Report on the Coastal Districts of Jeolla處置全羅道沿海郡邑。啓

Yesterday, in audience with Your Majesty, I your servant respectfully received the royal word. You said that the magistrates of the coastal districts of Jeolla Province have abandoned the districts in their charge and are all away with the navy, not returning for a long time; that because of this every kind of business in the offices is neglected, that the people of the villages, though they would plead their hardships, have nowhere to plead them, that there is no one to urge and oversee the plowing and sowing, and that the issuing and collecting of the relief grain (還穀) all miss their season, so that the various harms are beyond telling.

If, worrying over this harm, the magistrates were sent back to their districts and others were to lead the soldiers out to the camps in their place, it would not be as good as when the magistrates go in person, and the business of the camps would be neglected instead. Both courses are harms hard to deal with, and we cannot but adapt to the time and find a way out of the harm.

We your servants have now consulted again in the sense you have instructed, and the several opinions are these. That the various districts of the two Ho provinces (兩湖) were worn down in days past came often from the appointing of temporary officials. If now they are sent out from the capital, then however carefully they are chosen, surely not all will prove the right man. When they take up the post and govern the district they will have the full look of a magistrate; but if such men cannot support their own wives and children, they will surely bring their households down with them and sit eating at the public office, and this too is not what the strength of today's wasted districts can bear. Better to have the Provincial Governor of that province appoint, following public opinion, men from among the scholars of the district or former court officials (前銜朝官) who know how matters stand, who are upright and careful and do nothing unrighteous.

Let such a man be styled yuhyeongwan (留縣官, the officer left in charge) in a hyeon, yugungwan (留郡官) in a gun, and yubugwan (留府官) in a bu, and let him for the present take the place of the magistrate in that charge until the matter is settled, handling all the petitions of the people within the district and the distributing of the relief grain and the pressing for its return. Only, let him not use at will the ration rice (料米) he eats from what is stored in the office; following the practice of the local school instructor in ordinary times, let ration rice be given him month by month and brought to account and reported to the Provincial Governor, and let the Ministry of Taxation be charged to put this into effect.

If among them there is one who does his duty well, who gladdens the hearts of the people, who issues and collects the grain in season, and who urges and oversees the plowing and the weeding, he is a man fit to be used as a magistrate; let the Provincial Governor and the Royal Inspector each look separately into the facts and report, and open the path of office to him. If there is one who recklessly works harm, who does not tend the people's pain, who errs in what is fitting in issuing and collecting the grain, and who uses the public grain recklessly, let him be punished each according to the lightness or weight of his fault. Would it not be well to send down a letter separately to the Provincial Governor of that province to carry this out with urgency, to have the names of those appointed set out and reported first, and to make known and put into effect along with it that none is to be shielded out of private feeling, adding to the harm of the districts and the people?