234 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



upon one Government. He is anxious that this affair 

 of the Suez Canal should retain, above all things, its 

 Egyptian and Ottoman initiative. 



" Your Excellency is too enlightened a patriot and 

 attaches too much importance to the alliance between 

 our two countries an alliance of which I am proud to 

 be one of the warmest partisans to allow a question 

 of antagonism, in which it would be deplorable that 

 the amour-propre of our two Governments should be 

 involved, to arise in this connection. 



"Your Excellency will not allow it to be said that 

 England, which with justice declares that she has only 

 drawn the sword against Eussia in the interests of 

 civilisation, of the freedom of the seas, and of the 

 independence of Turkey, should be the only Power to 

 place difficulties in the way of a work which essentially 

 favours the realisation of principles which should be 

 the consequence of the Anglo-Austro-French alliance, 

 and which will assure the pacification of the East. 



" I am pleased, my lord, to have had this conver- 

 sation with you. It has had the effect of destroy- 

 ing impressions which, I do not hesitate to say, I had 

 erroneously formed. I ask your permission to renew 

 the conversation, and with that view I will call at the 

 English Embassy about one to-morrow. 



" P.S. The Viceroy has just informed me by a letter 

 from Alexandria, under date of February 17, that up 

 to that time Mr. Bruce had made no communication to 

 him on behalf of his Government." 



