III. CHIEF OF POLICE

The bombardment took place on the 11th July. On the 12th, as I have narrated, the Egyptian soldiery fired the city, looted it, and evacuated the defences. On the same day the Khedive was surrounded in his Palace at Ramleh by some 400 of Arabi's cavalry and infantry, a force subsequently reduced to about 250 men. That evening Admiral Seymour was informed that the Khedive was in danger. The admiral dispatched the Condor to lie off Ramleh; and there we lay all that night, rolling heavily, with a spring on the cable to enable the guns to be trained upon the sandy lane down which the soldiers must advance if they intended to take the Palace.

It was arranged that, if the Palace were attacked, the Khedive should hang a white sheet from a window, and I would at once take measures to secure his safety. The night went by without alarm; and next day Tewfik, escorted by a guard of native cavalry, went to the Ras-el-Tin Palace, where he was received by Admiral Seymour and a guard of Marines. Commander Hammill (who afterwards performed excellent service on the Nile), with a landing-party of 250 bluejackets and 150 Marines, had already taken possession of the Ras-el-Tin Peninsula.

Upon the same day Captain John Fisher, H.M.S. Inflexible (afterwards Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, O.M.), was ordered to take command of the landing-party whose business was to secure the outer defences of the city. Captain Fisher, having occupied the lines, had a zone of anarchy, incendiarism and chaos, comprising the whole city, in the rear of his position. He at once made application for an officer to be appointed provost-marshal and chief of police, suggesting my name for the post; and the admiral gave me orders to assume this office. As a narrative written at the time owns a certain intrinsic interest, I make no apology for transcribing further passages from private letters.

"CHIEF OF POLICE OFFICE HEADQUARTERS, ALEXANDRIA
THE ARSENAL, 25th July, 1882

"... I landed on the 14th July, armed myself, got a horse and a guide and an escort of about thirty Egyptian cavalry, and started to overhaul the town, and see how I could best carry out my orders to 'restore law and order as soon as possible, put out fires, bury the dead, and clear the streets.' I never saw anything so awful as the town on that Friday; streets, square, and blocks of buildings all on fire, roaring and crackling and tumbling about like a hell, let loose Arabs murdering each other for loot under my nose, wretches running about with fire-balls and torches to light up new places, all the main thoroughfares impassable from burning fallen houses, streets with many corpses in them, mostly murdered by the Arab soldiers for loot—these corpses were Arabs murdered by each other—in fact, a pandemonium of hell and its devils.

"I took a chart with me and arranged the different parts of the town where I should make depots and police stations. The admiral could only spare me 60 bluejackets and 70 Marines from the British Fleet; but he obtained a proportionate number from the foreign warships. By sunset I had 620 men in the different depots, mostly foreigners.... I had only 140 men to patrol the town, to stop the looting, to stop the 'fresh burning' of houses, to bury the corpses, and to protect the lives of those who had come on shore. By quickly sending the men about in parties in different parts of the town, and by employing Arabs to inform me when and where certain houses might be burnt, I often managed to get a patrol there just in time to stop it, and the people thought there were 600 police in the town instead of 140. For the foreign bluejackets were ordered to occupy their respective Legations and not to take any part in restoring order. This was of course in the first seventy-two hours, during which time neither myself nor my men slept one wink, as at 12 o'clock on two occasions an alarm was sounded that Arabi was attacking the lines, and all of us had to peg away to the front, where we had to remain until daylight, expecting attack every moment. These alarms lost many houses, as the mob set them alight while we were at the front; however, it was unavoidable.

PROVOST-MARSHAL AND CHIEF OF POLICE. ALEXANDRIA.
JULY, 1882.
FROM A DRAWING BY FREDERICK VILLIERS