250 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



through the mouth of its ambassador, who is supposed 

 to be airing merely his personal opinion, an opposition 

 as brutal as it is tortuous ? Such an opposition, un- 

 worthy of men who call themselves statesmen, could 

 only serve to delay a work which cannot be put 

 back, to discredit a Government and eventually to 

 immolate an able deplomatist who is destined to be 

 sacrificed to the good harmony of two nations whose 

 alliance is not always profitable to our good faith. 



" I naturally made these observations to the Vice- 

 roy, and he asked me if I had heard of the arrival 

 at Alexandria of a Turkish general from Constanti- 

 nople, and if anything had transpired with regard to 

 his mission. I told him that rumour had it that he 

 had come to ask for money, horses, and grain. 



" When we arrived at Alexandria, the Yiceroy sent 

 for this envoy, who was a general named Keschid 

 Pasha. He handed a letter from Eiza Pasha, the 

 Sultan's Minister of "War, appealing to the Yiceroy's 

 generous feelings, and asking him, in view of the ex- 

 treme gravity of affairs, for an extraordinary subsidy 

 in the shape of horses, mules, and grain. Two days 

 after this, the Prince called me on one side and, with 

 a very satisfied air, spoke as follows : 



" ' I replied to Riza Pasha that if his demand had 

 come to me through the Porte, with which I had 

 every reason to be dissatisfied just then, I should 

 have refused point blank ; but that desirous of making 

 myself agreeable to the minister who had shown him- 



