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근대한국외교문서

Aston의 조선행 및 지시내용에 관한 추가 보고

제2차 조약 체결 과정
  • 발신자
    H.S. Parkes
  • 수신자
    G.L.G. Granville
  • 발송일
    1883년 4월 21일(음)(1883년 4월 21일)
  • 수신일
    1883년 6월 4일(음)(1883년 6월 4일)
  • 출전
    FO 405/33; BDFA pp. 143-4; AADM p. 216-8.
Sir H.S. Parkes to Earl Granville.―(Received June 4)

(No. 60 Confidential)
Tôkiô, April 21, 1883

My Lord,

I MENTIONED in my despatch No. 35 of the 9th ultimo that I wished to submit to your Lordship some observations on the instructions I gave to Mr. Aston on sending him to Corea, and which I inclosed in that despatch. I have been backward in doing so because it subsequently appeared to me that I need only trouble your Lordship with remarks on two points connected with those instructions, namely, the wording of my letter to the Corean Minister for Foreign Affairs, and my reasons for promptly dispatching Mr. Aston. In order, therefore, to make that despatch more complete, I now beg to add the following comments.
It occurred to me that, if the Corean Government were to be induced to entertain the idea of modifying the British Treaty, and to communicate to Mr. Aston their disposition to do so, it was at least necessary that that idea should be suggested to their consideration, and that they should be informed that Mr. Aston was authorized to receive any communication on the subject which they might desire to make to Her Majesty’s Government. Such a suggestion had indeed been offered, or I had been told that it had been offered (as I reported in my despatch No. 4, Confidential, of the 12th January), by Kim Ok Kiun to the late Corean Envoys to Japan, but I could not rely on the latter having effectually placed it before their Government, and the request that they would do so had elicited no response.
I therefore ventured to consider that I might make to the Foreign Minister of Corea a similar communication to that which I had been authorized by Your Lordship to make to the Corean Envoys, and I accordingly observed in my letter to his Excellency that I had been instructed by Her Majesty’s Government to apprise him that if the Corean Government were willing to enter into further negotiations on the basis of the arrangements which they had recently concluded with China, Her Majesty’s Government would be happy to entertain proposals of that nature. It remains for me to hope that Your Lordship will approve of my having made this use of your instructions, and of my having addressed the Prime Minster and the Foreign Minister of Corea in order to satisfy them of the official character of Mr. Aston’s mission, and to induce them to treat him with proper consideration.
But lest those functionaries, either intuitively or at the suggestion of the foreign Agents at their capital, should have been disposed to question my right to address them, I attached considerable importance to the presence with Mr. Aston of Kim Ok Kiun, the confidential Agent of the King, which I could only have secured by dispatching Mr. Aston without delay, as the former was then on the point of leaving Japan for China, and he would not have accompanied Mr. Aston unless he could have proceeded with him at once. Kim Ok Kiun professes to be exceedingly anxious to see Treaty relations established between his country and European Powers as a means of checking the predominant influence and, as he considers it, the arbitrary action of China in Corea, and he is therefore interested in desiring the presence at the capital of European Agents, in order that the leaven of new opinion may be introduced into Chinese thought and views which at present prevail in the Corean mind. He may not unnaturally desire that the European Treaties shall be as one-sided in the Corean interest as his present perceptions lead him to think advisable, but I do not question the sincerity of his wish that Corean nationality shall not be absorbed in that of China.
In a conversation with me, he himself observed that if the British Government did not approve of the Commercial Clauses of their Treaty, which, in the face of the ratification of the identical American Treaty, his Government would find it difficult at once to alter, a preliminary Treaty of Friendship of two or three Articles, which would not comprise any commercial stipulations, might first be concluded between Corean and Great Britain, and which, by means of the insertion of the favoured-nation clause, would still enable the latter to claim full participation in the conditions of the American Treaty, if Her Majesty’s Government should choose to do so. I accordingly desired Mr. Aston to endeavour to learn whether this idea is favourably entertained by the Corean Government. If so, it might possibly furnish for the moment a convenient alternative course to ratification or rejection, as Kim Ok-Kiun stated to me that China has advised the Corean Government, when they have secured the ratification of the American Treaty, to allow the other Treaties to lapse, unless they are also ratified without modification.
As to the date of Mr. Aston’s proceeding to Corea, I had to remember that if the information which he might obtain there on the various points named in my instructions to him was to be of service to Her Majesty’s Government, if it was desirable that the latter should receive timely intimation of a disposition, if it exists, on the part of the Corean Government to modify the British Treaty, seeing that a decision must soon be taken as to whether that Treaty should be ratified or not, it was obvious that that information should be acquired as soon as possible. If also he was to secure a choice of Consular building sites, it was equally essential that he should be the first on the ground. Dispatching him at the earliest moment that I could obtain the services of one of Her Majesty’s ships, that is, in the middle of March, I could not look for his return before the middle or end of April, and I expected that by that time the ratification of the American Treaty would be followed by the arrival of the American Minister to Corea. I had also reason to believe that M. Möllendof, the protégé of the Chinese Grand Secretary Li Hung Chang, was about to leave Corea for a short interval to report progress to his patron and to promote the advancement of his interested action, and I thought that it would be no disadvantage to Mr. Aston to visit the capital during his absence. The Japanese Foreign Minister (as I reported in my despatch No. 50 of the 15th instant) also concurred with me in the opportuneness of Mr. Aston’s mission, and assured me that he would be assisted by the Japanese Minister at Söul in endeavouring to induce the Corean Government to adopt reasonable commercial views.
The correctness of these expectations have been sustained by the event. Mr. Aston, on his arrival in Corea, found M. Möllendorf absent, and he did not return there until 9th instant. The American Minister to Corea arrived here on the 19th instant, and Mr. Aston will return to Tôkiô, as I learn from his telegrams, which I have reported in my despatch No. 59 of this date, about the 25th instant.
In view of these considerations, I trust your Lordship will approve of my having pressed Vice-Admiral Willes, as I reported in my despatches Nos. 33 and 34 of the 9th ultimo, to allow one of Her Majesty’s ships to convey Mr. Aston to Corea without delay.

I have, &c.
(Signed) HARRY S. PARKES

색인어
이름
H.S. Parkes, Granville, Aston, Aston, Aston, Aston, Kim Ok Kiun, Aston, Kim Ok Kiun, Aston, Aston, Kim Ok Kiun, Aston, Kim Ok-Kiun, Möllendof, Li Hung Chang, Aston, Aston, Möllendorf, Aston, Willes, Aston, HARRY S. PARKES
지명
Tôkiô, Söul, Tôkiô
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Aston의 조선행 및 지시내용에 관한 추가 보고 자료번호 : gk.d_0007_1360