CHAPTER XVIII

DUFFERIN'S MISSION

Lord Dufferin's arrival at Cairo on the 6th November placed matters there on an entirely new footing. Up to that point Riaz Pasha and the rest of the Khedive's Ministers had been doing pretty much as they liked, subject only to Malet's weak supervision. But Dufferin was a man of another mould, and soon showed the Khedive that his position while in Egypt was to be that of master, not adviser. He paid little attention to his tales, and not much, I believe, to Malet's, but opened the doors of his Embassy to every one who could give information. Mackenzie Wallace, his chief assistant, in a very few days acquired a good general knowledge of what had been going on in Egypt during the last two years, and his book about it gives more of the truth than any other yet published in English. Dufferin, though an idle man, was a rapid worker, and where he had something serious to do, knew how easiest to do it.

Nevertheless, for the first fortnight after Dufferin's arrival, and until he had quite assured himself of his ground, the prosecution of Arabi was allowed to work on in its own casual way, swayed by the Khedive's ever shifting impulses of a desire to conceal the truth on the one hand, and an unwillingness on the other to let go his prey. These will be best recorded by simply reproducing the letters and telegrams which now passed almost daily between me in London and Messrs. Broadley and Napier at Cairo, as will the successive steps by which a compromise of the trial was eventually come to.

_Broadley to Blunt, November 6th (in answer to his letter of November 2nd)_:

"I entirely concur in all you say, and shall exercise the greatest prudence. I am completing a perfect case for defence, showing:

"(1) Purity, honesty of Arabi's inspirations.

"(2) Perfect concurrence of Tewfik till July 12.

"(3) Perfect concurrence of the Sultan throughout.

"(4) Universality of the movement.

"(5) Wholly illegal constitution of the Court Martial.

"(6) Absurdity of the white flag (on which subject Napier has secured A 1 deposition from Lambton).

"(7) Abnormal humanitarian character of Arabi.

"(8) Abnormal iniquity of all proceedings until our arrival.

"(9) Torture of prisoners.

"(10) Letters from Tewfik to Constantinople against England.

"(11) Systematic falsification of the 'Moniteur.'

"Shall demand release of all the accused. _Keep this private._

"Now all I fear is the enormous expense of a protracted trial of eight or nine months. Arabi _alone_ calls 400 witnesses.... I spend freely. I entertain the correspondents. I have wheedled the 'Egyptian Gazette' into being our special organ. I have turned public opinion here quite in favour of Arabi. We are obliged to employ a dozen interpreters at salaries varying from £1 to £2 10_s._ a week.... My absence from Tunis means utter loss of _all_ there. All my pending cases have been given up, including some of great magnitude. Bourke will tell you I have one retainer alone of £250 a year, and another of £100.... I hope you will take all this into consideration.... I only say I believe all will depend on liberal if not lavish expenditure. Remember we have every one against us, and people don't work without a reward here.... An Arabi fund should be raised. The nine months' Tichborne trial is a specimen. But I don't think we should exceed _one-tenth_ of that at the worst.... All I say hinges on expenses. Don't think of me but only of incidental expenses.... I work sixteen hours a day.... Napier is invaluable."

_Napier to Blunt, November 6th_:

"You seem to be doubtful about the _acte d'accusation_. We have not had it officially communicated. It is not proposed by the prosecution to frame it until the close of the evidence. But in substance it is fairly stated in a telegram I think to the 'Times':

"(1) The abuse of the White Flag.

"(2) Complicity in massacres and pillage, June 11.

"(3) Complicity in destruction by fire of the city.

"(4) Carrying war into territory of the Sultan.

"(5) General acts of mutiny and rebellion against the Khedive and the Sultan."

_Broadley to Blunt, November 7th (telegraphed)_:

"If you don't mind expense great success sure--see my yesterday's letter. I shall crush Tewfik and his crew past hope of redemption."

_Napier to Blunt, November 10th_:

"I have seen Dufferin to-day. He received me most kindly, though he declined to enter on business at once. He had only just received his instructions. Broadley and I are to meet him to-morrow.

"There seems to be a desire to burk inquiry into the rebellion question. The Government and all the papers are pledged to the ridiculous rebel cry, the one of all others that incenses me most. It is an old trick that has been played in Afghanistan, the Cape, and elsewhere. Any one can see that it may be smashed into a cocked hat at once.... Proposals for a compromise must come from the other side, must be put in writing, and must contain all that you claim--indeed I think they ought to amount to unconditional surrender. Of this of course more fully afterwards. You may be assured that we will not consent to anything without communication with you, and fullest deliberation."

_Napier to Blunt, November 15th_:

"I suppose you can guess the innumerable difficulties with which we have to deal. In the first place since we were not permitted to be present at the examination of the witnesses, it is necessary for us not only to have the whole of the evidence copied, but also to submit the whole of it to each of the prisoners for his observation and consideration.... There are 136 witnesses who will be brought against us. Besides these, 125 prisoners have been interrogated, and their answers will be used against each other. Then anybody who pleases seems to have been allowed to write letters to the Court, among others, H. H. the Khedive and, I believe, the Ministers, or some of them.... Not one word of the evidence is on oath, and most of it consists of hearsay and opinion.... 'In your opinion is Arabi a rebel?' 'I don't know.' 'You bad, wicked man, why don't you know?' 'I can't tell why I don't know.' 'Then think it over, and to-morrow bring a written statement of what you do know.' To-morrow the wretch arrives with a written statement that the prisoner in question is a rebel and incendiary.

"Then again the translations afforded us are not correct translations from the originals, and the originals are not true records of the evidence of the witnesses themselves....

"Thank Heaven they have imprisoned a man named Rifaat. [He had been Secretary to the Government and Director of the Press.] They could not have done anything so destructive to their own case. Not only does he know French well, but he has good literary ability, and a very fair knowledge of all these tortuous and involved intrigues rolled up one within another the untanglement of which is a business enough to make the head reel. How if it were to appear that the Abdin, Sept. 9, demonstration had been got up by the Khedive as the best means of ridding him of the disagreeable tutelage of Riaz and his Ministry! And how if the dark deeds of June 11 were plotted in the Palace to force the English and French to crush the now uncontrolled and uncontrollable National movement!

"I have been in hopes all along that the Government would not face the trial, and that they would find some means to put an end to the scandal that must ensue. But I begin to think that that will not be so. Many people in high places are prompted by motives of revenge, and still hope to wreak it upon their enemies. Others hope that by the unworthy devices of the Court a fair trial may yet be prevented. And I have no doubt they will in a great measure succeed. Again, perhaps it is the policy of the English Cabinet to insist upon the matter being threshed out, so as to give them time to meet the storm, and an opportunity of throwing over the Turks and perhaps Tewfik. If the trial is to go on I cannot tell what the expense will be, but I fear it will be very great."

_Napier to Lady Anne Blunt, November 16th_:

"Lord Dufferin began at once by lending us his assistance. Broadley and I called a day or two after his arrival. Broadley made a very masterly statement which put him in possession of the whole of our numerous causes of complaint. He has also been given copies of our formal protests, and I believe will indirectly assist us to defeat the Court of imbeciles with whom we have to deal.... The correspondents, with the exception of Bell, are all, I believe, favourable. The 'Daily News' especially. Wallace of the 'Times' has just arrived, and I believe his influence will go far to counteract Bell's extraordinary correspondence. Bell will particularly be called to account for his 'Arabi's head-in-a-charger' policy. I think he seems a little uncomfortable on the prospect of being examined on his telegrams in Court."

Mackenzie Wallace, here alluded to, arrived with Dufferin from Constantinople, where he was "Times" correspondent, and afterwards became Dufferin's private secretary when His Lordship went to India as Viceroy. He was an able man, and acted while in Egypt entirely in concert with Dufferin, and has written the only English narrative of the events of 1882 which has any historical value.

What follows is in connection with the final attempt made by the prosecution to get evidence against Arabi on a point which might be treated as a capital one, namely, the arrest of Suliman Sami, who had been in command of the Egyptian rear-guard at the evacuation of Alexandria, and who, having been subjected to the usual intimidation treatment in prison, was now said to be ready to give evidence that Arabi had ordered him to burn the city. It was this sudden desperate attempt to obtain a capital verdict that brought matters to a crisis at Cairo, and resulted, as we shall see, in the compromise effected by Dufferin of the trial.

_Broadley to Blunt, November 17th_:

"An attempt has been made to force Suliman Bey to implicate Arabi. It has been done so clumsily that Suliman has contradicted every other witness called to prove the same thing, _but_ I believe it was done at a midnight or secret sitting when Wilson was absent.... Try and make your peace with the Foreign Office, Dufferin is square, and we could get a lot by soft words."

_Beaman to Blunt, November 17th_:

"I just write a line ... to say that things are going on very well. The evidence of Suliman Sami, which seems to have rejoiced the prosecution, is not worth a straw, having been palpably invented for the occasion, and not supported by any of the preceding testimony. The only question seems to be if the prisoners will get off without a trial, or if they will have a chance of being fairly heard in their own defence. I am convinced that the Government here is using every effort to quash the proceedings, as the facts that would come out in cross-examination would be compromising to every man almost now in power, and would lay bare some very unpleasant facts about the Khedive. For this last reason it is just possible that our Government may feel inclined to propose terms to Arabi, as it will be a rough _exposé_ if the trial proves the biggest scamp in Egypt is the man whom we brought an army here to uphold. Personally I have very little doubt that the Khedive and Omar Loutfi arranged the Alexandrian massacre in order to aim a blow at Arabi, who had just declared himself responsible for public safety. I hold proofs which carry me half way to conviction, but the time has not yet come to produce them."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. November 18th_:

"Believe excellent compromise possible. Do not attack the Foreign Office. Absolute secrecy necessary."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. November 20th_:

"London parleys Dufferin. Egyptian Government's desire to compromise lessened by thinking public opinion in England changed owing to Suliman Sami's perjury."

_Broadley to Blunt, November 21st_:

"Important crisis imminent. The friends of the Egyptian Government assert intention of hanging Arabi. Remain in London."

_Broadley to Blunt, November 21st_:

"Nothing I could say could give you an idea of the infamous conduct of the Egyptian Government. They set our procedure rules at defiance, and say they do not care a curse, as they are treating diplomatically for the hanging of Arabi."

_Napier to Blunt, November 21st:_

"We are simply fighting all the force of the Egyptian Government single-handed, though I believe Lord Dufferin will come to the rescue. They are striving to procure the judicial murder of these prisoners, and it takes all our time to meet their many wiles. Wilson and Dufferin are helping us, but they, the Egyptian Government, are quick and unscrupulous. We are necessarily more slow and cautious."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. November 26th:_

"Egyptian Government proposes to try Arabi alone. Telegraph your opinion."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. November 27th:_

"Letters explaining situation fully posted. Reason to believe if Arabi, Mahmud Sami and Toulba consent to admit formal charges of rebellion or continuing war against orders of the Khedive, the Egyptian Government will consent to exile or internment at the Cape of Good Hope, or elsewhere, some of the accused simple exile, the majority amnesty. I implore absolute secrecy. Napier and myself favourable to compromise seeing difficulty of proving efforts to prevent burning, etc."

_Blunt to Broadley, November 28th:_

"Cannot approve terms named--certainly not Cape, but am consulting friends to-night about funds. Our political position immensely strong. Definite answer later."

_Broadley to Blunt. Letter. November 27th, 1882_:

("_Private and most urgent._)

"MY DEAR BLUNT,

"I invite _all_ your prudence, calm consideration and tact to the subject of this letter. I have had a long interview [with] Dufferin to-day. He is most friendly. The dossier is before us. _Nothing_ presents difficulties but the burning of Alexandria. As regards this I believe the proof will fail as to Araby's orders, but many ugly facts remain, viz.: no efforts to stop conflagration and loot. (2) Continued intimacy with Suliman Sami _afterwards_. (3) No punishment of offenders. (4) Large purchases petroleum. (5) Systematic manner of incendiarism by soldiers.

"This is _the rub_. Could Arabi have not stopped the whole thing? Besides, some of his former speeches, etc., have a very burning appearance.

"If Arabi will plead _guilty formally to_ one _of the charges of rebellion_ (_i. e_., his continuing war after Khedive's orders) he will be exiled.

"Cape of Good Hope under certain conditions with sufficient allowance. I think I can secure these terms for him, Mahmud Sami and Toulba. Rest, simple exile or pardon. Can I think secure _allowance_ or with forfeiture property--retention military rank.

"Against this we have enormous length trial--chances of turn public opinion--expense _and_ the five facts which I allude to above.

"If a word of this transpires you will do me incalculable injury. Think over all this and remember our great and grave responsibility. Dufferin is charming. Please at once telegraph as follows: If you say 'I accept the principle. Make best possible terms,' say _pax_. I _advise_ this course as best. If you say, 'Go on--no sort of compromise can be accepted,' say _bellum_.

"I am prepared to fight manfully to the bitter end strongly as ever. I leave all to you--but think well over all the contingencies.

"Very faithfully yours, "A. M. BROADLEY."

_Napier to Blunt. Letter. November 27th_:

"Cairo, _Nov. 27th, 1882_.

"DEAR BLUNT,

"It is much to be regretted that the Post Office people have found out our correspondence, for they have, to my knowledge, opened your last letter to me registered and received last Friday. It contained the Borelli charges returned, and a short note from you. I do not think anything was abstracted. I shall send this by ordinary post under cover to H. H. Asquith, Temple, E. C., in the hope that it may escape their vigilance. I, of course, protested at once, but do not suppose that they will mend their ways. I also greatly regret that I have no time to keep copies of my own letters to you for reference. You must not be surprised therefore if you sometimes meet with repetition. I cannot tell you of all the tricks they have played upon us, as they would fill volumes. The letter had been obviously opened by being slit across above the seal, and gummed up again. It had been cleverly done, and I might not have discovered it but for the fact that the gum used was not quite set. It therefore opened along the line of the slit, and I at once found the gum where no gum should have been. I will send you a short note by the direct mail so that you shall not be surprised at the delay in the delivery of this. Although we have been hard at work since last mail, I do not know that anything of much importance has occurred except that we have been admitted to the defence of Mahmud Sami, with whom we have had several long conferences. Toulba is ill, suffering from nervous excitement, I think, and asthma. I do not know whether he will die, but I have done everything in my power to get him proper medical assistance, a change of room, a companion, and, if possible, a raised bed.

"The last evidence in the question of the burning of Alexandria has not been communicated to us except through the medium of the Egyptian Gazette, which may or may not be correct. It is not formidable in itself, but it is quite sufficient to give colour to a finding against the prisoner on that charge. It becomes, therefore, of the most vital importance to consider whether there is no way out other than through the portals of the court martial. There is no doubt that we could discredit the evidence, and even smash it up in cross-examination. And besides, on the other charges of Rebellion and Massacre of June 11th I feel sure we could make it hot for the prosecution, but there is an opinion in a very high quarter that there is a strong determination to execute if the Court should find guilty. Assume, therefore, that the Court Martial find the prisoner (for I am only speaking of the chief now) guilty, it will be for the English Government to reverse the sentence. I am of opinion that it would be dangerous to trust them to carefully examine the evidence and the manner in which it has been obtained. I think it possible that that matter would be hastily disposed of in the Foreign Office, and that they might leave the prisoner to the Court, declaring that everything had been done to secure a fair trial, and that they could not interfere with a verdict deliberately arrived at after the fullest opportunity given to the defence. And besides, it is more than probable that they would allow _some_ sentence to pass--any sentence suffered here would be most dangerous to the prisoner. After careful consideration I dare not advise the prisoner to trust to the trial if he have an alternative. If terms of banishment are offered, with proper safeguards and provision for maintenance, I shall be strongly in favour of accepting them. To sum up: If found guilty by the Court, some punishment, perhaps death, certainly a serious one, will be inflicted: If acquitted, either voluntary banishment without means, or remaining in the country at the mercy of the Government here. If he leaves the country under a compromise all charges except that of rebellion would have to be withdrawn, and provision for his life in a suitable place would have to be accorded. I have reason to believe that the course of a compromise finds favour with all but Riaz, and is also favourably regarded by Dufferin.

"Give us your opinion, and believe me ever very sincerely yours,

"MARK NAPIER.

"P. S.--As far as the case goes nothing could be better. In law, in fact, and in the infamous manner it has been conducted. _But_ there are the dangers and considerations I have alluded to. Broadley has in my opinion conducted all the different discussions with the Court and Dufferin with the greatest energy, skill, and judgment. The law of the case is perfect for us, _but_ it is a case which will be decided in the Cabinet and not in the Court. It is impossible to rebut hearsay, and as I have had no opportunity to consider the whole evidence, I will not offer an opinion on that now."

_Broadley and Napier to Blunt. Telegram. November 28th, 7.42 p. m._:

"Long interview with Dufferin. I entreat you give us discretion to obtain best terms possible. We know delay fatal. Rely on our judgment. Foreign Office's support unreliable. Dufferin disposed to exceed his instructions on our behalf. Dufferin rules Egyptian Government. Defense case burning Alexandria suspicious. Hence anxiety. Embrace present moment. Dufferin's good offices absolutely necessary. Telegraph instantly full discretion. Interview Dufferin ten to-morrow.

"BROADLEY, NAPIER."

_Napier to Blunt. Same date_:

"I give you my honour I most strongly concur in our telegram herewith. Strongest cause for full immediate discretion. Every personal interest contrary to our request. NAPIER, private."

_Blunt to Broadley, November 28th midnight_:

"Cannot approve terms less than honourable exile--not internment--Aden, Malta, Cyprus. Within these limits use discretion."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. November 29th_:

"Arabi gives us written authority to act with discretion in concert with Dufferin, who proposes Arabi pleads guilty on formal charge of rebellion--others abandoned. Sentence read commuting punishment to exile--exile simple on parole--good place which you can settle with the Foreign Office--perhaps Azores. Suitable allowance granted and compensation for loss of property entailed by sentence. You probably fail to realize difficulty of rebutting case of burning Alexandria and obtaining evidence for defence. Foreign Office certainly indisposed to interfere in any Egyptian sentence short of death--for example, long detention in an Egyptian prison. Am convinced ultimate result inevitably worse, dreading great responsibility, having full knowledge of the position of affairs. I trust you will leave us discretion, to avoid possible disaster."

_Blunt to Broadley. Telegram. November 29th, 3 p. m._:

"Have consulted De la Warr. We approve full discretion on basis of telegram just received."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. November 30th_:

"All progressing well. Try to negotiate in concert with De la Warr the place of exile--Fiji suggested. Gratified at your confidence."

_Blunt to Broadley. Telegram. November 30th, 2.30 p. m._:

"Reject Fiji or Azores. Insist on Moslem country for religious life. They cannot refuse. Will consult Chenery. De la Warr away."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. December 1st_:

"Dufferin's conduct admirable. Suggests De la Warr's arranging place of exile with Foreign Office. Prisoners entirely satisfied."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. December 3rd_:

"Arabi's trial over. For correct account see 'Standard.' Egyptian Government fulfilled all engagements to the letter."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. December 4th_:

"Arabi delighted at result and sends thanks--inclined Cape. Dufferin brick [_sic_]."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. December 4th, 4.50 p. m._:

"Surprised your not wiring. Success complete. Anglo-Egyptian colony furious."

_Blunt to Broadley. Telegram. December 4th_:

"Congratulate all. De la Warr says place of exile in English territory left to Dufferin. I don't fancy Cape. How about Gibraltar or Guernsey. Consult Arabi."

_Broadley to Blunt. Telegram. December 4th_:

"Many thanks kind telegram."

It will be perceived by these telegrams that it was not without reluctance that I agreed to the compromise proposed by Dufferin. We had at the moment the full tide of English opinion with us, and I knew that the Foreign Office could not do otherwise than agree to almost any terms we chose to impose, and I was most unwilling that the charge of rebellion should be admitted by us. At the same time it was not possible for me in the face of Broadley's, and especially Napier's, telegrams to withhold my assent. The responsibility was too great. I had also the question of costs to consider. It is true that a public subscription had been opened which had brought us valuable names. But the actual sums subscribed did not yet amount to £200, while Broadley's bill was running already to £3,000. A continuation for another month of the trial would have meant for me a larger expenditure than I was prepared to face in a political quarrel which was not quite my own. I therefore took counsel with De la Warr, and especially with Robert Bourke, of whom I have already spoken, and who warned me how frail a thing public opinion was to rely on, and advised me strongly to consent. I remember walking up and down with him in Montagu Square, where he lived, in indecision for half an hour before I was finally convinced and yielded. I consequently sent the telegram of approval, and eventually, after much argument, we succeeded in obtaining as Arabi's place of exile the Island of Ceylon, the traditional place of exile of our father Adam when driven out of Paradise. No more honourable one could possibly have been fixed upon.

The exact terms of the arrangement come to with Dufferin were unfortunately not committed by him to writing, an oversight on Broadley's part, who ought to have insisted on this and thus saved us much after trouble and misunderstanding. The negligence allowed the Egyptian Government to inflict degradation of rank on the prisoners, which was certainly not in the spirit of Lord Dufferin's arrangement, though, perhaps, legally following the _pro formâ_ sentence of death for rebellion. Room, too, was left for dispute as to what was the amount of the allowance intended as compensation for the confiscations. Broadley seems to have exaggerated to his clients the promises on this head. Personally I consider that they were not illiberally dealt with, as the property of most of them was insignificant, and they were allowed to retain property belonging to their wives. The only considerable sufferer pecuniarily was Mahmud Pasha Sami, who had a large estate which he forfeited. As to Arabi, his sole worldly possessions, besides what furniture was in his house at Cairo, a hired one, and some horses in his stable, consisted of the eight acres of good land he had inherited from his father in his native village, to which he had at various time added parcels of uncultivated land on the desert edge, amounting to some six hundred acres, paid for out of his pay in prosperous days. These at the time of the confiscation cannot have been worth much over £2,000 or £3,000, for barren land was then selling for only a few reals the acre, and he had not had time to reclaim or improve them.[33]

A point, too, which was long disputed, but which is no longer of importance, was whether the _paroles_ of the prisoners were given to the Egyptian or the English Governments. But with these matters I need not trouble myself more than to say that the English Government, having gained its end of getting the rebellion admitted by us, and so a title given for their intervention in Egypt, gave little more help to the defence of certain unfortunate minor prisoners who on various pretexts found themselves excluded from the amnesty, and were subjected to all the injustices of the Khedive's uncontrolled authority. These, however, belong to a period beyond that of which I now propose to write, namely, that of the permanent Occupation, and cannot be detailed in my present memoir, which now, I think, has made clear at least my own part in the events of the revolution to the last point where that part was personal.

Looking back at my action in Egypt during that period, with its early successes and its final failure to obtain for the National Government fair treatment at English hands, I cannot wholly regret the course I took. I made, of course, many mistakes, and I feel that I am in considerable measure responsible for the determination the Nationalists came to to risk their country's fortune on the die of battle. But I still think their fate would have been a worse one if they had not fought, tamely surrendering to European pressure. They at least thus got a hearing from the world at large, and if any attention since has been paid to fellah grievances it has been won wholly by Arabi's persistence, which I encouraged, in accepting the logic of their political principles even to the point of war. It obliged England to listen to their complaints and, if it could not prevent her from depriving them of their political liberty, it has forced her since to remedy most of their secular material wrongs.

What the future may bring to Egypt I know not. She has grown rich under English tutelage, and though I do not consider riches synonymous with the well being of a nation, they have been in Egypt of at least this value, that they have enabled the native Nile population so far to hold its own against foreign intrusion as owner of the soil. While this is, the Nation will remain alive, and the day may yet come for the fellah race when self-government will be restored to them, and the armed struggle of 1882 will appear to them in its true light as the beginning of their national life, and one, as such, glorious in their annals. To that day of final emancipation I still pin my hopes, though it is not likely I shall live to see it.[34]

If my life is prolonged for a few years, it is my intention to continue the writing of my memoirs, and this will include much that is of importance to Egypt, though nothing of such high historical value as the recital already made. The present volume may well stand by itself, and so with regret I leave it. I should have wished to include in it an account of Lord Dufferin's mission of reconstruction, and the weak efforts made by Gladstone to undo the wrong he had inflicted on the cause of liberty, and on his own reputation as a man of good. But this would lead me too far, and I prefer to end my actual narrative at the point where we have now arrived, the close of the eventful year, 1882. On one of the last days of it I received a second characteristic letter from Gordon in which, speaking of the war and the suppression of liberty in Egypt, he quotes the following appropriate verse:

"When thou seest the violent oppression of the poor, or the subversion of justice, marvel not at it, for the Higher than the Highest regardeth it."

FOOTNOTES:

[33] A claim made recently in his name for a large indemnity in regard to these lands, and embodied in a petition addressed to our King Edward, is an entire illusion on Arabi's part, and marks the fact, otherwise very apparent to those who know him, that he has fallen into a condition of senile decay for which there is no remedy.

The worst oversight was that the promised general amnesty was not exactly defined. Hence the later prosecutions on so-called "criminal" charges.

[34] This was written in 1904.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

ARABI'S ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE AND OF THE EVENTS OF 1881-1882, AS TOLD TO ME, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT, IN ARABIC YESTERDAY, MARCH 16TH, 1903, AT SHEYKH OBEYD

I was born in the year 1840 at Horiyeh, near Zagazig, in the Sherkieh. My father was Sheykh of the village, and owned eight and a half feddans of land, which I inherited from him and gradually increased by savings out of my pay, which at one time was as much as £250 a month, till it amounted to 570 feddans, and that was the amount confiscated at the time of my trial. I bought the land cheaply in those days for a few pounds a feddan which is worth a great deal now, especially as it was in a poor state (_wahash_) when I bought it and now is in good cultivation. But none of it was given me by Saïd Pasha or any one, and the acreage I inherited was only eight and a half. I invested all the money I could save in land, and had no other invested money or movable property except a little furniture and some horses and such like, which may have been worth £1,000.

As a boy I studied for two years at the Azhar, but was taken for a soldier when I was only fourteen, as I was a tall well grown lad and Saïd Pasha wanted to have as many as possible of the sons of the village Sheykhs, and train them to be officers. I was made to go through an examination, and what I had learned at the Azhar served me well, and I was made a _boulok-amin_, clerk, instead of serving in the ranks, at sixty piastres a month. I did not, however, like this, as I thought I should never rise to any high position, and I wished to be a personage like the Mudir of our province, so I petitioned Ibrahim Bey, who was my superior, to be put back into the ranks. Ibrahim Bey showed me that I should lose by this as my pay would then be only fifty piastres, but I insisted and so served. I was put soon after to another examination, out of which I came first, and they made me _chowish_, and then to a third and they made me lieutenant when I was only seventeen. Suliman Pasha el Franzawi was so pleased with me that he insisted with Saïd Pasha on giving me promotion, and I became captain at eighteen, major at nineteen, and Lieutenant-Colonel, _Caimakam_, at twenty. Then Saïd Pasha took me with him as A. D. C. when he went to Medina, about a year before he died. That was in A. H. 1279 (1862?).

Saïd Pasha's death was a great misfortune to me and to all, as he was favourable to the children of the country. Ismaïl was quite otherwise. In his time everything was put back into the hands of the Turks and Circassians, and the Egyptians in the army got no protection and no promotion. I went on serving as Caimakam for twelve years without much incident till war came with Abyssinia. I was not sent to the war with Russia, but when the war with Abyssinia broke out all available troops were wanted, and the garrisons were withdrawn from the stations on the Haj Road, and I was sent to do this. I was sent quite alone without a single soldier or a single piastre and had to get there as best I could on a camel. I went in this way to Nakhl and Akaba and Wej collecting the garrisons and putting in Arabs to take charge of the forts there as _ghaffirs_. Then we crossed over the sea to Kosseir and so by Keneh to Cairo. I was not paid a penny for this service or even my expenses. The country was in a fearful state of oppression, and it was then I began to interest myself in politics to save my countrymen from ruin. I was sent on to Massowa from Cairo and took part in the campaign of which Ratib Pasha was commander-in-chief, with Loringe Pasha, the American, as Chief of the Staff. I was not present at the battle of Kora, being in charge of the transport service between Massowa and the army. It was a disastrous battle, seven _ortas_ being completely destroyed. Loringe Pasha was the officer mostly in fault. The Khedive's son, Hassan, was there, but only as a boy, to learn soldiering. He was not in command nor is it true that he was taken prisoner by the Abyssinians.

After this I thought much about politics. I remember to have seen Sheykh Jemal-ed-Din, but not to speak to, but my former connection with the Azhar made me acquainted with several of his disciples. The most distinguished of them were Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, and Sheykh Hassan el Towil. The first book that ever gave me ideas about political matters was an Arabic translation of the "Life of Bonaparte" by Colonel Louis. The book had been brought by Saïd Pasha with him to Medina, and its account of the conquest of Egypt by 30,000 Frenchmen so angered him that he threw the book on the ground, saying "See how your countrymen let themselves be beaten." And I took it up and read all that night, without sleeping, till the morning. Then I told Saïd Pasha that I had read it and that I saw that the French had been victorious because they were better drilled and organized, and that we could do as well in Egypt if we tried.

You ask me about the affair of the riot against Nubar Pasha in the time of Ismaïl and whether I had a hand in it. I had none, for the reason that I was away at Rashid (Rosetta) with my regiment. But the day before the thing happened I was telegraphed for by the War Office with my fellow Caimakam, Mohammed Bey Nadi, to deal with the case of a number of soldiers that had been disbanded by the new Ministers without their arrears of pay or even bread to eat, and who were at Abbassiyeh. But I knew nothing of what was being arranged against Nubar. That was done by order of the Khedive, Ismaïl Pasha, through a servant of his, Shahin Pasha, and his brother-in-law, Latif Eff. Selim, director of the military college. These got up a demonstration of the students of the college, who went in a body to the Ministry of Finance. They were joined on the way by some of the disbanded soldiers and officers, not many, but some. At the Ministry they found Nubar getting into his carriage, and they assaulted him, pulled his moustache, and boxed his ears. Then Ismaïl Pasha was sent for to quell the riot and he came with Abd-el-Kader Pasha and Ali Bey Fehmy, the colonel of his guard, whom he ordered to fire on the students, but Ali Fehmy ordered his men to fire over their heads and nobody was hurt. Ali Fehmy was not with us at that time. He was devoted to Ismaïl, having married a lady of the palace, but he did not like to shed the blood of these young men.

Ismaïl Pasha, to conceal his part in it and that of those who got up the affair, accused Nadi Bey and me and Ali Bey Roubi of being their leaders and we were brought before a _mejliss_ on which were Stone Pasha and Hassan Pasha Afflatoun with Osman Rifki, afterwards Under-Secretary of War, and others. I showed, however, that it was impossible we could be concerned in it as we had only that very night arrived from Rosetta. Nevertheless we were blamed and separated from our regiments, Nadi being sent to Mansura, Roubi to the Fayum, and I to Alexandria where I was given a nominal duty of acting as agent for the Sheykhs of Upper Egypt, whose arrears of taxes in the shape of beans and other produce were to be collected and sent to Alexandria in security for money advanced to Ismaïl by certain Jews of that place. But before we separated we had a meeting at which I proposed that we should join together and depose Ismaïl Pasha. It would have been the best solution of the case, as the Consuls would have been glad to get rid of Ismaïl in any way, and it would have saved after complications as well as the fifteen millions Ismaïl took away with him when he was deposed. But there was nobody as yet to take the lead, and my proposal, though approved, was not executed. The deposition of Ismaïl lifted a heavy load from our shoulders and all the world rejoiced, but it would have been better if we had done it ourselves as we could then have got rid of the whole family of Mohammed Ali, who were none of them, except Saïd, fit to rule, and we could have proclaimed a republic. Sheykh Jemal-ed-Din proposed to Mohammed Abdu to kill Ismaïl at the Kasr-el-Nil Bridge and Mohammed Abdu approved. Ismaïl collected the money of the Mudiriehs six months before his deposition. Latif afterwards avowed his part in the affair. Latif was put in prison but released on application of the freemasons to Nubar.

Tewfik Pasha, when he succeeded Ismaïl, by his first act made public promise of a Constitution. You ask me whether he was sincere in this. He never was sincere, but he was a man incredibly weak, who never could say "no," and he was under the influence of his Minister, Sherif Pasha, who was a sincere lover of free forms of government. Tewfik, in his father's reign, had amassed money, which was what he cared for most, by receiving presents from persons who had petitions to make, and who thought he could forward their ends. He had no wish for a Constitution, but he could not say "no" when Sherif pressed him. So he promised. Two months later he fell under the stronger influence of the Consuls, who forbade him to decree it. On this Sherif called the Ministers together, and they all gave him their words of honour that they would resign with him if he resigned. And so it happened. But some of them, notwithstanding their promise, joined Riaz Pasha when he became Prime Minister in Sherif's place. In order to persuade them Riaz engaged that each Minister should be supreme in his own department, and that they would not allow Tewfik to interfere in any way with the administration. Mahmud Sami joined him as Minister of the _Awkaf_, Ali Mubarak as Minister of Public Works, and Osman Pasha Rifki, a Turk of the old school, who hated the fellahin, was made Minister of War. The new government was a tyrannical one. Hassan Moussa el Akkad, for signing a petition against the breaking of the Moukabala arrangement, was exiled to the White Nile, and Ahmed Fehmi for another petition, and many other people were got rid of who incurred the displeasure of the Ministers. Of all the Ministers the worst was Osman Rifki.

We colonels were now once more with our regiments, and as native Egyptians subject to much oppression. On any pretext a fellah officer would be arrested, and his place filled by a Circassian. It was the plan to weed the whole army of its native officers. I was especially in ill favour because I had refused to allow my men to be taken from their military duty and put to dig the Tewfikieh Canal, which it was the practice to make them do without extra pay. Plans were made to involve me in some street quarrel with the view to my assassination, but through the love of my soldiers I always escaped. All officers who were not Circassians were in danger, and all were alarmed. It was thus that Ali Fehmy, who was a fellah born, though through his wife connected with the Court, came to join us, for he feared he, too, would be superseded. He was Colonel of the 1st Regiment of Guards, and stationed at Abdin; I was at Abbassiyeh with the 3rd Regiment, and Abd-el-Aal Helmi was at Toura. Ali Roubi commanded the cavalry.

Matters came to a crisis in January, 1881. I had gone to spend the evening with Nejm ed Din Pasha, and there were at his house some pashas talking over the changes Osman Rifki had in hand, and I learned from them that it had been decided that I and Abd-el-Aal should be deprived of our commands, and our places given to officers of the Circassian class. At the same moment a message arrived for me from my house to say that Ali Fehmy had come there with Abd-el-Aal and was awaiting me. So I went home and I found them there, and from them I learned the same evil news. We therefore took council what was to be done. Abd-el-Aal proposed that we should go in force to Osman Rifki's house and arrest or kill him, but I said, "No, let us petition first the Prime Minister, and then, if he refuses, the Khedive." And they charged me to draw the petition up in form. And I did so, stating the case, and demanding the dismissal of Osman Rifki, and the raising of the army to 18,000 men, and the decreeing of the promised Constitution. [N. B.--I think Arabi makes a mistake here, confusing these last two demands with those made on the 9th of September. But he insisted on it the three proposals were first made in February, and made in writing then.] This we all three signed, though knowing that our lives were at stake.

The following morning we went with our petition to the Minister of the Interior and asked to see Riaz. We were shown into an outer room and waited while the Minister read it in an inner room. Presently he came out. "Your petition," he said, "is _muhlik_" (a hanging matter). "What is it you want? to change the Ministry? And what would you put in its place? Whom do you propose to carry on the government?" And I answered him, "_Ye saat le Basha_, is Egypt then a woman who has borne but eight sons and then been barren?" By this I meant himself and the seven ministers under him. He was angry at this, but in the end said he would see into our affair, and so we left him. Immediately a council was assembled with the Khedive and all his Court, and Stone and Blitz also. And the Khedive proposed that we should be arrested and tried, but others said, "If these are put on trial, Osman Pasha also must be tried." Therefore Osman was left to deal with it alone. And the rest you know.

You ask did the Khedive at that time know of our intention to petition. He did not know that nor that Ali Fehmy came to us. But afterwards he knew. You ask did I know the Baron de Ring. I did not know him, nor any one of the Consuls, but I heard that the French Consul had the most influence, and I wrote to him telling him what our position was, and begging him to let the other Consuls know that there was no fear for their subjects. You ask if I knew Mahmud Sami. I did not know him yet. But he was friends with my friend Ali Roubi, and I had heard a good account of him as a lover of freedom. He was of a Circassian family, but one that had been 600 years in Egypt.

As to the second demonstration of September 9th, we knew then that the Khedive was with us. He wished to rid himself of Riaz, who disregarded his authority. I saw him but twice to speak to that summer, and never on politics. His communication was through Ali Fehmy, who brought us word to the following effect: "You three are soldiers. With me you make four." You ask me whether he was sincere. He never was sincere. But he wished an excuse to dismiss Riaz. We therefore demanded next time the dismissal of Riaz, as well as the rest, knowing he would be pleased. On the morning of the 9th September we sent word to the Khedive that we should come to the _asr_ to Abdin to make demand of the fulfilment of his promises. He came, and with him Cookson, and it was with Cookson that I debated the various proposals made. He asked if we should be content with Haidar Pasha, but I said "we want no relation of the Khedive." There were no written demands the second time, only a renewal of the three demands of the 1st February, the Chamber of Notables, the raising of the army to 18,000 men, according to the firmans, and the dismissal of Riaz. They agreed to all. The Khedive was delighted. I know nothing of Colvin having been there, or of any advice he gave to the Khedive. The only ones I saw were Cookson and Goldsmid. It was Cookson who talked to me. If the Khedive had tried to shoot me, the guns would have been fired on him, and there would have been bad work. But he was entirely pleased with the whole of the proceedings.

You ask about Abu Sultan (Sultan Pasha). He was disappointed, because when the Ministry was formed under Sherif Pasha he was not included in it. It was thought, however, that the post of President of the Chamber of Deputies was more honourable and more important. Only he did not take this view, and was put out at being omitted from the Ministry. That was the beginning of his turning against us.

To your question about the ill-treatment of the Circassians arrested for a plot while I was Minister of War, I answer plainly, as I have answered before, I never went to the prison to see them tortured or ill-treated, I simply never went near them at all.

About the riots of Alexandria there is no question but that it was due to the Khedive and Omar Pasha Loutfi, and also to Mr. Cookson. The riots were certainly planned several days beforehand, and with the object of discrediting me, seeing that I had just given a guarantee of order being preserved. The Khedive sent the cyphered telegram you know of to Omar Loutfi, and Omar Loutfi arranged it with Seyd Kandil, the chief of the Alexandria _mustafezzin_. Seyd Kandil kept the thing from us who were at Cairo. Mr. Cookson's part in it was that a number of cases of firearms were landed, and sent to his consulate, obviously with the intention of arming somebody. The moment I heard of what had happened, I sent Yakub Sami to Alexandria with orders to make a full inquiry, and the facts were abundantly proved. Much of what has been said however was incorrect. It is not true that the bodies of Christians were found dressed as Moslems. The riot began with a Maltese donkey boy, but that was only the excuse. Omar Loutfi, as you say, was a strong partisan of Ismaïl's. You ask why a man so dangerous was left in a post where he could work so much mischief. I can only say that he was not under the orders of the Minister of War, but of the Interior. It was a misfortune he was left there. Neither Nadim nor Hassan Moussa el Akkad went to Alexandria on any business of that kind. Hassan Moussa went there on a money errand.

What you ask me is true about Ismaïl Pasha. He made us an offer of money. The circumstances of it were these. We had ordered a number of pieces of light artillery from Germany, but they would not deliver them without payment, and we had none. Ismaïl Pasha offered to let us have £30,000 to pay this, on condition that we would allow it to be said that we were acting in his interests. The offer was made through M. Mengs [Max Lavisson], Ismaïl's Russian agent, and Hassan Moussa had some hand in it. But it was never produced, and if Ismaïl really sent it to Alexandria, it remained there in their hands. We never touched it.

I do not remember to have heard of any offer such as you speak of having been made by the Rothschilds [this was an offer made as I heard at the time by the Paris Rothschilds of a pension to Arabi of £4,000 (100,000 francs) yearly, if he would leave Egypt], but I received soon after the leyha [the note sent in by the Consuls demanding the dismissal of the Mahmud Sami Ministry], a visit from the French Consul, during which he asked me what my pay then was, and offered me the double--that is to say, £500 a month from the French Government if I would consent to leave Egypt and go to Paris and be treated there as Abd-el-Kader was treated. I refused, however, to have anything to do with it, telling him that it was my business, if necessary, to fight and die for my country, not to abandon it. I never heard of the Rothschilds in connection with this offer.

I will now give you an account of how Tel-el-Kebir was lost. Some days before, when the English were advancing, we made a plan to attack them at Kassassin. Mahmud Sami was to advance on their right flank from Salahieh, while we were to advance in front, and a third body was to go round by the desert, south of the Wady, and take them in the rear. The attack was tried and put partly in execution, but failed because the plan had been betrayed by Ali Bey Yusuf Khunfis, who sent the original sketch made by me to Lord Wolseley. He and others in the army had been corrupted by Abou Sultan acting for the Khedive. When Mahmud advanced, he found artillery posted to intercept him and retreated, leaving us unsupported, and the battle was lost. Sir Charles Wilson, while I was in prison at Cairo, brought me my plan, and asked me whether it was in my own hand, and I said "yes," and he told me how they had come by it. "It is a good plan," he said, "and you might have beaten us with it."

This was our first misfortune. At Tel-el-Kebir we were taken by surprise and for the same reason of treachery. The cavalry commanders were all seduced by Abou Sultan's promises. They occupied a position in advance of the lines, and it was their duty to give us warning of any advance by the English. But they moved aside and gave no warning. There was also one traitor in command within the lines, Ali Bey Yusuf Khunfis. He lit lamps to direct the enemy, and then withdrew his men, leaving a wide space open for them to pass through. You see the marks upon this carpet. They just represent the lines. That is where Ali Yusuf was posted. Mohammed Obeyd was there, and I was at this figure on the carpet a mile and a half to the rear. We were expecting no attack as no sound of firing had been heard. I was still asleep when we heard the firing close to the lines. Ali Roubi, who was in command in front, sent news to me to change my position as the enemy was taking us in flank. I said my prayer and galloped to where we had a reserve of volunteers, and called to them to follow me to support the front line. But they were only peasants, not soldiers, and the shells were falling among them and they ran away. I then rode forward alone with only my servant Mohammed with me, who, seeing that there was no one with me and that I was going to certain death, caught hold of my horse by the bridle and implored me to go back. Then seeing that the day was lost already, and that all were flying, I turned. Mohammed continued with me and we crossed the Wady at Tel-el-Kebir, and keeping along the line of the Ismaïlia Canal reached Belbeis. There I had formed a second camp, and I found Ali Roubi arrived before me, and we thought to make a stand. But on the arrival of Drury Lowe's cavalry none would stay, and so we abandoned all and took train for Cairo. Ali Roubi made mistakes by extending the lines too far northwards, but he was loyal. The traitors were Abdul Ghaffar, I think, and certainly his second in command of the cavalry, Abd-el-Rahman Bey Hassan, and Ali Yusuf Khunfis. You say Saoud el Tihawi, too. It may be so. Those Arabs were not to be trusted. His grandfather had joined Bonaparte when he invaded us a hundred years ago.

Now I return home after twenty years of sorrowful exile, and my own people I laboured to deliver have come to believe, because the French papers have told them so, that I sold them to the English!

THE GRAND MUFTI'S REMARKS ON THE ABOVE

[N. B.--On March 18th, 1903, I read the foregoing account to Sheykh Mohammed Abdu at his house at Aïn Shems. He approved most of it as correct, but made the following remarks:

1. _As to the riot against Nubar._--Arabi's account of this is correct, except that the order given to Ali Ferny to fire on the students was not intended to be obeyed and was part of the comedy. Ali Fehmy fired over their heads by order. Latif Bey was arrested and imprisoned after the riot by Nubar, but was released on an application made to Nubar by the freemasons, Latif being a member of that body. Latif in after days freely acknowledged his share in the affair. As to what Arabi says of his having proposed at that time to depose Ismaïl, there was certainly secret talk of such action. Sheykh Jemal-ed-Din was in favour of it, and proposed to me, Mohammed Abdu, that Ismaïl should be assassinated some day as he passed in his carriage daily over the Kasr el Nil bridge, and I strongly approved, but it was only talk between ourselves, and we lacked a person capable of taking lead in the affair. If we had known Arabi at that time, we might have arranged it with him, and it would have been the best thing that could have happened, as it would have prevented the intervention of Europe. It would not, however, have been possible to establish a republic in the then state of political ignorance of the people. As to Ismaïl's having taken away fifteen millions with him to Naples, nobody knows the amount. All that is known is that it was very large. For the last few months of his reign Ismaïl had been hoarding money, which he intercepted as it was sent in to the Finance Office from the Mudiriehs.

2. _As to Tewfik in his father's time._--What Arabi says of Tewfik having taken presents for presenting petitions to Ismaïl may be true, but the thing was not talked of, nor is it in accordance with Tewfik's conduct when in power. I do not believe it.

3. _As to Riaz' tyranny._--Riaz was tyrannical, but not to the point of shedding blood. This he was always averse to. I do not remember any talk about the people being made away with secretly by him. There was no danger of such at any rate before the affair of the Kasr-el-Nil. During the summer, however, of that year, 1881, there was talk of attempts against Arabi and the other colonels.

4. _As to the affair of the Kasr-el-Nil, February 1st, 1881._--Arabi's account is confused and incorrect. The first petition made by Arabi and the officers was simply one of injustice being done them. It was made by Osman Rifki, and it drew down upon them the anger of the Minister of War, who determined to get rid of them, and first brought Arabi under the notice of the Consuls. Baron de Ring, who had a quarrel with Riaz, interested himself in their case, but only indirectly. The petition talked of by Arabi as having been drawn up in January by him and taken to Riaz, certainly contained no reference to a Constitution or to the increase of the army to 18,000 men. These demands were not made until the September demonstration. The petition of the Kasr-el-Nil time was simply a strong complaint to Riaz of Osman Rifki's misdoings, and demanding his dismissal from the Ministry of War. Riaz, at the council after the demonstration, was in favour of its being made the subject of an inquiry, which would have necessitated the trial by court-martial not only of the petitioners, but also of Osman Rifki. Riaz was not in favour of violence. But it was pointed out to him, privately, that if he opposed the more violent plan it would be said he was seeking to curry favor with the soldiers as against the Khedive, and he, therefore, left the matter to Osman Rifki, to be dealt with as he pleased.

5. _As to the demonstration of Abdin, September 9th, 1881._--The seven months between the affair of Kasr-el-Nil and the demonstration of September were months of great political activity, which pervaded all classes. Arabi's action gained him much popularity, and put him into communication with the civilian members of the National party, such as Sultan Pasha, Suliman Abaza, Hassain Shereï, and myself, and it was we who put forward the idea of renewing the demand for a Constitution. The point of view from which he at that time regarded it was as giving him and his military friends a security against reprisals by the Khedive of his Ministers. He told me this repeatedly during the summer. We consequently organized petitions for a Constitution, and carried on a campaign for it in the press. Arabi saw a great deal of Sultan Pasha during the summer, and Sultan, who was very rich, made much of him, sending him presents, such as farm produce, horses, and the rest, in order to encourage him, and to get this support for the constitutional movement. It was in concert with Sultan that the demonstration of Abdin was arranged, and it is quite true that Sultan expected to be named to a Ministry after the fall of Riaz. But Sherif Pasha, who became Prime Minister, did not think of him and overlooked him. Afterwards Sultan was pacified and pleased when he was offered the presidency of the new Chamber of Notables. It was not till after the _leyha_, ultimatum, that he had any quarrel with Arabi. Then it is true that Arabi drew his sword in Sultan's presence and that of other members of the Chamber when they hesitated and were afraid to oppose the leyha. Up to this they had acted together. Arabi's account of the Khedive's message, "You three are soldiers. With me you are four," is excellent, and exactly shows the situation as between him and the officers. Colvin certainly was with the Khedive at Abdin, but as he knew no Arabic he probably was not noticed by Arabi. It was Cookson who did the talking. Baron de Ring had been recalled by his government on the request of Riaz, who complained of his encouragement of the officers.

6. _As to the riots of Alexandria._--Arabi is correct in his account as regards Omar Loutfi and the Khedive, who had been arranging the riot for some weeks. But it is not true as regards Seyd Kandil, who was only weak and failed to prevent it. He is also wrong about Cookson. The firearms introduced into the Consulate were for the defence of the Maltese and other English subjects. Seyd Kandil was exiled for twenty years, but was allowed quietly to come back, and is now at his country place in Egypt, and I have often talked over the affair with him. If you like we will go together and pay him a visit next autumn. Arabi is right in saying that neither Hassan Moussa nor Nadim were concerned in the riot. Nadim went down to Alexandria to deliver a lecture and Hassan on money business.]

[The Mufti also added the following remarks on March 20th, 1903.

There was an attempt to introduce freemasonry into Egypt in the later years of Ismaïl Pasha. The lodges were all connected with lodges in Europe. Sheykh Jemal-ed-Din joined one, but he soon found out that there was nothing of any value in it and withdrew. Ismaïl encouraged it for his purposes when he began to be in difficulties, but freemasonry never was a power in Egypt.

Mohammed Obeyd was certainly killed at Tel-el-Kebir. There were rumours for a long time of his having been seen in Syria, and we used to send from Beyrout when we were living there in exile to try and find him for his wife's sake, who was at Beyrout, but they always turned out to be false reports.

Mahmud Sami was one of the original Constitutionalists, dating from the time of Ismaïl. He was a friend of Sherif and belonged to the same school of ideas. It is most probable that he gave warning to Arabi of his intended arrest, as he was one of the Council of Ministers and must have known. After the affair of Kasr-el-Nil he was altogether with Arabi and the Colonels. That was why Riaz got rid of him from the Ministry and appointed Daoud Pasha in his place.

Riaz, at the beginning, underrated the importance of Arabi's action. Afterwards he was afraid of it. He began by despising it as he did all fellah influence in politics.

Sherif Pasha resigned in February, 1882, not on account of any quarrel with Arabi, but because he was afraid of European intervention. He was opposed to an insistence on the power of voting the budget claimed by the Chamber of Notables, and he retired so as not to be compromised.

Ragheb Pasha is (as mentioned by Ninet) of Greek descent, though a Moslem. He had been Minister under Ismaïl, but was a Constitutionalist. After the leyha he was named Prime Minister, with Arabi for Minister of War. He acted honestly with Arabi, and remained with the National Party during the war.

Butler gives May 20th, 1880, as the date of the first military petition. That is probably correct.

Ibrahim el Aghany was one of the best and ablest of Jemal ed Din's disciples at the Azhar. He is still living and employed in the Mékhemeh (?).

When the Council was summoned to consider Arabi's petition asking for Osman Rifky's dismissal, the Khedive was with Osman Rifky for having Arabi arrested and sent up the Nile, but Riaz at first was for an inquiry. During an adjournment, however, of the Council, Taha Pasha persuaded Riaz that if he was for lenient measures it would be thought he was intriguing with the soldiers against the Khedive--to make himself Khedive--and Riaz thereupon made no further opposition. This I learned afterwards from Mahmud Sami who, as one of the Ministers, was present at the Council.

Ibrahim Eff. el Wakil with Hassan Shereï and Ahmed Mahmud were the leaders of the liberal party in the Chamber of Notables.]

FURTHER ACCOUNT GIVEN BY SHEYKH MOHAMMED ABDU, DECEMBER 22ND, 1903

[When Sheykh Jemal-ed-Din was exiled a few days after the Sherif's dismissal in 1879, I was told to leave Cairo where I was professor in the normal school, and to go to my village. My successor at the school was Sheykh Hassan the blind. I was soon tired of being in my village and went to Alexandria where I was watched by the police, so I went secretly to Tantah and wandered about for a long while. Then I came back to Cairo hoping to see Mahmud Sami, who was my friend, and at that time Minister of the Awkaf, but he was away, so I went to Ali Pasha Mubarak's, Minister of Public Works, who was also a friend, but he received me badly, and everybody advised me not to stay, as it would be thought I came in connection with a secret society which had been recently formed by Shahin Pasha and Omar Lutfi and other Ismaïlists against Riaz, so I went to my village again. But again I grew tired of it, as the villagers were always quarrelling and resolved to return once more and lecture at the Azhar. Riaz Pasha was at that time in difficulty to find any one who could write good Arabic in the Official Paper, and he consulted Mahmud Sami, who told him that if there were but three more like me Egypt could be saved. And my successor, Sheykh Hassan, gave him the same opinion of me.

So I was appointed at the end of Ramadan (October, 1880), third Editor of the Journal. But my two senior Editors were jealous and would give me no work to do. So the Journal was no better written. At this Riaz was displeased, and made inquiry, and as the result I was made Editor, and a little later Director of the Press. This was before the end of 1880. The first time I saw you was when I called on you with Rogers Bey at the Hôtel du Nil, and it was I who recommended to you Mohammed Khalil, and afterwards he brought you to see me at my house. I criticized the Government strongly in the Official Journal, and as Director of the Press allowed all liberty. But I was not in favour of a revolution, and thought that it would be enough if we had a Constitution in five years' time. I disapproved of the overthrow of Riaz in September, 1881, and, about ten days before the military demonstration at Abdin, I met Arabi at the house of Toulba Ismat, and Latif Bey Selim had come with him, and there were many there. And I urged him to moderation, and said, "I foresee that a foreign occupation will come and that a malediction will rest for ever on him who provokes it." On this Arabi said that he hoped it would not be he. And he told me at the same time that Sultan Pasha had promised to bring petitions from every Notable in Egypt in favour of the Constitution. This was true, for all the Omdehs were angry with Riaz for having put down their habit of employing forced labour. Suliman Abaza would not join in the revolution as he thought it premature, and Shereï Pasha was also against it. But when once the Constitution was granted we all joined to protect it. But Arabi could not control the army, where there were many ambitions.

I did not know of the intended demonstration at Abdin, as I was known to be friendly to Riaz, but it was arranged with Sultan Pasha and Sherif Pasha. The Khedive was in a constant change of mind about Arabi at that time, and joined Riaz and Daoud Pasha in their attempt to crush Arabi, but the day before the event they told the Khedive, who, to overthrow Riaz, approved.]

CONVERSATION WITH ARABI AT SHEYKH OBEYD, JANUARY 2ND, 1904

You ask me at what date the Khedive Tewfik put himself first into communication with us soldiers. It was in this way. Shortly before the affair of the Kasr-el-Nil he encouraged Ali Fehmy to go to us, with whom we were already friends, his intention being to use him as a spy on us, he being Colonel of the Guard. But Ali Fehmy joined us in our petition to Riaz Pasha, and was involved with us in our arrest. After the affair of the Kasr-el-Nil, and seeing the position we had gained in the minds of the people, the Khedive thought to make use of us against Riaz, and he sent Ali Fehmy to us with the message, "You three are soldiers. With me you make four." That was about a month after the affair, and we knew he was favourable to us also through Mahmud Sami, who was then Minister of War. And Mahmud Sami told us, "If ever you see me leave the Ministry, know that the Khedive's mind is changed to you, and that there is danger." In the course, therefore, of the summer (1881) when trouble began to begin for us through the spies of Riaz Pasha, who was Minister of the Interior, and who had us watched by the police, we had confidence in Mahmud Sami.

And I was specially involved in displeasure through my refusal to allow my soldiers to be taken from their military work to dig the Tewfikieh Canal, they being impressed for the labour by Ali Pasha Moubarak as Minister of Public Works. For this and for other reasons the Khedive turned from us, and resolved, with Riaz Pasha, to separate and disunite the army; and the regiments were to be sent to distant places so that we should not communicate one with the other. And Mahmud Sami was called upon, as Minister of War, to work their plan against us, the Khedive at that time being at Alexandria with the rest of the Ministers. And when Mahmud Sami refused, Riaz Pasha wrote to him, "The Khedive has accepted your resignation." And both he and the Khedive notified Mahmud Sami that he was to go at once to his village in the neighbourhood of Tantah, and remain there, and not to go to Cairo, and on no account to have communication with us. He nevertheless came to Cairo to his house there, and we called on him, but he refused to see us. Then we knew that evil was intended against us. And the Khedive appointed Daoud Pasha Yeghen in his place, and the vexation on us increased, and we knew that attempts were to be made against us. At the beginning of September the Khedive returned to Cairo with Riaz and the Ministers, and it was resolved to deal with us. Then I took counsel with Abd-el-Aal and Abd-el-Ghaffar, the commander of the cavalry at Gesireh, and Fuda Bey Hassan, _Caimakam_ in command at the Kaláa. The miralaï in command at the Kaláa had been dismissed by Mahmud Sami shortly before leaving office, and had not been replaced. This miralaï was of us but _khaïn_ (a traitor), and we agreed that we would make a demonstration and demand the dismissal of the whole Ministry, and that a Ministry favourable to the Wattan should replace them, and that a Mejliss el Nawwab should be assembled, and that the army should be raised to 18,000 men. But we did not tell Ali Fehmy of our design, for we did not wholly at that time trust him. And the next morning I wrote stating our demands, and sent it to the Khedive at Ismaïlia Palace, saying that we should march to Abdin Palace at the _asr_, there to receive his answer. And the reason of our going to Abdin and not to Ismaïlia, where he lived, was that Abdin was his public residence, and we did not wish to alarm the ladies of his household. But if he had not come to Abdin we should have marched on to Ismaïlia.

When, therefore, the Khedive received our message he sent for Riaz Pasha and Khairy Pasha and Stone Pasha, and they went first to Abdin Barracks, where both the Khedive and Riaz Pasha spoke to the soldiers, and they gave orders to Ali Fehmy that he should, with his regiment, occupy the Palace of Abdin. And Ali Fehmy assented, and he posted his men in the upper rooms out of sight, so that they should be ready to fire on us from the windows. But I do not know whether they were given ball cartridge or not. Then the Khedive with the Generals went on to the Kaláa, and they spoke to the soldiers there in the same sense, calling on Fuda Bey to support the Khedive against us, the Khedive scolding him and saying, "I shall put you in prison"; but the soldiers surrounded the carriage, and the Khedive was afraid and drove away, and he went on by the advice of Riaz to Abassiyeh to speak to me, but I had already marched with my regiment through the Hassaneyn quarter to Abdin. They asked about the artillery and were told that it also had gone to Abdin, and when the Khedive arrived there he found us occupying the square, the artillery and cavalry being before the west entrance, and I with my troops before the main entrance, and already when I arrived before the palace I had sent in to Ali Fehmy, who I had heard was there, and had spoken to him, and he had withdrawn his men from the palace, and they stood with us.

And the Khedive entered by the back door on the east side, and presently he came out to us with his generals and aides-de-camp, but I did not see Colvin with him, though he may have been there, and he called on me to dismount, and I dismounted, and he called on me to put up my sword, and I put up my sword, but the officers approached with me to prevent treachery, about fifty in number, and some of them placed themselves between him and the palace, but Riaz Pasha was not with the Khedive in the square, and remained in the palace. And when I had delivered my message and made my three demands to the Khedive, he said, "I am Khedive of the country and shall do as I like" ("_and Khedeywi 'l beled wa 'amal zey ma inni awze_"). I replied, "We are not slaves, and we shall never more be inherited from this day forth" ("_Nahnu ma abid wa la nurithu ba'd el yom_"). He said nothing more, but turned and went back into the palace. And presently they sent out Cookson to me with his interpreter, and he asked me why, being a soldier, I made demand of a parliament, and I said that it was to put an end to arbitrary rule, and pointed to the crowd of citizens supporting us behind the soldiers. He threatened me, saying, "We shall bring a British army," and much discussion took place between us, and he returned six or seven times to the palace, and came out again six or seven times to me, until finally he informed me that the Khedive had agreed to all, and the Khedive wished for Haidar Pasha to replace Riaz. But I would not consent, and when it was put to me to say I named Sherif Pasha, because he had declared himself in favour of a Mejliss el Nawwab, and I had known him a little in former times, in the time of Saïd Pasha, when he served with the army. And in the evening the Khedive sent for me and I went to him at Ismaïlia Palace, and I thanked him for having agreed to our request, but he said only, "That is enough. Go now and occupy Abdin, and let it be without music in the streets" (lest that should be taken as a token of rejoicing).

And when Ali Pasha Nizami came to Cairo with Ahmed Pasha Ratib from the Sultan, the Khedive was alarmed lest an inquiry should be made, and Mahmud Sami being again Minister of War ordered us to leave Cairo, and I went to Ras-el-Wady and Abd-el-Aal to Damiata, but Ali Fehmy remained at Cairo. And I saw nothing of Ali Nizami. But being at Zagazig on a visit to friends, Ahmed Eff. Shemsi and Suliman Pasha Abaza, as I was returning by train to Ras el Wady, it happened that Ahmed Pasha Ratib was on his way to Suez, for he was going on to Mecca on pilgrimage. And I found myself in the same carriage with him, and we exchanged compliments as strangers, and I asked him his name, and he asked me my name, and he told me of his pilgrimage and other things, but he did not speak of his mission to the Khedive, nor did I ask. But I told him that I was loyal to the Sultan as the head of our religion, and I also related to him all that had occurred, and he said, "You did well." And at Ras el Wady I left him, and afterwards he sent me a Koran from Jeddah, and later, on his return to Stamboul, he wrote to me, saying that he had spoken favourably of me to the Sultan, and afterwards I received a letter dictated by the Sultan to Sheykh Mohammed Dhaffar telling me what I know.

As to Yakub Sami, he was of family originally Greek from Stamboul. He went by my order to Alexandria to inquire into the affair of the riot, but they would not allow a true inquiry to be made into it. It was Yakub Sami who, with Ragheb Pasha, proposed that we should cut off the Khedive's head. You say we should have done better to do so, but I wished to gain the end of our revolution without the shedding of a drop of blood.

APPENDIX II

PROGRAMME OF THE NATIONAL PARTY OF EGYPT, FORWARDED BY MR. BLUNT TO MR. GLADSTONE, DEC. 20TH, 1881, WITH MR. GLADSTONE'S ANSWERS

1. The National party of Egypt accept the existing relations of Egypt with the Porte as the basis of their movement. That is to say: They acknowledge the Sultan Abd el Hamid Khan as their Suzerain and Lord, and as actual Caliph or Head of the Mussulman religion; nor do they propose, while his empire stands, to alter this relationship. They admit the right of the Porte to the tribute fixed by law, and to military assistance in case of foreign war. At the same time, they are firmly determined to defend their national rights and privileges, and to oppose, by every means in their power, the attempts of those who would reduce Egypt again to the condition of a Turkish Pashalik. They trust in the protecting Powers of Europe, and especially in England, to continue their guarantee of Egypt's administrative independence.

2. The National party express their loyal allegiance to the person of the reigning Khedive. They will continue to support Mohammed Towfik's authority as long as he shall rule in accordance with justice and the law, and in fulfilment of his promises made to the people of Egypt in September 1881. They declare, however, their intention to permit no renewal of that despotic reign of injustice which Egypt has so often witnessed, and to insist upon the exact execution of his promise of Parliamentary government and of giving the country freedom. They invite His Highness, Mohammed Towfik, to act honestly by them in these matters, promising him their cordial help; but they warn him against listening to those who would persuade him to continue his despotic power, to betray their national rights, or to elude his promises.

3. The National party fully recognize the services rendered to Egypt by the Governments of England and France, and they are aware that all freedom and justice they have obtained in the past has been due to them. For this they tender them their thanks. They recognize the European Control as a necessity of their financial position, and the present continuance of it as the best guarantee of their prosperity. They declare their entire acceptance of the foreign debt as a matter of _national honour_--this, although they know that it was incurred, not for Egypt's benefit, but in the private interests of a dishonest and irresponsible ruler--and they are ready to assist the Controllers in discharging the full national obligations. They look, nevertheless, upon the existing order of things as in its nature temporary, and avow it as their hope gradually to redeem the country out of the hands of its creditors. Their object is, some day to see Egypt entirely in Egyptian hands. Also they are not blind to the imperfections of the Control, which they are ready to point out. They know that many abuses are committed by those employed by it, whether Europeans or others. They see some of these incapable, others dishonest, others too highly paid. They know that many offices, now held by strangers, would be better discharged by Egyptians, and at a fifth of the cost; and they believe there is still much waste and much injustice. They cannot understand that Europeans living in the land should remain for ever exempt from the general taxation, or from obedience to the general law. The National party does not, however, propose to remedy these evils by any violent action; only it would protest against their unchecked continuance. They would have the Governments of France and England consider that, having taken the control of their finances out of the hands of the Egyptians, they are responsible for their prosperity, and are bound to see that efficient and honest persons only are employed by them.

4. The National party disclaim all connection with those who, in the interest of Powers jealous of Egypt's independence, seek to trouble the peace of the country--and there are many such--or with those who find their private advantage in disturbance. At the same time they are aware that a merely passive attitude will not secure them liberty in a land which is still ruled by a class to whom liberty is hateful. The silence of the people made Ismaïl Pasha's rule possible in Egypt, and silence now would leave their hope of political liberty unfulfilled. The Egyptians have learned in the last few years what freedom means, and they are resolved to complete their national education. This they look to find in the Parliament just assembling, in a fair measure of freedom for the press, and in the general growth of knowledge among all classes of the people. They know, however, that none of these means of education can be secured except by the firm attitude of the national leaders. The Egyptian Parliament may be cajoled or frightened into silence, as at Constantinople; the press may be used as an instrument against them, and the sources of instruction cut off. It is for this reason and for no other that the National party has confided its interests at the present time to the army, believing them to be the only power in the country able and willing to protect its growing liberties. It is not, however, in the plans of the party that this state of things shall continue; and as soon as the people shall have established their rights securely the army will abandon its present political attitude. In this the military leaders fully concur. They trust that on the assembling of the Parliament their further interference in affairs of State may be unnecessary. But for the present they will continue to perform their duty as the armed guardians of the unarmed people. Such being their position, they hold it imperative that their force should be maintained efficient, and their complement made up to the full number of 18,000 men. They trust that the European Control will keep this necessity in view when considering the army estimates.

5. The National party of Egypt is a political, not a religious party. It includes within its ranks men of various races and various creeds. It is principally Mohammedan, because nine-tenths of the Egyptians are Mohammedans; but it has the support of the Moors, of the Coptic Christians, of the Jews, and others who cultivate the soil and speak the language of Egypt. Between these it makes no distinction whatever, holding all men to be brothers and to have equal rights, both political and before the law. This principle is accepted by all the chief Sheykhs of the Azhar who support the party, holding the true law of Islam to forbid religious hatred and religious disabilities. With Europeans resident in Egypt the National party has no quarrel, either as Christians or as strangers, so long as these shall live comformably with the laws and bear their share of the burdens of the State.

6. Finally, the general end of the National party is the intellectual and moral regeneration of the country by a better observance of the law, by increased education, and by political liberty, which they hold to be the life of the people. They trust in the sympathy of those of the nations of Europe which enjoy the blessing of self-government to aid Egypt in gaining for itself that blessing; but they are aware that no nation ever yet achieved liberty except by its own endeavours; and they are resolved to stand firm in the position they have won, trusting to God's help if all other be denied them.

_December 18, 1881._

MR. GLADSTONE'S ANSWER

Hawarden Castle, Chester,

_Jan. 20th, 1882_.

MY DEAR SIR,

You will I am sure appreciate the reasons which disable me from offering anything like a becoming reply to your very interesting letter on Egyptian affairs, which occupy, I am sorry to say, an insignificant share of my daily attention.

But I am sensible of the advantage of having such a letter from such an authority, and I feel quite sure that unless there be a sad failure of good sense on one or both, or, as I should say, all sides, we shall be enabled to bring this question to a favourable issue.

My own opinions about Egypt were set forth in the "19th Century" a short time before we took office, and I am not aware as yet of having seen any reason to change them.

I remain, my Dear Sir,

Faithfully yours,

W. E. GLADSTONE.

Wilfrid S. Blunt, Esq.

10, Downing Street, Whitehall,

_Jan. 21st, 1882_.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

I feel I owe you a great apology for your not having received an earlier acknowledgment of your most able and interesting communication on the Egyptian movement. Holiday making must be my excuse; but my absence from Downing Street did not prevent the prompt submission of your letter to Mr. Gladstone, from whom I enclose a note. He is sorry that it is somewhat tardy in its despatch.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to write on the present critical state of affairs, when the situation may alter from day to day.

You may imagine that the alleged national character to the movement necessarily commends itself to Mr. Gladstone with his well-known sympathy with young nationalities struggling for independence. The great crux (I am of course only speaking for myself, and with a strong consciousness of ignorance) seems to be, how to favour such a movement with due regard to the responsibilities in which we have been involved, and the vested interests which are at stake. Every alternative seems to be beset with insuperable objections and insurmountable difficulties. I can only say that if you can do anything towards finding a solution for these difficulties you will be doing a great work for Egypt, for the country, and for the present Government. I know that you have already been of great service, and are entitled to speak on this question with greater authority than almost any one else.

With special regards to Lady Anne, and apologies for such a cursory uninteresting note in return for your information,

Always yrs. affectionately

E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. GLADSTONE'S ANSWER TO MR. BLUNT'S SECOND LETTER DATED CAIRO, FEBRUARY 7TH, 1882

10, Downing Street, Whitehall,

_2nd March, 1882_.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Mr. Gladstone has read with much interest your further letter, for which he is much obliged. He hopes that you will have felt, or will feel, assured from the language in the speech from the Throne, of which I enclose by his desire a copy, that the British Government, while intending firmly to uphold international engagements, have a sympathy with Egyptian feelings in reference to the purposes and means of good government.

Yours always,

E. W. HAMILTON.

EXTRACT FROM THE QUEEN'S SPEECH FORWARDED TO MR. BLUNT BY MR. HAMILTON

In concert with the President of the French Republic, I have given careful attention to the affairs of Egypt, where existing arrangements have imposed on me special obligations. I shall use my influence to maintain the rights already established, whether by the Firmans of the Sultan or by various international engagements, in a spirit favourable to the good government of the country and the prudent development of its institutions.

APPENDIX III

TEXT OF THE EGYPTIAN CONSTITUTION OF FEBRUARY 7TH, 1882

(_N.B._--This occurs in Blue Book, Egypt, No. 7 (1882), but is given there in French only. The clauses embodying the amendments or explanations obtained at Sir Edward Malet's and Sir Auckland Colvin's instance by the author on January 19th, 1882, are marked with an asterisk.)

LETTER FROM MAHMOUD SAMY PASHA ON TAKING OFFICE, FEBRUARY 2ND, 1882, TO HIS HIGHNESS THE KHEDIVE

MONSEIGNEUR,

Your Highness has condescended to entrust to me the care of forming a new Cabinet; I consider it as the first of my duties to submit to you the principles which will guide my conduct and inspire that of the Ministry over which I am to preside.

The events which have succeeded each other in Egypt for some years past have prejudiced public opinion in various ways here, and in foreign countries. These prejudices relate to two orders of ideas: our financial expenditure and our internal reforms.

The general debt of the country was definitely regulated by a series of Decrees which was itself completed by the Law of Liquidation of 19th July, 1880.

These laws have acquired the character of International Conventions. Your Highness's Government has never ceased to respect them. The Ministry will watch over their exact and faithful execution.

The liquidation of the floating debt is an accomplished fact for all those interested (and they are immensely in the majority) whose rights have been recognized up to now by the competent authorities; it will continue to be actively proceeded with.

The service of the Consolidated Debt, which includes the special administrations of the Daïra and the Domains employed to guarantee the Loan of 1878 is being regularly performed. The administrations which were created to secure this service, the General Control, the Commission of the Debt, the Control of the Daïra, the Commission of Domains, are institutions which must be always loyally supported by the Government; they have always been so up to the present day.

Nothing will be changed in this state of things in the future: the Ministry will endeavour to consolidate these institutions and to facilitate their action. It considers harmony in all these public services as an essential condition to the regular course of affairs, and it thinks that the general administration of the country owes incontestable advantages to this policy.

Your Highness has always been convinced that, to accomplish internal reforms with wisdom and security, the co-operation of a Chamber of Deputies was necessary, and it is with this idea that the present Chamber has been convoked.

The Ministry share these sentiments. They will concentrate all their attention upon the reorganization of the Tribunals, the reform of the administration, the improvements necessary to public education to aid the country to advance in the path of progress and civilization. They will study measures suitable for the development of agriculture, commerce, and industry, as well as all the other projects of reform which have been the object of your Highness's constant solicitude. But before all they believe it necessary to determine the powers of the Chamber of Deputies, in order to enable it to give to the Government the co-operation which it expects, and to realize the hopes of the people.

This is why the Cabinet's first act will be to sanction an Organic Law for the Chamber of Deputies.

This law will respect all rights and obligations of a private or international character, as well as all engagements relating to the Public Debt and to the charges which the latter imposes upon the State Budget. It will determine wisely the responsibility of the Ministers before the Chamber, as well as the mode of discussing the laws.

Far from being a source of anxiety, this Organic Law will unite all the conditions necessary for securing the interests of the public.

Such is, Monseigneur, the programme of the new Ministry, conformable to the wishes of the country.

The High Powers--and particularly the Sublime Porte, whose friendly support has never failed us in the exercise of the rights and privileges which it has granted us--will continue, I confidently hope, to lend to your Highness's Government, as in the past, that valuable co-operation which has always been beneficial to Egypt.

I also hope that the authority of your Government will be devoted solely to safeguarding individual rights and the maintenance of order, and that it will guide the nation in the way of progress and prosperity.

The day on which your Highness took in hand the reins of power you promised to Egypt a new era of progress. We come to assure your Highness of our absolute unanimity for the realization of that promise. The goal you would attain, Monseigneur, is the same which we are striving for. Full of confidence in you, we have faith in the future.

If your Highness deigns to consent to the programme which I submit, I have the honour to beg your Highness to sanction the decrees which I present for signature, to constitute the Ministry.

MAHMOUD SAMY.

LETTER FROM HIS HIGHNESS THE KHEDIVE TO HIS EXCELLENCE MAHMOUD SAMY PASHA

15, Rabi-Awel, 1299.

(February 4, 1882.)

MY DEAR MAHMOUD SAMY PASHA,

In accepting the task of forming a new Cabinet, without being ignorant of the importance of this undertaking, you give a new proof of your devotion and of your patriotism. If I have charged you with this mission, it is because I knew these your noble sentiments of which you have given many proofs, by the numerous services you have rendered in the various offices you have already filled. I approve of your programme, and of the principles which you develop in it. These principles are the foundation of justice. They are calculated to maintain and assure order in the country as well to give security to all those who inhabit it.

I share your opinion that my Government should take the necessary measures to ensure judicial and administrative reforms, and that it should promulgate for the Chamber of Deputies the Organic Law in conformity with the ideas explained in your programme.

My Government ought also to take upon itself the task of developing public instruction, agriculture, commerce, and industry. My loyal and sincere co-operation shall always be yours in the accomplishment of this object.

I pray God to crown our common efforts for the benefit and prosperity of the people.

MEHEMET TEWFIK.

DECREE

We, Khedive of Egypt,

In view of our Decree of the 4th October, 1881 (11 Zilcadé, 1298),

In view of the decision of the Chamber of Delegates, and conformably with the advice of our Council of Ministers,

Have decreed and decree,

_Art. 1._ The Members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected. An ulterior and special Law will make known the conditions of electorability and of eligibility for election, and at the same time the mode of election to the Chamber of Deputies.

_Art. 2._ The Members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected for a period of five years. They receive an annual payment of £E.100.

_Art. 3._ The Deputies are free in the exercise of their mandates. They cannot be bound either by promises or by (government) instructions, or by an (administrative) order, or by menaces of a nature to interfere with the free expression of their opinions.

_Art. 4._ The Deputies are inviolable. In case of crime or misdemeanour committed during the course of the Session, they cannot be put under arrest except with the leave of the Chamber.

_Art. 5._ The Chamber may also, after its convocation, demand, provisionally and for the duration of the Session, that any one of its Members who has been imprisoned shall be set at liberty, or that all action directed against him shall be suspended during the Chamber's recess, if for a criminal matter, where no judgment has yet been pronounced.

_Art. 6._ Each Deputy represents not only the interests of the constituency which has elected him, but also the interests of the Egyptian people in general.

_Art. 7._ The Chamber of Deputies shall sit at Cairo. It is convoked each year by Decree of the Khedive, and according to the advice of the Council of Ministers.

_Art. 8._ The ordinary annual Session of the Chamber of Deputies shall be for three months, viz., from the 1st November to the 31st January. But if the work of the Chamber is not finished by the 31st January, it may then demand a prolongation of fifteen to thirty days. This prolongation will be accorded by Decree of the Khedive.

_Art. 9._ In case of necessity the Chamber will be convoked in Extraordinary Session by the Khedive. The duration of the Extraordinary Session will be fixed by the Decree convoking it.

_Art. 10._ The Sessions of the Chamber shall be opened in the presence of the Ministers either by the Khedive or by the President of the Council of Ministers, acting by delegation of the Khedive.

_Art. 11._ At the first sitting of each annual Session an opening Speech shall be pronounced by the Khedive, or in his name by the President of the Council of Ministers. It shall have for its object to make known to the Chamber the principal questions to be presented to it in the course of the session. After the reading of the opening speech the sitting shall be adjourned.

_Art. 12._ During the three following days, the Chamber, having named a Committee for the purpose of preparing a reply to the opening speech, shall vote its reply, which shall be presented to the Khedive by a deputation chosen from amongst its members.

_Art. 13._ The reply to the opening speech may not treat of any question in a decisive sense, nor contain any opinion which has been the object of previous deliberations.

_Art. 14._ The Chamber shall submit to the Khedive a list containing the names of three Members whom it may propose for the office of President. The Khedive shall name by Decree one of the Members, thus designated, President of the Chamber of Deputies. The office of President shall continue for five years.

_Art. 15._ The Chamber shall elect two Vice-Presidents which it shall choose from among its Members, and shall name the Secretaries of its Bureau.

_Art. 16._ An official report of the sittings of the Chamber shall be drawn up under the direction of the Bureau of the Chamber, composed of its President, Vice-President, and Secretaries.

_Art. 17._ The official language for the Chamber shall be Arabic. The proceedings and reports of the Chamber shall be drawn up in the official language.

_Art. 18._ The Ministers shall have the right of being present at the sittings of the Chamber, and of speaking there, when they shall think fit. They may cause themselves to be represented there by high state officials.

_Art. 19._ If the Chamber decides that there is reason for summoning one of the Ministers to appear before it to give explanations on any question, the Minister shall appear in person or cause himself to be represented by another official to give the required explanations.

_*Art. 20._ The Deputies shall have the right to supervise the acts of all public functionaries during the Session, and through the President of the Chamber they may report to the Minister concerned all abuses, irregularities, or negligences charged against a public official, in the exercise of his functions.

_Art. 21._ The Ministers are jointly and severally responsible to the Chamber for every measure taken in Council, which may violate existing rules and regulations.

_Art. 22._ Each Minister is individually responsible, in the cases foreseen in the preceding article, for his acts occurring in the exercise of his functions.

_*Art. 23._ In case of persistent disagreement between the Chamber of Deputies and the Ministry; when repeated interchanges of views and motives shall have taken place between them, if then the Ministry does not withdraw, the Khedive shall dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, and decree that new elections shall be proceeded with, within a period of time not exceeding three months, counted from the day of dissolution to that of reassembly. All Deputies thus dismissed shall be eligible for reelection.

_Art. 24._ If the new Chamber confirms by its vote that of the preceding Chamber which had provoked the disagreement, this vote shall be accepted as final.

_*Art. 25._ The Bills and Regulations emanating from the initiative of the Government shall be brought into the Chamber of Deputies by the Ministers, to be examined, discussed and voted. No Law shall become valid until it has been read before the Chamber of Deputies, Article by Article, voted clause by clause, and consented to by the Khedive. Each Bill shall be read three times and between each reading there shall have been an interval of fifteen days. In case of urgency a single reading shall, by a special vote of the Chamber, be declared sufficient. If the Chamber judges it necessary to demand the introduction of a Bill from the Council of Ministers, it shall make the demand through the intermediary of the President of the Chamber, and in case of the approval of the Government, the Bill shall be prepared by the Ministry and introduced to the Chamber according to the forms fixed by this Article.

_Art. 26._ The Chamber shall choose from amongst its Members a Committee, charged to examine all Bills and Regulation submitted to it. This Committee may propose to the Government amendments of such bills as it has been charged to examine; in which case, the bill and the amendments proposed shall be sent back, before any general discussion, by the President of the Chamber, to the President of the Council of Ministers.

_Art. 27._ If the Committee does not propose any amendments or if those proposed are not adopted by the Government, the original text of the Bill shall be placed for discussion before the Chamber. If the amendments proposed by the Committee are accepted by the Government, then the text thus amended shall be placed for discussion before the Chamber. In case the Government should not accept the amendments proposed by the Committee, then the latter shall have the right of submitting its opinion and observations to the Chamber.

_Art. 28._ The Chamber of Deputies may adopt or reject all Bills submitted to it by the Committee. It may also return them to the Committee to be examined a second time.

_Art. 29._ The President of the Chamber shall convey to the President of the Council of Ministers the Laws and Regulations voted by the Chamber.

_Art. 30._ No fresh tax--direct or indirect--on movable, immovable or personal property may be imposed in Egypt without a Law voted by the Chamber. It is therefore formally forbidden that any new tax shall be levied, under whatever title or denomination it may be, without having been previously voted by the Chamber of Deputies, under penalty, against the authority which shall have ordered it, against the employés who shall have drawn up the schedules and tariffs and against those who shall have effected the recovery of the amounts, of being prosecuted as peculators. All contributions thus unduly levied shall be returned to those who have paid them.

_Art. 31._ The Annual Budget of the Receipts and Expenditures of the State shall be communicated to the Chamber of Deputies not later than the 5th of November of each year.

_Art. 32._ The General Budget of Receipts shall be presented to the Chamber, accompanied by notes explanatory of the nature of each receipt.

_Art. 33._ The Budget of Expenditure shall be divided Department by Department, and shall be subdivided into sections and chapters, corresponding to the various branches of the public service depending upon each Ministry.

_Art. 34._ The following cannot on any account be objects of discussion in the Chamber:

The service of the Tribute due to the Sublime Porte.

The service of the Public Debt.

Also all matters relating to the Debt and resulting from the Law of Liquidation, or Conventions existing between the Foreign Powers and the Egyptian Government.

_*Art. 35._ The Budget shall be sent to the Chamber, to be examined and discussed there (under reserve of the preceding Article).

A Committee composed of as many Deputies, and having the same number of votes as the Members of the Council of Ministers and its President, shall be named by the Chamber to discuss, in common with the Council of Ministers, the Budget Estimates, and to vote them either unanimously or according to the majority.

_Art. 36._ In case of an exact division of votes between the Commission of the Chamber and the Council of Ministers, the Budget shall be returned to the Chamber and, should the Chamber confirm (by its vote) that of the Council of Ministers, this vote shall become executory (_exécutoire_). But if the Chamber should maintain the vote of its Committee, then the procedure shall be according to Articles 23 and 24 of the present Law. In this case, the credits of the Budget Estimates which shall have caused the division of votes, if they figured in the Budget of the preceding year, and if they are not affected to any new object of expenditure, such as public works or others, shall be employed provisionally and until the meeting of the new Chamber, according to Article 23.

_Art. 37._ If the new Chamber confirms the vote of the preceding Chamber, on the Budget, this vote shall become definitely executory, in conformity with Article 23.

_Art. 38._ No Treaty or contract between the Government and third parties and no farming concession shall acquire a final character without having been first approved by a vote of the Chamber, provided that such Treaty, contract or concession does not relate to an object for which a sum has already figured in the approved Budget, corresponding to the year for which the Treaty, contract or concession shall have been proposed. Likewise no concession for public works, the execution of which shall not have been foreseen by the Budget, and no sale, or gratuitous alienation of the State domains, nor concession of privilege of any kind shall become definitive until it shall have been approved by the Chamber.

_Art. 39._ All Egyptians may address a petition to the Chamber of Deputies. The petitions shall be sent to a Committee chosen by the Chamber from among its Members. Upon the report of this Committee the Chamber shall take into consideration or reject the petitions. The petitions taken into consideration shall be sent back to the Minister concerned.

_Art. 40._ All petitions relative to personal rights or interests shall be rejected if they are outside the competence of the Administrative and Civil Tribunals, or if they have not been previously addressed to the competent administrative authority.

_Art. 41._ If during the recess of the Chamber grave circumstances shall demand that urgent measures be taken to avoid a danger menacing the State, or to assure public order, the Council of Ministers may, then, upon its own responsibility and with the sanction of the Khedive, order those measures to be taken, even if they should be within the competence of the Chamber, supposing the time to be too short for the convocation of the latter. Nevertheless, the affair should be submitted for examination, at its next sitting, to the Chamber.

_Art. 42._ No one may be admitted to explain or discuss questions or to take part in the deliberations of the Chamber other than its Members, with the exception of the Ministers or of those who are assisting or representing them.

_Art. 43._ The votes of the Chamber shall be given by the holding up of hands or by calling over of names or by ballot.

_Art. 44._ The vote by calling over of names shall only be on the demand of at least ten Members of the Chamber of Deputies. All votes which may affect the provisions of Article 47 shall be made openly.

_Art. 45._ The naming of the three candidates for the Presidency of the Chamber, as well as the election of the two Vice-Presidents and the nomination of the first and second Secretaries to the Chamber shall be made by ballot.

_Art. 46._ The Chamber of Deputies may not validly deliberate unless at least two-thirds of its Members are present at the deliberation. All decisions shall be taken absolutely according to the majority of votes.

_Art. 47._ No votes entailing Ministerial responsibility shall be given without a majority of at least three-quarters of the Members present.

_Art. 48._ No opinion shall be given by proxy.

_Art. 49._ The Chamber of Deputies shall elaborate its own internal Regulations. These shall be made executory by Decree of the Khedive.

_*Art. 50._ The present Organic Law may be amended after agreement between the Chamber of Deputies and the Council of Ministers.

_*Art. 51._ The interpretation of all Articles and phrases of the present law which it may be necessary to make clear shall be made on agreement between the Chamber of Deputies and the Council of Ministers.

_Art. 52._ All provisions of Laws, Decrees, Superior Orders, Regulations, or Usages contrary to the present Law are and shall remain revoked.

_Art. 53._ Our Ministers are charged, each in what concerns him, with the execution of the present Law.

Done in the Palace of Ismaïlieh, 7th February, 1882 (18 Rabi Awel, 1299).

(_Signed_) MEHEMET TEWFIK.

By the Khedive:

The President of the Council of Ministers, Minister of the Interior. (_Signed_) MAHMOUD SAMY.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Justice. MOUSTAPHA FEHMY.

The Minister of War and Marine. AHMED ARABI.

The Minister of Finance. ALI SADIK.

The Minister of Public Works. MAHMOUD FEHMY.

The Minister of Public Instruction. ABDALLAH FIKRY.

The Minister of the Wakfs. HASSAN CHÉRÉY.

APPENDIX IV

LETTER RECEIVED BY MR. BLUNT FROM BOGHOS PASHA NUBAR AS TO HIS FATHER NUBAR PASHA'S POLITICAL CONNECTION WITH THE KHEDIVE ISMAÏL. (TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.)

Paris, _September 26th, 1907_.

SIR,

I have just read in the _Egyptian Gazette_ of the 14th instant your reply to Mr. Lucy about the Cyprus Convention, and I was very glad to observe the offer you made in it of correcting in your book any errors which might be pointed out to you. It has decided me to appeal to your loyalty in regard to a mistake about my father which has found its way into it. I do not know from what sources you have drawn your information, nor do I doubt your good faith, which has certainly been misled.

You say that Nubar Pasha was Ismaïl's Minister of Finance, and that in virtue of this office he was responsible for the ruinous loans contracted by the latter. This is evidently a complete mistake, my father never having been Minister of Finance, and having had nothing to do directly or indirectly with any of the loans.

The only offices which he filled during Ismaïl's reign were the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was never, I repeat, Minister of Finance, for this very good reason that, in spite of his great intelligence and qualities as a statesman, he recognized that he did not understand financial questions, and the Khedive, who also knew it, would never have thought of confiding a Ministry to him, which he himself felt he was incapable of directing.

Ismaïl's Minister of Finance was the Moufettish Ismaïl Pasha Sadek, whom you speak of on pages 18, 39 and 40 of your book. He was the sole collaborator and confidant of the Khedive upon financial matters, and it was he who organized the loans.

As to my father, I think what will best show you how entirely he was a stranger to financial administration, is a simple _résumé_ of his career, under Ismaïl, which I shall try to condense into a few lines.

"In the very first year of Ismaïl's accession, 1863, Nubar Pasha was sent on a mission to Paris to regulate the differences relating to the Suez Canal. He remained there two years, and upon his return to Egypt he was appointed, first, Minister of Public Works, and then, Minister for Foreign Affairs. A year later, in 1866, he went once more on a mission to Europe, and remained three years absent. It was during this period that he obtained the Firman of 1867, granting to Egypt administrative autonomy, the right of making Customs Conventions with the Powers, and the title of Khedive for the Viceroy. It was at this time, too, that he commenced the first negotiations for Judicial Reform with the Powers. He did not return to Egypt until 1869, and then for six months only, in order to assist at the opening of the Suez Canal, and preside at the Commission of Inquiry for Judicial Reform which was sitting at Cairo, and he returned to Paris in 1870 to continue there the negotiations for the Reform. These negotiations, begun in 1867, lasted until 1875, about eight years, during which time Nubar Pasha lived almost entirely in Europe, with the exception of short intervals of a few months in Egypt. In 1874 he was dismissed by the Khedive on account of a difference of opinion relative to the said negotiations, and he remained in Europe without employment for a year. He was recalled by Ismaïl to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in June, 1875. Six months later, he was again dismissed, January, 1876. He then remained two years in Europe, exiled, and did not return until 1878, when recalled by the Khedive to form the Mixed Ministry in conjunction with Sir Rivers Wilson."

My father declares in his memoirs, which I hope one day to be able to publish, that during the fifteen years of Ismaïl's reign, he spent twelve in Europe on missions, on leave of absence, or in exile. The dates and facts which I have recited above prove the accuracy of this statement. During all these absences from Egypt, Nubar Pasha, exclusively occupied with his negotiations, could not take any part in the interior affairs of the country, about which he was not even consulted. Thus, while in Paris in 1869, he learnt from M. Béhic, Minister of Public Works to the Emperor Napoleon III, in the course of a conversation with him relative to the Judicial Reform, that the Khedive had just arranged a loan of ten millions sterling, of which my father had not even been informed; and again, at Constantinople in 1873, where he was pursuing his negotiations for the Reform, it was indirectly that he learned that the Khedive was negotiating a fresh loan of thirty millions.

You see, Sir, by these facts, which it will be easy for you to verify, that not only was my father never Minister of Finance, nor connected with the Khedive's loans, but that all his energy, his talents and the influence which he had acquired were employed in negotiations abroad: (1) for the regulation of the question of the Suez Canal, which culminated in the arbitration of Napoleon III, through which Egypt obtained a verdict for the abolition of forced labour in the making of the Canal; (2) for obtaining Firmans from the Sublime Porte; (3) for the Judicial Reform which was his conception and his work, and to which he consecrated all his energy, his intelligence, and the best years of his life. I must also add that he continued to work zealously for the abolition of forced labour while Director of Railways and at the Ministry of Public Works. This we owe in large measure to him, as Sir W. Wilcocks so courteously testifies in his book on the Irrigation of Egypt.

Do you not think, Sir, that I have a right under these circumstances to appeal to your courtesy in asking you to rectify in the new edition of your book the erroneous passages which I have mentioned? You cannot fail to see the importance which I attach to these corrections, for it would not be just, in a work bearing upon history, for my father to be held responsible for government measures to which he was altogether a stranger.

My father in the course of his laborious career made many friends, but also many enemies, as all politicians do. His enemies have not failed to spread calumnies about him and to invent stories. I will only cite two: First, that concerning his nationality. His political adversaries, in the interest of their cause, successively reproached him with being an English and a German subject! These allegations, the object of which was to discredit him in the course of his negotiations for Judicial Reform by contesting, though he was a Minister of the Khedive, his Egyptian nationality, have been since recognized as being without any foundation. Another legend relates to his supposed immense fortune. The most calumnious and fantastic assertions have been made with regard to this, generally by people who were interested in tarnishing the memory of an adversary by leaving it to be understood that such great wealth could only have been acquired by unlawful means. They did not hesitate to say and write that he possessed more than four millions sterling. Although I have not condescended up to now to reply to calumnies which have appeared in newspapers, there is no reason why I should not give you, for your personal information, the precise facts and figures.

At his death my father left a fortune of £155,000, having settled upon my mother during his lifetime a personal fortune amounting to an equal sum. Thus the four millions, at which the most moderate estimators valued what he possessed, were not in reality more than about £300,000. This is a fact which can easily be verified, for the Deed of Partition of his inheritance--there being children who were minors among the heirs--was registered at the Mixed Tribunal at Cairo.

It is equally easy to show the sources from which this fortune was derived. It consisted of donations, which he had received from the Khedive in recompense for services rendered, and of an exceptionally fortunate investment of a part of these donations.

By the _résumé_ which I have given of his career, you will see the importance of the services he rendered to his country and the results obtained by his various negotiations. The Khedive did not fail to recompense him, as he had recompensed others of his Ministers, and as the British Parliament has recently done for Lord Cromer by voting him a donation of £50,000. Thus he received, upon the successful result of the negotiations relating to the Suez Canal, the Firman of 1867 and the Judicial Reform, various recompenses consisting of sums of money, of a property of nine hundred acres, and of a house in Alexandria--the whole being of the value of about £80,000.

My father had the fortunate inspiration, at the creation of the Cairo Water Company, of which he was President, to invest an important part of this sum, £25,000, in shares of the Company; and this investment alone sufficed to raise his fortune to the sum I have indicated, for it is a matter of public knowledge that the Cairo Water Company's shares had gone up to ten times their value at the date of Nubar Pasha's death.

I will end by begging you to excuse my having written you so long a letter, but your offer of rectification proves your anxiety to be impartial and has authorized my doing so. Thanking you in advance, therefore, for the corrections which my information will enable you to make, I beg you will accept, Sir, etc.,

BOGHOS NUBAR.

_Note._--I am glad to have obtained Boghos Pasha's permission to publish the whole of this interesting letter, and regret that I cannot, at the late date of my receiving it, make any alteration in the text of this edition, such as he at first suggested. I think, however, that the letter, published in full, will be found more satisfactory than a mere omission of the passages it corrects could possibly have been.

W. S. B.

APPENDIX V

NOTE AS TO THE BERLIN CONGRESS.

It has been pointed out by Mr. Lucy, in the _Westminster Gazette_, that the account given in the text, page 34, of the quarrel between M. Waddington and Lord Salisbury, at the Berlin Congress, is manifestly incorrect, inasmuch as it was the Anglo-Russian agreement of 31st May, not the Cyprus Convention with Turkey of 4th June, that was published by the _Globe_ newspaper through the instrumentality of Marvin, the Cyprus Convention being issued in the ordinary way. The confusion between the two instruments in the text is undeniable and needs correction. At the same time the result of as full an enquiry as I have been able to make into the affair, by a reference to contemporary documents, is not such as to make me doubt the substantial truth of the story. What seems precisely to have happened is this:

Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury, before entering the Congress, had concluded two separate agreements, both secret, regarding Ottoman affairs--the one with Russia, the other with Turkey. These while conceding something to Russia, would, they thought, conjointly secure the integrity of the Sultan's dominions on the Asiatic side against further aggression. The agreement with Russia recognized her permanent possession of Batum, but was more than counterbalanced, in their opinion, by the second Convention, unknown to the Russian Government as to the rest of the world, guaranteeing the remainder of his Asiatic dominions under English protection to the Sultan. The two treaties were drafted at the Foreign Office almost simultaneously, and by accident or negligence that with Russia became known, the very day it was signed, to M. Charles Marvin, a poor journalist and teacher of languages, who had been taken on as extra Writer for his knowledge of Russian in the Treaty Department at the Foreign Office. Marvin, who was wretchedly underpaid at the rate of tenpence an hour, had been intrusted with the copying of the agreement, and yielded to the temptation of betraying a summary of it to his employers in the Press. This was on the 31st May, a fortnight before the Congress met.

For some days after this Marvin seems to have remained on unsuspected at the Foreign Office, it being imagined at first that it was perhaps Count Schouvalof himself, the Russian ambassador in London, who had given the information to the Press. Later, seeing that the summary was no more than a summary, and had appeared in one newspaper only, the _Globe_, it was resolved to deny it; and Lord Salisbury had little difficulty in persuading the House of Lords and the country that it lacked authenticity. In answer to a question put to him about it by Lord Grey, Lord Salisbury declared roundly "the statement to which the noble Earl refers, and other statements that have been made that I have seen, are wholly unauthenticated and are not deserving of the confidence of your Lordship's House."

Nevertheless, the incident raised a suspicion of England's good faith abroad, and, doubtless was the cause of the declaration, mentioned in the text, being demanded of the Ambassadors at the first sitting of the Congress. This must have been subscribed to by Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury on the 13th June, the other dates being:

The Agreement with Russia, signed in London, 31st May.

The _Globe_ summary, published in the evening of the same day, 31st May.

Lord Salisbury's denial in the House of Lords, 3rd June.

First sitting of the Berlin Congress, 13th June.

Publication by the _Globe_ of the full text of the Agreement, on evening of 14th June.

Lord Beaconsfield's and Lord Salisbury's discomfiture must consequently have been still more sudden than in my account of it when the news became public property at Berlin on the 15th; and doubtless the sensation caused there was primarily on account of the Agreement, not of the Convention, which latter was not published till 8th July. All the same I still adhere to my recollection of the letter shown me at Simla that it was the Cyprus Convention that was the main cause of M. Waddington's resentment, and of Lord Salisbury's concession to him about Tunis and the rest. That it was so is confirmed to me by a passage in my diary of 1884, when, being at Constantinople and having just had a conversation with Count Corti on the subject, I made the following entry. It must be remembered that the Count had been Italian ambassador at the Berlin Congress, and was actually ambassador to the Sultan at the date of the conversation; nor was he other than a friendly witness, for he was always regarded as an _Anglomane_ and ally of our British diplomacy.

"_October 26._ Count Corti came to take us in a steam launch to Therapia. We had luncheon with the Wyndhams, and called on the Noailles (at the English and French Embassies).... On our way back to Constantinople Count Corti entertained us with stories of the Berlin Congress and of Lord Salisbury's antics there. Disraeli and Salisbury had gone there quite on their high horse to curb the territorial ambitions of Russia, and the publication of the secret convention for the acquisition of Cyprus was a great shock to everybody. Salisbury broke it gently to Waddington before the news was published, and Waddington consulted his colleagues, it being generally agreed that there was no middle course between going to war and saying nothing. 'Il faut la guerre ou se taire.' But the publication was a great blow to Disraeli, who took to his bed and did not appear for four or five days. Lord Salisbury, however, brazened it out, and came to the Congress with an air of defiance. There was no rupture between him and Waddington, and they remained on apparently friendly terms, but Waddington had his revenge. He was sitting one day with Salisbury, and, the conversation leading that way, Waddington asked what the English Government would say to France taking Tunis, and Salisbury said he did not see the harm. Whereupon Waddington communicated this to Paris, and on his return the French ambassador in London was instructed to write to Lord Salisbury reminding him of his words. Thus Salisbury was caught. 'But,' said Corti, 'if he had known anything of his business he would have declined to answer the note officially and would have pleaded a private conversation.' He did not believe that any arrangement of _condominium_ was come to between Salisbury and Waddington at that time, though I told him, without mentioning names, of the letter Lytton had shown me. Corti is interesting diplomatically, as he has been to more congresses than any man in Europe."

This entry, which is a contemporary record of Count Corti's recollection of the incident, five years after it happened, shows that the two secret agreements had remained closely connected in his mind as the cause of Waddington's displeasure. They certainly were present in the Duke of Richmond's mind when, representing the Foreign Office on 17th June, in answer to a further question about the authenticity of the full text of the Anglo-Russian Agreement, he said "as an explanation of the policy of Her Majesty's Government it is _incomplete_ and therefore inaccurate," for this _incompleteness_ can only be understood as an allusion to the Cyprus Convention in 1878, and the seizure of Tunis by France in 1881, which after all is the important matter. Some day, no doubt, the whole incident will be made clear by a publication of the secret records at the Foreign Office or at the Quai d'Orsay. In the meantime we may accept it as probable that, finding the Russian Agreement divulged, Lord Salisbury resolved to make a clean breast also of the other Agreement, and, in Count Corti's words, broke gently to M. Waddington the existence also of a Convention with Turkey. One thing I am certain of in my recollection, that the letter shown me at Simla described the quarrel and the terms obtained in the reconciliation with M. Waddington.

The Cyprus Convention was published in London on the 9th July, having been signed on the 4th June, but there is evidence of its having been in Lord Beaconsfield's thoughts at least three months earlier, for Lord Derby, speaking in the Lords, 18th July, gave it as his reason for leaving the Cabinet in March that the policy of the Government had become such, that it was already, at that date, being considered necessary "to seize and occupy the island of Cyprus."

W. S. B.

APPENDIX VI

THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND

A POEM BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT

PUBLISHED 1883

I

I have a thing to say. But how to say it? I have a cause to plead. But to what ears? How shall I move a world by lamentation-- A world which heeded not a Nation's tears?

How shall I speak of justice to the aggressors,-- Of right to Kings whose rights include all wrong,-- Of truth to Statecraft, true but in deceiving,-- Of peace to Prelates, pity to the Strong?

Where shall I find a hearing? In high places? The voice of havock drowns the voice of good. On the throne's steps? The elders of the nation Rise in their ranks and call aloud for blood.

Where? In the street? Alas for the world's reason! Not Peers not Priests alone this deed have done. The clothes of those high Hebrews stoning Stephen Were held by all of us,--ay every one.

Yet none the less I speak. Nay, here by Heaven This task at least a poet best may do,-- To stand alone against the mighty many, To force a hearing for the weak and few.

Unthanked, unhonoured,--yet a task of glory,-- Not in his day, but in an age more wise, When those poor Chancellors have found their portion And lie forgotten in their dust of lies.

And who shall say that this year's cause of freedom Lost on the Nile has not as worthy proved Of poet's hymning as the cause which Milton Sang in his blindness or which Dante loved?

The fall of Guelph beneath the spears of Valois, Freedom betrayed, the Ghibelline restored, --Have we not seen it, we who caused this anguish, Exile and fear proscription and the sword?

Or shall God less avenge in their wild valley Where they lie slaughtered those poor sheep whose fold In the gray twilight of our wrath we harried To serve the worshippers of stocks and gold?

This fails. That finds its hour. This fights. That falters. Greece is stamped out beneath a Wolseley's heels. Or Egypt is avenged of her long mourning, And hurls her Persians back to their own keels.

'Tis not alone the victor who is noble. 'Tis not alone the wise man who is wise. There is a voice of sorrow in all shouting, And shame pursues not only him who flies.

To fight and conquer--'tis the boast of heroes. To fight and fly--of this men do not speak. Yet shall there come a day when men shall tremble Rather than do misdeeds upon the weak,--

--A day when statesmen baffled in their daring Shall rather fear to wield the sword in vain Than to give back their charge to a hurt nation, And own their frailties, and resign their reign,--

--A day of wrath when all fame shall remember Of this year's work shall be the fall of one Who, standing foremost in her paths of virtue, Bent a fool's knee at War's red altar stone.

And left all virtue beggared in his falling, A sign to England of new griefs to come, Her priest of peace who sold his creed for glory And marched to carnage at the tuck of drum.

Therefore I fear not. Rather let this record Stand of the past, ere God's revenge shall chase From place to punishment His sad vicegerents Of power on Earth.--I fling it in their face.

II

I have a thing to say. But how to say it? Out of the East a twilight had been born. It was not day. Yet the long night was waning, And the spent nations watched it less forlorn.

Out of the silence of the joyless ages A voice had spoken, such as the first bird Speaks to the woods, before the morning wakens,-- And the World starting to its feet had heard.

Men hailed it as a prophecy. Its utterance Was in that tongue divine the Orient knew. It spoke of hope. Men hailed it as a brother's. It spoke of happiness. Men deemed it true.

There in the land of Death, where toil is cradled, That tearful Nile, unknown to Liberty, It spoke in passionate tones of human freedom, And of those rights of Man which cannot die,--

--Till from the cavern of long fear, whose portals Had backward rolled, and hardly yet aloud, Men prisoned stole like ghosts and joined the chorus, And chaunted trembling, each man in his shroud.

Justice and peace, the brotherhood of nations,-- Love and goodwill of all mankind to man,-- These were the words they caught and echoed strangely, Deeming them portions of some Godlike plan,--

A plan thus first to their own land imparted. They did not know the irony of Fate, The mockery of man's freedom, and the laughter Which greets a brother's love from those that hate.

Oh for the beauty of hope's dreams! The childhood Of that old land, long impotent in pain, Cast off its slough of sorrow with its silence, And laughed and shouted and grew new again.

And in the streets, where still the shade of Pharaoh Stalked in his sons, the Mamelukian horde, Youth greeted youth with words of exultation And shook his chains and clutched as for a sword.

Student and merchant,--Jew, and Copt, and Moslem,-- All whose scarred backs had bent to the same rod,-- Fired with one mighty thought, their feuds forgotten, Stood hand in hand and praising the same God.

III

I have a thing to say. But how to say it? As in the days of Moses in the land, God sent a man of prayer before his people To speak to Pharaoh, and to loose his hand.

Injustice, that hard step-mother of heroes, Had taught him justice. Him the sight of pain Moved into anger, and the voice of weeping Made his eyes weep as for a comrade slain.

A soldier in the bands of his proud masters It was his lot to serve. But of his soul None owned allegiance save the Lord of Armies. No worship from his God's might him cajole.

Strict was his service. In the law of Heaven He comfort took and patient under wrong. And all men loved him for his heart unquailing, And for the words of pity on his tongue.

Knowledge had come to him in the night-watches, And strength with fasting, eloquence with prayer. He stood a Judge from God before the strangers, The one just man among his people there.

Strongly he spoke: "Now, Heaven be our witness! Egypt this day has risen from her sleep. She has put off her mourning and her silence. It was no law of God that she should weep.

"It was no law of God nor of the Nations That in this land, alone of the fair Earth, The hand that sowed should reap not of its labour, The heart that grieved should profit not of mirth.

"How have we suffered at the hands of strangers, Binding their sheaves, and harvesting their wrath! Our service has been bitter, and our wages Hunger and pain and nakedness and drouth.

"Which of them pitied us? Of all our princes, Was there one Sultan listened to our cry? Their palaces we built, their tombs, their temples. What did they build but tombs for Liberty?

"To live in ignorance, to die by service; To pay our tribute and our stripes receive: This was the ransom of our toil in Eden, This, and our one sad liberty--to grieve.

"We have had enough of strangers and of princes Nursed on our knees and lords within our house. The bread which they have eaten was our children's, For them the feasting and the shame for us.

"The shadow of their palaces, fair dwellings Built with our blood and kneaded with our tears, Darkens the land with darkness of Gehennem, The lust, the crime, the infamy of years.

"Did ye not hear it? From those muffled windows A sound of women rises and of mirth. These are our daughters--ay our sons--in prison, Captives to shame with those who rule the Earth.

"The silent river by those gardens lapping To-night receives its burden of new dead, A man of age sent home with his lord's wages, Stones to his feet, a grave-cloth to his head.

"Walls infamous in beauty, gardens fragrant With rose and citron and the scent of blood. God shall blot out the memory of all laughter, Rather than leave you standing where you stood.

"We have had enough of princes and of strangers, Slaves that were Sultans, eunuchs that were kings, The shame of Sodom is on all their faces. The curse of Cain pursues them, and it clings.

"Is there no virtue? See the pale Greek smiling. Virtue for him is as a tale of old. Which be his gods? The cent. per cent. in silver. His God of gods? The world's creator, Gold.

"The Turk that plunders and the Frank that panders, These are our lords who ply with lust and fraud. The brothel and the winepress and the dancers Are gifts unneeded in the lands of God.

"We need them not. We heed them not. Our faces Are turned to a new Kebla, a new truth, Proclaimed by the one God of all the nations To save His people and renew their youth.

"A truth which is of knowledge and of reason; Which teaches men to mourn no more and live; Which tells them of things good as well as evil, And gives what Liberty alone can give,

"The counsel to be strong, the will to conquer, The love of all things just and kind and wise, Freedom for slaves, fair rights for all as brothers, The triumph of things true, the scorn of lies.

"Oh men, who are my brethren, my soul's kindred! That which our fathers dreamed of as a dream, The sun of peace and justice, has arisen And God shall work in you His perfect scheme.

"The rulers of your Earth shall cease deceiving, The men of usury shall fly your land. Your princes shall be numbered with your servants, And peace shall guide the sword in your right hand.

"You shall become a nation with the nations. Lift up your voices, for the night is past. Stretch forth your hands. The hands of the free peoples Have beckoned you--the youngest and the last.

"And in the brotherhood of Man reposing, Joined to their hopes and nursed in their new day, The anguish of the years shall be forgotten And God, with these, shall wipe your tears away."

IV

I have a thing to say. But how to say it? How shall I tell the mystery of guile-- The fraud that fought--the treason that disbanded-- The gold that slew the children of the Nile?

The ways of violence are hard to reckon, And men of right grow feeble in their will, And Virtue of her sons has been forsaken, And men of peace have turned aside to kill.

How shall I speak of them, the priests of Baal, The men who sowed the wind for their ill ends? The reapers of the whirlwind in that harvest Were all my countrymen, were some my friends.

Friends, countrymen and lovers of fair freedom-- Souls to whom still my soul laments and cries. I would not tell the shame of your false dealings, Save for the blood which clamours to the skies.

A curse on Statecraft, not on you my Country! The men you slew were not more foully slain Than was your honour at their hands you trusted. They died, you conquered,--both alike in vain.

Crime finds accomplices, and Murder weapons. The ways of Statesmen are an easy road. All swords are theirs, the noblest with the neediest. And those who serve them best are men of good.

What need to blush, to trifle with dissembling? A score of honest tongues anon shall swear. Blood flows. The Senate's self shall spread its mantle In the world's face, nor own a Cæsar there.

"Silence! Who spoke?" "The voice of one disclosing A truth untimely." "With what right to speak? Holds he the Queen's commission?" "No, God's only." A hundred hands shall smite him on the cheek.

The "truth" of Statesmen is the thing they publish, Their "falsehood" the thing done they do not say, Their "honour" what they win from the world's trouble, Their "shame" the "ay" which reasons with their "nay."

Alas for Liberty, alas for Egypt! What chance was yours in this ignoble strife? Scorned and betrayed, dishonoured and rejected, What was there left you but to fight for life?

The men of honour sold you to dishonour. The men of truth betrayed you with a kiss. Your strategy of love too soon outplotted, What was there left you of your dreams but this?

You thought to win a world by your fair dealing, To conquer freedom with no drop of blood. This was your crime. The world knows no such reasoning. It neither bore with you nor understood.

Your Pharaoh with his chariots and his dancers, Him they could understand as of their kin. He spoke in their own tongue and as their servant, And owned no virtue they could call a sin.

They took him for his pleasure and their purpose. They fashioned him as clay to their own pride. His name they made a cudgel to your hurting, His treachery a spear-point to your side.

They knew him, and they scorned him and upheld him. They strengthened him with honours and with ships. They used him as a shadow for seditions. They stabbed you with the lying of his lips.

Sad Egypt! Since that night of misadventure Which slew your first-born for your Pharaoh's crime, No plague like this has God decreed against you, No punishment of all foredoomed in Time.

V

I have a thing to say. Oh how to say it! One summer morning, at the hour of prayer, And in the face of Man and Man's high Maker, The thunder of their cannon rent the air.

The flames of death were on you and destruction. A hail of iron on your heads they poured. You fought, you fell, you died until the sunset; And then you fled forsaken of the Lord.

I care not if you fled. What men call courage Is the least noble thing of which they boast. Their victors always are great men of valour. Find me the valour of the beaten host!

It may be you were cowards. Let them prove it,-- What matter? Were you women in the fight, Your courage were the greater that a moment You steeled your weakness in the cause of right.

Oh I would rather fly with the first craven Who flung his arms away in your good cause, Than head the hottest charge by England vaunted In all the record of her unjust wars.

Poor sheep! they scattered you. Poor slaves! they bowed you. You prayed for your dear lives with your mute hands. They answered you with laughter and with shouting, And slew you in your thousands on the sands.

They led you with arms bound to your betrayer-- His slaves, they said, recaptured for his will. They bade him to take heart and fill his vengeance. They gave him his lost sword that he might kill.

They filled for him his dungeons with your children. They chartered him new gaolers from strange shores. The Arnaout and the Cherkess for his minions, Their soldiers for the sentries at his doors.

He plied you with the whip, the rope, the thumb-screw. They plied you with the scourging of vain words He sent his slaves, his eunuchs, to insult you. They sent you laughter on the lips of Lords.

They bound you to the pillar of their firmans. They placed for sceptre in your hand a pen. They cast lots for the garments of your treaties, And brought you naked to the gaze of men.

They called on your High Priest for your death mandate. They framed indictments on you from your laws. For him men loved they offered a Barabbas. They washed their hands and found you without cause.

They scoffed at you and pointed in derision, Crowned with their thorns and nailed upon their tree. And at your head their Pilate wrote the inscription-- "This is the land restored to Liberty."

Oh insolence of strength! Oh boast of wisdom! Oh poverty in all things truly wise! Thinkest thou, England, God can be outwitted For ever thus by him who sells and buys?

Thou sellest the sad nations to their ruin. What hast thou bought? The child within the womb, The son of him thou slayest to thy hurting, Shall answer thee "an Empire for thy tomb."

Thou hast joined house to house for thy perdition. Thou hast done evil in the name of right. Thou hast made bitter sweet and the sweet bitter, And called light darkness and the darkness light.

Thou art become a bye-word for dissembling, A beacon to thy neighbours for all fraud. Thy deeds of violence men count and reckon. Who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.

Thou hast deserved men's hatred. They shall hate thee. Thou hast deserved men's fear. Their fear shall kill. Thou hast thy foot upon the weak. The weakest With his bruised head shall strike thee on the heel.

Thou wentest to this Egypt for thy pleasure. Thou shalt remain with her for thy sore pain. Thou hast possessed her beauty. Thou wouldst leave her. Nay. Thou shalt lie with her as thou hast lain.

She shall bring shame upon thy face with all men. She shall disease thee with her grief and fear. Thou shalt grow sick and feeble in her ruin. Thou shalt repay her to the last sad tear.

Her kindred shall surround thee with strange clamours, Dogging thy steps till thou shalt loathe their din. The friends thou hast deceived shall watch in anger. Thy children shall upbraid thee with thy sin.

All shall be counted thee a crime,--thy patience With thy impatience. Thy best thought shall wound. Thou shalt grow weary of thy work thus fashioned, And walk in fear with eyes upon the ground.

The Empire thou didst build shall be divided. Thou shalt be weighed in thine own balances Of usury to peoples and to princes, And be found wanting by the world and these.

They shall possess the lands by thee forsaken And not regret thee. On their seas no more Thy ships shall bear destruction to the nations, Or thy guns thunder on a fenceless shore.

Thou hast no pity in thy day of triumph. These shall not pity thee. The world shall move On its high course and leave thee to thy silence, Scorned by the creatures that thou couldst not love.

Thy Empire shall be parted, and thy kingdom. At thy own doors a kingdom shall arise, Where freedom shall be preached and the wrong righted Which thy unwisdom wrought in days unwise.

Truth yet shall triumph in a world of justice. This is of faith. I swear it. East and west The law of Man's progression shall accomplish Even this last great marvel with the rest.

Thou wouldst not further it. Thou canst not hinder. If thou shalt learn in time thou yet shalt live. But God shall ease thy hand of its dominion, And give to these the rights thou wouldst not give.

The nations of the East have left their childhood. Thou art grown old. Their manhood is to come; And they shall carry on Earth's high tradition Through the long ages when thy lips are dumb,

Till all shall be wrought out. O Lands of weeping. Lands watered by the rivers of old Time, Ganges and Indus and the streams of Eden, Yours is the future of the world sublime.

Yours was the fount of man's first inspiration, The well of wisdom whence he earliest drew. And yours shall be the flood time of his reason, The stream of strength which shall his strength renew.

The wisdom of the West is but a madness, The fret of shallow waters in their bed. Yours is the flow, the fulness of Man's patience The ocean of God's rest inherited.

And thou too, Egypt, mourner of the nations, Though thou hast died to-day in all men's sight, And though upon thy cross with thieves thou hangest, Yet shall thy wrong be justified in right.

'Twas meet one man should die for the whole people. Thou wert the victim chosen to retrieve The sorrows of the Earth with full deliverance. And, as thou diest these shall surely live.

Thy prophets have been scattered through the cities. The seed of martyrdom thy sons have sown Shall make of thee a glory and a witness In all men's hearts held captive with thine own.

Thou shalt not be forsaken in thy children. Thy righteous blood shall fructify the Earth. The virtuous of all lands shall be thy kindred, And death shall be to thee a better birth.

Therefore I do not grieve. Oh hear me, Egypt! Even in death thou art not wholly dead. And hear me, England! Nay. Thou needs must hear me. I had a thing to say. And it is said.

THE END

Transcriber's notes:

The words: "Sultan Pasha. It demands the resignation of the Ministry and Arabi's" between "force. The dates are: May 17th, Malet finally secures" and "Alexandria. May 25th, Malet and Sinkiewicz issue their ultimatum," were deleted.

The following is a list of changes made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.

Canal north of Ismailiyah. What a sight it was! Lake Canal north of Ismaïlia. What a sight it was! Lake

claims had been discharged, probably not less that a couple of claims had been discharged, probably not less than a couple of

Ali had claimed and exercised for some years a monoply Ali had claimed and exercised for some years a monopoly

fish it was or that that I was the object of its attack. I had fish it was or that I was the object of its attack. I had

tyrant. Every villayet had been bought with money at tyrant. Every vilayet had been bought with money at

Ismaïl and his creditors, The moment was a favourable one Ismaïl and his creditors. The moment was a favourable one

Berlin could not long be concealed. Our two plenipotentaries Berlin could not long be concealed. Our two plenipotentiaries

had been no open rupture wth Waddington, the case having been had been no open rupture with Waddington, the case having been

take the part he did against his master Ismaïl and utimately to take the part he did against his master Ismaïl and ultimately to

brother-in law, Latif Effendi Selim, who, as Director of the brother-in-law, Latif Effendi Selim, who, as Director of the

of the Syrian villayet of which he had just been appointed Valy, of the Syrian vilayet of which he had just been appointed Valy,

at Haïl. It stood us in good stead with Ibu Rashid that we had at Haïl. It stood us in good stead with Ibn Rashid that we had

East or West, the three great blessinsg of which we in Europe East or West, the three great blessings of which we in Europe

have our own government. Here we are satisfied," It was have our own government. Here we are satisfied." It was

message from the Viceroy of Ibn Rashid. I am message from the Viceroy to Ibn Rashid. I am

down to Contantinople would be a greater misfortune down to Constantinople would be a greater misfortune

'We thought it best to say nothing." 'We thought it best to say nothing.'"

made one thus feel like a child? made one thus feel like a child?"

He also told me that when he was going to India Schouvaloff called He also told me that when he was going to India Schouvalof called

fromEurope to relieve it of the cost of an army. For from Europe to relieve it of the cost of an army. For

difficulty of keeping the peace betwen the mixed Mohammedan difficulty of keeping the peace between the mixed Mohammedan

indirectly throught the intermediary of their distinguished friend indirectly through the intermediary of their distinguished friend

called with him and Ali Ibn Antiyeh on Abd-el-Kader, called with him and Ali Ibn Atiyeh on Abd-el-Kader,

not altogether military, connected with the Khedive's Daira. not altogether military, connected with the Khedive's Daïra.

servants, His attitude, therefore, towards the fellah officers servants. His attitude, therefore, towards the fellah officers

"You three, Arabi, Abd-ed-Aal, and yourself, are three "You three, Arabi, Abd-el-Aal, and yourself, are three

son of El Khattab," said they, "thou has indeed walked son of El Khattab," said they, "thou hast indeed walked

with a general Mohammedan revolt against the French Governmen with a general Mohammedan revolt against the French Government

with Gambetta about the Treaty of Commerce ("Times)," with Gambetta about the Treaty of Commerce ("Times"),

supreme in Egypt. It was only frustrateed that winter by the supreme in Egypt. It was only frustrated that winter by the

come that a French force was being assembled for embarkation came that a French force was being assembled for embarkation

only the firstfruits of a radically wrong policy which has lost only the first fruits of a radically wrong policy which has lost

of their words, especially Morley's words, la haute politique," of their words, especially Morley's words, "la haute politique,"

do not know, it was probably the Khedive, whose malicious jealcusy do not know, it was probably the Khedive, whose malicious jealousy

with my friends at the Azhur, to whom I communicated my design, with my friends at the Azhar, to whom I communicated my design,

was epecially insistent. These things, with others almost as was especially insistent. These things, with others almost as

The atmosphere of Westminister and the public offices was therefore The atmosphere of Westminster and the public offices was therefore

it may be noticed, has been slurred over in a few pages it may be noticed, has been slurred over in a few pages.

Ismail, and that the whole thing in Egypt was an intrigue to Ismaïl, and that the whole thing in Egypt was an intrigue to

Ismail may have had for making this assertion, for his word Ismaïl may have had for making this assertion, for his word

to the Circassian pashas, Ismail's adherents, who were to the Circassian pashas, Ismaïl adherents, who were

actively intriguing with Tewfik against him. Ismail, however, actively intriguing with Tewfik against him. Ismaïl, however,

India, where he had been namel Lieutenant-Governor of the India, where he had been named Lieutenant-Governor of the

menance to the National Party, but which I think was never sent, menace to the National Party, but which I think was never sent,

not let any grass grow under my feet, I had neverthless failed not let any grass grow under my feet, I had nevertheless failed

the Egytian cause. the Egyptian cause.

it was threating the existence of his Government--the condition, it was threatening the existence of his Government--the condition,

wrong in the fact that Ratib had left the ex-Khedive so suddently wrong in the fact that Ratib had left the ex-Khedive so suddenly

laugh if it were stated publicly that Engand was on the verge laugh if it were stated publicly that England was on the verge

of anarchy because a madman, sodier or civilian, had tried to of anarchy because a madman, soldier or civilian, had tried to

on this point was a firm one.. He hated the Turks, and would on this point was a firm one. He hated the Turks, and would

Turk," the "Bashi-bazouk," fresh from his."Bulgarian atrocities," Turk," the "Bashi-bazouk," fresh from his "Bulgarian atrocities,"

told Glyns (my bankers, Messrs, Glyn, Mills, and Currie) to told Glyns (my bankers, Messrs. Glyn, Mills, and Currie) to

of the Sheykhs Bahrami and Abyari and the Sheykh el Saadat, of the Sheykhs Bahrawi and Abyari and the Sheykh el Saadat,

police of Alexandria, and through them directed that quartertaves, police of Alexandria, and through them directed that quarterstaves,

in, and intead of discrediting Arabi it so seriously frightened in, and instead of discrediting Arabi it so seriously frightened

were beginnning to take a more intelligent interest in Egyptian were beginning to take a more intelligent interest in Egyptian

know Sabunji is with them. know Sabunji is with them."

are supporting Arabi, also Abd-el-rahman Bahrawi. are supporting Arabi, also Abd-el-Rahman Bahrawi.

I have found out that we formed an erroneous idea of Mahmud "I have found out that we formed an erroneous idea of Mahmud

When it was rumoured that the Sultan intended sending "When it was rumoured that the Sultan intended sending

them himself before Mr. Gladstone and the English Parlament. them himself before Mr. Gladstone and the English Parliament.

"_June 23._--Ah soon as Ragheb Pasha was confirmed by the "_June 23._--As soon as Ragheb Pasha was confirmed by the

"_June 29._--Called on Bright at his house in Picadilly. He "_June 29._--Called on Bright at his house in Piccadilly. He

Punic War.") 'He says all are waiting in Tripoli and Tunis Punic War.") "He says all are waiting in Tripoli and Tunis

He had, however, written to Mr Gladstone after the war He had, however, written to Mr. Gladstone after the war

country Notables, and also, representating the non-Mussulman country Notables, and also, representing the non-Mussulman

13th, the Egpytian army was in clover and could wait events. 13th, the Egyptian army was in clover and could wait events.

She is at least as clever as she is pretty Her conversation She is at least as clever as she is pretty. Her conversation

French Canal authorites it should be done. Arabi, however--and French Canal authorities it should be done. Arabi, however--and

the arrival of the British fleet at port Saïd conveying Wolseley the arrival of the British fleet at Port Saïd conveying Wolseley

d'un soldat français. Je reponds de tout." This occasioned d'un soldat français. Je réponds de tout." This occasioned

it and do something towards winning it for our side.... The it and do something towards winning it for our side...." The

On the 21st, I am anxious to get to Suez, because I have On the 21st, "I am anxious to get to Suez, because I have

Stone Pasha, the American, after the war stated it freely at his Stone Pasha, the American, after the war stated it freely as his

some of which his wife took to Ismail Jawdat's wife to change. some of which his wife took to Ismaïl Jawdat's wife to change.

The whole state of things was very disgracful, and The whole state of things was very disgraceful, and

Dilke's, Colvin's, and Malet's secretivenes. Dilke, especially, Dilke's, Colvin's, and Malet's secretiveness. Dilke, especially,

"I need hardly say that Mr. Gladstone has been much exercise "I need hardly say that Mr. Gladstone has been much exercised

been made at Tel-el Kebir, he would indulge in some conspicuous been made at Tel-el-Kebir, he would indulge in some conspicuous

former letter in Lord Granvillle's hands, as Hamilton informed former letter in Lord Granville's hands, as Hamilton informed

counsel; and this they had not had not the face publicly to disavow. counsel; and this they had not the face publicly to disavow.

at the Foreign Office, till by hook or crook to establish at the Foreign Office, still by hook or crook to establish

The proved of supreme value--including as they did the letters They proved of supreme value--including as they did the letters

better could be got?... This question will probobly soon have better could be got?... This question will probably soon have

than I had originally thought probable. Or course the main than I had originally thought probable. Of course the main

is a man who will quickly see through our friend Twefik, is a man who will quickly see through our friend Tewfik,

rebel?" 'I don't know.' 'You bad, wicked man, why don't rebel?' 'I don't know.' 'You bad, wicked man, why don't

death with, as the property of most of them was insignificant, dealt with, as the property of most of them was insignificant,

Shahin Pasha, and his brother-in-law, Latil Eff. Selim, Shahin Pasha, and his brother-in-law, Latif Eff. Selim,

I showed, however, that its was impossible we I showed, however, that it was impossible we

Nadi being sent to Mansura, Roubi to the Fayum, and I to Alexandria Nadi being sent to Mansura, Roubi to the Fayûm, and I to Alexandria

of the importace of this undertaking, you give a new proof of the importance of this undertaking, you give a new proof

The Deputies are free in the exercise of their mandates They The Deputies are free in the exercise of their mandates. They

Afer the reading of the opening speech the sitting shall After the reading of the opening speech the sitting shall

question, the Minister shall apear in person or cause question, the Minister shall appear in person or cause

this vote shall become executory (_executoire_). this vote shall become executory (_exécutoire_).

administration, is a simple _resumé_ of his career, administration, is a simple _résumé_ of his career,

By the _resumé_ which I have given of his career, By the _résumé_ which I have given of his career,