n 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