CHAPTER VII TRIUMPH OF THE REFORMERS IN EGYPT

visitors, whom I was able to influence to my views. Among these the most prominent were two ex-Members of the House of Commons, Lord Houghton, who in early life had been an enthusiastic advocate of freedom in the East, and Sir William Gregory, an old follower of Gladstone's and a well-known Liberal. By the middle of December I had succeeded in bringing round nearly all the English element at Cairo to my view of the case. Even Sir Auckland Colvin, the English Financial Controller, who had three months before given the Khedive the heroic advice to shoot Arabi, professed himself converted and half inclined to come to terms with the revolution.