"Cairo, May 21, 1882.
"After offering to you our best salutations and compliments, we tender you our thanks for your endeavours, and for the interest you take in the welfare of our country, and for your constant inquiries, either by telegrams or by letters, after the events which have been taking place, and we have already replied, as the rest of us did, explaining the true state of things. We now add these few further explanations.
"All the people in the country are grieved at the despatch of the French and English ships, and they look on this as a sign of evil intentions on the part of the two Powers towards the Egyptians, and as an intrusion into our affairs, without necessity and without reason; and truly the Egyptians have made up their minds not to give in to any Power which wishes to interfere with our internal administration. They are also determined to keep their privileges confirmed to them by the treaties of the Powers. And they will never allow a tittle of these to be taken from them as long as they have life. And they will also try their best to watch over European interests and the lives of European subjects, their property and honour, as long as these keep within the limits prescribed to them by law.
"We all endeavour to do our duty, and we trust in God in defending our rights, and through His help we hope to obtain our purpose. This is the welfare of our country and the peace of those who live in it. We also trust in the justice of Europe that the Powers shall not begin the attack upon us, but on the contrary that they may behave wisely with us. Because this will really be better for the success of their own wishes, and their interests in our country.
"It will be better for Great Britain if she does not rely on her representatives in this country, because they are persons who have private motives, which they wish to serve. And we think that even if they succeed it will be for the disadvantage of their Government.
"This is enough now of the present state of things, and the future will tell the rest.
"Herewith I send you a letter addressed to Sir William Gregory, and beg you to be kind enough to hand it to him.
"Please present my compliments to Mr. Sabunji and Lady Anne Blunt, and may God preserve you all.
"Ahmed Arabi."
Ninet's letter is of especial value from its date, 19th May, the last day of Egypt's peaceful enjoyment of self-government. It says:
"My heart of an old Swiss patriot bleeds now at the most unjust of all international interventions. The country is entirely united in favour of its honest leader, sprung, like the fellahin, from the limon du Nil (the black mud of the Nile). The Egyptian people has loyally accepted its debt contracted for it by an unscrupulous despot, one who in sixteen years squandered more than three hundred millions sterling to fill his own pockets, the pockets of the diplomacy, high and low, and of the Semitic and Nazarene usurers.... A peaceful revolution has been accompanied by and with the will of the nation. Not a single act unbecoming a scrupulous government has taken place during the great change effected. But Europe, interested more in the dealers in stocks and shares than in the aspirations of a people, sends her fleets. Why? Because the Chamber of Representatives found it proper to claim the right of discussing the Budget! Where is the crime?... Suppose a Minister of your Queen, having a disagreement with her, were to receive news that a powerful combined fleet of the Catholic Powers would go to Ireland and pacify it? Even so the analogy is not complete. Egypt is quiet. Not a European or Christian can complain. Would not the position be intolerable?... Arabi is wise and tranquil, awaiting the future like a sage of ancient times. The army, the country, the towns are with him. The French Consul-General has been a silent member. Sir E. Malet has been cassant, parti pris inconciliant, sowing fear in Cairo, instead of reassuring the people. You have no idea, my dear sir, of the abominable lies every day telegraphed to the 'Times,' 'Standard,' 'Daily News,' by the telegraphic agencies.... Well, never a word, not an insult from the population—we have been and are as quiet here as an English congregation on a Sunday in Regent's Park. The fleets are expected to-morrow."
Other letters of a later date will show it in its later stages. The supreme injustice of the attack being made on them by England, the country above all others which had been associated in their minds with a traditional love of liberty and of those humanitarian doctrines of which she had been the apostle, revolted men's minds and roused in them feelings of anger foreign to their natural attitude. Under constant threat of violence, now from England, now at English instigation from the Sultan, and knowing not whom to trust and fearing everywhere betrayal, it is not surprising that wild ideas prevailed even among those who had been soberest hitherto in their expression. At the same time it is not a little remarkable what few mistakes were made in action by the leaders under circumstances of such extreme and constantly changing difficulty, and the closer one examines these the more they redound to their credit. Nothing but the desperate shifts of our agents, when one after another their treacherous expedients had failed them and they found themselves faced with a disgraceful diplomatic defeat, to bring about a violent solution through the guns of the fleet, forced the Egyptians at last from their calm attitude and enabled our Foreign Office to claim a victory.
This may be affirmed without attributing either to Arabi or to any other of the leaders qualities of a first-class kind. They were neither diplomatists nor administrators nor soldiers at all to be compared with their opponents, and they were most of them quite inexperienced in the arts of government and the subtleties of international usage. Arabi's best quality, I think, was a certain dogged determination not to be driven from the position he had originally announced, namely, that, while ready to be friends with all the world, it was his duty to defend his country against all hostile comers. In this he rendered in those weeks an incalculable service to his fellow countrymen, which it is right they should be reminded of. Nothing is more certain than that, if Arabi had been less obstinate than he was in refusing either for threat or bribe to leave Egypt, and if thereby the Egyptians had not fought, the fellahin would still be the double slaves they were in 1880, slaves to their Turkish masters as well as slaves to Europe. What does any patriot suppose would have resulted from Arabi's compliance? Liberty in any form? A continuance of self-government? Foreign rule less strenuous than now? Certainly, none of these things. What would have come to pass is very clearly shown by the régime established at Cairo immediately after the war. It would have been one of police despotism, espionage, and secret punishments, unmitigated by any further interest taken in Egyptian nationality by the moral sense of Europe. It is possible that as a matter of form a Chamber of Notables might have been allowed to remain in existence for a few sessions as what is called a consultative body, but it would have been one wholly powerless and wholly discredited of patriotism. The Turco-Circassian rule would have been ruthlessly re-established, and the Financial Control, reinforced with new political powers and exercised entirely in financial and European interests, would have had neither the will nor the power to enfranchise the fellahin from their Turkish masters, themselves the slaves of Europe. The whole legend of fellah nationality would have vanished in a disgraceful smoke, for a nation which has never dared fight for its existence is justly despised. The native press would have been reduced to the condition we find it in in Tunis. There would have been neither civil nor personal liberty, nor any regard paid to native rights. It would be still, in fact, what Egypt was in 1883, a land where no man could speak above his breath or count on his next door neighbour not to betray him. Arabi at least saved his countrymen from this, and, if when it came to the point of actual warfare he was found incapable as a soldier, they still owe him as a patriot much. He prevented them from incurring the supreme disgrace of not having fought at all on the only occasion in all their history when the chance was theirs to stand up for their freedom.
Having said this much, I will return to my story. The true history of the telegrams, as I afterwards learned it, at Cairo was this. They had arrived at a most critical moment when the attitude of the Deputies and of some among the weaker-kneed of the other civilian leaders was exceedingly doubtful. Malet had persuaded the Khedive to take heart and quarrel with his Ministers, and the Khedive had persuaded Sultan Pasha to join him partly by working on his jealousy of Arabi, for he was disappointed at not having been included by Mahmud Sami in the Ministry of February, partly by informing him that the English and French fleets were on their way to Alexandria. And Sultan, in his turn, had persuaded thirty, as against forty-five, of the Deputies. So that Malet had been able to telegraph to the Foreign Office that the Chamber was supporting the Khedive. My telegrams, however, had given new heart to waverers and had put such pressure upon Sultan that he had gone at once to the Khedive (who was engaged in drawing up a new list of Ministers under the Presidency of Mustafa Pasha Fehmi, the colourless Minister of Foreign Affairs) and effected a reconciliation between him and Mahmud Sami. The ministerial crisis was considered by everybody at an end. Hardly, however, was the arrangement made than it was undone. Malet, having got wind of the telegrams, sent for Sultan Pasha, and partly by threats about the fleet, partly by promises, once more persuaded him to take sides with the European Control.
Sultan Pasha, who afterwards deeply regretted his defection from the National cause at this critical moment, always affirmed that Malet, to win his support, gave him his word of honour that day that the rights of the Egyptian Parliament would be respected; and I have been told by his friends that Sultan died reproaching himself that he had been fool enough to believe him. Nevertheless, with the exception of Sultan, nobody of any importance among the Deputies allowed himself again to be detached from the National cause. All who had received my telegrams believed me rather than Malet, and Arabi's hands had been immeasurably strengthened when ten days later the next great crisis came. Malet's coup with the fleet had been discounted, and it ended in a complete fiasco. The sending of the fleet had been intended by Lord Granville as a brutum fulmen, which was to effect its purpose without real violence, a method in which he greatly believed and of which his success the year before at Dulcigno in the matter of the Greek frontier had specially enamoured him—indeed, it was one of his maxims that "a threat is as good as a blow." Malet also, who knew Lord Granville's mind, counted at that time on a bloodless victory. He throughout miscalculated the power of the National sentiment; and it was only when he saw that he had failed diplomatically that, following Colvin's lead, he prepared for force. The dates are: May 17th, Malet finally secures Alexandria. May 25th, Malet and Sinkiewicz issue their ultimatum, stating that it has been suggested to them by Sultan Pasha. It demands the resignation of the ministry and Arabi's retirement from Egypt. May 27th, the Mahmud Sami Ministry resigns. May 28th, Cairo rises and insists upon Arabi's reinstatement as Minister, and Arabi is reappointed Minister of War with something like dictatorial powers.
In England during all this crisis the outlook for me was a black one, made darker by the unfortunate defection, just at the moment when his support was most needed, of my fellow champion of the Egyptian cause in London, Sir William Gregory. Gregory had committed himself quite as deeply to the National Party in its earlier stages as I had, and had written a number of powerful letters in support of Arabi in the "Times," and his influence stood far higher than mine in official quarters and with Chenery, the "Times" editor. The prospect, however, of possible hostilities in connection with the arrival of the fleets alarmed him, and he had latterly begun in his letters to doubt and qualify his published opinions. Since leaving Egypt in April he had been travelling on the Continent and I had been hoping daily for his arrival in London to reinforce my pleadings with the Government. Instead of this, I found to my dismay that, if not exactly against us, he was doing us little service. We were to have gone together to an anti-aggression meeting but now he refused to go. I find in my journal:
"May 19.—Gregory has failed us. He dined last night with Chenery who has frightened him, and he refuses now to go to the meeting. I went to the meeting and made my speech and answered a number of questions put to me, giving the true history of the telegrams, and I got Dilwyn, the chairman, to vote my conduct patriotic.
"May 20.—I hear Lord Granville is furious with me about the telegrams."