The Rover Incident ( or ) occurred on 12 March 1867 when the American merchant ship Rover, captained by Joseph Hunt who was accompanied by his wife Mercy G. Beerman Hunt, and en route from Shantou to Niuzhuang, was wrecked off the coast of Taiwan, then ruled by the Qing dynasty. The ship struck a coral reef called Qixingyan near Cape Eluanbi and drifted into the area of Kenting in modern-day Hengchun, Pingtung County, Taiwan. Fourteen American sailors, including Hunt and his wife, were killed by Taiwanese Aborigines in revenge for earlier killings of Kaolut (Koalut/Ku-a-lut/etc) tribe members by foreigners. Subsequently, the U.S. military decided to send a military expedition against the tribe members responsible. American reaction Following the wreck of the United States ship and killing of the surviving crew by aborigines, the American Consul to Amoy Charles William Le Gendre quickly traveled to Fuzhou, arriving on 2 April 1867, to persuade the Viceroys of Fujian and Zhejiang to intervene and put pressure on the Chinese authorities in Taiwan to resolve the issue. The Viceroy of Fujian gave Le Gendre permission to go to Taiwan himself and wrote him a letter of introduction to take to the prefect of Taiwan asking him to cooperate with Le Gendre; but the Viceroy also added that "if the consul takes measures to manage the case himself, please invite him not to do so, for these savages might give him more trouble that he thinks." Le Gendre commissioned the United States steamer , under the command of Captain John C. Febiger, in order to visit the scene of the wreck and to try (unsuccessfully) to get foreign officials in Taiwanfu (Taiwan's capital), where he arrived on 18 April) to act. After a subsequent failed punitive expedition carried out by Rear Admiral Henry H. Bell of the United States Navy, Le Gendre again returned to Taiwan—this time without any reference to his superiors. While in Taiwan, he asserted United States consular authority, selected a deputy consul in north Taiwan, visited the Keelung mines, and gathered information from United States merchants. On June 19, one hundred and eighty-one officers, sailors, and marines provided with four days' rations and water landed in Taiwan under Commander George Belknap of the who was accompanied by Lieutenant Commander Alexander Slidell MacKenzie, fleet lieutenant as second in command. In the terrible heat, it was "almost impossible to conduct operations in