remain in the Corean waters longer than two months unless the certainty of a successful termination of negotiations commenced in a friendly spirit and conducted with reasonable promptitude should require a moderate extension of time.
You will be allowed compensation at the rate of twenty dollars per diem and your actual travelling expenses from the day on which you shall leave your residence after the receipt of these dispatches until the return of the vessel to such point as the Admiral may designate upon the completion of your mission, and you will then consider the special service for which you have been detailed as completed. For while the government would learn with pleasure of the accomplishment of the other object referred to in your original instructions, it would not feel justified in prolonging indefinitely your details for special service at the Legation. It is presumed that such an arrangement as you contemplated at the time of your departure will at your return from Corea either have been effected or abandoned.

I am, Sir, &c
James G. Blaine