a well-disciplined force, after having quelled a number of mutinies, generally led by adventurers who resented the change in commanders.[1] Tsêng was so angered at this action of Burgevine's that he suggested in a letter to Li Hung-chang a joint memorial to the throne urging the execution of Burgevine for wounding the taotai Ouyang.[2] Tsêng's account of this episode differs somewhat from that given above from foreign sources. He says:
Burgevine, the foreign general of the "Ever Victorious
Army," had decided in the middle decade of the ninth moon to
come to the rescue of Nanking, but repeatedly postponed the date
of starting, at last, however, appointing the tenth of December
as the time of departure. Chen Wu-chao had gone ahead with
two steamers to gather his forces at Chinkiang, but Burgevine,
on the pretext that the pay of his army was in arrears, did not
come into the Yangtse. On the third of January[3] in Sungkiang
the gates were closed and a mutiny occurred, and on the 4th
with several tens of the armed brigade [i.e., those armed with
foreign guns] he came to Shanghai, broke into the premises of
Ouyang, wounded his relatives, seized more than $40,000, and
departed. Such trampling on rights and running amok without
the slightest regard to the law not merely renders it impossible
for China to use its strength to attack rebels, but is something
that foreign countries openly detest. Li Hung-chang should
clearly explain the case to the minister in Peking and together
with him inflict the severest punishment.[4]
We are now in a position to understand Li Hung-chang's implacable hatred for this man whom he persistently refused to reinstate, even after Burgevine had gone to Peking and secured the support of the British and American ministers there.[5] The withdrawing of
39 Hake, pp. 226-234. 40 Miscellaneous Letters, XX, 34b. 41 There is a discrepancy in dates here, foreign accounts giving the second. 42 Dispatches, XVII, 52a.
