Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/334

Rh a very great disturbance. In revolving over and over in my mind the question of this journey, I am unhappily without a single good plan. From the time I first recruited "braves" in 1853 I have sworn to devote my life on the battle field. Now, advanced in years and weighed down with illness, I am in an extremely critical position. Yet, that I may preserve my first ideals, I am by no means willing to shrink from death. Lest perchance I should meet the extreme calamity [of death] and you be left with no knowledge of my various affairs, I am now setting forth one or two matters, in order that, being prepared, you may not be too perplexed.

By the time Tsêng arrived in T'ientsin, July 8, he had already decided to attempt the settlement of the less serious claims of Russia, Great Britain, and America, and then to address himself to the difficult French issues. To his mind the whole question behind the massacre was that of the implication of the church in the two charges of kidnapping and tearing out hearts and eyes, and that question must first be investigated, since the confessions of the kidnappers accused the church. After Wang San was arrested, Tsêng proposed to find out whether he had been reared by the church, whether he was or was not implicated in the crime of kidnapping with Wu Lan-chen, and, finally, whether there was any truth in the charge