“To the Right Hon. Lord Ponsonby.”
I also very naturally applied to Colonel Hodges:
“My dear Hodges,
* * * * *
“In the Oriental Observer the following paragraph appears:
“‘Colonel Hodges, Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul General at Alexandria, is on board, and has the flag of Ibrahim Pacha, taken in the last engagement, which, on his arrival at Constantinople, he will present to the Sultan.’
“If this is true, this flag must have been sent to you in a surreptitious manner, for I feel assured you never would have lent yourself to such a transaction.”
A few days after this I received another letter from the Ambassador, acquainting me that he had presented the standard in question to the Sultan, in form, and made the following speech:
“Sire, I solicited the honour of an audience of your Imperial Majesty, that I might lay at the foot of your Majesty’s throne the standard taken in battle by your Majesty’s valiant troops, and sent to me from the officer who had the happiness to direct the action of those brave men in the glorious combat of the 10th of October.
“A few weeks since, some rebellious subjects of your Majesty boasted that the standard should be displayed before the capital of your empire. The standard is now here, a monument of the triumph of your Majesty’s arms, and an evidence of the error of those who proclaimed the weakness of the Sublime Porte, and the power of the Pacha of Egypt.”