THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 51 



tion with, the enterprise. It has been said that the 

 opening of the African isthmus would threaten the 

 power of England in India, and in this connection an 

 effort has been made to revive the ancient distrust of 

 England for France. 



"The Suez Canal has also been represented as cal- 

 culated to loosen the bonds between Turkey and Egypt, 

 and to bring about the independence of the Egyptian 

 Viceroy. Instead of avowing a hostility which it is 

 no longer possible to conceal, this hostility was masked 

 beneath such reasons as the so-called interests of 

 Turkey, or was attributed to members of the Divan, 

 who have repudiated it altogether, either in letters 

 which have been shown to me or in their conversation 

 with the representatives of the various governments 

 which have not scrupled to express their unrestrained 

 sympathy with the undertaking. 



" Of these three questions of the relations between 

 France and England relative to the Suez Canal, of the 

 respective situations of Egypt and Turkey, and of the 

 interests of Turkey in the piercing of the isthmus of 

 Suez, the first was discussed in a letter which I wrote 

 to Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe at the outset of the 

 enterprise, and the two others in the subjoined notes 

 which I submit to the impartial judgment of my 

 readers : 



" ' The enlightened Turks, far from being alarmed 

 at them, see, upon the contrary, in the consequences 

 of the opening of the Suez Canal a guarantee of 



