96 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris. 



11 CONSTANTINOPLE, March 30, 1858. 



" M. Thouvenel has written me this morning as 

 under : 



" ' I have seen Aali Pasha and Fuad Pasha, and I 

 find them both of the same way of thinking that they 

 were, viz., very favourable to the canal, and anxious 

 to make it clear to the world at large that the Porte 

 does not of itself raise any difficulty in the way of 

 your great enterprise. Aali spoke in a firm and 

 decisive tone which augurs well for us, and he was 

 very pleased at what I had to tell him.' " 



To Mr. D. A. Lange, Agent of the Suez Canal Company 

 in England. 



"CONSTANTINOPLE, April 15, 1858. 



" I conveyed to you briefly, in my telegram of the 

 llth inst., my views as to the reply made by Mr. Dis- 

 raeli in the House of Commons. This telegram was 

 as follows : ' Mr. Disraeli talks of the sanction of 

 England. Such a pretension is absurd. No one 

 wants any sanction of the sort. The only question is, 

 does Lord Derby intend to go on threatening Turkey, 

 which wishes the canal to be made, as Lord Palmerston 

 did?"' 



" I hope if fresh questions are put and a debate 

 follows, no more such disingenuous side issues will 

 be raised, for they do not redound to the credit of 



