THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 251 



self more favourable than any of his colleagues to the 

 making of the Suez Canal, and who had not scrupled 

 to advocate it in council against an opposition of which 

 some others stood so much in dread, I was very much 

 disposed to send him what he asked for ; but that as 

 we must all of us look after our own interests, I 

 should, for the present, only get the horses, mules, 

 and corn together, and hold them ready to send back 

 by the vessel which brought the Sultan's sanction to 

 my scheme for making the canal.' 



" The Viceroy also wrote a second letter to his 

 brother-in-law, Kiamil Pasha, rebuking him in very 

 round terms for his threats as to what the English 

 fleet would do, and he displayed in the whole of this 

 correspondence a ready wit and firm will, upon which 

 I offered him my sincere compliments. He himself 

 dictated the letter to Eiza Pasha, in the presence of 

 the envoy, and this will show that when I spoke in 

 the name of the Prince at Constantinople I knew what 

 his real wishes and views were. 



" The letters which I received from all quarters prove 

 how sympathetically the project of the Suez Canal is 

 received in Europe. This is how M. Guizot writes to 

 Count d'Escayrac : 



" ' I am very desirous that the canal should be made, 

 chiefly for the benefit of the civilised world, and in a 

 minor degree out of amour-propre. It will be the 

 realisation of one of the designs which I have, I will 

 not say dreamt of, but in a measure foreseen and 



