Io8 ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND EGYPT. 



Arabi was in a position to implicate the Sultan, the ex-Khedive, 

 and other influential persons in Egypt, but Lord Dufferin (who had 

 been despatched by the Government to unravel the tangled skein of 

 Egyptian politics, and to lay a basis for self-government in Egypt), 

 wisely prevented the strange revelations from being made, and 

 advised Arabi, ably defended by Mr. Broadley, of the English 

 Bar, to plead guilty, and trust to the clemency of England. 



The decision of the Court-Martial was a sentence of death, which 

 was immediately commuted by the Khedive into perpetual exile, and 

 he was accordingly conveyed to Ceylon, where he still remains. 



Egypt and the Khedive were now delivered, by the armed inter- 

 vention of England from the throes of a Revolution that threatened 

 to overwhelm them, and in the person of Lord Duiferin (one of the 

 ablest, and most experienced Diplomatists of the Crown), England 

 showed her resolution to assist in the great and difficult task of the 

 Te-organisation of the Egyptian Government, that had received so 

 violent a shock, by the widespread Revolution of the National Party. 



EGYPT IN 1883. 



It is easy, no doubt, to be " wise after the event," but from the 

 first, the general consensus of opinion has been that one of the 

 greatest blunders amongst the many and sad blunders committed by 

 the Government of Mr. Gladstone in Egyptian affairs, a blunder from 

 which all the disasters in Egjfpt have sprung, was that when 

 Tel-el-Kebir fell, when the Rebellion had collapsed; when Arabi was 

 exiled, and when the Khedive was firmly fixed upon his Throne, with 

 order and tranquillity secured, it would have been true wisdom and 

 statesmanship had the military forces of England evacuated Egypt, 

 and allowed her to tread firmly the path of self-Government, which 

 the continued intervention of England prevented her entering upon. 



If precedent could have raised a warning voice, surely the in- 

 vasion of Afghanistan in 1839, ^^id its disastrous occupation by the 

 forces of England till 1844, should have guided the deliberations of 

 the English Cabinet to the wise decision of immediate evacuation. 



If, however, reasons of expediency and policy did not justify 

 immediate evacuation, surely the isolation of England in her wild 



