"How Captain Dew, and all his crew, are allowed to do just what they have a mind to, is more than we can tell. Clearly all the people he slays he murders. He is violating every law, human and divine, to an extent which cannot be overlooked."[35]
It is a well-known fact that vast quantities of loot, and a money bonus from the Imperial authorities, almost invariably attended the capture of every Ti-ping city; and I have under my hand many apparently authentic statements in the press, accusing Captain Dew particularly, and others generally, of having been induced to carry on hostilities against the Ti-pings for "private aggrandisement," and from "far less disinterested motives than 'the love of glory.'" As for the effect the Dew war had upon trade, the following extract from a communication dated "Ningpo, March 28, 1863," and forwarded to H.B.M. Consul by a number of influential firms, will show:—"So great a panic exists among the natives on account of the lawless proceedings, that our trade is in a worse condition than when the rebels were in the neighbourhood!"
Captain Dew attempted to shirk the responsibility of Lieutenant Tinling's death at a place where duty did not call him, although his commanding officer's orders did, by declaring that he (the Captain) was there as an "amateur!" Killing one's fellow man, even when conscience-bound by the plea of duty, is bad enough; but roving about, seeking whom to destroy, and slaughtering innocent men for pleasure, is somewhat different. We have seen that even the Government, which has approved every other proceeding, completely repudiated the unpardonable conduct of Captain Dew; we therefore say adieu to that officer, trusting there are few like him in the British service.
It is now necessary to notice the last of the events referred to at the beginning of this chapter. Since the death of the lamented filibuster, various members of General Staveley's staff and command had been in a perfect state of ferment, intriguing for the command of the Ward force, which it was determined should be converted into a British contingent. A battalion of Chinese, wearing shoulder-straps with the badge "67," drilled and officered by members of the British regiment of that number, and popularly known as Captain "Kingsley's force," was organized and raised to a strength of 1,000 men. Other corps, and some of Chinese artillery, were formed, while British officers were induced to accept various commands pertaining to the Ward force and its head quarters at the city of Soong-kong.
After a series of preliminary operations, General Staveley effected the recapture of Kah-ding on the 24th of October, 1862. After a desperate defence, the Ti-pings were driven from the city with heavy loss. According to the safe modus operandi acquired by experience, General Staveley shelled the defenders for some hours from 40 pieces of heavy artillery and mortars. The besieging army consisted of 5,500 disciplined troops, including about 3,000 British and French, and a large co-operating force of Imperialist braves and soldiers. The Ti-pings, out of a garrison less than 5,000 strong, lost upwards of 1,500 men; while the allied loss amounted to 4 killed and 20 wounded. Soon after the capture of this city, the Ting-wang from Hang-chow, the Mo-wang from Soo-chow, and the Tow-wang from Hoo-chow, each commanding about 5,000 men, were ordered by the Shi-wang (chief in authority over their districts) to attempt its recovery, and also that of Tsing-poo. This army was attacked by General Burgevine's force, a column of 500 British troops, some 10,000 Imperialists, and an artillery detachment with 20 guns. The Ti-pings had just intrenched themselves by the light field works usual among the Chinese, when they were engaged by the enemy. Unable to reply to the murderous artillery of the British and disciplined troops, they still held the position, although the shot and shell committed fearful havoc in their close ranks. At last, when the enemy had become tired of their shell practice, and imagined the Ti-pings were sufficiently decimated, a general assault was given. An episode in this transaction is worthy of notice.
A division of the attacking army was led by one "Wong-e-poo," a young Chinese officer who had been promoted to a captaincy at the request of Admiral Hope, who had also presented him with a sword for conspicuous bravery during the raids he had lately conducted against the Ti-pings, and in which the officer had served as a sergeant of Ward's force. This gallant young Chinaman was the first to cross the line of intrenchments, and almost instantly fell mortally wounded; he then gave the sword to General Burgevine, whom he begged to keep it, and to give his young wife a few dollars to keep her from want—this was his last request. The Ti-pings, when driven from their slight defences, made a stand at a village just in the rear, and were three times brought back to the charge by a fine-spirited young chief, who was the Mo-wang's brother, and whose gallant bearing and handsome trappings attracted universal attention. At the last charge, Vincente, the late General Ward's aide-de-camp, spurred his horse into the Ti-ping ranks. Misled by the fact that he had separated himself from the enemy, and believing he came over as a friend, the chief unsuspiciously advanced towards him and held out his hand; the Manilla-man replied to his friendly gesture by shooting him dead, and then, singular to relate, managed to gallop back to the enemy in safety.
After two hours' fighting, during which the artillery mowed them down by hundreds, the Ti-pings were driven out of the village, and, being then hemmed in against a wide creek, which they had only one small pontoon bridge to cross by, suffered terribly from the deadly fire of grape and canister shot during their retreat. Their loss in this disastrous action was 2,300 killed (600 bodies were counted in one portion of the intrenchments) and 700 prisoners, the latter being barbarously put to death by their captors.
The frightful atrocities perpetrated upon the unfortunate Ti-pings by those into whose power they had fallen, even excelled the cruelties of the cruel Chinese and still more cruel Tartars. "How the Ti-pings were driven out of the Provinces of Kiangnan and Chekiang," from notes kept by an officer under Ward, Burgevine, Holland, and Gordon, is a lengthy narrative published in the Friend of China. The portion contained in the columns of that journal of April 25, 1865, describing the engagement just noticed, states:—"General Burgevine darkened the victory with a foul deed. The poor rebels who had been captured were cruelly blown away from the guns, to the delight of a few we will not mention, but to the disgust of the greater part of the officers." Who, after this, shall talk of Ti-ping cruelties? The revolutionists had neither made war upon, injured, nor even insulted foreigners; yet the foreign officers, supported by the help of British troops, actually massacred their unoffending and helpless prisoners of war in cold blood! Perhaps General Burgevine thought he was paying a graceful compliment to his British allies by imitating their deeds in India. No doubt some war-Christians think these latter proceedings exceedingly worthy and proper; however, the Ti-pings have never yet reached such a state of Christian civilization as to copy them.
The allied loss was 5 killed and 15 wounded, including three Europeans! And this may be taken as a fair sample of all the succeeding battles with the British, French, and other disciplined and artillery-supplied forces. The Ti-pings have always done all that men of flesh and blood were capable of doing, but, without artillery to resist or reply to that overwhelming arm of the enemy (supplied freely from the British arsenals), their bravest and best fell to the iron storm, and the rest fled before it.
Very shortly after the above action, General Burgevine became the victim of the scheming carried on between the mandarins and those British officials who desired to establish the Ward force as an English contingent. Having taken a large amount of specie from the house of Ta-kee (the banker to the force, and in the service of the Imperial Government), which he had been compelled to seize, nolens volens, in order to satisfy his men, who were in an open state of mutiny for their arrears of pay—pay, too, that seems to have been purposely kept lying idle at Ta-kee's house, probably with the cunning idea it would act (as in reality it did) upon the force, and produce some outbreak that could be taken advantage of to disgrace Burgevine and replace him by a British officer—he was dismissed from his command and a reward offered for his head by the Manchoo governor, or Fu-tai, of the province. The excuse given by the Mandarins for this transaction was that Burgevine had disobeyed orders, resisted lawful authority, and seized the money. Some measure of this is very probably true; but whatever offence had been committed by him, the mandarins had themselves been the cause of it by their peculation, withholding the wages of the troops, and underhand intriguing. Probably the fact that Captain Holland, R.M., was installed as Burgevine's successor, may account for the events leading to the latter's dismissal.