Gregory that after my departure he should continue to defend the National cause, in which he was as enthusiastic as I was, in the "Times" and by letter with his friends in England. My thought was to return to Egypt, perhaps, in a few weeks' time, and take part in any further developments that might arise.
I paid a last visit to Arabi the morning of the day I left for England, 27th February. I had been little more than three months in Egypt, and it seemed to me like a lifetime, so absorbing had been the interests they had brought me. I looked upon Egypt already like a second patria, and intended to throw in my lot with the Egyptians as if they were my own countrymen. I was estranged from those of my countrymen in blood, except Gregory, who formed the then little English colony at Cairo. Following Colvin's lead they had all gone over like sheep to ideas of intervention, for be it noted that it was now no longer French intervention that was talked of, but English, and at once in English eyes the immorality of aggression had been transformed into a duty. What had been abominable when threatened by Gambetta now appealed to them as just and desirable and patriotic when proposed by Granville. Similarly the new Prime Minister at Paris, M. de Freycinet, having reversed his predecessor's policy of intervention, the French colony were for peace with the Nationalists, all except de Blignières and those who had official posts they feared might be suppressed in the new reign of National economy.
Colvin and de Blignières were industrious in spreading trepidation among the holders of sinecure offices, and it was amusing to note how suddenly and completely the poet Lord Houghton abandoned his first attitude of romantic sympathy with Egyptian liberty when his son-in-law, Fitzgerald, who had one of these sinecures, represented to him that his daily bread was thereby threatened. It was well known, as part of the Nationalist program, that it was intended to reduce the expenditure on unnecessary salaries and to suppress the duplicated posts. This was ascribed by Colvin not to its true cause, a very legitimate economy, but to