Nationalists, I found him very ill informed as to their views and objects. He knew none of their leaders personally except Sherif Pasha, and depended in regard to the general drift of affairs on what Sherif and the Khedive thought fit to tell him. For what was passing in the street he had nobody on whom he could rely except his Greek dragoman Aranghi who picked up his news at the cafés of the European quarter. Thus he had little means of understanding the situation, nor was Sinkiewicz, his new French colleague, much better informed. Malet was also in terrible perplexity as to the real wishes of his own Government. Lord Granville had just written him the well-known despatch of November 4th, in which he had stated in vague terms the sympathy of Her Majesty's Government for reforms in Egypt. But this might mean almost anything, and was no guide as to the attitude he should observe if any new conflict should arise between the Khedive and the Nationalists, or between these united and the Financial Controllers. Above all he was in doubt as to Mr. Gladstone's mind in the affair of the Constitution. It was, therefore, a real relief to him to find in me some one who had a definite policy to suggest, and mine was very clearly that he should support the Nationalists.
I was able, too, to assure him about Gladstone that he need not doubt that when the Prime Minister came to know the facts he must be on the Constitutional side. I received support, too, with Malet on this point from certain English friends of mine whom I found at Cairo, winter 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.