The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1

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'In September I had succeeded in getting Edgar Vincent appointed to
the Egyptian Cabinet as the English financier, virtually Prime
Minister; but, able as he was, it was a long time before he felt his
feet, and could take the government into his own hands.' [Footnote:
When on August 15th Mr. (afterwards Sir) Edgar Vincent dined in Sloane
Street with Edward Hamilton, Mr. Gladstone's private secretary, and
some other people, Sir Charles noted that he 'was once more struck
with the extraordinary strength displayed by Vincent for a man of
twenty-four.']

'Two additional points concerning Egypt which should be mentioned here
are, in the first place, Lord Granville's mistake in creating a place
with Egyptian pay, at Lord Spencer's wish, for Clifford Lloyd, who had
made Ireland too hot to hold him; and, in the second place, the
violent protests of the Anti-Slavery Society, backed up by ours in
December, as to the employment of Zebehr Pasha. We should undoubtedly
have been censured by the House of Commons had we allowed any
important place to have been given to Zebehr Pasha, but it was
difficult to prevent it when it was wished both by the Egyptians and
by Baring--given the fact that we had washed our hands of their Soudan
policy.

'What we should have done, if I may be allowed to be wise after the
event, was to have distinctly ordered the Egyptians to abandon
Khartoum and to fall back to Wady Halfa. At the end of the year Baring
forwarded to us a memorandum from the Egyptian Government. They
pointed out that the Khedive was forbidden by Turkey to cede
territory; that we were asking them to abandon enormous provinces,
with Berber and Dongola, and great tribes who had remained loyal. They
thought that if they fell back Egypt would have to continually resist
the attacks of great numbers of fanatics, and that the Bedouin
themselves would rise. They were wrong, but they put their case so
well that they converted Baring; and he told us that he doubted if any
native Ministers could be found willing to carry out the policy of
retirement, and he thought that it would be necessary to appoint
English Ministers if we decided to force it on them.

'In the last lines of Baring's despatch of December 22nd there occur
words which afterwards became of great importance: "If the abandonment
policy is carried out ... it will be necessary to send an English
officer of high authority to Khartoum, with full powers to withdraw
the garrisons and to make the best arrangements he can for the future
government of the country." It was on those words that we acted in
sending for Gordon, and asking him whether he would go to the Soudan
for this purpose, which he agreed to do, and when we sent him there
was no question of his going for any other purpose than this.'

END OF VOL. I