IN 1882

SHEYKH MOHAMMED ABDU TO LADY ANNE BLUNT

(_Translated from the Arabic, received 5th August_, 1883, _from Beyrout._)

To the Lady Anne Blunt. May God show us her countenance, etc.

Next, among those persons who have information about the riot in Alexandria in particular, there is Mustafa Abd el Rahim, who was present at the riot and stopped its rage with the regular soldiers with Suleyman Sami (may God have mercy on him). And he is prepared to bear witness on being requested to do so, as he has informed me this night.

And of those who have complete information of the conduct of the Khedive Tewfik and of his endeavours and the endeavours of his assistants to disturb the peace and tranquillity of Egypt, and to excite the Muslems against the Christians, and vice versa, there is here Ahmed Bey Minshawi, one of the Notables of Egypt, a man of wealth and of determination and of extreme straightforwardness. It was he who protected Christians in the riots of Tantah, and in other massacres in the province of Gharbiyeh, which Ibrahim Pasha Adhem, the Khedive’s protégé, got up after the bombardment of Alexandria; and he is prepared to bear witness against the Khedive and against his agents before any Court or in any Tribunal—even in the Egyptian Tribunals—and he has no fear of anything, and is not alarmed by any danger. He has been intending to write a letter to Mr. Blunt, of his own accord, to express his readiness and his earnest wish to put before Englishmen, and before everyone inclined to justice and equity, the things known to him; and he is now with us in Beyrut, and if you wish to summon him he is ready.

Convey my salutations to Mr. Blunt and present to him on my behalf and on behalf of every Egyptian—indeed of every Englishman—exceeding thanks for his energy and noble deeds. And salute for me Mr. Sabunji. May God protect you in his keeping.

MOHAMMED ABDU.

_13th Ramadan_, 1300.

AHMED BEY EL MINSHAWI TO MR. BLUNT

(_Translated from the Arabic, received August_ 5, 1883.)

To the high-minded Mr. Blunt. May God preserve him!

After presenting salutations and praise and thanks:

Also, I beg you will be my representative in presenting thanks from me and from all Egyptians—indeed from all Eastern people, to Lord (Randolph) Churchill and his companions—though they are all dependent on you for what they accomplished in Parliament.

Also I am prepared, with all preparation, to bear witness against the Khedive and the men of his government as to their plan, which they carried out, of shedding the blood of Christians and others. In so doing I fear not the blame of any blamer, nor do I dread the authority of any ignorant ruler in whatsoever country I may be, or before whatsoever tribunal I may appear; and whenever the indictment against Tewfik is officially brought forward and witnesses are wanted I am ready in Beyrut, and if I went elsewhere I would let you know. And I pledge myself in the name of God that I will also bring witnesses of the Egyptians who will bear witness to the crimes of the Khedive and his wicked accomplices.

And my friend the Sheykh Mohammed Abdu knows that perfectly well, and sends you salutations. Remain in God’s protection.

AHMED MINSHAWI.

_Beyrout, 15th Ramadan_, 1300.

TRANSLATION OF REMARKS BY SHEYKH MOHAMMED ABDU ON MAJOR MACDONALD’S STATEMENT (RECEIVED _Aug._ 13, 1884)

We have read a statement by Major MacDonald, published in the Blue Book (Egypt, 1884), in refutation of Mr. Blunt’s letter to the “Times” newspaper, and have noticed in it certain things calling for remark.

I do not know whether a ten weeks’ residence with Mr. Cameron at Tantah could have enabled him to understand the true state of matters he has written about, or not.

I shall not here discuss the history of Ibrahim Adhem’s dismissal from his office as Governor; but I assert that Ibrahim Adhem was in fact, on the upper storey of the prefecture on the day of the massacre at Tantah, and that he was looking on from the window of that upper storey at the murderers and the murdered; and that these persons were murdered in the court of the Mudirieh while he looked on at them; and that he himself ordered the water carriers to wash the blood from the ground at the Government House (of which evidence was given by the water carriers before the Court of Inquiry).

As to what Macdonald says about many of the Europeans finding safety in the prefecture of police, it is true; only the person who protected them was the chief of the city police, Ali effendi Lebîb, who saved many lives, but was arrested after the war and kept in prison until the end of the Inquiry, when the Court sentenced him to hard labour for a year, after much intercession. Now what plea was there for the arrest of this Zabit, a person worthy of confidence; whose protection of Christians is testified to by Major Macdonald (who understood the whole truth in ten weeks).

Ibrahim Adhem is a Kurd—not a Circassian—and a man who, each time that they gave him a post, stipulated with the Government that he should be authorized to make use of the kurbaj on the fellahin and the omdehs of the district. Ay, when he was Mudir of Mansourah at the time of Riaz Pasha’s first Ministry, Riaz learned that he was ill-treating people with the kurbaj, and wrote to him as follows: “You are bound to act according to law, governing mercifully; if you use the kurbaj you will incur the censure of the law.” On receiving this communication he chose to resign his post rather than rule mercifully and according to law.

His resignation under the Mahmud Samy Ministry took place for that reason also; and when the Khedive reappointed him as Mudir of the Gharbieh, after the war, he carried on his government with his habitual severity; afterwards, when the number of his enemies increased and the patience of the people of his province was so exhausted that they could no longer bear with him, the Government disgraced him, and, dismissing him, appointed Husseyn Pasha Sarai in his place.

Ibrahim Adhem was one of the supporters of the first movement of Arabi, but when the massacre occurred at Tantah, Arabi learned that he had participated in it either by instigation or by deed, and ordered him to be arrested. He was not arrested for not joining in the rebellion, in fact he was arrested on the third day from the massacre, before it was known whether he would give or refuse his support. Indeed, Ibrahim Adhem’s sworn official despatches to the Ministry of the Interior indicate sufficiently that he did not deserve the praises lavished on him by Major Macdonald. Possibly some of the officers of the English army may have praised him, but I do not consider this enough to exculpate him from his deeds of violence. Let anyone who would like to learn what measure of savagery Ibrahim Adhem attained, inquire of his son—Ibrahim Hafzy Bey.

As to the unhappy Yusuf Abu Diab—he arrived at the railway station on the day of the massacre about three hours after the disturbance had begun. He did not instigate riot (anything or any one), but saved a Christian girl and took her to the Mudirieh; and reprimanded the Mudir, taking him to task for sitting in the Mudirieh while he allowed people to be massacred. And for this reason the unfortunate man was hanged. Those Europeans of whom Macdonald testifies were in such consternation that they did not even distinguish their own children, and were running into every hole—how then could they know Yusuf Abu Diab, and distinguish his face or his words?

The chief of the station and telegraph at the first bore witness to the innocence of Yusuf Abu Diab, but the Mudir Ibrahim Adhem threatened all the people with arrest and death unless they bore witness according to his desire; thus they altered their testimony under coercion. The statements made by people subsequently have all been under fear. But those Courts of Inquiry and their acts are part and parcel of the acts of the Anglo-Egyptian Government after the war, into which it is permissible to examine and investigate. We know indeed what has been its course and its acts. No man in his senses will believe in it, for it has been of that species in which the enemy sits in judgement on his enemy; and if we would speak of it we would have to recount the whole of the conduct of the Government after Tel-el-Kebir, and this would lead us into too great length—without profit.

Yusuf Abu Diab’s innocence was confessed by the blood relations of the people massacred, and they begged his pardon from Lord Dufferin, who asked it from the Khedive—and the pardon was granted, but the order was issued secretly to hang him before the time fixed for the execution. The news of the pardon did not arrive till after the execution.

Possibly Macdonald can testify to the Europeans—French, English, and others—but we know the value of such testimony, and if we had a free and fair Government it would learn the truth through a different set of people.

Seyyid Osman has published a long article in the “Intransigeant” (French newspaper), stating all the facts. It is also well known to a number of people that the first President of the Court of Inquiry at Tantah wanted to carry out the investigation equitably, and to interrogate the Mudir Ibrahim Adhem on his culpability as to the riot, but the Government perceiving him to be upright, dismissed him and appointed in his stead Mahmud Pasha Fellaky, who was nominally at Tantah while his administration was at Cairo.

Thus the Mudir was saved from trial, while Yusuf Abu Diab was hanged in his stead.

I could show the object of silence as to past deeds, to speak of which would open the door wide to censure on the Government of England, which desires to establish justice in Egypt.

MR. BLUNT’S NOTE OF A CONVERSATION WITH ISMAÏL BEY JOWDAT AT CONSTANTINOPLE, _Oct._ 24, 1884

Ismaïl Jowdat spent 3 hours with me telling the events of the Egyptian Revolution, much of it new, and very interesting. With regard to the Khedive’s responsibility for the massacres he was very explicit. His official position at the time of the war, as Chef du Bureau Européen de la police du Caire, gave him every opportunity of knowing the facts, and he knew them. The following is the account he gave me which I shall transcribe from notes taken while he was speaking:

The first intrigue that he knows of in which the Khedive was concerned was in Boheyra where the Khedive employed Ibrahim Bey Towfik—he lived in the house of Hassaneyn Abu Hamza at Damanhour, Governor of the province—in the spring of 1882 to purchase the alliance of certain Sheykhs of the Oulad Ali Bedouins against the National Ministry, to make a civil war between the Bedouins and the army. They were engaged to make disturbance, and a regular agreement was drawn up in which the Arabs promised to support the Khedive against the army in the case of civil war. For this they were to receive, and actually did receive £E13,000, the signatories to the document being Ibrahim Bey Towfik, the Mudir, and Mahmud abu Ismaïl el Aluani, Mahareb abu Keshik, Abd ed Dayim Hoteiteh, Abu Shayib, Hassaneyn abu Hamza and five others (Sheykhs of the Oulad Ali).

Ismaïl Jowdat was sent down to Boheyra semi officially by Arabi to inquire into this matter, and saw the Sheykhs and the document, and persuaded them to rescind their promise to the Khedive, and obtained from them an oath of allegiance to the National Government in Arabi’s room at Cairo. This same Ibraham Tewfik was sent by the Khedive during the war to Mansourah to stir up trouble, but did not succeed there. There was a report made against him signed by all the Notables of Dakhalieh under Mohammed Bey el Hantour sub Mudir of the province, after which he was imprisoned by order of the National Assembly.

With regard to the riots of the 11th June at Alexandria the details did not come under Ismaïl Jowdat’s official notice. But he heard the main facts at the time. He heard of the riots at 5 o’clock on the 11th, and went at once to the Palace, and heard how it had been ordered, and about the telegram sent by the Khedive, as we know them, viz.: that the disturbance was arranged by Omar Pasha Lutfi with Seyd Kandil, who, however, took to his bed to avoid being connected with its execution. He also heard at the time of a telegram having been sent by the Khedive in cypher to Omar Lutfi giving him his orders. But he did not see a copy of the telegram.

Of what happened during the war he had more certain knowledge, as he was responsible for the safety of all the Europeans in the country, and had spent some £E3,272 of his own money in finding and keeping them—sums which have never been repaid him, though he has the highest testimonials from M. de Martino the Italian Consul at Cairo of the care taken by him.

The Khedive’s chief agent during the war was a certain Osman Raafat, intendant des Ecuries, who is still employed by him on various secret missions. Immediately after the evacuation at Alexandria he sent him in disguise to the house of his brother-in-law, Mohammed Bey Hellál, to concert measures with Ibrahim Pasha Adhem the Mudir; and they concerted together the riots against the Christians in order to force on an English intervention. Ismaïl Jowdat confirms my account given in my letter to the “Times” with regard to Ibrahim Adhem’s conduct, except that the Christians killed were killed at the Mudirieh, not at the Prefecture; and Ibrahim shut himself inside the house and let the killing continue. His words were: “Il était dans une chambre en bas de la Mudirieh pendant le massacre. Les Chrétiens se sont réfugiés dans la Moudirieh. Il s’est enfermé dans sa chambre et a laissé faire. Les vagabonds et galériens d’Alexandrie ont fait le massacre.” Abu Diab did his best to stop the trouble, and protested with the Mudir, and saved many lives. He was condemned on false testimony produced by Ibrahim Adhem, who afterwards, moved with remorse, asked his pardon before he suffered, but Abu Diab refused to forgive him. The only other mistake made by me is that I called Ibrahim a Circassian. He is a Kurd, son of the head employée of Mohammed Ali’s stables.

Osman Raafat also came to Giseh during the war to raise troubles again with the Mufettish Feridun Bey. The details of this affair are known to M. de Martins. Sir Charles Wilson took notes of the Tantah affair from Ismaïl Jowdat. Osman Raafat then went to the Fayoum to stir up the Herabi Bedouins under their chief Abd el Kawi el Jibali and Saadawi el Jibali.

Ismaïl Jowdat knew these affairs at the time of their happening; but he gained positive proof of the Khedive’s connection with them in the following manner: Not long ago Osman Raafat came to see him at Constantinople, and he asked him to breakfast with Husseyn Pasha Ghaleb, one of the Sultan’s A.D.C’s., the same who called on me yesterday; and then having plied him with wine he told them the whole story. He went on from Constantinople to Vienna, where he had a commission from the Khedive to invest certain sums of money and dispose of certain jewels. Osman Raafat was arrested at Wasta by a soldier, but was let go by a Circassian official, and thence fled to Helouan and Suez. After the war Osman Raafat was sent by the Khedive to get back the money taken from Palmer by the Bedouins, and he kept £2,000 out of the £3,000.

NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH DR. MUSTAFA BEY NEGDI. EXTRACT FROM JOURNAL, _Oct._ 27, 1884

He (Mustafa) then gave us the whole history of the Tantah massacre in detail, which he knew first from the official inquiry made before Arabi when it happened, and at which he assisted, and secondly from Ahmed Minshawi, with whom he had lived afterwards at Beyrout, and who came here with him, and who had repeatedly told him the story. The true facts were these:

The Mudir of Tantah, Ibrahim Adhem, with Osman Raafat, excited the populace against the Christians, as Ismaïl Jowdat related, telling them that Arabi had ordered it—and the Mudir shut himself up also as related. Minshawi lived at a village called Koreyshiyeh, and happening to come in that day by train with Abdallah Pasha’s son, Emin Bey, and Husseyn Wasif, a magistrate, they found Christians being killed; and Minshawi interfered. They called out to him that Arabi had ordered it, but Minshawi had said to the effect of “damn Arabi,” and insisted on their stopping. He had then gone with Abu Diab, who had also been trying to stop the massacre, to the Mudirieh, and had kicked in the door of his room, and expostulated with him for letting the thing go on, Abu Diab using strong language, for he was very angry. Then they telegraphed to Arabi at Kafr Dowar to send soldiers to stop the massacre, but the telegram had to go round by Ramleh and was delayed. But at last the massacre was stopped. The whole thing was inquired into at Kafr Dowar immediately, and the Mudir was sent to Cairo and there imprisoned till the end of the war, Dawish Pasha replacing him. After the war he was reinstated, and when the Commission was sent to Tantah, Ismaïl Yusri, the President, who was a comparatively honest man, ascertained the truth and informed the Khedive that he should be obliged to find him guilty, and so begged to be superseded on the Commission. This was done, and an officer less scrupulous was appointed who accepted the false evidence Ibrahim Adhem was allowed to trump up against Abu Diab. Ibrahim Adhem, however, was deposed—and Huseyn Wasif (a Circassian, not the same as the magistrate) was appointed. He it was who was made a scapegoat of for Ibrahim Adhem’s sake, and was deprived by Clifford Lloyd and sent to the Soudan. Mehariz Bey, formerly sub-Mudir, is now Mudir of Boheyra. Minshawi is the son-in-law of Abdallah Pasha the English renegade, and his son Emin still goes by the name of the Englishman.

Mustafa Bey confirms all Ismaïl’s statements of the Khedive’s connection with the Alexandrian massacres. He was at Alexandria at the time and was the Doctor employed to examine the bodies. There were 51 Christian bodies, 23 Mohammedan, of which 8 Mustafezzin, all the latter by pistol shots. The English doctor wanted to make out that the Christian bodies had wounds made by “des armes blanches,” but this was not the case. It was certainly Omar Lutfi and Seyd Kandil (a blackguard he calls him), who got up the riot, and Mustafa states his conviction that Cookson also was concerned in it. About Malet he does not know—nor about Dervish. But he feels sure of Cookson. His evidence will be most valuable, and he will come to England to give it. He also says that Omar Lutfi certainly gave orders to the Mustafezzin to come unarmed. I like this worthy doctor much. In face and figure he is not unlike Lord Lyons.

DR. MUSTAFA BEY NEJDI’S FURTHER STATEMENT OF _Nov._ 5, 1884

“Peu de jours après le bombardment nous avons appris à Kafr Dowar qu’il y a eu des Chrétiens tués à Tantah; et Toulba Pacha, d’après l’ordre d’Arabi, a envoyé chercher Ahmed Minshawi pour témoigner sur ce qui y était arrivé. Celui-ci est venu avec un autre notable nommé El Arabi au camp, et Arabi Pacha lui a demandé ce qui en était. J’étais présent avec Toulba Pacha et quelques Colonels. Ahmed Minshawi a répondu qu’il était venu à Tantah et qu’il y avait sauvé la vie à un Chrétien à la gare du chemin de fer, et qu’après il a fait venir ses gens de son village et qu’il a pu étouffer les massacres. Il nous a racconté que le Mudir Ibrahim Adhem et Meheriz son adjoint s’étaient enfermés dans la Moudirieh pendant qu’on tuait le monde, même chez le Mudir. Il nous a aussi dit qu’il avait télégraphié au Khedive et à Arabi Pacha, et Arabi a fait venir le télégraphiste de Kafr Dowar qui n’en savait rien mais il a expliqué la chose en disant que les télégrammes de Tantah à Kafr Dowar devaient d’abord passer à Alexandrie avant d’être remis à destination. C’était la règle du service. Sur ce Arabi a fait une station nouvelle au camp, pour que les dépêches pourraient lui venir directement de l’intérieur. Arabi a remercié Minshawi de ce qu’il avait fait et il est retourné chez lui.”

MINSHAWI’S EVIDENCE AS GIVEN BY HIM _Nov._ 3, 1884

On the day of the massacre of Tantah I came in to Tantah by train from my own village, Koreyshiyeh, two hours distant (half-hour by train) partly to see my brother-in-law Emin Bey on his road to Cairo, partly to learn the news; and while at the station we heard a great noise and were told that it was the Christians being killed by the mob in Tantah; and I, wishing to end this, telegraphed to the Khedive at Ramleh and to the Ministry (that is to say Arabi at Kafr Dowar) asking an order to interfere. I also telegraphed to my village for men to come and help me, and I waited four hours (during that time Abu Diab arrived from Damietta) for an answer and no answer came. And while we were there waiting the tumult came near us, and a man, a Syrian Christian, the cashier of Zananiri the interpreter of the Greek Consulate, ran towards me pursued by a soldier of the Mudirieh and called to me for protection; and taking a stick from one of the bystanders I drove the soldier away, and with the help of others put a stop to what was happening at the station. Then I went with these to the door of the Mudirieh to inquire what the Mudir was doing, and to call upon him to interfere and put an end to the bloodshed. And on my way I met Abu Diab at the door of the Mudirieh who had come from Damietta and was also restoring order, and who had under his protection a young Christian girl whom he was leading by the hand, and we went together to the Mudirieh, and when we arrived there we found in the courtyard three corpses of Christians who had just been killed there; and we asked for the Mudir and were told that he was in his room, one of the rooms adjoining the courtyard. And we called to him, but there was no answer. Then Abu Diab kicked the door in, and we found Ibrahim Adhem, the Mudir, with his wakil, Meheriz, sitting there. And Abu Diab in a loud voice asked them what they were doing there allowing these murders to be done in his house by his own men. And when they made no answer he called to Ibrahim Adhem, calling him a dog and a coward. I heard this with my ears. Next I went to the Khan where I heard the Christians had shut themselves up, and I found a mob trying to force the door, and my men having come an hour afterwards from Koreyshiyeh we drove them away and found inside a large number of Christians, Syrians, Jews, and others, huddled together like frightened sheep. And I put guards, and the next day brought them out and took them to my village, and after some days those that wished to leave the country I took by train to Port Said, two trains full; and those (about 120) that chose to remain I took to my own house and fed them there during the whole time of the war.

Some days later I went to Kafr Dowar and gave evidence as I now give it before Arabi Pasha when he made an inquiry into the affair, and Ibrahim Adhem was sent a prisoner to Cairo and another man (Dawish Pasha) appointed by the Government in his place. I also gave my evidence after the war when the first Commission came to Tantah (there was no Englishman on this Commission), and afterwards they gave me a paper to sign, purporting to be my evidence, but it was not what I had said but the contrary, and I refused to sign it. Much pressure was put upon me to make me do this; and one day in the Khedive’s palace at Cairo, on his fête day, Bairam el Kebir, Takla Bey Bishara warned me that if I did not sign I should suffer for it. I also refused Ahmed el Sherif, sent by Sultan Pasha, when he came round the villages to take money for the sword given to Wolseley.

When a new Commission under Ismaïl Yusri and the English came to Tantah they did not ask me for my evidence (Ismaïl Yusri warned me in private not to mention that I had sent a telegram to the Khedive, of which the copy has been found in the telegraph office, to ask for an order to interfere) of what had happened at Tantah but only as to those killed at Santah. They therefore did not take my evidence.

I declare that Abu Diab was entirely innocent, and that of those hanged at Tantah for this matter only 2 were guilty, Abu Salaam of Santah, and a soldier of the Mudirieh. Ibrahim Adhem and Mehariz were the cause of the bloodshed. The killing was done by the vagabonds from Alexandria and the soldiers of the Mudirieh. The same thing happened at three other places—at Tantah 49 killed; at Santah 3 were killed; at Mehallet el Kebir 6 or 7; at Mehallet abu Ali jem el Suk 2 or 3. Also the same thing would have happened at Dumanhour but for the Wakil Abd el Razak whom the Khedive has sent in chains for 15 years to the Soudan. I heard of Osman Raafat being at Tantah on the day of the massacre in the house of one of his brothers-in-law. He has two brothers-in-law at Tantah, Mohammed Hellal and Ibrahim Hellal.

Ibrahim Adhem was restored as Mudir after the war, and he got up the evidence against Abu Diab in revenge for the words spoken by him on the day of the massacre. Abu Diab died an innocent man. He was not discouraged to the last, but told his father not to weep and told the executioner to make haste. At the last moment Ibrahim Adhem asked his pardon. But Abu Diab said, “God will judge between us to-night, to-day for me, to-morrow for you.” I assure you, Sir, by God, that Abu Diab died unjustly.

Before the Commission had left Tantah Ibrahim Adhem came one day to my village with 4 English officers, and summoned all the notables of the neighbourhood and declared to them that I was in disgrace with the Khedive and the English, and warned them to have no dealings with me, and that if any had a quarrel against me the Khedive would support him against me, and four months passed and no one came. Until the day of the massacre I was respected by all men. I had no quarrel with Ibrahim Adhem nor any one; but my action that day has been the cause of my ruin. When Ibrahim Adhem was removed from Tantah, Husseyn Pasha Wasif was appointed in his place. He received me into favour, but the Khedive wrote to him by his own secretary not to see me. Husseyn Pasha shewed me this letter—I saw it with my eyes—and begged me to excuse him if he asked me to come no more to his house. This drove me from my country. It is clear that by saving the lives of the Christians that day I have gained only anger from the Khedive and trouble.

PRINCE HALIM TO MR. BLUNT

Balta-Liman, 15 _Décembre_, 1884.

MON CHER MONSIEUR BLUNT,

Je vous remercie d’avoir pensé à m’écrire; j’aurais voulu en vous répondant vous donner des nouvelles de chez vous; malheureusement heureusement dans notre paresseux Orient les choses ne changent pas aussi souvent que dans votre actif Occident. Ici les jours se suivent et se ressemblent, il n’y a donc rien qui vaille la peine de vous être rapporté. Depuis quelques jours j’aperçois des signes non équivoques d’une tendance de rapprochement avec l’Angleterre; des communications ont eu lieu entre Monsieur Wyndham et la Porte en vu de trouver un terrain propice qui permettrait aux deux partis de traiter les affaires égyptiennes. Je crains que cette fois encore la Turquie et l’Angleterre n’aient, par leur lenteur, manqué le moment favourable de pouvoir en finir entre elles. Les puissances signataires du traité de 1841-42 paraissent vouloir se mêler de la question; elles trouveraient peut-être mauvais que la Porte traitât directement avec l’Angleterre; dans ce cas le nouvel ambassadeur d’Angleterre, quel qu’il fût, il est très douteux qu’il puisse réussir dans le sens du désir de son Gouvernement. Tout dépend de la pression plus ou moins grande qu’exercera l’Europe.

Je porterai à la connaissance du Sultan ce que je croirai lui être utile, sans cependant m’illusioner sur le résultat, car il est inutile de chercher de la vigueur, de la précision, dans les actes du Gouvernement Impérial. La peur, plus que l’intérêt même, présidera à toutes ses actions, quoiqu’on fasse. La bienveillance de Musurus Pacha pour Tewfik est sans doute le resultât du mariage de son fils avec la fille d’un certain Antoniadis, partisan d’Ismaïl, comme tous les voleurs.

A propos d’Ismaïl, je vous dirai qu’il dépense beaucoup d’argent ici, et j’en sens les effets. Le brave homme donne son or contre de la parole qu’emporte aussitôt le vent. Avant que cette lettre vous parvienne Monsieur Whittaker sera à Londres, il vous communiquera une proposition qui je crois aura votre pleine approbation.

Recevez etc., HALIM.

PRINCE HALIM TO MR. BLUNT

Balta-Liman, 6 _Janvier_, 1885.

CHER MONSIEUR BLUNT,

C’est le 4 janvier seulement que j’ai reçu votre lettre du 19 Décembre.

Je suis avec intérêt dans les journaux les péripéties de vos démarches, tant près de l’association international d’arbitrage et de paix, que près du Premier Ministre. Je suis tout à fait de votre opinion et je dirai qu’une terminaison à l’amiable et sans violence de la question égyptienne ne peut se faire sans le concours du Sultan parce qu’il est la légalité, le droit; mais, si on veut passer outre, alors c’est l’inconnu et on ne peut savoir comment et où on aboutira. Je trouve que l’Angleterre a perdu comme la Turquie un temps précieux; ces deux puissances pouvaient l’arranger à l’amiable entre elles sans laisser de place à l’ingérance des autres puissances peut-être même de la France; l’Angleterre aurait beaucoup gagné et la Turquie aurait eu aussi sa part de bénéfice. Maintenant que les Puissances font mine de vouloir prendre en main la question égyptienne sous prétexte qu’elle est internationale, je crois que l’Angleterre et la Turquie ont perdu, toujours dans la prévision que les Puissances s’occuperont sérieusement de la question.

Recevez, etc., HALIM.

PRINCE HALIM TO MR. BLUNT

Balta-Liman, 19 _Janvier_, 1885.

CHER MONSIEUR BLUNT,

Votre lettre du 8 janvier m’est parvenue, je veux remercier pour les nouvelles que vous voulez bien me donner.

Il est probable que Hassan Fehmi Pacha sera à Londres avant que vous receviez cette lettre. Je considère la mission de l’envoyé Ottoman comme une preuve patente de la bonne volonté de sa Majesté le Sultan de relier les bonnes vieilles rélations des deux gouvernements que les évènements d’Egypte ont un peu terni. En tout cas, c’est un pas fait vers un arrangement, mais je doute que Hassan Pacha puisse arriver à une solution définitive.

Les dernières nouvelles reçues du Soudan se montrent par l’état critique de l’expédition anglaise, si les troupes qui traversent le désert entre Korti et Mutamma arrivent sans encombre à cette dernière ville la 4⁄5 de la besogne serait faite sans doute. Alors seulement le Gouvernement Anglais pensera peut-être sérieusement à donner une solution à la question égyptienne. Je ne serais pas étonné si Souakin et Masaoua ou tout au moins un de ces deux ports resta définitivement entre les mains de l’Angleterre.

Recevez, etc., HALIM.

PRINCE HALIM TO MR. BLUNT

Balta-Liman, 13 _Février_, 1885.

CHER MONSIEUR BLUNT,

Selon votre désir j’ai remis la lettre en arabe adressée par vous à Sa Majesté Impériale le Sultan; je l’ai fait accompagner par votre lettre adressée à moi; aussitôt que j’aurai une réponse je ne manquerai pas de vous le faire connaître immédiatement. Je n’ai pas jugé nécessaire de présenter au Sultan votre rapport à Hassan Pacha Fehmi—Sa Majesté aimant les primeurs en tout. Je n’ai pas reçu la pièce que vous m’annonciez m’être envoyé par votre secretaire.

Rien de nouveau ici si ce n’est l’entrée en scène de l’Italie d’une manière extravagante, il en sera de même tant que la Turquie se bornera à protester chaque fois qu’on lui marchera sur le pied.

A vous, etc. HALIM.

P.S. Personne ne peut répondre de la fermeté du Gouvernement Ottoman.

LETTER TO H.M. THE SULTAN OF TURKEY (ABDUL HAMID)

(_Sent also in Arabic._)

Crabbet Park, Three Bridges, Sussex, _January_ 3, 1885.

SIR,

The grave perils which on every side menace the Mohammedan nation and which cannot but distress Your Majesty in the discharge of your high duties towards your people must be my excuse if I venture to address you on certain points which appear to me of vital moment in the present conjuncture of affairs for Islam.

It will not be unknown to Your Majesty that for some years past I have travelled widely in Mohammedan lands and that circumstances have placed me in a position to learn the thoughts, the fears, and the aspirations of those who under various governments acknowledge Your Majesty as their chief, the supreme Head and Prince of their religion; and Your Majesty also doubtless knows the active part I took three years ago in endeavouring to prevent the great misfortune of the invasion of Egypt by my countrymen, and afterwards to set in a true light the injustice of their action and the supreme miseries which they have caused. I trust therefore that Your Majesty will accept as the ideas of one devoted in all his heart to Mohammedan interests and Your Majesty’s, the view of policy which I now presume to lay before you.

1. With regard to those Mohammedans who live under other rule than Your Majesty’s,—I can assert without fear of mistake that at no other period of modern history has the Caliphal authority exercised so powerful an influence on their imagination as now. In all parts of the world Mohammedans are conscious of the danger to them as a nation; and the sacred office held by Your Majesty is regarded by them as the only safeguard remaining of their political existence. Especially within the last four years have they learned the necessity of closer union under Your Majesty’s command, if they would not become altogether lost and scattered; and they are willing as they never were before to put aside the differences of opinion which have so long divided them and to accept Your Majesty as the fountain for them of authority. On this subject I have conversed with many learned men in many countries, and I find that what they practically desire is this. The evils of which they complain are a decay of sound education, a decay of morals and a decay of wealth; and they attribute these misfortunes not indeed to a defect of the sacred law, which they all hold to be sufficient, but to a defect of the power to interpret it in accordance with modern necessities, and of the authority which should enforce that interpretation and make it binding on men’s practice. They desire therefore that Your Majesty should be pleased to consider in what way it would be possible to encourage the meeting of some general assembly of Ulemas of various lands under Your Majesty’s supreme appointment to discuss all these matters, and devise remedies for their very urgent needs. They think that by a common agreement alone of the faithful of all lands under Your Majesty a true result could be obtained.

This they desire and also that Your Majesty should take a more open part in the exercise of your high office by issuing from time to time and publishing authoritative statements of your views regarding the many public events which arise, gravely interesting to Mohammedans at large, in order that these may be kept in closer sympathy with Your Majesty on matters concerning all. Thus it seems to me that it would be of supreme advantage at the present moment that Your Majesty should take the whole Mohammedan world into your confidence with regard to the English occupation of Egypt. The strength of Your Majesty’s position lies in the moral influence you possess over the vast populations outside Your Majesty’s own Empire, and this can only be exercised to its full extent by making your wishes public. Advantage has too long been taken by European Governments of Your Majesty’s silence to spread false reports regarding Your Majesty’s ideas; and in these modern days no Power can afford to dispense with publicity as a spiritual weapon.

2. With regard to Your Majesty’s own dominions I am encouraged by the high character Your Majesty bears as a sincere Reformer, to urge upon you to take cognizance of the many abuses and breaches of the law which afflict the remoter provinces of your Empire. These to my sorrow I have noted on my many journeys; and I know that they are a scandal to the world and a cause of National weakness. I could, if Your Majesty would permit, explain in what way I think they could be remedied; and Your Majesty may trust me not to recommend those European remedies which Your Majesty rightly judges to be unsuited to the genius of Eastern lands and subversive of the principles of their religion. I should ask Your Majesty neither to grant concessions to Europeans, nor to employ Europeans in your Government, nor to adopt European forms of Administration. The reforms I would advocate are different from these, and are on the contrary designed to establish Mohammedan Government on its true national basis and in stricter accordance with its religious law. In this way I am confident that, God aiding Your Majesty, a sound political and financial basis could be secured for Your Empire.

Lastly—I would urge upon Your Majesty a certain course of policy towards the Great European Powers, who one and all covet your dominions. It is essential for any plan of reform and recuperation that an interval of peace should be secured you. The two Governments which most threaten the Mohammedan nation at this moment are the Russian and I grieve to say my own, and they must be dealt with vigorously each in its own manner. The present is an opportunity of the most favourable for making terms with England, but these can only be secured advantageously for Islam by courage and determination. Your Majesty must declare yourself in clear language according to certain terms as to which I could advise Your Majesty; and I think that I can assure you of success. But I venture to warn Your Majesty against any concession of principle which might separate you from the full approval of Mohammedans in various lands. The part which is yours to play in your dealings with our Government is that of the fearless exponent of the Mohammedan will. As Sultan of Turkey Your Majesty has undoubted rights in Egypt, but in this age of lawless aggression it is necessary that sovereign rights should be backed by the popular will and in Your Majesty’s instance by that full exercise of your Caliphal authority which is yours as Prince of the Faithful.

If Your Majesty on the perusal of this letter will deign to hear me further I will make it my duty to lay my plan in detail before Your Majesty.

I am, with profound respect, Your Majesty, Your most faithful servant.

WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

PRINCE HALIM TO MR. BLUNT

Constantinople, 17 _Juillet_ 1885.

CHER MONSIEUR BLUNT,

J’ai reçu votre lettre du 3 courant qui m’annonce l’achat des chevaux. Je vous remercie pour la peine que vous vous êtes donnée pour cela.

Mr. Whitaker n’est pas encore de retour. En attendant, ce que je vois dans le journaux ne me parait pas être très différent du passé. Lord Salisbury dans l’exposé de la politique du nouveau cabinet, fait à la chambre des Lords le 6 courant, déclare que l’Angleterre est liée d’honneur au Khedive. Un premier Ministre ne s’engage au fond comme cela, s’il avait l’intention de suivre une autre voie que ses prédécesseurs. Le lien d’honneur n’est pas facile à briser, comme par exemple le lien d’intérêt, où on a la faculté de se montrer désintéressé même magnanime en le brisant. Lord Salisbury donne pour raison du lien d’honneur, l’honêteté du Khédive, vis-à-vis du gouvernement Anglais et il n’y a que quelques jours que Tewfik Pacha protestait de son dévoument et de son inaltérable attachement à Sa Majesté Impériale le Sultan, en jettant sur la pression irrésistible des Anglais tout le passé. Ces protestations du Khédive sont prises ici pour ce qu’elles valent et pour la forme on se montre content. Le grand cordon du Schafcate à été envoyé à sa femme comme preuve de la satisfaction Impériale,

Je vous renouvelle, cher Monsieur Blunt, l’expression, etc. HALIM.

APPENDIX C

AUTHOR’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH DOWNING STREET

THE EARL OF DUFFERIN TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

Cairo, 16 _December_ ’82.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

Many thanks for your letter of December 8th, and especially for having sent me the pamphlet, of which I had heard, and which I have studied with the attention it seems to deserve.

I am quite alive to the importance of the question you refer to of the indebtedness of the peasantry. It is one of those evils which meet us both in India and in Ireland, and you may depend upon my doing my best to discover a remedy if any such there be.

We have induced the Government to let out of prison at once, something like 450 of those who have been shut up in jail.

Yours sincerely, DUFFERIN.

MR. BLUNT TO THE EARL OF DUFFERIN

_January 23rd_, 1883.

MY DEAR LORD DUFFERIN,

I have delayed thanking you for your letter of the 16th December informing me of the release of 450 of the political prisoners, until I had seen Napier and learned from him a little more clearly than I could by letter what were the terms of agreement come to with regard to them when the trial was compromised. I had understood from Broadley that the terms would include an amnesty, and I had hoped it would have been a general one, and that the whole of the unfortunate people detained in the prisons on charges rising out of the “rebellion” would have been set free. Now, however, it seems that, though an amnesty has been decreed, many exceptions to it have been made, that while some have been released, others are being arrested, and that the Courts are still trying and executing men on criminal charges connected with the events of June and July. I trust that the interest I take in opposing this particular form of injustice will excuse me with you if I say a few words on the matter. The world, it is true, is full of injustice which we cannot remedy, but here the remedy would seem within our hands, and the injustice is one for which every Englishman who knows the facts is responsible.

First, as regards the exceptions made to the amnesty, it would seem most unfair that the leaders of the “rebellion” having foregone their right of being publicly defended, any of their followers or associates should be punished for rebellion. Arabi’s defence included the defence of every man in Egypt, and with the commutation of his sentence every other sentence should have been commuted. The two strongest cases I have heard of, of persons excepted from the amnesty, are Akkad’s and Awwam’s, men charged with no crime, but who have nevertheless been exiled, the one to Massowah and the other to the White Nile, punishments which Malet has, I think, explained in his despatches to be equivalent to death. These two cases I also recommend to your special attention from the fact that the sufferers are men whose quarrel was originally with English, not Egyptian, officials, and whose exception from the amnesty has consequently a rather compromising appearance for them. Akkad’s original offence lay in his having protested in 1879 against Rivers Wilson’s confiscation of the Moukabalah claims, a thing he was perfectly justified in doing, which, moreover, he had been invited to do by a notice published by Wilson in the papers. For this he was sent by Riaz on a false charge to the White Nile; the details, Napier tells me, he has laid already before you.

Awwam’s case is still stronger, and it affects Colvin. Awwam was an employé under Colvin on the Cadastral survey, and was dismissed for having drawn up a report showing the incapacity of the officers conducting the survey and their waste of public money—all which is now admitted. The wrong done him made a martyr of him with the Nationalists, and when Arabi came into office in February he was appointed his secretary. For this, and presumably at Colvin’s suggestion, he was arrested by the English authorities on their landing at Alexandria in July, and put in irons. He then wrote a letter to the Khedive demanding to know the reason of his arrest, and was transferred, still in irons, to the Borgho prison, where Ninet saw him seventy-four days afterwards. Then, when the disclosures relating to that prison began to be made, Awwam would seem to have been sent without trial to Khartoum, and is probably there at the present moment. These are strong cases, but I have little doubt there are many others quite as strong.

Secondly. It is surely a mockery to decree an amnesty affecting only persons who happen to be actually in prison, and omitting from its operation both men already dealt with and men to be dealt with in the future on charges connected with the past. From all I hear the reign of terror has not been diminished in the provinces by the decree—whatever may be the case at Cairo—the prisons are still full and men are being arrested daily.

Lastly. I cannot understand how it can be the wish of our Government to make scapegoats of the rank and file of those charged with the criminal acts of June and July while the chief offenders enjoy immunity. If one thing has been proved to the satisfaction of the Government more than another, it is that Omar Lutfi was responsible for the murderous character of the riots of the 11th of June. Yet we read still of executions at Alexandria for crimes committed on that day by others, the chief culprit himself being the while at large, in honour, and holding high office under the Khedive. I say nothing of the Khedive himself, though you doubtless know how little his conduct on that day would have borne investigation.

Having thus discharged my conscience of what I consider a duty, let me now allude to the other part of your letter, that relating to the debts of the fellahin. It was the scheme of Arabi and the Nationalists last February to solve the difficulty by making it illegal to lend money on mortgage of land except with the consent of an officer to be appointed for the purpose in the chief town of each district, and then only to an amount small in proportion to land value. Thus the only borrowers would have been persons able and intending to repay. I quite understand that such a regulation might have checked the flow of capital into the country and in consequence have reduced the public revenue, but the object of the Nationalists was to prevent at all costs the passing of the land into the hands of strangers; and I repeat that this _must_ be prevented if there is to be a cessation of the popular discontent in Egypt. This seems to me a far more vital matter than the form of government of the country, or even the reform of the administration. But probably it can only be effected by a reduction of the revenue, and consequently of the rate of interest on the debt. The Nationalists also intended to form a National Bank to make the required advances. But I feel that very likely it is useless my saying anything on this head, for I fear the Government at home has no serious desire to effect anything but a makeshift arrangement agreeable to the European public, and strong enough to last their time. I wish you could have seen Mohammed Abdu or some others of the Nationalist leaders before they left Egypt. They would have told you in an hour more than you could learn from all the English officials at Cairo in a fortnight. Nevertheless I beg you to believe that I still look confidently for a solution compatible with Egyptian aspirations at your hands, and I remain yours truly,

WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

THE EARL OF DUFFERIN TO MR. BLUNT

_Private and Confidential._

Cairo, _12th Feb._ ’83.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 23rd of January. It must have been delayed en route.

You are really under a wrong impression as to what is going on here, as you will see by the enclosed memorandum from Sir Charles Wilson, to whom I referred your letter.

As for el Accad, he is quite unworthy of the interest you take in him. His complicity with Arabi is beyond doubt, and he misappropriated some funds which Halim Pasha entrusted to him for the purpose of bribing Arabi to support his, Halim’s, candidature.

I have sent home a report on the reorganization of Egypt, from which you will see that I am doing what I can to promote the establishment of just principles of Government in this country.

Believe me, my dear Blunt, yours sincerely, DUFFERIN.

P.S.—I need not remind you that there is no man who has done more to prevent this Government from exercising undue severity in the case of the rebels than Sir Charles Wilson.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

10, James Street, _January_ 16, 1883.

MY DEAR EDDY,

I think you will admit that the despatches published to-day, taken in connection with Colvin’s reappointment as Controller in Egypt, absolve me from any duty of reticence I may have had toward Mr. Gladstone on the events of the past year. In spite of all that has been said and promised and avowed, annexation stares us in the face as unmistakably as if the word had been written. I am sorry, more than for Egypt, that it should have come to this.

Yours affec., WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

10, Downing Street, _12th March_ ’83.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

As Campbell Bannerman has to answer a question this afternoon founded on your letter which will (I understand) amount to what he could tell you, were he to see you, perhaps an interview would be of little good. He tells me that every piece of fresh information they get at the Admiralty (_e.g._ from Lord Alcester) fully confirms his account in the House of Commons; and therefore it seems to resolve itself into a question of the known intentions of the authorities in Egypt as well as of the Government at home against what Gill and Palmer _fancied_ their mission to have been.

I apologize for having perhaps expressed myself too strongly yesterday. But the Government have nothing in the world to conceal; and the organisers of the Expedition surely ought to know better the objects of it than the unfortunate men charged with the mission.

Yours as always affec., E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. EDWARD HAMILTON

Paris, _Sep._ 14, 1883.

DEAR EDDY,

When I saw you on Wednesday I told you that I had thought of taking Sabunji with me, but had given up the idea. Since then, however, I have heard that the man I counted on to help me in Egypt is no longer there, and I have consequently determined to take Sabunji. The fact is I should be very helpless without him, and if it should so happen that I could be of any good it would be as well to have him at hand.

I shall leave him at Port Said or Suez till I have seen Baring, and as I told you, I have no intention of doing anything without Baring’s countenance. If Baring will not listen to anything I have to propose I shall not waste any time in Egypt, but shall go on to Ceylon and India. I shall caution Sabunji to get into no mischief, and he has always acted as far as I am aware squarely in his service with me. We start to-night for Marseilles, and so farewell. I will write to you from Egypt.

Yours affec., WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

Cairo, _September 28th_, 1883.

MY DEAR EDDY,

I promised to write to you, and I will keep my promise, but you must not expect me to say anything pleasant or flattering. I found Baring extremely amiable and willing to listen to all I had to say, and I believe he told me his own views frankly. Our ideas on many of the reforms wanted in Egypt were the same. His scheme for relieving the debts of the peasantry seemed a sound one—and he struck me generally as being a man of sympathy and courage. But when I have said this I have said all. On the main point of giving Egypt back her liberty we are worlds apart. He neither wishes it, nor has the least idea of attempting it. “What Egypt wants,” he told me, “is peace and order, not another revolution; we have restored the Khedive and the Circassians to power, and I shall do my best to keep them there.”

With regard to Dufferin’s famous Charter I find neither he nor any one else look upon it as in the least serious or in the least important—and they are right. The elections are not serious, nor were ever intended to be by those who drafted the Charter. The electoral lists are drawn up by the Government, the voting takes place under the eye of the Governor and in the Prefecture of Police—and in most instances the Governor or the Prefect of Police are the candidates chosen. It could not have been otherwise. The Circassians have been encouraged to re-establish their rule by a reign of terror. There is no protection of any kind against arbitrary arrest, arbitrary confiscation of property, and imprisonment without trial. The prisons in the country districts are still full of untried men. There is no liberty of speech, or of the press—and at Alexandria they began the elections by hanging two more men charged with instigating the riots of last year. How should any one but the Prefect of Police be chosen? Mr. Gladstone, who knows everything, doubtless knows that in India, where the people have been crushed for ages, they worship Siva the god of destruction. Here they worship the Prefect of Police. Yet less than two years ago there were both freedom of speech and of the press, elections fairly representative, and the beginning of a real Constitution. It may have been necessary for Imperial or international reasons to destroy this and to revert to a system of “peace and order” as Baring calls it, but it cannot be necessary to talk of having given the Egyptians liberty!

Baring himself is too honest to pretend that his system is anything but “Egypt for the Turks.” But he fancies he can manage Tewfik and the half dozen men who form his party, and give Egypt a mitigated and not altogether inhuman despotism. If he succeeds in this he will have accomplished something, but I cannot believe that he will at all succeed. Tewfik and Sherif have no following in this country beyond the palace walls, and, even supposing them to be the absolutely supple tools Baring believes them to be, they have no kind of moral influence and very little energy. The minor English officials tell me they are unable to redress the least wrong or introduce the simplest reform in the departments in which they serve; and that Baring and Maxwell should be able, through the weak medium of Tewfik, and Sherif, and Fakri, to do more than obtain a shadow of justice and compassion for the people I cannot understand. You know how different this is from my own idea of reforming the people through men of their own race whom they respect, and are ready to work with, and you may imagine my disappointment at getting from Baring nothing better than poor Malet’s stale idea of Egypt for the Turks.

I spoke to Sir Benson Maxwell, who is a really good man, about getting some kind of protection for the people from arbitrary arrest, and he has promised to do so. But he is going away on leave and nothing will be even begun before Christmas. On the whole it seems to me that no fate could possibly have been devised for Egypt more sad or more hopeless than what I see before me, and it would have been far more merciful to have put the Egyptians at once out of their misery by annexing their country last year than to play at giving them “_native_ rule,” under conditions which through much suffering will lead to exactly the same result a year or two years hence. I consequently leave Egypt a sadder and a wiser man than I came. I shall publish my poem—and make my protest and set out “to-morrow for fresh fields and pastures new.”

Yours, etc., WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

PS.—I wonder whether Mr. Gladstone knows that there are still twelve Bedouins in prison at Suez arrested for the Palmer murder and untried. Among them a woman and two or three children kept as hostages!!

MR. BLUNT TO SIR EVELYN BARING

Cairo, _Oct._ 1, 1883.

MY DEAR SIR EVELYN,

I have received a letter from Abd el Razak Bey, F.R.G.S., ex-director of the Naval College, who with some four others has been in prison here for the last three months on a charge originally of connection with a political plot. He was, however, ordered to be dismissed by the Commission appointed to inquire into the matter, but was nevertheless retained by Osman Pasha Ghaleb through superior orders “on suspicion,” and is still in the Zaptieh prison. He now asks me to come and see him, and as I am leaving Cairo to-morrow I shall be much obliged to you if you can kindly obtain me an order to enter the prison.

Since seeing you on Wednesday I have had opportunities of ascertaining the feelings of the people here, and I am convinced that unless something is speedily done to relieve their sufferings you will have trouble.

I am, dear Sir Evelyn, yours truly, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

SIR EVELYN BARING TO MR. BLUNT

Cairo, _Oct._ 1, 1883.

DEAR MR. BLUNT,

I regret that I am unable to accede to the request contained in your letter. The decision as to permission being given to prisoners to receive visits lies entirely within the competence of the Egyptian Government. I must decline to interfere in the manner in which they exercise their discretion in dealing with the subject.

Very truly yours, E. BARING.

MR. BLUNT TO SIR EVELYN BARING

_Private._

Suez, _October 3rd_, 1883.

MY DEAR SIR EVELYN,

Your note by some accident was posted by your cavass instead of being sent by hand, and so did not reach me till just as I was leaving Cairo yesterday morning, and I think it is right you should know that receiving no answer I had already gone to the prison, and seen Abd el Razak Bey and the others. I found them comfortably lodged and in good health, with the exception of Mustapha Bey Sidki, who seemed seriously ill, and I received from them all the same account, that their release had been ordered by the Commission (which included two of the Belgians who came here as judges) more than three months ago, since which time no further inquiries had been made into their case. Abd el Razak had written to the Khedive, but without reply, and they believe themselves to be detained by the order of Osman Pasha Ghaleb. No English inspector had been to see them, and no inquiry had been made into their case. Now, however, that I have got your letter I fear that, should my visit become known to the Prefect of Police, or the fact that they wrote to me, the prisoners might be made to suffer from their and my imprudence. They believe themselves likely to be sent without further trial to the Soudan, and, as so many have suffered that fate during the past year, I trust that you will give them your protection. They were arrested on a charge which would seem to have been false, for their release was ordered by the court which examined it, and in any other country in the world they would be now at liberty.

As far as I can learn, Lord Dufferin interfered with these matters as long as he was here, for he had promised a political amnesty at the time of Arabi’s trial, but after his departure arrests were again made, and I understand on very high authority that there are at the present moment several thousand untried prisoners in the various towns of the Delta and Upper Egypt. I can speak from experience of the terror in which respectable people, in no way connected with the army, but known to have sympathized with the Liberal party, are now living in Cairo, and, as I said before, the excessive tyranny of the police and the Mudirs is goading men to new disquiet. Trusting that you will forgive me for not having waited for your answer, and that as far as the prisoners are concerned the fact of their having written to me and of my having seen them may be kept a secret, I remain, dear Sir Evelyn,

Yours very truly, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

Suez, _October 3rd_, 1883.

MY DEAR EDDY,

You will have perceived that when I wrote the other day I was very angry, and I think that I had cause. But that is no reason why I should not write again. When I saw Baring I had not had any conversation with my own political friends, and I could not guess the condition of affairs. Now I have seen and talked to a great number of them, and I can speak with certainty as to their feelings and, I believe, with equal certainty as to the general feeling of the country.

The first and only obstacle that I see to a peaceable settlement of the country is the present Khedive. It is absolutely impossible he should remain, unless it is intended to occupy the country permanently with our troops—and I doubt if even that would altogether protect him. I have asked people of every class about him and I have not found one that did not despise him. The Circassians and the rest of the fanatical class look upon him as a traitor to his religion, and the liberals as a traitor to his country. You know that till the bombardment I supported him with the National party as against Halim or Ismaïl or other pretenders, but I am certain that no reconciliation is possible. You do not believe in his culpability in the matter of the riots of June, but all the Egyptians here do, and within the last three days I have had very important evidence on that head offered me. Now, I don’t wish to make too much of this—it was a stroke of party politics. But what the Nationalists will never forgive is that he has had innocent men as well as men who acted at his instigation hanged for these very acts. I have now the evidence of two men of the highest respectability, one of whom is Ahmed Bey Minshawi, the Sheykh who is so honourably mentioned in the Blue Books as having saved the lives of several hundred Christians at Tantah, to the effect that the riots there were equally the work of the Khedive’s friends, and that Yusuf Abu Diab, who was hanged for the affair, was not only innocent but did his best to save lives. Innocent men have everywhere been arrested and imprisoned on charges connected with these things to gratify the spite of the Khedive and his few partisans. You will say perhaps that these tales are not true, but they are certainly believed in—and in the belief lies all the difficulty of reconciliation. For myself I believe so strongly in the Khedive’s treachery that I would certainly not advise Arabi to return to Egypt, were the option given him, under Tewfik’s rule.

The Circassians of course do not quarrel with him on this account (for they look on the fellahin as their proper scapegoats), but for his conduct during the war and his feebleness of character. As you know, they are very few in numbers in the country, only a few thousand, and they say they want a _man_ not a woman to protect them against Europe and against another rising of the fellahin. I believe there is a strong party among them for Ismaïl Pasha, a few for Husseyn on account of his extreme bigotry, and a few for Hassan, his brother. Among the more liberal-minded Halim is a favourite, as he is among many of the Egyptians through Abu Nadara’s advocacy, though very few people know him. His enemies say he is not a politician and cares only for cats and birds. Nobody will hear at all of Ibrahim on account of his letter to the Duke of Cambridge. The Khedive of course has a party, though he has no friends. This consists first of the Ministers who have come into power through his restoration—though all these cannot be counted on—secondly of Butros Pasha and other rich Copts, and I believe the Coptic money-lenders of the Said. The Patriarch and the mass of the Coptic clergy belong to the “Hesbu el Horiye,” the party of liberty, which now occupies the place of the National party of two years ago. Also, thirdly, of the financiers, bankers, and rich Syrian and Greek merchants of Alexandria. It is, however, safe to say that there is nobody of the Khedive’s party, except the Ministers, who do not support him as a natural stepping-stone to annexation.

The fellahin of the Delta, as far as I can gather, are divided in opinion, those of the remoter districts caring nothing for politics, and having still a traditional respect for Effendina—whoever he may be—the other part believing that Arabi will return. Of this there has grown up within the last few months a very strong belief in Cairo and the towns—and there is no doubt in the world that he is popular in spite of his misfortunes. I have heard people complain of him for his conduct in the war, for his neglect of blocking the Suez Canal, for his praying when he ought to have been fighting, and for his running away at Tel-el- Kebir. But they talk kindly of him and are proud of him as the first _fellah_ who ever held supreme power in Egypt, and I had abundant proofs of their goodwill to myself as his friend. Except the Khedive I see no obstacle to his recall. Sherif might, I believe, work with him again as far as the Nationalists are concerned, and Ismaïl Eyoub certainly could. But Ali Mubarak Pasha, Khairi Pasha, Omar Lutfi Pasha, and Osman Ghaleb, the Prefect of Police, and Sultan Pasha would have to retire from power. I cannot conceive their being any loss—and there are certain Mudirs, too, in the provinces, who have been exceptionally bloodthirsty and tyrannical, whose position would be incompatible with a return of the liberal party to office. I am of opinion that the only prince of the family of Mehemet Ali who could unite parties is Halim. But I think you would do far better to make Arabi himself the chief of the state—Halim after all is a Turk and the people only look to him as the alternative to the present regime.

The more I have seen of the people the more convinced I have become that the present reign of terror cannot continue. If you withdraw the troops without establishing something and somebody that the people like, you must have trouble. The army may be as fond of Sir Evelyn Wood as he is said to think, but that will not prevent them owning the first resolute man who proposes to dethrone the Khedive—he is too unpopular with the people to be popular with the army—and, if the Nationalists are too crushed to turn on him yet awhile, the Circassians certainly will. You will then find yourselves with some really unscrupulous adventurer at the head of a revolution, and you or your successors will annex the country. I am writing in the belief that you do not intend or wish for such a result, but to persist in thrusting Tewfik on the Egyptians is to invite annexation.

I had intended to write this to the “Times,” but I write it instead to you, hoping that you may show it to Mr. Gladstone. I would rather you did not show it to the F. O., for they would only use it to my friends’ disadvantage. The whole thing depends now on Mr. Gladstone. If he insists on restoring liberty to Egypt nothing is easier—but not on the present lines.

Yours affectionately, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

Haddo House, Aberdeen, _21st October_, 1883.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Your two interesting letters written from Egypt, for which many thanks, have both reached me while I am holiday making in Scotland; but I have taken steps to secure their being seen by Mr. Gladstone. Your account of affairs in Egypt is, to say the least of it, depressing. I won’t make any comments on what you say. I will content myself with being the receptacle of bad news and the conduit pipe of it to headquarters. I will only say that I can’t conceive how it would be possible, without the grossest breach of faith, for the English Government to countenance the ousting of Tewfik, whatever sort of fellow he may be.

Holiday making is neither conducive to letter writing, I find, nor to the catering of news, so I am afraid I shall, as far as being a correspondent is concerned, make a poor return for your budgets. Good luck to you and a pleasant trip to India.

Yours affectionately, E. W. HAMILTON.

SIR EVELYN BARING TO MR. BLUNT

Cairo, _December_ 31, 1883.

SIR,

I have received a letter from Chérif Pasha informing me that the Egyptian Government intends to forbid your disembarkation in Egypt on your return journey from India—His Excellency adds: “Par courtoisie, et en vue d’empêcher tout incident facheux de se produire dans le cas où il entrerait dans les intentions de Monsieur Blunt de s’arrêter en Egypte, à son retour des Indes, je crois devoir vous demander Monsieur le Ministre, de vouloir bien informer d’avance votre compatriote de cette interdiction.”

In compliance, therefore, with the request of the Egyptian Government, I beg to communicate their decision to you.

I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

E. BARING.

MR. BLUNT TO SIR EVELYN BARING

Delhi, _January_ 26, 1884.

MY DEAR SIR EVELYN,

I have to acknowledge the receipt, under flying seal from Mr. Primrose, of your letter of the 31st December, which reached me yesterday. I confess that the contents surprised me, not merely on account of the nature of the message your letter contained for me from the Khedive’s late Prime Minister, but still more from the fact that you should have transmitted it in an official form without comment, explanation, or expression of disapproval.

That the Government of which Sherif Pasha was the head should have disliked my presence in Egypt I can well understand, for I have been more than once, as you know, instrumental in bringing their abuse of power to official ears; but I am ignorant of having offended against any law which should authorize my exclusion, as the subject of a friendly Power, from Egypt; and still less am I conscious of having done what should forfeit me my right to your diplomatic protection. Indeed, the circumstances of my recent visit to Egypt would seem to entitle me to this last in an especial manner; for you will not have forgotten that I came there last September with special recommendation to you from the highest official quarter, and that my renewed interest in Egyptian politics was authorized by suggestions emanating from the same high source. But for this, I believe I may say with truth that I should not have stopped in Egypt at all on my way eastwards, and most certainly that I should not have encouraged hopes there which the sequel might fail to justify.

With equal truth I can assure you that, had you informed me in a less formal manner that the interests of Egypt would be best served by my not returning to Cairo this spring, I would have willingly consented inasmuch as at the moment of my receiving your letter I had all but abandoned my intention of so doing, partly on account of quarantine difficulties, partly because I recognized in Nubar Pasha’s accession to office an adjournment by our Government of the special hopes which interested me.

Now, however, in face of your official communication, I feel myself obliged to do something towards asserting the right, which is mine as a British subject, of residing where I will abroad under British protection, and especially, because I hold property there, in Egypt. Nubar Pasha is an enlightened man, with whom I have the pleasure of being personally acquainted, and he is not likely of his own motion to renew his predecessor’s threat of excluding me from the country, but I fear I must ask you, as I do most formally ask you, to be good enough to give me your written assurance either that the prohibition forwarded by you has ended with Sherif Pasha’s dismissal, or that you are prepared, should I be so disposed as to wish to land in Egypt, to take all necessary measures to protect me from annoyance. Less than this would be equivalent to my abandoning a right which, as a matter of principle as well as of convenience, I am not prepared to forego.

I will only add that letters from you in this sense will reach me, if addressed to the Rubattino Steamer “China,” at Aden on the 8th of March or at Suez on the 12th, and will prevent further misunderstanding.

I am, my dear Sir Evelyn, yours faithfully, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

_Private._

Bombay, _January_ 30, 1884.

MY DEAR EDDY,

What, in the name of all that is blunder-headed, does Baring mean by sending me _in official form_ and without explanation a threat of the late Sherif Pasha’s that he would prevent my landing in Egypt? You surely explained to him the meaning of my last visit and the encouragement which had been given me (I don’t mean merely through yourself) to make a move in Egyptian politics. Or what is the history of it? Of course I have been obliged to answer, but as yet have done so semi-officially only, and without putting all the dots upon the I’s, and have left him a door of retreat from what you must see is quite a false position. Please don’t let him force me to go any further.

Seriously, would it not be better to work with me frankly at last by telling me exactly what it is you want in Egypt. Unless you really mean annexation, you will need every honest man’s help to get you out of your difficulties, and the day will come when you will not despise mine. It is only two years ago if I remember rightly that you told me Gordon was mad. But you must not drive me too far. I have a serious work to do in the East, a work of which the establishment of good government in Egypt is only a small part, and one way or other, with God’s help, I mean to do it. It is a good work and you could further it greatly in Downing Street if you chose to trust me, but I am sure you cannot hinder it, certainly not by shutting me out of Egypt. I had nearly given up the idea of going back there this spring, for my thoughts were in another direction, when I got Baring’s letter. But I shall most certainly fight the matter out if he insists. Only I beg of you think it carefully over and if possible let Baring be advised to send me a sensible reply.

We leave Bombay on the 1st of March.

Yours affectionately, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

SIR EVELYN BARING TO MR. BLUNT

Cairo, _Feb._ 26, 1884.

DEAR MR. BLUNT,

On receipt of your letter of January 26th I placed myself in communication with Nubar Pasha. I enclose for your information a copy of my letter and of Nubar Pasha’s reply.

You will observe that Nubar Pasha’s views are identical with those entertained by Cherif Pasha.

Very truly yours, E. BARING.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, 28 _Feb._, 1884.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Thanks for writing to me. I know nothing whatever of the steps which the Egyptian Government have taken with regard to yourself; and I am certainly not aware that they were taken at the instance of the English Government or of its representative at Cairo.

I am afraid—and my fears are confirmed by what you say in your last letter—that you have considered the fact of your corresponding with the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary on Egyptian matters as an encouragement, however intentionally guarded the correspondence may have been on my side. This may lead to misunderstanding; and I feel bound to consider not so much myself (for that matters little) as my master. Moreover it is difficult for me in writing to show exactly how far I write on my own account—a difficulty which is enhanced by the impossibility of my devoting the time and care necessary for corresponding on important subjects.

Having regard then to these considerations I think it my duty not to attempt to write about such subjects, and that it will be better for you and me if we drop writing to one another on public questions. I daresay I am to blame in this matter, as it has always been an interest and pleasure to me to hear your views which you have the power of expressing so well, and I have been tempted to egg you on. I hope you will not misunderstand what I have said. I don’t think I need have any fear on this account, for I am sure our friendship is strong enough not to be affected by anything I may do from a sense of public and official duty. I have been awfully busy of late, busier than ever. Whenever not wholly absorbed in work, my thoughts have of late been mainly occupied by the long and very serious illness of poor Pembroke. . . . I wish I had time to send more news; but that is not possible.

For the sake of your friends, if not for your own sake, I hope you won’t act in the matter of the order of the Egyptian Government in such a way as to bring yourself into trouble. I hope I have said nothing which will annoy you, and you will make due allowance for the difficulties and delicacy of my position.

Yours affectionately, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, _April_ 4, 1884.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Welcome back. I am truly glad to hear of your and Lady Anne’s safe return. I shall like of all things to arrange an early meeting, etc. Thanks for taking my remarks in such good grace.

Yours affectionately, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. BLUNT TO THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

Crabbet Park, _April_ 23, 1884.

MY DEAR SIR,

A few days ago some gentlemen of the many interested in the fate of General Gordon called on me to ask my advice as to the best means of extricating him from the imminent peril in which he lies, and they suggested the formation of a band of volunteers which should endeavour to run the gauntlet of their besiegers and having forced their way to Khartoum should bring him back with them in safety by the same road. The idea seemed to me a generous but wholly impracticable one, and I told them so, frankly adding that much as I should wish to join in any reasonable attempt to save General Gordon’s life, I could not with the principles I hold, be a party to an armed attempt against the Arabs whom I hold to be in the right as I hold General Gordon to be in the wrong. I promised however that should anything in the shape of peaceful negotiation be proposed I would willingly aid them to the full extent of my power.

Since then I have most opportunely received information which leads me to feel certain that if properly approached not only could terms be obtained from the besiegers of Khartoum which should include General Gordon’s safe return with such of his companions as might choose to accompany him, but that a general pacification of the Upper Nile might at the same time and by the same means be effected. In view therefore of the urgency of the situation (for believe me, Sir, it is urgent), I deem it a duty to offer through you my services to H. M.’s Government as mediator in this matter. I say to H. M. Government, because it is clear that no merely private negotiations could be effectual in a case where such large public interests are involved. But I do not apprehend that any absolute departure from the general principles of policy announced by the Government would be required in conducting them to a successful termination.

With regard to my own part in the matter I will only add that, although I believe it would not be necessary for me to go myself to the Soudan, I should be ready to do so if the circumstances of the case should absolutely require it.

I am, my dear Sir, yours faithfully, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

10, Downing Street, Whitehall. _24th April_, 1884.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Mr. Gladstone is obliged for your letter. He must to-day confine himself to saying that he is communicating its contents to his colleagues in the Cabinet.

Yours, E. W. HAMILTON.

_Private._

Same date.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

I add a private line. Considering all that has gone before, I can’t help thinking you would do well to approach the Government by other means than those in Downing Street. Could you not take Harry Brand into confidence with a view to your viewings sifting through him to Lord Hartington?

Yours aff. E. W. H.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

10, James Street, Buckingham Gate, _April_ 24, 1884. 7 o’clock p.m.

MY DEAR EDDY,

If it was a matter concerning my own wishes or one of small importance I would willingly consult Harry Brand, who would do all he could I know to serve me. But this is the most serious step I have taken in my life and one which involves consequences not to me only but to this country and to many besides, and I dare not treat it except with those wholly responsible. If Mr. Gladstone cannot see me now, perhaps he may be willing to do so later. I was in the House this afternoon and listened attentively to his declarations, and I gathered from them that he has not yet closed the door to negotiations by any absolute decision of an immediately warlike nature. So that I will wait his time, confident that if I can be of use he will not scruple, on a point of formality in connection with past events, to give me timely notice. Only I fear that perhaps the time given us all may be shorter than he thinks, for already according to my latest advices the tribes are gathering from every side in arms, and though I still think it not too late it may well be so soon. I shall be in London till Saturday when I go back to Crabbet but shall be always within reach if required.

Yours affectionately, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HORACE SEYMOUR TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, 30 _April_ 1884.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

Mr. Gladstone desires me to thank you for your offer to act as mediator in the Soudan, of which, however, Her Majesty’s Government are not able to make use, inasmuch as it must already be known throughout that region that they, in common with the Government of Egypt, have no other desire than to promote the evacuation of the country and the restoration of its liberties.

Believe me, yours truly, HORACE SEYMOUR.

SIR PHILIP CURRIE TO MR. BLUNT

Foreign Office, _May_ 17, 1884.

SIR,

I am directed by Earl Granville to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1st instant in which you complain of the refusal of the Egyptian Government to allow you to land in Egypt on your return from India, which refusal was communicated to you through Her Majesty’s Agent and Consul-General at Cairo.

I am to inform you that the decision not to permit you to visit Egypt is one with which Her Majesty’s Government are not prepared to interfere.

I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, PHILIP W. CURRIE.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

10, Downing Street, _21st May_ 1884.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Rumours have reached me that you are about to found your complaint against the Government for being excluded from Egypt partly on the ground of certain “interviews” which you had with me last autumn.

I feel bound to notice these rumours by writing you a line; but I may say at the outset, knowing you as I do, that I wholly and entirely discredit them for more than one reason.

In the first place, I unfortunately saw so little of you before you left England that I know we had no “interviews” with the solitary exception of your coming to say good-bye to me, when I recollect that our conversation was limited to wishing you “bon voyage,” adding as I believe I did that letters from you abroad would continue to interest me as they always had.

In the second place, I studiously avoid ever attempting to quote Mr. Gladstone’s views—(and his views alone have weight)—which I have no title whatever to represent.

In the third place, had I committed any indiscretions—as to which my conscience is absolutely clear—any use of them by yourself could only have one result; and that would be, to show that I was quite unfit for my present post of confidence. Of doing this I am sure you have not the smallest intention.

You will I know excuse my bothering you on this matter. All that I want is the shortest authority from yourself to deny the truth of the rumours. For this purpose only do I ask for such an assurance, and not for my own satisfaction, because I am convinced that you would be the last person in the world to take at a disadvantage one of your oldest and sincerest friends, who occupies a place of great trust and delicacy.

Yours affectionately, E. W. HAMILTON.

I hope if fortune favours me to see you again soon.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

Crabbet Park, _May_ 22 1884.

MY DEAR EDDY,

I have no wish to make a scandal of this or any other matter, unless absolutely forced into it, and still less to do you an injury; and so I have decided, before going further, to lay the whole facts privately before Mr. Gladstone. He will then be able to decide whether I have or have not cause to complain. You may rely upon me to be scrupulous in not exaggerating anything that passed between us, but I have a memorandum of the circumstances written at the time, imperfect indeed but sufficient to prove to me, if I had any doubt of the accuracy of my recollection, that our conversation in Downing Street the day I saw you there before I went abroad was by no means limited, as you suppose, to “wishing me bon voyage.” I do not however rely wholly upon this for what I have all along asserted, namely that I was encouraged to stop in Egypt on my way Eastwards. Unless I was altogether deceived by another person, whom you probably know, Mr. Gladstone was at that time desirous of a reasonable excuse for restoring the Exiled Nationalists, and I went to Egypt and called on Baring distinctly under this impression. You will say that I have been the subject of a mystification, but I find this very difficult to believe, and at any rate the doubt should be cleared up. I repeat, I have no wish to have it done in public, if I can have it done in private. I do not wish to make a scandal. I look upon Mr. Gladstone as in reality a friend to most of my ideas, and I would far rather not be driven into a position of antagonism to him. But the withdrawal of my right of protection in Egypt is a violent proceeding and one that I cannot accept without protest. The notice was served on me formally, publicly and I may say brutally, and Lord Granville has refused me even a reason. This is not fair, and my only resource is to force an answer through Parliament, when the whole matter will be sifted. I have fortunately made it a rule to have no political secrets as regards my own acts, and so am prepared to argue it out. But I quite understand that others are not in my free position; and, if you can assure me that Mr. Gladstone will give the matter his serious private attention and not merely put me off with an official reply I will write to him on the subject. With regard to my really going to Egypt I have no wish in the present position of affairs to do so. I could do no good there politically nor could I even if I wished it make matters worse; and I am far from well and want rest and not a new campaign. But my right to protection is a matter of principle and I have certain real, if not very large, material interests in Egypt which I may at any time require to see to. Indeed Baring’s action in withdrawing his protection and preventing my landing has already cost me perhaps a couple of hundred pounds. This is exactly how things stand, and I await your answer, before taking further steps.

Yours ever, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

10, Downing Street, _24th May_ 1884.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Thanks for your letter.

I am very sorry that your recollection of what took place last autumn should be so entirely at variance with my own recollection of it. But I cannot conceive that any private conversation between friends, whatever complexion you may put upon it, can be construed into what you call “a scandal”; and I recognize the kindness of your desire not to cause me bother.

Mr. Gladstone never fails to give his personal attention to every communication made to him; so I need hardly assure you that a statement coming from you will be fully considered by him.

I am very sorry to be the cause of adding at all to your labours, etc.

Yours as always, E. W. H.

MR. BLUNT TO THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

Crabbet Park, _May_ 31, 1884.

MY DEAR SIR,

The privilege you have, at various times during the last three years, accorded me of addressing you on public matters must be my excuse if I now appeal to you on a matter mainly personal, namely my recent exclusion from Egypt on my return from India, and the still more recent refusal of H. M.’s Government to afford me protection there invariably given to British subjects. The circumstances of my case are briefly as follows:

Towards the close of last session I received a visit from a gentleman well known to yourself but not otherwise connected with political life or at all with Egypt, during which he urged upon me the desirability of my “making a new move” in Egyptian politics. His idea was that public opinion in England had sufficiently changed during the previous twelve months for it to be possible to propose with some chance of success a restoration of the National party before the British troops were withdrawn from Egypt; and he furthermore suggested that the matter might best be brought forward if a popular demonstration should occur on the occasion of the Elections under Lord Dufferin’s Charter. He thought that the leaders of the liberal party if such there still were at Cairo might be advised to propose Arabi as their Candidate and, if his election were secured, that there would afterwards be no difficulty in bringing about his recall from exile. The idea was a new one to me, and I confess that at first it seemed to me a quite impracticable one; and I did not encourage it, especially as at the time I had abandoned all immediate thoughts of again taking an active part in Egyptian politics. It seemed to me that, without the concurrence of H. M.’s Government, it would only result in failure, and I knew how little real liberty of choice the Electors would have and how certain would be the punishment imposed upon the leaders in any such movement. I nevertheless on this suggestion wrote to an intelligent friend at Cairo, on whom I believed I could rely, to inform me what chance of success the plan would offer, and I received his answer towards the end of August. He informed me that “though there was no _party_ in favour of Arabi’s return, it was because it was not thought of as possible. Many regretted him, but the punishment inflicted on him and the spite wreaked on all who were mixed up with his revolution, which continued daily to be exercised, prevented any one from attempting to follow his example. There was a big party which thought of him with regret, but until quite lately my correspondent had hardly heard a word about his return at Cairo. Lord Dufferin’s parliament had always been a mere toy and a thing to laugh at by all who knew Egypt. With the existing system of Palace and Ministerial supremacy, where no man dared do right because he instantly made himself a marked man, the Parliament would be a convenient tool for the Government. The bare idea of its showing independence under the existing regime would be ridiculous. At the same time if Arabi returned to Egypt, any constituency would return him, unless pressure were put on the Electors. If the elections were left alone, pressure would certainly be put on any constituency for which Arabi might present himself as Candidate. But, if Englishmen watched the ballot, he might get returned, although that constituency would most certainly be made to suffer in a hundred ways for its temerity. . . . If the people thought that a new era was dawning and they might vote fearlessly, of course Arabi would be returned by any constituency in Egypt, but they had had a severe lesson and ‘a burnt child dreads the fire.’”

This letter, dated the 20th of August 1883, reached me if I am not mistaken on the 29th; and on the same day, I again called, by his invitation, on the gentleman already referred to, and he then told me that since his last talk with me he had seen you and that he could now assure me that it was your personal wish to find an excuse for restoring the exiles, and he advised me strongly to go to Cairo, where I should be well received by Sir Evelyn Baring and where I could talk the matter over with him. “Sir Evelyn Baring,” he said, “will arrive in a few days at Cairo and he had _carte blanche_ to begin a new policy in place of Sir Edward Malet’s which had failed.” This put the matter in a more hopeful light, and I at once determined to stop in Egypt on my way to India, and, if I found Sir Evelyn Baring in reality favourable to the idea, to propose Arabi’s Election to the Liberals of Cairo. Although I will not say that the communication was delivered to me in terms as a message from you, I certainly accepted it as in some sort such, and I find it difficult to believe that it was wholly unauthorised by you or at least that you were unaware that it would be made. Nor can I doubt that a restoration of the National Party was a most natural and wise resolve, for it was only by such a course that the promised evacuation of Egypt could with any prudence have been effected, or the Charter of Egyptian liberty been made a reality.

I therefore began to prepare my plans of action, as well as it was possible to do so beforehand, and arranged to leave England on the 12th of September, for Suez, whence I could visit Cairo and learn how matters really lay and whether my stay there could with any advantage be prolonged.

Moreover on the day of my departure I received a note from Mr. Hamilton, your private secretary, asking to see me before I left, and I went to call on him in Downing Street and talked the matter of my visit to Egypt over with him. I told him of my plan with regard to the Cairo Elections, and he approved of it or seemed to approve, and assured me of Sir Evelyn Baring’s readiness to confer with me, and we discussed certain details regarding my visit and he gave me advice on other political matters. Although Mr. Hamilton and I are old friends, I had not seen him for some time previously to this visit and we did not talk, as far as I am aware, at all on private matters; nor had I been to Downing Street for nearly a year, and, notwithstanding his reserve which I noticed as to yourself, I remained distinctly under the impression that his language on the occasion was authorised by you. You had left England some days before for Norway; and Mr. Hamilton, if anyone, was there to represent you. Thus I was and still am convinced that my journey was made with your sanction, and that on that account I had special claims on Sir Evelyn Baring for his protection in case my visit should give rise to annoyance.

As a matter of fact I only stayed ten days in Egypt, and meddled in no way at Cairo with the Elections. I found them half over when I arrived; and on calling on Sir Evelyn Baring found him with quite other views from what I had been led to expect. He received me indeed most amiably and discussed with me the whole situation; but when I talked of a Nationalist restoration we no longer agreed. I spoke my mind perhaps rather too freely to him about his policy which I felt certain must end, as it has ended, in failure; but I have nothing else to reproach myself with in my communications with him, and beyond giving some advice and a very qualified encouragement to the friends and relations of the Exiles as to their eventual return and ascertaining some valuable facts with regard to the history of the previous two years, I did little while there that had a political significance. It was therefore with real surprise that I received Sir Evelyn’s notice delivered officially and without explanation excuse or remark four months later that I was not to disembark in Egypt on my return from India.

This, Sir, is the principal point in the case which I would lay before you. A second is that the decision to exclude me from Egypt seems to have been come to simultaneously with a determination to inflict certain petty annoyances on me in regard to a small property I have in Egypt, annoyances which, reckoned only in money value, will represent a loss to me of perhaps a couple of hundred pounds. It is equally difficult to understand that these should have been entered on with or without Sir Evelyn Baring’s knowledge, _with_, because they are an act unworthy of a public servant towards a political opponent, _without_, because they occurred precisely at the extreme plenitude of Sir Evelyn’s power, when hardly a sparrow fell to the ground in Egypt without his knowledge.

A third point is the refusal of the F.O. to _assign me any reason_ for declining to support my demand of admission as a British Subject into Egypt. Although I am advised that the Egyptian Government has a technical right to refuse entrance into Egypt, as far as I have been able to ascertain, it is a right which has never before been enforced there against a British Subject; and the British Government have never before refused protection _without assigning reason_. It seems to me therefore that it is a public duty with me not to let this pass without protest, for if it be admitted in my case that it depends upon the arbitrary goodwill and pleasure of the Foreign Minister of the day to decide who among British Subjects shall and shall not be protected abroad, it surely establishes a dangerous precedent, limiting criticism on foreign affairs to agreement with the Government. I have ventured to disagree with Lord Granville on his policy in Egypt. _Without assigning reason_ he excludes me from Egypt, the inference seems clear that I am subjected to pains and penalties for my free speaking, a thing altogether out of accordance with English political practice. Nor can I think that the immediate convenience of excluding me from Egypt, which I presume is the unavowed motive, can be worth so very new and questionable a departure.

Under all these circumstances I am induced to believe that by a personal appeal to you I shall be best consulting the general interests as well as my own. I have been advised that my remedy lies with Parliament and the publicity which should oblige the Foreign Office to give me a fair answer; but I have no wish, in the presence of such large public questions as are at the present moment being debated with regard to Egypt, to bring a personal grievance of my own in connection with that country unnecessarily before the public; and I feel sure that you will admit the soundness of my reasoning, and will so far favour me as to place before Lord Granville my unofficial request that he will reconsider his decision with regard to my recent application.

I am, my dear Sir, yours very faithfully, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

P.S.—I may add that should you feel any doubt as to the accuracy of my recollection of the two conversations here recorded, I possess reasonable proof of it in the shape of memorandums written at the time. These I should be happy if you required them to show you privately.

[N.B.—Sir Evelyn Baring subsequently, 1891, assured me that the annoyances complained of in this letter in regard to my property were none of his instigation, and I accepted and accept his assurance implicitly.

My correspondent in Egypt quoted in the letter was Mr. Ardern Beaman, late official interpreter to the British Agency, and one well qualified to give the opinion quoted. The friend of Mr. Gladstone referred to was of course Sir James Knowles.]

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

St. James’ Club, Piccadilly, W., _May_ 31, 1884.

DEAR EDDY,

I send you my letter to Mr. Gladstone, which I have very carefully drawn up, so as to be within the limit of things which I am quite sure of, and which I could, if necessary, support by reasonable evidence. With regard especially to my conversation with you, I have kept myself well within the limit of things written. I am convinced that the little I quote will remind you of much more that was said. As to the main fact of Mr. Gladstone’s having last year the thought of restoring the Nationalist party and of allowing it to be helped through my instrumentality, the more I think it over the less I doubt it. Please then forward my letter to him without delay, and let me have his answer before Parliament meets again so that I may lose no further time, which in the present critical position of affairs is becoming valuable. I am sure you cannot say that I have shewn impatience.

Yours affectionately, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HORACE SEYMOUR TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, 10 _June_ 1884.

DEAR BLUNT,

Mr. Gladstone has received and considered your letter of the 31st ult., and he desires me to say in reply that it is, in his opinion, impossible that any friend of his could, without the grossest error of judgment, have given you any ground for the suppositions that he was favourable (_a_) to the restoration of the exiles to Egypt, and the election of Arabi under Lord Dufferin’s scheme; or (_b_) to your stopping in Egypt on your way to India for the purpose of promoting Arabi’s candidature.

With regard to your account of your interview with Hamilton on the day you started for Egypt, Mr. Gladstone is convinced that you entirely mistook Hamilton.

Without, however, questioning in any way your intentions or your honour, Mr. Gladstone has deplored your proceedings in Egypt as alike injurious to Egyptian and British interests, and he has entirely concurred in the course which has been taken by the Foreign Office in reference to yourself.

I am, yours truly, HORACE SEYMOUR.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. SEYMOUR

James Street, _June_ 11, 1884.

DEAR SEYMOUR,

I beg you to thank Mr. Gladstone for me for the courteous form of his answer to my letter, and to say that I do not propose bringing the matter of my exclusion from Egypt before Parliament until after the present crisis.

Yours truly, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, 5 _Aug._ 1884.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Thanks for your friendly note. I did not, however, need to be assured that, so far as you were yourself concerned, any allusion to our conversation last September had no unfriendly intent towards me. I am only sorry that our memories should not be more in accord; but I can honestly say two things. One that my asking you to come and say good-bye was merely the impulse of a friend who values the friendship of another. The other, that I have no recollection whatever of any announcement of your intentions in Egypt, and that the strictly private nature of our goodbye meeting is confirmed by my own diary, and by my not having reported any part of it to Mr. Gladstone.

If I was incautious, I shall try to amend my ways in future.

I am going off to Scotland almost immediately; and whatever your movements may be, pray be assured that they will always carry with them the best wishes of

Yours affectionately, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. BLUNT TO THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

Crabbet, _Novr._ 18, 1884.

MY DEAR SIR,

I venture once again to address you on a matter of very large importance connected with past events in Egypt, and which is still exercising a powerful influence for evil on the prospects of Government in that country and our own good name throughout the East.

You will not have forgotten the charges brought by Lord Randolph Churchill last year against the Khedive of complicity in organizing the riots of Alexandria, or the opinion which I have more than once expressed that they were well founded. My original knowledge of the matter came through my connection with Arabi’s trial, and when I found that in spite of the promised amnesty men were still being tried and executed on accusations connected with that affair I did not hesitate to put in Lord Randolph’s hands the few facts then at my command. At the same time I took no leading part myself in bringing the matter before the public. Since that time, however, a variety of accidents have put me into possession of a complete chain of new evidence, giving me the right to speak at last with absolute certainty on all the great events of that time. I am able now not only to trace the history of the Alexandrian riots with a sure hand, but to produce full evidence of the Khedive’s orders having been given for the riots of Tantah, Dumanhour, and other towns of the Delta a month later. Moreover (and this I consider the most important feature of the case) I have ascertained and am prepared to prove that there was a total miscarriage of justice under the Commission instituted to try cases connected with these massacres after the war. The chief offenders were not punished; in many instances innocent men were put forward by the Khedive’s officers to suffer for the guilty; and in others those condemned were not only innocent, but had taken an active part in saving Christian life. In the case of Lord Randolph Churchill’s indictment, the written statements it was objected were unsigned. But the witnesses I can now bring forward are men of acknowledged character, and much of their evidence was officially acquired, while they are ready to appear in person either publicly or in private in support of their assertions.

Such being the case I feel that I cannot do better than lay the facts privately before you, and request that you will personally examine the value of my new evidence. I have as yet communicated it to none of my political friends; and I can assure you that I had far rather keep it remote from public dispute. It is a question of justice to be done and reparation made; for there are innocent men still in prison, and the families of others who have suffered death are in distress; and it is you alone who can adequately repair the wrong or restore the honour of English justice where it has been compromised.

At the same time I am aware of the many calls upon your time, and should you consent to an inquiry I should be satisfied if you would allow yourself to be represented by deputy in all the details, begging you only to retain the responsibility in your own hands, and not to refer me to the Foreign Office, which has been throughout deaf to my representations, also as it is a question of evidence and witnesses I would suggest that persons of judicial training would best discharge the duty of representing you in an inquiry. I should ask no better than that the case should be referred for decision to ordinary English judges.

Having said this, I need hardly add that I am myself absolutely certain of all the main facts of which I propose to produce evidence, as certain as I am of any in history; nor need I assure you that I have a perfect confidence that when you too shall have been convinced of the deceptions practised upon our agents in Egypt, you will hasten to do justice. It is not too much to affirm that this initial failure of justice after the war has been the cause of all subsequent failures, and that there is little prospect of renewing honest life in Egypt through our intervention as long as so great and notorious a treachery remains unpunished.

I am, my dear sir, yours very faithfully, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, _21st Nov._ 1884.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Your note was most welcome as it gave me tidings of your whereabouts, as to which in spite of many inquiries of friends I could ascertain nothing. I send this half line in anticipation of any reply Mr. Gladstone may send you when he has been able to read your letter—which was not feasible for him to do to-day.

You don’t say where you have been betaking yourself; but I hope we may soon meet.

Yours affectionately, E. W. H.

MR. HORACE SEYMOUR TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, 25 _November_, 1884.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

Mr. Gladstone desires me to say in reply to your letter of the 18th of this month, that under your inhibition to communicate with the Foreign Office, he cannot do more than acknowledge its receipt.

Yours faithfully, HORACE SEYMOUR.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. GLADSTONE

(_Précis._)

London, _March_ 12, 1885.

A letter saying that since the fall of Khartoum he has put himself once more in correspondence with those in Europe who are in correspondence with the Mahdi, with the result that he has ascertained that the road to peaceful negotiation is open. He is authorized by them to say that a preliminary discussion might be opened in Egypt, but not through the ordinary diplomatic or military channels—the basis of negotiation to be: 1. Release of captives. 2. Immunity for the tribes involved in the war. 3. Retirement of British or Egyptian forces to Wady Halfa and Souakin. 4. Evacuation of Souakin and Massowah in favour of the Sultan. 5. Recognition of the Mahdi as sovereign within these limits. 6. Establishment of diplomatic relations with England. 7. Freedom of commercial intercourse. 8. Possibly a convention limiting the Slave Trade. He is further authorized, in order to save further bloodshed, to offer the services of an Arab gentleman to convey an immediate message explaining the attitude of the English Government towards the Soudan.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Confidential._

10, Downing Street, _March_ 14, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Mr. Gladstone is obliged to you for your letter, which he wishes me to acknowledge on his behalf.

You imply that the Mahdi would not deal with Lord Wolseley and Sir E. Baring, our accredited representatives in Egypt. But why then does not the Mahdi send either some representative of his own with his views ready to be presented to the Government here, or some communication of those views, which might come to head-quarters at once? One may almost say that anything short of this is paltering with the case.

Yours always, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

(_Précis._)

London, _March_ 16, 1885.

Explains the difficulty in the way of a representative being sent, the road not being open and the Mahdi being unaware whether his representative would be well received. Suggests sending an Arab gentleman under a safe conduct to Khartoum. Will Mr. Gladstone be disposed to facilitate the journey of such a gentleman, giving him a sufficient knowledge of the disposition and ideas of the British Government to enable him to arrange a formal embassy on the part of the Mahdi?

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

10, Downing Street, _March_ 19, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Many thanks for your note. It did not occur to me to connect Drummond Wolff’s Question with your letters. It is not my fault that you have not had a further letter from me on the subject of your last communication. All I can for the moment say is that it is the subject of consideration. I am aware of what you consider the urgency of the matter to be.

Yours affectionately, E. W. H.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Confidential._

21 _March_, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Your letter to me of the 16th has been taken into consideration. I am to remind you that Lord Wolseley has been instructed to forward any overtures which may be made by the Mahdi, for the immediate consideration of the Government. If it is thought that the Mahdi is not aware of these instructions, it might possibly be arranged that the Arab gentleman should convey the information through the British lines. But the Government would require to be satisfied as to the gentleman’s character and intentions.

Yours always, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. GLADSTONE

(_Précis._)

_March_ 24, 1885.

Thanking for message received through Mr. Hamilton, which, however, is not sufficiently definite to be acted on, but holds himself in readiness to give any further explanations, and suggests doing it by word of mouth.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Confidential._

10, Downing Street, _March_ 28, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Mr. Gladstone cannot perceive that the last letter I wrote to you by his direction was really indefinite. It practically conveyed to you an intimation that, if the Government could be assured of the Arab gentleman’s character and intentions, a passage through the British lines might be arranged for him. Mr. Gladstone is afraid that he cannot suggest any other mode of proceeding.

Yours always, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

10, Downing Street, _March_ 28, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

I am sorry I cannot say more; but I must adhere to instructions.

Yours affectionately, E. W. H.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, _March_ 30, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Mr. Gladstone went out of town on Saturday night; and according to present arrangements he will not return to London before the 9th of April. Under these circumstances I am afraid any interview is out of all question.

All I can do for the moment is to communicate on the subject of your letter received this morning with Lord Hartington, who is not only Mr. Gladstone’s locum tenens, but who is now more directly concerned as War Minister than any other member of the Cabinet in matters affecting the Soudan.

Yours affectionately, E. W. H.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

_March_ 30.

Saying it would not be worth while sending a special messenger to say that Lord Wolseley would forward communications. What is required is an explanation of what the terms might be if a mission was sent. While Mr. Gladstone says there is no intention of restoring Egyptian rule in the Soudan, Wolseley is appointing Prince Hassan Governor-General, Graham is pounding the “rebels” at Souakin, and Baring is arresting Zebehr at Cairo. Mr. Blunt is going abroad and will see those in communication with the Mahdi, and will ascertain their further views.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Confidential._

10, Downing Street, Whitehall, _April 2nd_, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

All that I am at liberty further to say to you, before you go abroad, is to remind you that H.M. Government have again and again declared their objects to be the security of Egypt and the freedom of the Soudan; and to point out to you that the Mahdi has indicated to them nothing whatever. If it is thought that the objects of the British Government are not known to the Mahdi, why cannot steps be taken to communicate them to him? If they are known to him, surely it is for him then to make some declaration upon them in return?

Yours always, E. W. HAMILTON.

Bon voyage and au revoir.

MR. BLUNT TO THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

Paris, _April_ 8, 1885.

MY DEAR SIR,

Yesterday the Mahdi’s principal agent in Europe met me here, and I went through the whole subject of our recent correspondence carefully with him, and especially the draft of terms suggested in my first communication, and read to him Mr. Hamilton’s last letter containing the declaration that the Government policy is that of freedom for the Soudan and security for Egypt. Of the draft of terms I am glad to say he fully approves, as a possible basis of negotiation with the Mahdi, and he is willing to accept the declaration of policy as generally compatible with that basis. Also he is prepared to send the Arab gentleman as bearer of a communication stating that England’s policy is one of “freedom for the Soudan and security for Egypt,” and he assures me that the Mahdi will in turn despatch a mission of peace to England, which may be expected to arrive not later than September. The Arab gentleman will, moreover, if the Government is willing, arrange in the interval for an armistice, for the better treatment of captives, and for immunity for such tribes as may have joined the English arms.

The Mahdi’s agent also begged me to say that he trusted the Government would not be deceived by the reports recently circulated of defection from the Mahdi’s standard, and so delay despatching the messenger to Khartoum. There was no truth at all in these reports, but on the contrary, there was every certainty that as soon as the agricultural season was over on the Upper Nile, hostilities would be resumed, nor would these permanently cease as long as a British or Egyptian army remained in the Soudan. With regard, however, to an advance upon Egypt proper, he made the remark that the Mahdi was a reformer, not a conqueror; that he had no quarrel with the Egyptians either there or elsewhere, many thousands of them being actually gathered under his flag; and that the establishment of a just and legal Egyptian Government at Cairo would at once end any danger of such an advance by depriving it of excuse in popular sympathy. The Mahdi was popular with the fellahin of Egypt, because he had rid their brethren, the Soudanese, of an intolerable tyranny, and they would continue to look on him as a possible deliverer as long as their wrongs remained unredressed. If through the means now placed at the Government’s disposal a truce of two or three years was concluded, England would have time to do justice, and it would be her fault if at the end of it the war was renewed. The Mahdi had no mission of conquest in Egypt.

Finally he requested me to explain that Ministerial declarations made in England are not understood in the Soudan, and that there is a great mistrust of all military communications. If the Mahdi had understood General Gordon as having a really friendly mission towards the Soudanese he would certainly have entered into friendly communications with him. But, up to the present moment, it has been the universal belief in the Soudan that England has no other object than to conquer and retain the country. For this reason it is essential that the communication of a contrary policy should be made through some one known to them and promising credit with the people.

From all I heard yesterday I am satisfied that it depends wholly now upon the Government to prolong the Mahdi’s hostility, or change it into friendship; and I therefore await with much hope your answer to this letter.

Believe me, my dear Sir, yours very faithfully, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Confidential._

10, Downing Street, _April_ 11, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Mr. Gladstone is obliged for your letter, written from Paris on the 8th, which I duly delivered to him.

He does not well see how he can add anything material to the letter which I wrote to you on the 2nd, and of which he himself was cognisant, though he was away from London. In that letter there were reiterated the declared objects of the British Government in the Soudan, objects which they are as desirous as ever of securing, and which hardly need to be enlarged upon.

Let me add a word on my own account. I cannot help thinking you must understand the delicacy and difficulty which the Government must feel about holding communications with you, on matters relating to Egypt, directly or indirectly, when it is believed that you mistrust and are opposed to the Ruler of that country whom they are bound and likewise intend to support.

Yours always, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. BLUNT TO THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

10, James Street, _April_ 14, 1885.

MY DEAR SIR,

I returned yesterday from Paris, and hasten to answer your last letter. The Mahdi’s agent is ready now to send the messenger whenever it suits you to give him the necessary facilities. But he has impressed very strongly and repeatedly upon me the necessity there is of his having a _written_ message in Arabic to deliver. This need not go beyond the sense of the words Mr. Hamilton has already used in writing to me, but it must be in a form intelligible to the Mahdi and others whom it concerns. Without this, he says, it will be impossible to convince the Mahdi that the message is quite sincere on the Government’s part, or at any rate that his followers should be so convinced. My knowledge of Arab ideas leads me to feel sure that in this he is only reasonable, nor do I conceive that the Government, which has already sent written communications through their Generals to Osman Digna and other chiefs, would now find a difficulty in writing this message to their supreme chief Mohammed Ahmed. It will not be necessary that the title “el Mahdi” should be employed towards him in the letter, and I could, if desired, suggest a form of address which would be considered friendly without acknowledging this special pretension. The strictest secrecy would be maintained by the messenger until his delivery of the letter at the Mahdi’s camp.

Thus the suggestion made in Mr. Hamilton’s first letter to me, that the Mahdi should send a mission to England, can be conveyed to him in a way he will understand as being sincerely offered; and all that need further be done will be to instruct the military authorities to receive with scrupulous courtesy the Envoys on their arrival at the British lines.

I am, my dear Sir, yours very faithfully, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. BLUNT TO MR. HAMILTON

St. James Street, _April_ 15, 1885.

MY DEAR EDDY,

I have replied to the first part of your letter in the enclosed to Mr. Gladstone, and I add a few words in answer to your own remarks, as I should be sorry there should be additional difficulty through misunderstanding. For reasons which you know, and for others which you do not know, I have of course, as you say, “mistrust” of the Khedive, but the extent of my “opposition” to him you probably exaggerate. I have had very little correspondence with Egypt since my last visit there under circumstances which you will remember, and the failure of Baring’s policy since has been due to its inherent weakness far more than to the action of his opponents, certainly than to mine. I believe still what I have always believed, that there is no course open to the Government, if it would keep its pledges and have peace in Egypt, but to restore the National party; and, if that is impossible, then annexation by Europe, if not by England, is the only end. Tewfik has seemed to me up to the present to stand in the way of such a possible arrangement, and on this ground especially I have from time to time opposed him; but, if it could be shown to me that the peace and happiness of Egypt was compatible with his rule, I should not surely out of obstinacy refuse to be reconciled.

The questions, however, of the Soudan and Egypt may for the immediate present perfectly well be kept apart; and I see no reason why the Government should hesitate to communicate with me on the former if not on the latter. They have publicly declared the Soudan to be independent of Egypt, and Mr. Gladstone has recently assured me through you that he earnestly desires to maintain its freedom.

Yours affectionately, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Confidential._

10, Downing Street, _April_ 16, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Mr. Gladstone is afraid that he cannot draw a distinction for present purposes between Egypt and the Soudan; and so I am obliged again to point out the difficulty of his holding communications with yourself on the subject of your correspondence with him.

It is to be observed that H.M. Government has received no application from any agent of the Mahdi to be allowed a pass through the British lines to enable him to deliver a message. I cannot say with what response such an application might meet.

Yours always, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

10, Downing Street, 25 _April_, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

My last note was not intended to invite further remarks. It aimed rather at hinting that under altered circumstances the correspondence should close. I am afraid this must be the case. I have no authority to communicate further with you on the matter.

Yours always, E. W. H.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, 12 _May_, 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Mr. Gladstone is much pleased by your kind gift. The little volume will much interest him; and he hopes you will accept his best thanks. He says it will be a pleasure to him to turn from the Soudan to Proteus.

Yours affectionately, E. W. HAMILTON.

MR. HAMILTON TO MR. BLUNT

10, Downing Street, Whitehall, 11 _June_ 1885.

MY DEAR WILFRID,

Many thanks for your kind note. I hope we have never met but as friends; and that the only difference which pending changes will make will be that I may see more of you in relations of “greater freedom and less responsibility.” I am afraid for some little time to come I shall be awfully pressed by the ordeal of packing. I have to turn out not only of office, but of home.

In haste.

Yours affectionately, E. W. H.

MR. BLUNT TO THE RIGHT HON. ROBERT BOURKE, M.P.

10, James St., _July_ 3, 1885.

MY DEAR BOURKE,

As you are doubtless considering the Soudan question just now at the F.O. I think it may be of assistance to you to know briefly what has passed between me and the late Government in regard to possible negociation with the Mahdi.

It began in April, 1884, when I wrote to Mr. Gladstone in connection with schemes then on foot for rescuing Gordon, and offering my services as mediator. Mr. Gladstone seems himself to have had some inclination to accept, but on reference to the rest of the Cabinet my offer was declined.

Secondly I made an attempt in December, through one of the Peace Societies, to gain a hearing. I had ascertained that the Mahdi would be accessible to offers of withdrawal for Gordon and the garrison from Khartoum; and I went to Hawarden with the hope of seeing Mr. Gladstone and explaining the position to him. But I was not received.

Thirdly, after the fall of Khartoum, I again wrote to Mr. Gladstone delivering a message I had received from a religio-political personage in correspondence with the Mahdi proposing to open negociations for peace or truce. It was just before Graham’s second campaign in March; and this time Mr. Gladstone responded, and a correspondence followed which led to my being authorised to give certain messages to the personage in question, and I went abroad at Easter to deliver them. It was then proposed to send a messenger through the British Lines to explain the pacific views of the Government, and arrange for the opening of more formal negociations, and it seemed as if the matter would be arranged; when for some reason which I do not exactly know the thing collapsed. I fancy it was on account of the news spread just at that time of a rival Mahdi having sprung up in Kordofan and the idea that Mohammed Ahmed was no longer in full power at Khartoum, but I am not sure. In any case the correspondence suddenly came to an end.

Although all this was more or less confidential as between myself and Downing Street, there is no reason I think now that I should make any mystery about it to you, especially as it would probably be open still to Lord Salisbury if he liked to take the negociation up at the point where Mr. Gladstone dropped it—and I should be glad if you would show this letter to Lord Salisbury and offer him the confidential perusal of the papers I have relating to it. I will not say more at present than that I still think it would be possible as it would certainly be most desirable to come to terms with the Mahdi.

Yours very truly, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

[N.B.—I cannot find any answer to this letter, nor do I remember its purport. It led to nothing, the Mahdi’s death being shortly after announced. But for this it is probable that Lord Salisbury would have negotiated.]

MR. BLUNT TO THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

_September_, 1885.

MY LORD,

I have the honour to lay before your Lordship the fact that I have received a summons through the Lords of H. M. Treasury to present myself before the Tribunal of First Instance at Cairo on the 19th of October next on a matter connected with a property I hold in Egypt, and to beg your Lordship to inform me whether I shall receive there the protection usually accorded to British subjects. I make this request in consequence of a notification served on me two years ago by Sir Evelyn Baring with Earl Granville’s approval to the effect that I should not then be allowed to land at Suez on my passage from India.

For further particulars regarding the case of my exclusion from Egypt by the late Government I beg to refer your Lordship to Blue Book, Egypt, No. 27, of 1884, containing my correspondence with the Foreign Office; to the report of a debate in the House of Commons of the 4th August of the same year; and to the enclosed memorandum.

Your Lordship will observe that Sir Evelyn Baring’s action against me seems to have been based originally upon a misstatement of Sherif Pasha regarding a visit paid to Egypt in 1883, and afterwards to a fear entertained by the late Government that my influence there would be prejudicial to their policy. But I venture to hope that your Lordship will not regard me with the same apprehension, and that, having inquired into the facts, you will restore to me the protection generally accorded to British subjects abroad. I may mention that my prolonged absence from Egypt has occasioned and is occasioning me considerable money losses.

I am, my Lord, your obedient humble servant,

WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY TO MR. BLUNT

Foreign Office, _Oct._ 5, ’85.

MY DEAR MR. BLUNT,

We have applied to the Egyptian Government to obtain permission for you to return—but we have received the most decided negative. Of course it is in our power to apply pressure to the Egyptian Government. But if we do so, we shall make ourselves responsible for the consequences. It is therefore a matter of duty to us, first to ask you, whether you will undertake not to meddle in any sense with political questions or projects while you are there? If you will give us this undertaking we will telegraph to Egerton to do his best.

Yours very truly, SALISBURY.

MR. BLUNT TO THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

10, James St., _Oct._ 6, 1885.

MY DEAR LORD SALISBURY,

I most readily undertake not to meddle with political questions or projects while in Egypt, my object in going there being first to look after my property and secondly to assert the right I possess as an Englishman of claiming the protection of my Government while travelling abroad.

Nor do I wish, if it can be arranged that the case I am cited to appear on can be postponed so long as till December or January, to complicate Sir Henry Drummond Wolff’s diplomacy by appearing at Cairo during his special mission. I quite understand that my arriving there with him on whatever errand might cause embarrassment. But, if I do not now insist upon my right, I run the risk of being perpetually excluded from a country where I have property and where I may one day desire to reside.

I therefore hope that you will insist with the Egyptian Government on the necessity of permitting my visit unmolested.

Yours very truly, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY TO MR. BLUNT

Châlet Cécil, _September 10th_, ’85.

DEAR MR. BLUNT,

I am much obliged to you for your letter. We are in communication with Egypt upon the subject matter of it. I have no wish to cause you any inconvenience, and I hope it will be possible for us to accede to your wishes. Supposing, however, that we can do so, it will be necessary to interpose some delay in the manner you suggest, because I am afraid that your appearance and that of Sir Drummond Wolff at the same moment in Egypt might lead to unauthorised and wholly exaggerated rumours upon questions of future policy.

Yours very truly, SALISBURY.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY TO MR. BLUNT

Foreign Office, _October_ 10, ’85.

DEAR MR. BLUNT,

I did not get your note till my return from Newport. I telegraphed immediately and have received to-night the answer that the Khedive, as a matter of deference to H. M. G. is willing to permit you to come to Egypt, freely for the purpose of looking after your private affairs. The permission is evidently given with much apprehension. I need only add that now my honour as well as yours are involved in your abstaining from any political action—but that I feel assured we may confidently count upon.

Believe me, yours very truly, SALISBURY.

APPENDIX D

AUTHOR’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Gastein, _August_ 3, 1883.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

Many thanks for your letter, also for the Cairo papers which amused me. I am sorry to tell you I have not received your book, “The Future of Islam.” I hope it will reach me as I have every opportunity of reading so interesting a work with the care and attention which it deserves. Have you done anything yet about getting into Parliament. Northcote has come to awful grief over the Canal which has been much more fatal to him than to Gladstone. I hope Gorst and Wolff will make long and damaging speeches against the Khedive on Baring’s vote; Mind you egg them on. This is a horrid dull place and we are badly lodged. I wish I had done with it.

Yrs. most sincerely, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, M.P., TO MR. BLUNT

Gastein, _August_ 14, 1883.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

I have to thank you for your two very interesting letters and enclosures. I cannot see my way to doing anything myself in the matter, for I am too far off to communicate effectually with you and secondly it is a sine qua non of these baths that one should do absolutely nothing. I hope you will write to the Times just to keep the thing alive, and in the winter by one or two speeches in the country I shall try to rub it all in. The awkward fact remains that the Government has made no answer to my indictment and in all probability cannot make one. You appear to have given up your intention of going to Ceylon to see Arabi which I am sorry for. This a desperately dull place and time hangs heavily. The Baths are lowering I think and one feels quite indisposed for any exertion. I shall hope to be back in London by the 2nd week in September in case you should still be there. We leave this on the 29th.

Yrs. most sincerely, RANDOLPH S. C.

P.S. I have to thank you for your most interesting book which reached me safely. When is Ninet’s book coming out?

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, M.P., TO MR. BLUNT

Innspruck, (end of) _August_ 1883.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

I arrived here this morning from Ischl and found your letter for which many thanks. I have read your poem with pleasure and I need not say with perfect sympathy. Publish it. Poetry often makes converts where prose fails. I have no doubt that you are a Cassandra and that we shall pay dearly for our freaks in Egypt. But it is a despairing task to try and right the wrong. But I mean to do what I can in my little way when the proper season for extra Parliamentary utterances may arrive. I have a horrid idea that the advent of the opposition to office might be worse for Egypt than any conceivable eventuality. I imagine from your last letter that you are still decided on your journey to India, and I wish you a safe and speedy return.

The idea of having Arabi elected to the new Senate is ingenious, but to be effective he should be elected in many districts. Otherwise it might turn to ridicule.

Believe me Yours most faithfully, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, M.P., TO MR. BLUNT

Blenheim Palace, _Dec._ 26, 1883.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

I have to thank you for three long and highly interesting letters. I have not written before because I really did not know whether letters had much chance of reaching you. However if I do not write you will think I do not value your letters which would be a great error on your part. I have not much to tell you. I hope by the time you get this that you will have seen the speech I made at Edinbro’ on Egypt which is fully reported in the Times of the 19th. I cannot tell you what effect it produced as you would think me very conceited. All I can say is that I am more than satisfied. Tewfik’s position grows more hopeless every day. There is no Government in Egypt at all. I think we shall be able to make it very hot for the G. O. M. when Parliament meets. Your poem was very highly praised in the reviews. Gorst is in India at Hyderabad on legal business of the Nizam. Please remember me most kindly to Lady Anne and accept for her and yourself from me the warmest wishes of the season. Do not delay your return too long. We must have stirring times in the spring.

Yours ever, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

WRITTEN BY MR. BLUNT AND APPROVED BY LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

“AM I A TORY DEMOCRAT?”

_May_ 1885.

With regard to English Home Politics I am prepared to support the Conservative party. That is to say, I desire no change in the existing Constitution or in the relations between Church and State. I am opposed to merely secular Education. I am a strong supporter of the House of Lords. On the land question I should like to see any measure introduced which should make the acquisition of land easier for the man of the people, believing this would be a popular, and in the truest sense, a Conservative measure. I consider, however, that the principles of liberty and property are closely connected, and I am altogether opposed to the Radical views of State ownership in land.

I am inclined to favour the idea of special commercial advantages being given to the British Colonies and India; and I am anxious to see the union between the Colonies and the Empire preserved.

In India I am for large reforms in the direction of self-government, believing these to be absolutely necessary on financial and political grounds if India is to remain loyal.

So, too, in Ireland I am in favour of Home Rule. I consider it urgent to accept the principle of Nationalism, both for Ireland’s sake and for England’s. My motto would be “Ireland for the Irish and England for the English.” The plan has succeeded in Hungary and Galicia in reconciling the Hungarians and Poles to the Austrian Crown. Why not, therefore, in Ireland?

Foreign politics are my strongest ground. With regard to these I am quite clear in my opinion that what is required for England is a return to plain dealing and respect for international law. These have been grossly outraged during the last four years by Mr. Gladstone’s Government, and it is we with our complicated commercial interests in every part of the globe that will eventually suffer from the example given. Our relations with the States of Europe should be based upon a recognition of the fact that our system of parliamentary and popular government makes special alliances and secret treaties impossible. Our old-fashioned diplomacy, with its tortuous dealings, its equivocations and its concealments, is out of date and needs reform; and I would have the contrary to all these things introduced as a cardinal point of policy. As towards Europe we should make the most of our insular position, increase our navy and protect our shores. But in Asia we cannot be insular, and we must submit to the conditions of Empire as long as India remains in our charge. In this view we need the alliance of the Mohammedan nations against Russia, and I am in favour of England accepting the full responsibility of her position, as the heir of a great Mohammedan Empire. My quarrel with Mr. Gladstone’s action in Egypt was not based on any principle of non-intervention, for I am not a non- interventionist, but because he intervened unjustly, unwisely and in such a way as to alienate Mohammedan sympathies. I consider that a duty of reparation is required of England for the wrong done to the Egyptians and I advocate a reconciliation with the Sultan and a restoration of the Egyptian National party. I need hardly say that I am in favour of immediate peace with the Soudan.

Lastly, I consider that justice, not mere expediency, should be the determining law of our conduct towards all nations. I am strongly averse to the Manchester doctrine which allows injustice to weaker nations in the interests of finance and trade, though not of military glory. I believe, on the contrary, that it is England’s duty to protect weaker nations from injustice where they come in contact with her. Nor can I convince myself that a high standard of national morality is incompatible with the extremest Conservative principles. I believe, on the contrary, that much of what was best in the so-called “Midlothian” doctrines has more real affinity to Tory than to Whig instincts; and I should be glad to see these adopted, now they have been discarded by the Radicals, as part and parcel of Conservative ideas. Truth, justice, liberty—these are great names, going at this moment in beggars’ weeds about the world. Can these find an asylum in the new temple of Tory Democracy?

WILFRID BLUNT TO LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

_June_ 8, 1885.

MY DEAR CHURCHILL,

I am glad you have stated so clearly the Conservative policy, in nearly all of which I heartily agree, though on some points, such as Ireland, I have larger views than you are prepared for of Home Rule. The necessity for an inquiry into the working of the Indian Government is very urgent, and the fact that you should have included it in your programme, and are to support Mr. Slagg’s motion, gives me more hope than any thing else which has happened regarding India during the past year. The truth is that if India had to trust solely to the Whigs for reform it might wait till eternity, or rather till that crash came which certainly will come if the rigidity of the present bureaucratic system is not modified. The Whigs are bureaucrats born and bred and will not stir a finger to help us.

With regard to Egypt too, I think you are right. The day for such a policy as Mr. Chamberlain’s, which he has just announced, has gone by, and the only agreement which France is likely to come to with Mr. Gladstone is one which will put Egypt practically into France’s hands. Two years ago, or even perhaps a year ago, before the conference and the Nile campaign, Egypt’s complete independence, under a strong and popular government might have been secured, but Mr. Gladstone would not hear of it then, and by persisting in keeping Tewfik as the corner stone of his policy he has thrown away his chance. Now France will not be content with anything from him less than her own protectorate, or Europe with anything less than the letter of her bond. To get back our right to give Egypt liberty, the first condition will be that we guarantee her debt; the second that we make peace with the Sultan and act under his authority. Here, again, therefore, I look rather to you than to the Whigs for practical help. One knows by experience so exactly what Mr. Chamberlain’s arrangement would come to—an independent Egypt would be an Egypt separated from the rest of the Mohammedan world, but governed really in the sole interests of France and the bondholders. The form of a “native” government would be preserved, perhaps, but the form only. Egypt’s “independence by arrangement with Europe” means Egypt for the bondholders, with France for their protector and Ismail for their king. If Mr. Chamberlain had said a word about repentance for past errors I could have better believed him; but we heard all the promises and declarations he now makes, two years ago, and in far stronger language from Mr. Gladstone himself, and with what result? No; I prefer your programme for Egypt, though it seems to promise less.

I will take this opportunity of giving you my view of what a Conservative Government might do for Egypt and generally for Western Asia. The Whigs will never do anything but harm, because they are Whigs and because they hate the Mohammedans, and the Radicals will never do anything at all, because they are Radicals and will undertake no responsibility. You know that the Mohammedan faith is in solution—that it is seeking to place itself on a new basis—to regenerate its political and social life. Enormous abuses exist everywhere, enormous injustices. The poor are ground down by the rich, the weak by the strong. The whole earth, as Arabi used to say, is famished for justice, and calls out for a deliverer. The recognition of this was the secret of his own influence. It is the secret of the Mahdi’s. It may any day be the secret of England’s. But in Mohammedan lands it is not sufficient to administer an equal law for it to be accepted by the people even for their own good. The law must be connected with their religious beliefs and sanctioned by their religious authority. I am not arguing whether it is best so—though I believe it is best—but am stating a fact. And it is the perverse refusal to acknowledge facts which has made of Lord Granville’s policy in Egypt so piteous a failure. His idea would seem to have been, and Sir Evelyn Baring’s with him—if idea at all they had—that the people’s faith and social traditions were a “negligeable quantity,” and that, no matter what the law and no matter who administered it, it would be accepted with thanks. For this reason, though Tewfik was notoriously regarded as a traitor to his faith and nation, they placed him in authority, and men with him for Ministers whose only merit was that they had preferred their interests to their beliefs and were without moral principle or religious prejudice. Even these, however, in later times have refused to serve them, and they have been forced to take up with Nubar and his speculating crew of Armenians as the element supple enough to do their bidding. This has had its effect. The whole of the religious forces of the country are against them, and the whole of the people. Their reforms have remained sterile, their attempts to pacify, impotent. The people have refused their friendship and their justice, and will have none of their advice. The Liberal party of Mohammedan reform have been driven out of the country, the honest men have been driven from the Administration, and the mass of the people into the arms of the Mahdi.

It is in the power of England, and England alone, to repair the evil done—and, what is more, it is England’s duty. But it cannot be effected except at the cost of assuming Egypt’s sole protection, and the protection also of general Mohammedan interests. The Sultan must be taken into confidence, peace must be made with the Mahdi, and Arabi must be recalled. Europe, too, must be bought out by accepting Egypt’s debt. These conditions observed, all difficulty, it will be found, will disappear, and the regeneration of Egypt may at last be begun, and with it gradually of all the Mohammedan East.

It seems to me, therefore, that the Conservative Party, if it acts on your idea, has a great and satisfactory work before it, which, if honestly performed, and avoiding the snare of turning Egypt’s protection into a means of providing Englishmen with places and pay, may yet redeem the past and give reality to the dreams of reformers. You especially, with your sympathy for popular causes, will know that the only foundation of success in the East, as in the West, is the consent of the people. Get the Egyptian people on your side, and all Mohammedans will follow you, and with hardly an effort you will transform the world.

I wish you, therefore, all success in your electoral campaign. You have given too many proofs of your sincerity and steadfastness in this matter of Egypt for me to doubt you, and I know that you will do your best for her. Of the present Government I have long ceased to have any hope.

[N.B.—This letter was read to and approved by Lord Randolph Churchill for publication in the “Times,” with the alteration of a single phrase concerning Ireland, the words “than you are prepared for of Home Rule” being changed into “than you are apparently yet prepared for.”]

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL TO MR. BLUNT

_Most Private._

India Office, _Aug._ 13, 1885.

DEAR BLUNT,

The enclosed explains itself. Will you see to it?

Yours ever, RANDOLPH S. C.

COPY OF TELEGRAM FROM SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

(_Enclosure._)

Dated Vienna, 12 _August_, 1885.

Received at London Office, 5.10 p.m.

“I think it would be well for Jemal-ed-din Afghani to come. Have you (any objection?),[135] if involving no responsibility or complicity on my part, and if it can be done without his coming into collision with Turkish authorities. I leave this probably to-morrow evening or Friday morning.”

MR. A. W. MOORE TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

India Office, 15 _August_ /85.

DEAR MR. BLUNT,

I have just deciphered the enclosed from Sir H. Wolff. Lord Randolph is unwell and in bed, but I shall see him during the afternoon. I think it is best however to send you the telegram at once, as I understand the present arrangement is that Jemal-ed-deen leaves to-morrow.

Please let me hear from you what I am to reply to Sir H. Wolff.

Yours very truly, A. W. MOORE.

COPY OF A TELEGRAM FROM SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

(_Enclosure._)

“Buda Pest, 15 _August_.

“From something I have heard it would be well for Jemal-ed-deen not to leave England till I can telegraph to you from Constantinople.”

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, M.P., TO MR. BLUNT

India Office, _November_ 1, 1885.

DEAR BLUNT,

Many thanks for your letter and enclosures which I return. I feel sure that your lecture on Egypt at Newcastle must have been profoundly interesting and instructive to the audience and a little more circulation of such facts would do much good. You will certainly not receive an encouraging reply from Lord Salisbury about Arabi. Even if he was disposed (as I should be) to favour your views he would not dare take such a step on the eve of the Elections.

Yours ever, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

MR. BLUNT TO LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Crabbet Park, _Dec._ 24, 1885.

MY DEAR CHURCHILL,

I am obliged to come to an immediate decision about continuing my connection with Camberwell or indeed in any active form with party politics, my pressing difficulty being Ireland. About this, now that Mr. Gladstone has taken up Home Rule, it is necessary for me to speak and at once to my Electors; and, unless I hear from you that there is still hope of an agreement between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Parnell on a really solid basis, I shall conclude, as everybody tells me it is, that Conservatism and Home Rule are for the present incompatible terms and give up trying to make them agree. I fear I have not in me the spirit of a good party man, but I thought at one time I could help you individually in the pursuit of better things. Egyptian affairs seem in the same deadlock they were a year ago, and altogether I am far from hopeful or disposed for further combat.

Yours very truly, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL TO MR. BLUNT

_Private._

India Office, _Dec._ 26, 1885.

MY DEAR BLUNT,

There is no question or doubt about the matter. If you want Home Rule you must go to Gladstone for it. We cannot touch it.

Yours ever, RANDOLPH S. C.

APPENDIX E

ARABI’S PROGRAMME OF 1883 AND MOHAMMED ABDU’S VIEWS

I. MR. BLUNT’S LETTER REPRINTED FROM THE “TIMES” OF 13TH DECEMBER 1883

Colombo, _5th Nov._, 1883.

SIR,

I am sure the “Times” has many readers who will be interested to receive an account from an authentic source of the manner of life and present views of Arabi Pasha and his fellow exiles in the place of residence which nearly a year ago was assigned to them by the British Government.

I have been staying with them now for over three weeks, as their guest, and am therefore able to speak with some authority as to their ideas; and I think the time has come when these may be of service to the public, and, if I may be allowed to suggest it, perhaps even to those all-wise authorities who are still seeking to regenerate Egypt by putting round men into square holes, and square into round from their official chairs in Downing Street.

With regard to the material welfare of the exiles, I am glad to have an excellent account to give. Although some of them suffered at first from the extreme dampness of the climate, all are now acclimatized; and even Toulba Pasha, who six months ago was pronounced by the doctors to be incurable with asthma, is enjoying perfect health.

They are all, too, I think, contented in mind and grateful for the treatment they receive from the Colonial authorities, which has been throughout most courteous to them; and except for certain inequalities in the amount of their allowances, with which I will not here trouble you, they would have nothing to complain of beyond the unavoidable bitterness which mingles with the bread of all exiles.

The way of life of the exiles is simple. Each family occupies a separate dwelling, and most of them have chosen to reside in a rather remote suburb of Colombo, which has ceased to be fashionable, and where house rent is proportionately low. They send their children to school, attend the local mosques, pay visits to each other or to their neighbours, and attempt, with more or less success, themselves to learn a little English. Their society they find in the numerous Mohammedan community at Colombo, which, unlike such communities in many parts of India, is entirely mercantile, and possesses not a few men of substance, whose commercial establishments the more practical of the exiles hope that some day their sons will enter, and thus be enabled to earn an independent livelihood.

The Mohammedan community regard their Egyptian guests with feelings of the highest respect, as martyrs to their religion, and especially Arabi, as its late most famous champion; and so strong is this feeling regarding him among the lower class in Colombo that on Fridays, whatever mosque Arabi may choose to attend is sure to be thronged with a special crowd of worshippers. Besides this, however, there are certain English houses where the exiles are well received; and, on the whole, I think I may say that they are as popular as their ignorance of English will allow with the official community and the official residents.

I have naturally had constant conversations with the exiles on political matters, and more especially with Arabi, and have learned from him and unlearned much as to the events of last year. We have spoken, too, not a little of the future, and of the hopes which the national leader still cherishes of being one day recalled to Egypt, there to work out to its accomplishment the plan of reform he had conceived, and which I firmly believe that he alone possesses the genius to realize. For, whatever may have been his faults and failings (and they were doubtless great and many in his conduct both of the political and of the military campaigns of last year), I have been more than ever impressed during my present visit with the reality of Arabi’s claim to be considered a patriot and a man of genius. By a man of genius I understand one who is capable of large and new ideas, who has the passion to impress these strongly upon others, and who above all possesses the courage and persistence required to work them to their end. These qualities Arabi certainly has, and I know of no other Egyptian of whom anything corresponding can be said.

His view of the present situation in Egypt is worth quoting:

“The English Government is attempting,” he says, “an impossible task. They wish to make Tewfik popular and they wish to introduce reforms. But Tewfik will only remain popular as long as he is supported by the English troops; and when these are withdrawn he will fall. Personally, Tewfik is without a friend in Egypt. The Egyptians hate him for having betrayed his country, and the Circassians despise him for having betrayed his religion. The better friend he is to the English the less chance he has of conciliating his countrymen. In one way or other he will disappear. Then it will be for the Powers finally to decide what it is they really intend for Egypt. If they mean to annex it, one or other of them will do so at the cost of a new revolt. If not, they must allow the Egyptians to choose their ruler and to work out their freedom for themselves.”

The choice of a ruler should be made, Arabi thinks, by the Notables. The fellahin are not sufficiently instructed yet for a plebiscite. But the Sheikhs of the villages with the Notables of the towns would form a reasonable elective body. They would choose whom they would, a Mohammedan, a man of mark, Arabi hopes an Egyptian. But before investing him with power they would bind him by some Constitutional form which should prevent the recurrence of mere arbitrary rule, the rule which has ruined Egypt. Lord Dufferin’s charter, Arabi considers, is insufficient for that purpose. It is a make believe, too weak to restrain the abuse of power, and liable through its weakness to become itself an instrument in the hands of despotism. Egypt, however, under a leader elected by the Notables, would find Notables capable of asserting and maintaining their rights; and a Constitutional Chamber would form itself without the need of any more foreign assistance. The Liberal Party, it is true, is now crushed and in hiding; but it would start from the ground with the least encouragement and find life again. Arabi does not at all despair of his countrymen, could the present unnatural regime be replaced by one sanctioned by public approval. The approval of the people is the basis of all stable government; and, whoever the new ruler of Egypt is, he must be made to understand that Egypt is not given him as a property but as a trust. Ismaïl Pasha thought all Egypt was his private garden. Tewfik Pasha is being taught to think that there is no law but what rests on his decree. This must not be in the future; the Prince must obey the law, not make it.

Again, the English Government is trying to introduce reforms, but through what instruments? It has driven away all the real reformers. They are in exile or in prison, or have been fined and otherwise frightened by police persecution to live “underground.” The men who are left are either those who are too timid or too indifferent to join the party of liberty, or else the very men against whom the reformers rose. “How,” asks Arabi, “can the English Government expect to establish justice through the Pashas who served Ismaïl, or liberty for the Egyptians through those very Turks and Circassians who have always hated liberty, and who look upon the Egyptians as their natural servants?”

With regard to finance, Arabi is of opinion that the best chance of permanently saving the solvency of the country lies in a new arrangement with the creditors. He says that the calculations of the Budget in recent years have been made without reference to the periodical recurrence of seasons of scarcity. There have been now five good Niles in succession, and there must come soon a bad one, which will upset the estimates. Also no allowance has been made for the recent great loss of capital by the fellahin, the murrains which have destroyed their oxen, the debts they have incurred, their now universal poverty. Unless the burdens of the fellahin are made very light for them for several years to come, they will never recover their prosperity and the land will become deteriorated and impoverished. Arabi is of opinion that in the interest of the creditors themselves it would therefore be prudent to lower the rate of interest for a fixed number of years, full payment to be resumed only at the end of the term when the country would be able to afford it. He thinks this, with great economy everywhere, is the best means of averting bankruptcy. The private debts of the fellahin should be settled also without delay by an arrangement to be made with the creditors by the Government; and I may say here that while I was recently in Egypt I ascertained from some of the leading money lenders that a composition would probably be accepted by them at from eight to ten millions, the total debts being valued by the same persons at about fifteen millions.

The future of the Suez Canal we have thoroughly discussed together, and it is Arabi’s opinion, as it has long been mine, that the Canal is certain, sooner or later, to be internationalized. Arabi considers that it would be far better for Egypt that she should abandon as soon as possible all sovereign rights over it. The Isthmus of Suez, he says, is not necessary to Egypt, and the connection as long as it exists will form a pretext with Europe for intervention. If ceded to Europe this danger would cease, and Egypt might even claim a money indemnity for the rights yielded and so relieve herself of part of her financial difficulties.

Another important point on which the late national leader has distinct views is the Soudan question. Although he is of opinion that a certain connection will always be necessary between the lower and the upper waters of the Nile, he holds that in the present military and financial position of Egypt it is unwise to attempt the reconquest of all, or perhaps any of the lost provinces. He believes that the movement of the so-called Mahdi is not one merely of fanaticism, or that it is only a revolt of the slave dealers. He thinks that Mohamed Ahmed commands the goodwill of the inhabitants, and that it would be far wiser for the Egyptian Government to come to terms with him than to continue their military operations against him. The Soudan brings nothing into the Cairo treasury, and if Egypt is to enjoy liberty at home she should avoid ideas of conquest abroad. What terms could be made with the Mahdi Arabi has been too long out of Egypt to judge; but from the communications which reached him while in power, he does not believe a friendly arrangement acknowledging Egypt’s suzerainty to be impossible. The suzerainty of the ruler of Egypt the Soudanese would probably be glad to acknowledge, for it would protect them against European aggression.

Lastly, Arabi suggests the following as the most urgent matters requiring reform in his country:

“1. That a settlement should be made by the Government of the existing debts of the peasantry, accompanied with a return to the old laws affecting the mortgaging of land and the recovery of debt so that the peasantry shall be thenceforth protected against usury.

“2. That the mixed tribunals should be abolished.

“3. That there should be a reformed common law in Egypt for all who reside there, placing Europeans and Egyptians on an equal footing in civil and in criminal matters.

“4. That there should be security against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment (habeas corpus).

“5. That the village Sheykhs should be chosen by the villages, not appointed as now by the Mudirs.

“6. That the abuses connected with forced labour should be reformed.

“7. That education should be extended to girls as well as boys in Egypt.

“8. That domestic slavery should be completely abolished.

“9. That the position of officials in public offices should be made independent of ministerial caprice.

“10. That taxes should be made equal to all, foreigners alike with Egyptians.

“11. That a settlement should be made as soon as possible of the Moukabala claims.”

Such are Arabi’s ideas. I believe many of his reforms will be found identical with those contemplated by Sir Evelyn Baring, but I fear their realization will have to wait the advent of a more enlightened policy than any which now prevails at Cairo. As Arabi says, schemes of reform are of value only when in the hands of reformers, and there is no sign as yet in Egypt of any such being employed. Still, common sense will in the long run assert itself over political experiment, and there is an old proverb about the stone which the builders rejected, which may well in the present instance prove itself a true one; and I cannot help thinking that the day will come when the man who first proclaimed Egyptian wrongs will be called upon to right them, and when Arabi, the first fellah who ever gloried in the name “Egyptian,” will be brought back with something more than his old prestige to Egypt.

A rather severe attack of fever, from which I am hardly yet recovered, prevents me from continuing this train of thought. But I hope on a future occasion to renew it, and in the meanwhile I am sure that Arabi’s friends may make themselves happy as to his present lot. He is not yet forty-five years of age, and can well afford to wait a while for the hour of his restoration, and till it comes he could hardly have a pleasanter home or a more secure abode than that which Providence and the humanity of the British public have chosen for him.

I am your obedient servant, WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.

II. INTERVIEW WITH SHEYKH MOHAMMED ABDU, AS PUBLISHED IN THE “PALL MALL GAZETTE,” AUGUST 17TH, 1884

Sheykh Mohammed Abdu is, we are inclined to believe, the first real Egyptian who has visited this country. We have had among us false Egyptians in plenty—Turks, Circassians, Syrians, Armenians, Jews—all claiming the nationality of the Nile; but a true son of the Ahl el Ful, “the Race of Beans,” never. Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, however, is an undoubted fellah. He wears a blue gown and a white turban, talks neither French nor English nor even Turkish, but only his mother tongue, Arabic, and is without the least varnish of western manners. He is a man of middle height, dark-skinned, black-bearded, and keen-eyed, grave in his general demeanour, but possessed of a pleasant smile, and, when excited, speaking with much modest eloquence and cheerful vigour. His countenance is decidedly an agreeable one, and brimful of intelligence. His father was and is still a peasant of the Delta, cultivating forty acres of land at Mehallet Nasr, and laying no claim to nobility of birth other than that given by countless generations of peasant ownership on the same plot of ground. But the son is far more now than a peasant. Sent twenty years ago as a promising boy to Cairo, he received his education in the ancient religious seminary of El Azhar, and is now one of the most distinguished of its Ulema, or rather was, for, in common with the rest of the Liberal religious party in the university, he is in disgrace with the powers that be, and is now an exile both from it and from Egypt. Although by temperament a moderate man, he joined Arabi and the popular movement before the war, became one of its chief leaders, and was involved in its ruin; and after Tel-el-Kebir he was singled out by his eloquence no less than by his liberalism as a dangerous man, and having narrowly escaped hanging was glad to reach Syria with his head safe upon his shoulders, but condemned to three years’ exile and its attendant penury. Now he is on his first visit to Europe, to see with his own eyes the country which has been the ruin of his own. These particulars our representative, who called two days since on the Sheykh at Mr. Wilfrid Blunt’s house in James Street, learned from his lips, and being acquainted with Arabic he was able to hold with him the following conversation:

_Our Representative_: Without discussing past history, which we all admit to have contained fearful mistakes, what is your opinion of the present state of Egypt and of the policy now to be pursued?

_Sheykh Mohammed Abdu_: Since I have been in England all have asked me the same question. Every Englishman says he wishes Egypt well; but which of your statesmen has tried to prove his declarations? We Egyptians of the Liberal party believed once in English Liberalism and English sympathy; but we believe no longer, for facts are stronger than words. Your liberality we see plainly is only for yourselves, and your sympathy with us is that of the wolf for the lamb which he designs to eat. You have ruined everything that was good in us so that you may have an excuse for keeping possession of our country.

_O. R._: Believe me, this is not true. It may appear to you so; but it is not so. Neither Mr. Gladstone, nor any of the Ministers, wish otherwise than to leave Egypt as soon and as absolutely as possible. No one wishes to annex your country.

_Sheykh_: If so, why not leave it at once? The only thing that the English Government has taught us is to be united in the wish to see you gone. Before the war and during the war we quarrelled with each other. We wished to break down the tyranny of our rulers; we complained of the Turks as foreigners; we wished to improve ourselves politically, and to advance as the nations of Europe have advanced in the path of liberty. Now we know that there are worse evils than despotism, and worse enemies than the Turks. We see in them our brothers in religion, if not in race; and if you would only leave us alone with them we should know how to get on in peace. There is no Mohammedan in Egypt so oppressed as to wish for any more of your help. We ask only one thing of you, and that is that you will leave us at once and for ever.

And Tewfik, do you include him in your forgiveness of the Turks?

_Sheykh_: Tewfik Pasha did us a great wrong in bringing you into our country. He joined the enemies of his religion at the time of the war, and it is impossible he can command our respect. But if he should repent, and especially if he should get rid of you, we might yet forgive him. Only we desire no traitors with Egyptian faces and English hearts.

And the French? Our leaving Egypt now would surely mean that they would occupy your country in our place.

_Sheykh_: We do not think so. The French know that they could not gain our consent to their rule any more than you have gained it for your own. We should resist them, as we have resisted you. We want no foreign rulers from any country, and we know how to make all such rule impossible. The French could not in any case do us more harm than you have done.

And the Mahdi?

_Sheykh_: Mohammed Ahmed is only dangerous to Egypt through your presence there. Were you to leave Egypt he would neither wish to attack us nor would his doing so be any danger. At present he has the sympathy of the masses, because they see in him a deliverer from Christian aggression, and they will join him when he comes to them.

And when will this be?

_Sheykh_: The partisans of Mohammed Ahmed are already in the Saïd (Upper Egypt), but he will only himself advance when Khartoum is taken. Your Government are doing all they can to strengthen him.

How so?

_Sheykh_: By the treaty they have made with the King of Abyssinia. This has made every man a fanatic, for it is written in our traditions, and is known to all, that through the Abyssinians our Holy City, Mecca, will be one day attacked and destroyed. The people everywhere see in this a new danger to their religion. How can your statesmen have made an alliance with this barbarous people? How can they have added this new trouble to the rest?

But were not all the Soudan people fanatics already?

_Sheykh (laughing)_: The Soudani are no more fanatics than I am. When I taught philosophy at Cairo many of the Egyptian students were afraid to come to my lectures; but there were eighty-four students from the Soudan, and every one of them came. When, however, they are threatened with a foreign invasion they become fanatical, just as you would be if a Mohammedan army were in the streets of London.

And has this anything to do with the news of a rising in Arabia?

_Sheykh_: The news is true. We had been expecting it for a long while; and I do not doubt that your treaty with the Abyssinians has hastened it. When they are threatened, the Moslems take up arms. The people of Yemen are not fanatics more than the Soudani; but they love their liberty, as all the Arabs do.

And what ought we to do to allay the storm?

_Sheykh_: Cease to threaten us, and leave our country.

But what would become of the Christians in Egypt were our troops to leave? Would there not be new massacres?

_Sheykh_: There have been no massacres in Egypt except those caused by yourselves. The arrival of your fleet at Alexandria made the riots there begin. The landing of your troops brought on the riots at Tantah. There was no loss of Christian life until you came; nor will there be any when you go away. We have no quarrel with Christians as long as they abide by our laws and do not attempt to interfere with our Government.

There is then, you think, no obstacle to peace and prosperity in Egypt except our presence there? Would you not wish to see the National party restored before we go? Would you not like yourself to return to Egypt?

_Sheykh_: If I believed that your Government had any serious wish for our good I would propose a policy. But what is the use of my wasting words?

Speak, nevertheless. Whatever the Government may mean or wish, there are many in England who would see justice done to Egypt at any cost.

_Sheykh_: If England wanted to repair the wrong she has done us she would, as I have said, give us a first proof of her sincerity by ordering back her troops from Egypt. Next she would agree with the Powers of Europe and his Majesty the Sultan, with regard to a new ruler for us. It is not for me to say who this ruler should be. But whoever may be chosen, he should be some one not distasteful to the people and approved by the Sultan, and he should be named for a term of years, say seven or ten, at the end of which term the people should be allowed to elect their rulers finally for themselves. If he proved an honest man he might then retain office. But if dishonest, the people would have the comfort of thinking that he would not be there for ever, and so would take patience.

But how could we ascertain the wishes of the people? By what form of election?

_Sheykh_: Any new ruler now who should be a Moslem, and should come into office as the deliverer of Egypt from the English troops, would be loved by the Egyptians. Only he must be a Mohammedan, and, if possible, an Egyptian by birth. It is essential, however, that he should be content with limited power. What we want is not a new king, but a chief of our Egyptian nation, acting under the religious sovereignty of the caliphate. This kind of ruler the Egyptians understand, and they do not want a king.

And under such a ruler you and your fellow exiles could return to Egypt? What do you say about Arabi?

_Sheykh_: I should like to see his return. If he holds office Arabi’s place is in the Council, which must always supplement and control the ruler of Egypt. He speaks well. His ideas are noble. He is an honest man. His influence would all be on the side of good. But he is too careless of details to be a good administrator or a good general. Let him return as President, if they choose him, of the Mejliss—that is his place.

And the Ministry? What our Government complains of is that they cannot get a working set of men to rule the country.

_Sheykh_: It is their fault if they have failed. Egypt is not wanting in honourable men, or men of capacity. But you insist on having those who will do your work; and no honest man in Egypt will work for the English Government. Again, you insist that they must rule your way and speak your language. The honest men generally do not speak English. They do not love English ways. Let us have a ruler we like, and we will all join to help him. We all want reform. We all want justice. We all want instruction. But there is an old proverb which says that “if the fish stinks at the head there is no freshness in the tail,” and we want a ruler we can respect. Give us an honest chief for our nation, get him the sanction of our Sovereign the Sultan, and leave us to ourselves. With God’s blessing we will have peace. We will even try to pay our debt.

But do all the Egyptians think as you do? I am inclined to believe that nine out of ten of the fellaheen would sooner have their taxes lessened by a Christian Government than raised by a Mohammedan.

_Sheykh_: Do not delude yourself. The fellaheen are overtaxed, but at the present moment they do not complain of their taxes. They think first of how to deliver their country from the stranger; and, if it were possible, they would willingly pay more to see this end accomplished. I know it, as I have correspondents everywhere in Egypt. You might abolish all taxation, and they would not bless you if at the same time you took it as an excuse to stay. No, no. Leave us now, and we will call on God to reward you as our benefactors. But do not attempt to do us any more good. Your good has done us too much harm already.

APPENDIX F

EXTRACTS FROM LADY ANNE BLUNT’S DIARY

_Dec._ 8, 1882, _Friday_ [10, James Street].—General C. G. Gordon came to breakfast at 9. I am only sorry, now I have made his acquaintance, not to have known him sooner. He does not appear to be otherwise than in perfect possession of perfect common sense. So much has been said to imply his being “touched” in the head that I put this down as a very distinct impression. But he is a man of ideas and in a prominent position, and as such it is convenient to find his ideas utopian or “mad.” He staid about two hours talking to Wilfrid—told us he believed the Government now “sincerely” (because it suits them) intend to carry out liberal policy—Chamber of Notables, etc.—in Egypt. Wilfrid replied that he would believe it when he saw that on the Budget question they act in such a manner, and he will judge them by what they settle about taxation. If they lighten the taxes of the fellahin it will be a proof of their sincerity. Nothing short of that will do, as the condition of the poor people is too desperate to be otherwise mended. General Gordon would not allow that any _party_ in Egypt could really abolish slavery. It was in their nature to keep slaves—they could not change their nature. He does not, I think, quite know the state of feeling in the Mohammedan world or make allowance for the growth of a determination to reform on the part of those who, not having great possessions of slaves or anything else, will not be making great sacrifices in joining to suppress it.

He is going out to “Palestine,” he says, next week. He must be being sent, though he did not say it, to inquire into the state of the Mussulman world there. Wilfrid promised to send the papers about the Sheykhs in Jerusalem to him (copies) and asked him to occupy himself with their case, which he said he would inquire into.

And so we parted. I hope we shall see him again.

_August_ 18, 1883 [London].—At 1 o’clock Colonel [D.H.] Stewart came to luncheon. He has become very official in his views, though not in his manners. He spoke of the hanging of the Bedouins at Tantah, and said that a friend of his who saw it remarked how easily they died; they had hardly to be touched by the rope before they were dead. There would be no fear of any Englishman being attacked in the desert, he thought, for a long time owing to the terror spread by these executions. He seemed surprised when I said on the contrary that anywhere in the Arabian desert it would be very unsafe in consequence. Wilfrid added, of course in the Sinai peninsula it would be safe—there it always was safe (the danger had been from the war). In the end Colonel Stewart exclaimed, “Ah, well, I see we shall never agree, I wish England to be successful, justly if possible, and unjustly if it cannot be justly.” He went away at 3.

_Sept._ 30 [Cairo].—List of persons arrested in connection with the pretended “Société des Vengeurs”:

Huseyn Bey Fehmy

Mustafa Bey Sidky

Abd el Razak Bey

Abd el Rahman Bey Hoja

Mohammed Bey Fenni

Ali Bey Fauzi

Sheykh Ahmed Nur

Mohammed Bey Shami

Huseyn Eff. Sagr

Saad Eff. Zaghloul

Mustafa Eff. Nashaat

Mahmud Eff. Soudani

Mohammed Bey Tahir

Osman Bey (his son)

Ahmed Eff. Rashaat

Mohammed Said (the French doctor)

also one Iskander and five servants.

_Sept._ 30.—Suleyman’s account of Yusuf Abu Diab’s death: Yusuf was a great friend of his (Suleyman’s), and of Abd el Aal whose A.D.C. he was, a very good fellow, and all that had been said against him was false. On the day of the Tantah massacre Yusuf abu Diab arrived from Damietta at 4 of the day. The massacre had begun at 1 of the day and was still going on, for it lasted twelve hours or more. At the station on getting out of the train Yusuf saw a poor Christian woman from Alexandria whom the people were about to kill. Yusuf saved her and taking her by the hand conducted her to the Governorat, to the Mudir Ibrahim Adhem, who was sitting in his room. Yusuf placed her in the Mudir’s charge, and afterwards reproached the Mudir for sitting still there while the massacre was going on. He said, “You are Mudir and all the troops and police are under your orders. You must take soldiers and go out and stop this. I shall inform Arabi Pasha of what you have allowed to happen.” He took the next train and went to inform Arabi. A few days after, Ali Pasha Fehmi was sent to Tantah to arrest the Mudir and bring him to Cairo where he was imprisoned in the Kasr en Nil for a few days and then sent to his house and ordered to remain there.

After the war Suleyman (the narrator) was for a month in prison with Yusuf. He had been arrested with Abd el Aal saying, “If you are to die I will die with you,” and he was with Abd el Aal in prison at Cairo. In the meantime Ibrahim Adhem was reinstated by Tewfik at Tantah, and hearing Yusuf was in prison at Cairo he had him sent for to be tried before the Commission of Inquiry at Tantah. On his arrival Ibrahim came to visit Yusuf. Suliman was present in the courtyard of the prison. Ibrahim Adhem took Abu Diab by the moustache and said, “The day of the massacre here you came and brought a _Nasranieh_ to me; you abused me and you said you would inform Arabi Pasha. Was it you who did this?” “It was I.” “_Inshallah_, you shall not come out of this but to be hanged.” This was just outside the room in the courtyard. Ibrahim Adhem then brought half-a-dozen men, Copts and Muslims, from the station and Abd er Rahman the zabit of Tantah, and said to them, “You will go before the _Mejliss Tahkik_, and say that on the day of the massacre I saw Yusuf abu Diab saying to the people, “Kill the Christians,” and also that he often told Arabi Pasha that he ought to “kill Tewfik or let me do so,” but he was not willing. A certain Mahriz Bey of Alexandria also bore witness against him falsely; these men swore through fear. The Commission sent Yusuf back to the Court Martial at Cairo with the _procès-verbal_, and the Court-Martial sentenced him to be hanged. Three days later he was sent to Tantah and executed. He was brave. Suleyman remained with him to the end. His last words to the people standing round him were “O my brothers, I suffer injustice. But God grant you may not see a day the like of this again and that I may be the last of those unjustly condemned.” Then Ibrahim Adhem came up and said, “O Yusuf Effendi, forgive me.” And Yusuf answered, “I do not forgive with my tongue, for if I should forgive with my tongue my heart would not forgive, and if my heart should forgive my children here would not forgive, and if my children should forgive, our Lord (God) would not forgive, for you are the cause of my being unjustly destroyed.” Then he said, “Give me some water.” And they give it him and he drank a few mouthfuls and said, “Put the rope on me.”

APPENDIX G

LETTERS TO MR. BLUNT ALLUDED TO IN, AND EXEMPLIFYING, THE TEXT