Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/285

262 December was certainty reached that it would not be renewed.

The causes for Burgevine's failure to come to Nanking during this supreme crisis are variously given, one of them being arrears in pay. Of his sincerity we cannot be too sure in the light of his later career. It is obvious from the account given above that the Chinese army desired his presence, if at all only when the imperial cause was in desperate straits during November. His repeated delays on one pretext or another did not bring relief when it was needed, and the final withdrawal of steamers when Burgevine actually contemplated starting was not an act of bad faith on the Chinese side, but the natural thing todo when the need for his aid had passed.

As shown in the letter of Tsêng quoted above, the "Ever Victorious Army" was far from popular among the Chinese, and in view of the definite abandonment of neutrality by the foreign powers they, too, desired a change in its character. The Chinese regarded it as too costly, resented its interference in civil government at Sungkiang, its quarrelsome personnel, and its overbearing conduct towards other Chinese.

On the second of January, 1863, these troops mutinied because of arrears in pay. Word came from Shanghai that the money would be forwarded in two days, on the strength of which Burgevine pacified the men. But at the appointed time no money arrived, and Burgevine went to Shanghai to secure it in person. There he was told that the money had not been promised at that date. He therefore proceeded to the house of "Takee," where, after having insulted and struck the proprietor, he seized the money and returned to Sungkiang. This brought about his dismissal from the service, and the appointment, subject to Sir Frederick Bruce, first of Captain Holland and later of Captain Gordon, who transformed the army into