ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND EGYPT. I07 



the latter, should have an opportunity of receiving his " baptism of 

 fire " in this most inglorious struggle. 



The Khedive, having issued his decree giving full power to the 

 British General to wage war and occupy Egypt, on the i6th August 

 Sir Garnet Wolseley landed at Alexandria, and on the i8th the 

 troops, having re-embarked, he gave orders for the Ironclads and 

 transports to sail for the seat of war, which by an adroit feint was 

 believed to be Aboukir, but when the sealed despatches were opened 

 at sea it proved to be Port-Said. On the 22nd the army disem- 

 barked, and on the 24th fought their first engagement at Tel-el- 

 Mahutta, and being victorious, pushed on to Kassassin, where on the 

 28th they won another victory, in which the cavalry of the 7 th 

 Dragoons performed a feat of arms, by charging at night-fall the 

 artillery, infantry, and cavalry of Arabi's army, and throwing them 

 into confusion, with considerable slaughter. 



The objective point, however, of these military operations, for we 

 must not call it war, was Tel-el-Kebir, a position that Arabi had 

 chosen for his last stand, and which he had strongly fortified, and 

 against this formidable position, Sir Garnet Wolseley, with a fighting 

 force of 1 1,000 infantry, 2,000 sabres, and 60 guns, marched silently 

 forward in the stillness of an Egyptian night. 



It was a cleverly executed movement ; the forces under Arabi were 

 taken by surprise at early dawn, and almost before a shot was fired 

 from the Egyptian defences, they were scaled, the bayonet went to 

 work, and within twenty minutes of the first rush, Tel-el-Kebir was 

 in the hands of the English ; and on the 14th, after two days' forced 

 marching in a blazing sun. Sir Garnet Wolseley entered Cairo, 

 where, surrounded by his Staff, and supported by the Guards and 

 Highlanders, he formally arrested Arabi, in the name of the Govern- 

 ment of England, against which he had done no wrong. 



With the fall of Cairo, and the arrest of Arabi, the National move- 

 ment collapsed, and one after another stronghold, Kafr-Dowar, 

 Rosetta, Damietta, and others, surrendered to the arms of England, 

 and Tewfik once more became, hy force majeure, Ruler in Egypt. 



On the fall of Tel-el-Kebir, and the downfall of the Nations,! Party, 

 all eyes turned for the moment to Arabi Pasha, a prisoner of war 

 in the power of England ; and to the credit of the British Govern- 

 ment, considering the loud cry raised by his enemies for vengeance, 

 they insisted, in spite of Ministerial complications in Egypt, upon his 

 receiving a fair and open trial, not as a criminal, but as a political 

 prisoner against the rul* of the Khedive, to which he was entitled. 



