Xviii iNTRObucfioist 



examination of the whole case will prove, that both are equally 

 responsible, a responsibility that cannot be divorced from their 

 respective colleagues, or of the several parliaments which sustained 

 their executive authority. 



There may have been, as there undoubtedly were, regrettable 

 incidents and transactions, and even public declarations, for which 

 one or the other of these two distinguished statesmen, may be justly 

 held accountable, and, it may possibly be, they will both frankly 

 avow it; but, to go beyond this, and attempt to divide, or, what 

 is worse, to shift the greater onus probandi on either of the 

 broad shoulders of one or the other statesmen, governments, or 

 parliaments, is not heroic, nor is it consistent with the judgment of 

 history. 



If we desire to single out, and to hold up to public opprobrium, the 

 men who alone were really responsible for this miserable Egyptian 

 embroglio, we shall be obliged to say, that they were, in the first 

 instance, the Khedive, Said Pasha ; for, to him must be laid the 

 heavy charge of first preparing the disturbing elements in Egypt, or 

 rather in the administration of the Egyptian affairs, in 1862, by 

 contracting the first Public Debt, against the earnest entreaty of his 

 Chief Minister. In the second place, to his successor in the 

 Khediviate, Ismail Pasha, who wantonly and deeply pledged the 

 public credit of Egypt to the tune of ^^90,000,000, thus laying the 

 foundation of chronic embarrassment in the finances, and of widely- 

 spread dissatisfaction amongst the people. This finally culminated 

 in the ill-starred revolution of 1882, under the lead of Arabi Pasha, 

 with all its misfortunes and subsequent disasters ; the armed 

 intervention of England ; the overthrow of the Egyptian Army at 

 Tel-el-Kebir; the banishment of Arabi and his associates to 

 Ceylon ; and, finally, the military occupation of Egypt by England, 

 pending the restoration of assured order and general tranquillity — 

 a halcyon period that France and Turkey are impatient to see the 

 accomplishment of ; and, until that period of happier and brighter 

 days, we shall not be able to adopt triumphantly the memorable 

 declaration of the late Lord Granville, that, in Europe, "The 

 political horizon is tranquil," 



The last two chapters are devoted, firstly, to the military and 

 financial condition of Europe ; and, secondly, in favour of *the 

 establishment of an International Tribunal in Europe, to which 

 shall be referred, for pacific solution, all questions of difference and 



