THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 269 



most favourably and request you to give the utmost 

 attention to his interesting communications, the im- 

 portance of which will be as apparent to you as it is 

 to us.' 



"Upon the other hand, M. Thiers informed me this 

 morning that Lord Ashburton, a partner in the great 

 banking firm of Baring Brothers, who is now in Paris, 

 had written to his firm as well as to his friends in the 

 most favourable terms of the Suez Canal, and that I 

 shall be very cordially received by them." 



To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris. 



"LONDON, June 25, 1855. 



"I am in a position to give you a slight sketch of 

 my first proceedings and of what has come of them. 

 To begin with, I have had two very long consulta- 

 tions with the principal manager of The Times. He 

 considers that England has no serious objection to 

 offer against the proposed canal, that those hitherto 

 raised rest on no solid basis, and that as the article 

 sent from Paris by Mr. O'Meagher, which appeared 

 in The Times of the 13th, presented the question in a 

 very clear and favourable light, we might agree to 

 choose the time most suitable for recurring to the 

 matter. In the meanwhile he has promised me and 

 that is the essential point not to take part against 

 the project, and as several letters from an English 

 correspondent at Alexandria, written in a spirit hostile 

 to the scheme, had been sent to the paper, this corre- 



