The Life of Gordon, Volume I

Taken off his guard, or confused between the sudden question and his own knowledge of what had occurred, Ching quickly replied, "They have not seen the Futai."

"What!" replied Gordon, equally hastily; "that must be nonsense. I saw the Wangs myself ride out of the city to the rendezvous, and spoke to them."

Ching then corrected himself by saying, "Oh, yes, that is all right, but they have not shaved their heads, and they want to retain half the city," the western half, that nearest to the relieving force, still at a considerable distance from Soochow, under the heroic Chung Wang.

To which Gordon at once responded, "That won't do. They must conform with what has been agreed upon," and turning to Macartney, he said, "Will you go to the Lar Wang's palace and tell him that this cannot be, and meet me afterwards at Wuliungchow, where I am to join the steamer Hyson to go on the Taiho Lake?"

Macartney at once accepted the mission, and proceeded to the Lar Wang's palace, but before following him thither it is necessary to refer to two earlier passages, one known and the other up to this moment unknown, in the relations of General Gordon and Sir Halliday Macartney.

The passage which is known is that where Macartney, sent as the representative of the Futai Li Hung Chang, and escorted by that Governor's own bodyguard, healed the breach caused between Gordon and General Ching by the latter firing on some of Gordon's troops and treating the matter with marked levity, which so enraged Gordon that he was on the point of attacking the Imperialist troops when Sir Halliday Macartney arrived as peacemaker, and with equal tact and energy averted the catastrophe. This incident has already been referred to, and need not further detain us. I come now to the second and more interesting matter.

Some weeks before the fall of Soochow, but at a moment when it had become clear that the place could not hold out much longer, Gordon approached Macartney and said: "I want to speak to you very privately, and as I do not wish any one to hear our conversation, will you come on board my boat?" When they were both on board, Gordon ordered his Chinese sailors to pull out to the centre of the lake before he would say a word. Having thus rendered secrecy assured, Gordon spoke as follows: —

"Macartney, I have brought you out here so that nobody should know of our conversation, and that we might speak out as man to man. I must tell you, in the first place, that as soon as Soochow falls I intend to resign the command and return home. With that intention in my mind, I have been anxiously considering who was the best man to name as my successor in the command of the Ever Victorious Army, and, after the most careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that you are the best man. Will you take the command?"

This unexpected question was the more embarrassing to Macartney, because, long before Gordon was appointed, rumour had freely credited him with coveting the command of the Ever Victorious Army in succession to Burgevine, and, as a matter of fact, the Chinese authorities had wished him to have the command. However, nothing had come of the project, and Macartney, after his post as Burgevine's military secretary had ceased to exist with the dismissal and treason of that adventurer, was appointed to a separate command of a portion of the Imperialist forces. The course of events had now, in an unexpected but highly complimentary manner, brought the realisation of any hopes he may have entertained on the subject within his reach. He replied to Gordon as follows: —

"As you speak so frankly to me, I will speak equally frankly to you, and tell you something I have never told a living person. Rumour has credited me with having aspired to the command of this force, but erroneously so. My ambition was to work myself up at Court, and only to take the command if forced on me as a provisional matter, and as a stepping-stone to my real object, which was, when my knowledge of the language was perfected, to acquire at Peking some such influence as that possessed by Verbiest and the other French missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I should never have mentioned this to you lest you should not have believed it, but now that the command is at my feet I may make this avowal without any hesitation as to your accepting it. As you really think I can best succeed to the command of the force when you resign it, I am perfectly willing to accept the task."

To which Gordon replied: "Very well, then. That is settled." With this private understanding, as to which nothing has been published until this moment, the conversation closed with a final injunction from Gordon of profound secrecy, as, should it become known, he might be unable to get certain of his more ambitious officers to take part in capturing the city. When Gordon therefore turned to Macartney, and asked him to proceed to the Lar Wang's palace and inform him that the terms of the convention must be carried out, it is necessary in order to throw light on what follows to state what their relations were at that moment. Gordon had selected Macartney as his successor in preference to all his own officers.

Macartney hastened to the Lar Wang's palace, but as he had lent Gordon his horse, his movements were slightly retarded. On reaching the building he noticed some signs of confusion, and when he asked one of the attendants to take him at once to his master, he received the reply that the Lar Wang was out. Sir Halliday Macartney is not a man to be lightly turned from his purpose, and to this vague response he spoke in peremptory terms:

"The matter is of the first importance. I must see the Lar Wang. Take me to him."

Then the servant of the Taeping leader did a strange thing.

"You cannot see my master," he said, and turning his face to the wall, so that no one else might see, he drew his open hand in a cutting position backwards and forwards. This is the recognised Chinese mode of showing that a man's head has been cut off.

Being thus apprised that something tragic had happened, Macartney hastened away to Wuliungchow to keep his appointment with Gordon, and to acquaint him with what had taken place at the Lar Wang's palace. But no Gordon came, and more than a day elapsed before Macartney and he met again under dramatic circumstances at Quinsan. After waiting at Wuliungchow some hours, Sir Halliday resolved to proceed to the Futai's camp, and learn there what had happened. But on arriving he was informed that the Futai was not in the camp, that no one knew where he was, and that Gordon was in a state of furious wrath at the massacre of the Wangs, which was no longer concealed. Macartney then endeavoured to find Gordon, but did not succeed, which is explained by the fact that Gordon was then hastening to Quinsan to collect his own troops. Baffled in these attempts, Macartney returned, after a great many hours, to his own camp near the Paotichiaou Bridge, there to await events, and on his arrival there he at last found the Futai Li who had come to him for security. Li put into his hands a letter, saying, "I have received that letter from Gordon. Translate its contents."

After perusing it, Macartney said: "This letter is written in a fit of indignation. You and Gordon are and have been friends, and I am also the friend of you both. The most friendly act I can do both of you is to decline to translate it. Let me therefore return you the letter unread."

"Very well," replied Li; "do as you think best, but as I am not to know the contents, I do not wish to have the letter. Please keep it."

Sir Halliday Macartney kept the letter, which remained in his possession for some time, until, in fact, he handed it, with an explanatory account of the whole affair, to Sir Harry Parkes, as will be explained further on.

After this point had been settled, Li Hung Chang went on to say that he wished Macartney to go and see Gordon at Quinsan, and speak to him as follows: —

"Tell Gordon that he is in no way, direct or indirect, responsible in this matter, and that, if he considers his honour involved, I will sign any proclamation he likes to draft, and publish it far and wide that he had no part in or knowledge of it. I accept myself the full and sole responsibility for what has been done. But also tell Gordon that this is China, not Europe. I wished to save the lives of the Wangs, and at first thought that I could do so, but they came with their heads unshaved, they used defiant language, and proposed a deviation from the convention, and I saw that it would not be safe to show mercy to these rebels. Therefore what was done was inevitable. But Gordon had no part in it, and whatever he demands to clear himself shall be done."

I do not gather that Sir Halliday Macartney had any serious misgivings about this mission when he undertook it. His relations with Gordon were, as has been shown, of a specially cordial and confidential character, and even if he failed to induce Gordon to abandon the threatening plans he had described in his letter to Li Hung Chang, which was in his pocket, there was no reason to apprehend any personal unpleasantness with one who had given the clearest proof of friendship and esteem. As I cannot give the full text of the original letter from General Gordon, I content myself by stating that its two principal passages were that Li Hung Chang should at once resign his post of Governor of Kiangsu, and give up the seals of office to Gordon, so that he might put them in commission until the Emperor's pleasure should be ascertained; or that, failing that step, Gordon would forthwith proceed to attack the Imperialists, and to retake from them all the places captured by the Ever Victorious Army, for the purpose of handing them back again to the Taepings. When Gordon went so far as to write a letter of that character, which, it must be admitted, was far in excess of any authority he possessed, it must be clear that the envoy, who came to put forward counsels that were intended to restore harmony, but that by so doing might assume the aspect of palliating the Futai's conduct, could not count on a very cordial reception from a man of Gordon's temperament, whose sense of honour and good faith had been deeply injured by the murder of the rebel leaders.

Still, Sir Halliday accepted the mission without hesitation, and hastened to carry it out without delay. It was late in the day when he saw Li Hung Chang, but having procured a native boat with several rowers, he set off in the evening, and reached Quinsan in the middle of the night. Gordon was then in bed and could not be disturbed, and while Macartney waited he drank some coffee Gordon's servant made for him, which he much needed, as he had left Soochow without having broken his fast during the whole day. After a short time, and before day had really broken, Gordon sent down word that he would see him, and Macartney went upstairs to an ill-lighted room, where he found Gordon sitting on his bedstead. He found Gordon sobbing, and before a word was exchanged, Gordon stooped down, and taking something from under the bedstead, held it up in the air, exclaiming:

"Do you see that? Do you see that?"

The light through the small Chinese windows was so faint that Macartney had at first some difficulty in recognising what it was, when Gordon again exclaimed:

"It is the head of the Lar Wang, foully murdered!" and with that burst into hysterical tears.

At once perceiving that any conversation under these circumstances would do no good, Macartney said he would retire and see Gordon later. Some hours afterwards breakfast was served in a large room downstairs, where there were present not only many of the officers, but also several European merchants and traders of Shanghai, who had been in the habit of supplying the force with its commissariat requirements. Gordon came in, and Macartney took a seat beside him. After a few minutes' silence Gordon turned to Macartney, and said abruptly:

"You have not come for yourself. You have come on a mission from the Futai. What is it?"

When Macartney suggested that so public a place might not be the most suitable, Gordon said: "There are only friends here. I have no secrets. Speak out."

There was no longer any honourable way of avoiding the challenge, and Macartney described exactly what has been already recorded as to Li Hung Chang having come to him with Gordon's letter, which from friendly motives he had declined to translate, and stating that Li took the whole responsibility on himself, and would exonerate Gordon from the least complicity in the affair, with which the Chinese statesman averred Gordon had had nothing to do. He went on to urge with regard to the measures threatened by Gordon in expiation of the massacre that they were not justifiable, and would not in the end redound to Gordon's own credit. In conclusion, he said he felt sure that "a little reflection would show Gordon that to carry on a personal war with the Futai would be to undo all the good that had been done. Moreover, you must recollect that although you, no doubt, have at this moment the military force to carry out your threats, it will no longer be paid by the Chinese authorities. You will only be able to keep your men at your back by allowing them to plunder, and how long will that prove successful, and what credit will you get by it?"

Gordon here stamped his foot, saying he would have none of Macartney's mild counsels. To which Macartney replied, "Mild or not, they are the only ones your Minister at Peking and our Queen will approve. Nay, what I advise you to do is even that you would yourself do if you would but reflect, and not let yourself be influenced by those men sitting at your table."

To these undoubtedly prudent representations, supported as they were by at least one of those present, Mr Henry Dent, who got up and said that, in his opinion, Dr Macartney's advice ought to be followed, while the others who wished the war to go on from interested motives remained silent, Gordon did and would not listen. The hot fit of rage and horror at the treacherous murder of the Wangs, kept at fever-point by the terrible memorial in his possession, was still strong upon him, and his angry retort was – "I will have none of your tame counsels," and there and then ordered the Hyson, with a party of infantry, to be got ready to attack the Futai, at the same time offering Macartney a passage in the steamer.

On hearing this decisive declaration Macartney left the table, and hastening to one of Gordon's officers, who was a personal friend, he begged the loan of a horse and a pair of spurs. Having obtained what he wanted, he set off riding as hard as he could by the road, which was somewhat shorter than the canal, so that he might warn Li Hung Chang as to what was going to happen, and also bring up his own troops to oppose the advance of Gordon, who actually did move out of Quinsan with the intention of carrying out his threats, but returned there when his flotilla had proceeded half way.

By that time he had fortunately reflected on the situation, and a sanguinary struggle was averted. Gordon came to see that his honour was not in the slightest or most remote degree involved, and that China was not a country to which the laws of chivalry could be applied; but before he had reached this stage of mental equilibrium he had penned a most regrettable and cruelly unjust despatch, not about Li Hung Chang or any one involved in the massacre, but about Dr, now Sir Halliday Macartney, whose sole fault had been that he wished to make peace, and to advise Gordon to act in the very sense which he afterwards himself adopted.

In a despatch to General Brown, commanding at Shanghai, which appears in the Blue Book (China, No. 3, 1864, p. 198), Gordon wrote: "I then went to his (Li's) boat and left him a note in English, informing him of what my intention had been, and also my opinion of his treachery. I regret to say that Mr Macartney did not think fit to have this translated to him… On 8th December the Futai sent Mr Macartney to persuade me that he could not have done otherwise, and I blush to think that he could have got an Englishman, late an officer in Her Majesty's army, to undertake a mission of such a nature." This statement, appearing in an official publication, has been largely quoted, especially in Mr Egmont Hake's "Story of Chinese Gordon," and the original injury done by Gordon, for which at the time he atoned, was thus repeated in an offensive and altogether unjustifiable form twenty years after Gordon had stated publicly that he was sorry for having written this passage, and believed that Sir Halliday Macartney was actuated by just as noble sentiments as himself.

It is not an agreeable task for any biographer to record that his hero was in the wrong, but as General Gordon frankly and fully admitted that in this matter he was altogether to blame, and as Mr Hake's error shows that his retractation never obtained that publicity which he himself desired, I conceive myself to be carrying out his wishes in placing the following facts prominently before the reader.

When the Blue Book was published with the despatch referred to, Dr Macartney took no notice of it. Some time afterwards he met the late Sir Harry Parkes, then Consul-General at Shanghai, and he described what I have set forth in the same language. Sir Harry Parkes, than whom England never had a finer representative in the Far East, at once said: "This is very interesting. Sir Frederick Bruce is coming down shortly. I wish you would write out what you have told me, so that I might show it to him." Dr Macartney wrote out his narrative, and with it he sent Gordon's original letter to Li Hung Chang. Those documents have never been published, but they should still exist in the Shanghai Consulate. Sir Frederick Bruce's (brother of the ambassador Lord Elgin, and himself the First British Minister at Peking) comment after perusing them was: "Dr Macartney showed very great judgment and good sense, and no blame attaches to him in this matter."

A considerable period intervened between the breakfast scene at Quinsan and Gordon's next meeting with Macartney. In that period much had happened. Gordon had forgiven Li Hung Chang, done everything that Macartney had recommended as the right course in the memorable scene at Quinsan, and by some of the most remarkable of his military exploits had crushed the Taeping rebellion, but the two principal actors in this affair had not crossed each other's path.

Six weeks after Gordon brought his operations in the field to an end at Chanchufu in May he returned to Soochow, and Li Hung Chang, wishing to do him honour, asked him to an official breakfast at his yamen. At the same time Li Hung Chang said to Macartney: "I have asked Gordon to breakfast. I know you and he have had some difference. How would you meet him if you came too?"

To this question Macartney replied: "I would meet Gordon exactly as Gordon met me. It is true that Gordon did me an injustice, but I am quite ready to blot it out from my memory if Gordon will admit it. Gordon acted under a strong feeling of excitement when he was not master of himself, and I have no more thought of holding him strictly responsible for what he wrote at such a moment than I would a madman."

Li Hung Chang said: "Very well, then. I ask you to come to breakfast to meet him." On Macartney's return to his house he found a letter from Gordon waiting for him. In this letter Gordon admitted that he had done him a wrong, and was prepared to sign any paper to that effect that Macartney might prepare.

Macartney thereupon replied to Gordon, pointing out that the mere publication of a letter of retractation was not an adequate reparation for an injurious statement which had been given a wide circulation, and to a certain extent placed beyond recall by appearing in an official publication, but that if he might publish Gordon's own letter offering to do this in the North China Herald, he would be satisfied, and the matter, as far as he was concerned, might be considered at an end. To this course Gordon at once acquiesced, subject to the omission of one paragraph affecting a third person, and in no respect relating to Sir Halliday or his conduct. This letter, which the Editor of that paper stated he "published at Colonel Gordon's request," on 23rd July 1864, read as follows: —

"Shanghai, July 5, 1864.

"My dear Macartney, – It is with much regret that I perceive in the last Blue Book issued on China affairs a Report from me to General Brown on the occurrences at Soochow, which report contains an injurious remark on your conduct.

"I am extremely sorry that I ever penned that remark, as I believe you went out of your way on this occasion wholly on the same public grounds which led eventually to my taking the field myself, and I can only excuse my having done so by recollecting the angry feelings with which I was actuated at that time.

"It will be my duty to rectify this error in other quarters, and in the meantime I beg you to make what use you may think fit of this letter. – Yours truly,

"C. G. Gordon."

On the next day Gordon and Macartney met at breakfast at the yamen of the Futai Li Hung Chang, and Gordon at once came up to Macartney and said:

"Do not let us talk of the past, but of the future. I am one of those who hold that when a man has wronged another he should seek opportunities through his life of making him redress. Now you are founding an Arsenal at Soochow, and I am going back to England, where I have a brother in the Arsenal at Woolwich. From him I can get you books, plans, and useful information. I will do so."

Gordon was as good as his word. He sent Macartney expensive plans and books, besides most valuable information. He also promised to write to the Duke of Cambridge as Commander-in-Chief, admitting that he was not justified in his criticism of Dr Macartney, who had acted in every way becoming an English gentleman and officer. Thus ended the misunderstanding between the two Englishmen who rendered China the best service she has ever obtained from foreigners; and knowing both these distinguished men intimately, I have much pleasure in testifying from my own knowledge to the accuracy of the following statement of Sir Halliday Macartney to myself that "after this, Gordon and I remained firm friends evermore."

Gordon's indignation at this outrage did not soon subside, and three weeks after it happened an opportunity presented itself for showing and perhaps relieving his mind. A high Chinese officer presented himself at his quarters at Quinsan to announce the receipt of an Imperial decree and presents from Peking as a reward for his share in the capture of Soochow. Gordon at once said that he would not accept the presents, and that they were not to be brought to him. The Chinese officer replied that they should not be brought, but that the emissary of the Emperor ought to be received. To this Gordon assented, and on 1st January 1864 he went down to receive him at the West Gate. On arriving there he met a procession carrying a number of open boxes, containing 10,000 taels (then about £3000 of our money) in Sycee shoes, laid on red cloth, also four Snake flags taken from the Taepings – two sent by Li Hung Chang, and two by another mandarin who had had no part in the Soochow affair. Gordon made the procession turn about and take the whole lot back again. He wrote his reply stating his reason on the back of the Imperial rescript itself; he rejected Li Hung Chang's flags, but he accepted the other two as being in no sense associated with the disgrace of the Taeping massacre. In this manner did Gordon show the Chinese what he thought of their conduct. His characteristic reply to the Imperial rescript read as follows: —

"Major Gordon receives the approbation of His Majesty the Emperor with every gratification, but regrets most sincerely that, owing to the circumstance which occurred since the capture of Soochow, he is unable to receive any mark of H.M. the Emperor's recognition, and therefore respectfully begs His Majesty to receive his thanks for his intended kindness, and to allow him to decline the same."

At this moment it will be recollected that Gordon was, strictly speaking, no longer in command. He had resigned, because his very reasonable demand for a gratuity to his troops had not been complied with. But circumstances were too strong for him, and a number of considerations, all highly creditable to his judgment and single-mindedness, induced him to sink his private grievances, and to resume the command on grounds of public policy and safety. The internal condition of the Ever Victorious Army itself, which inaction had brought to the verge of mutiny, was the determining fact that induced Gordon to resume the command, even at the price of meeting Li Hung Chang and sinking his differences with him. There had been much intrigue among the officers of the force as to who should succeed Gordon in the command, if he persisted in his resolve to give it up, and before tranquillity was restored sixteen of the agitating officers had to be dismissed. The force itself welcomed the formal resumption of the command by Gordon, and not the less because it signified a return to active operations after more than two months' inaction. The murder of the Wangs took place on 7th December 1863; it was on 18th February 1864 that Gordon marched out of Quinsan at the head of the bulk of his force.