'On September 17th we received a telegram from Gordon which looked as though he were perfectly mad, although some of the other telegrams from him sent at the same time were sane enough.'
Since Parliament had risen and the Cabinet scattered, preparations had been going on apace.
'When Hartington came to me on September 15th he told me that he had already spent "£750,000 out of the £300,000" for the Gordon expedition.' [Footnote: 'On August 9th Lord Hartington again asked us for permission to embody militia or call out a portion of the First-Class Army Reserve.']
'On October 4th Chamberlain had written strongly against Wolseley's great expedition, Harcourt was still opposing the whole thing. After this meeting of the Cabinet Northbrook wrote to Gordon a long letter based on the Cabinet decision. He stated that the expedition under Wolseley was not sent for the purpose of defeating the Mahdi, but only of enabling the Egyptian garrison of Khartoum, the civil employees and their families, with Gordon, to return to Egypt. He offered the Grand Cross of the Bath' (to Gordon) 'as from the Queen personally. He explained our refusal of Zebehr, and he suggested the placing at Khartoum of the Mudir of Dongola. It was easy, however, to write to Gordon, but it was not easy to get the letters to him; and we had to attempt even to send them by Tripoli and the desert.' [Footnote: As to the last communications with Gordon, see Life of Granville, vol. ii., pp. 397-399. Besides the authorities already quoted, the Parliamentary Papers Nos. 2, 6, 12, 13, and 25, for 1884, may be referred to.]
That is the last detailed reference to Gordon in the Memoir until
February 5th, 1885, when the news of the fall of Khartoum reached
London. The matter had passed out of the hands of the Cabinet into those
of the soldiers.
This comment in the Diary may fitly end this chapter:
'On February 20th I noted (conversation, I think, not printed), Lord Acton says of Gladstone: "Cannot make up my mind whether he is not wholly unconscious when working himself up to a change of position. After watching him do it, I think that he is so. He lives completely in what for the moment he chooses to believe."'