KOREA WAS, FROM the point of view of Europe, the very end of the world – ‘the last semi-civilised State which has resisted the attempts of foreigners to open intercourse with it’, as Griffis put it. Unfortunately, it was impossible just to leave it alone because, in addition to its potential for trade, it was of great strategic importance, with Japan, China and Russia all vying for dominance over it. Parkes was most concerned about the last of these, telling Brooke Robertson, now Consul in Guangzhou, that ‘we ought to bring the fusty old ancients within the pale of intercourse if it were only to prevent them being annexed by the neighbour on their frontier’.

Parkes thought that Korea's backwardness provided an open invitation to Russia to gain strategic ports there, which would have jeopardised Britain's position in the area. His warnings about Russian intentions in Korea were alarmist; he told the Foreign Office that ‘Port Lazareff [now Wŏnsan in North Korea] and Pusan being taken by Russia would affect British interests even more than the position of the Khanates of Central Asia.’ This was a ridiculous exaggeration; Russian activity in the ‘Khanates’ menaced India which was a far more vital interest to Britain than anything in East Asia.

Perhaps because he overdid it, he got nowhere. When he recommended the annexation of Port Hamilton, a group of islands off the south coast of the peninsula (known in Korean as Geomundo or Komundo), in order to provide a base from which to police the area in 1875, he was turned down flat. The Foreign Office felt that it would create a bad precedent, giving an excuse to other powers to grab far more valuable Korean territory.

With the telegraph connecting Tokyo and London, there was no longer the option of acting without authority, so all Parkes could do was continue making his arguments. It was very unlike him to be so out of touch with Foreign Office thinking. In the past, they had treated his opinions with great respect – now they were dismissing them out of hand.