When a missionary, spy and friend of opium traders visited Korea

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…