More than a century after Dutch sailor Hendrick Hamel published the first book about Korea in a European language, a handful of Western explorers visited its coasts and recorded their impressions in memoirs. In 1787, French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse sailed past Jeju Island and Ulleung Island, and 10 years later, Capt. William Robert Broughton of Britain landed near present-day Busan while charting the North Pacific. Capt. Basil Hall provided a more detailed account of his 1816 visit to Korea’s west coast, describing a largely positive encounter that included what was likely the first English lesson on Korean soil. Not every visitor looked upon Korea so positively, however. In the summer of 1832, Korea was visited by the British ship Lord Amherst. Aboard was the German Lutheran minister Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff. Born in Prussia in 1803, Gützlaff had trained as a missionary, learned several languages and served in Java and Singapore before arriving in China in 1831. His aim during this visit was to open Korea to foreign trade and Christianity. In an account publish