Now, as Mr. Bruce himself reports that "85,000 bales of silk" were obtained from people who "destroy everything," and as the Ti-pings did "pretend to last"—so much so, indeed, that British and French assistance to the Manchoos was necessary to save them from total destruction, Mr. Harvey's "sober sense," to say the least, seems very doubtful.
The despatch under review is one of the most extraordinary series of contradictory terms ever produced, and really deserves a place in the British Museum or some old curiosity shop, as the "sober" creation of a person who takes remarkable care to assure his readers that he is perfectly "unbiassed." Within half a dozen lines of the last quoted passage Mr. Harvey audaciously protests:—"I repeat I have no bias one way or the other...." He then proceeds to state:—
"I have found in official dealings with them" (the Ti-ping chiefs) "a rough and blunt sort of honesty quite unexpected and surprising, after years of public intercourse with the Imperial mandarins."
Now, in the very next paragraph he speaks of them as—
"The naturally suspicious Taepings, who, amongst other peculiarities, possess a power of concealment and general secresy quite wonderful to meet in China."
Mr. Harvey attempts to prove the plundering propensities of the Ti-ping soldiery by the following invention:—
"On questioning decently-dressed Taeping soldiers as to how they liked their profession, the reply has ever been the following:—
"'Why should I not like it? I help myself to everything I choose to lay hands upon; and if interfered with, I just cut the man's head off who so interferes.'"
By the side of this we will just place Mr. Hewlett's report to Consul Harvey of his embassy to the Ti-pings at Yu-yaou, upon their advance to Ningpo:—