What a fantastic account! Twelve thousand loyal Bedouins camped round the palace of Ismaïlia! The Chamber of Deputies devoted to the Khedive! Arabi standing alone intimidating them all! Yet it was with these lies, of which honest John Morley was made the popular mouthpiece, that Gladstone was being persuaded to apply the astonishing remedy for unruly Egyptian Nationalism of bringing in on it the "unspeakable Turk," the "Bashi-bazouk," fresh from his "Bulgarian atrocities," and the "man of sin" himself, Sultan Abdul Hamid. The illusion of the Khedive's popularity only lasted forty-eight hours. Then we read in the "Pall Mall Gazette" of 30th May: "The time has at last come for immediate action in Egypt. The Khedive is a prisoner in his palace. The twelve thousand Bedouins who were reported to be encamped around their sovereign have vanished into thin air," etc., etc.
Meanwhile I was awaiting an answer from Downing Street, and making my preparations for an immediate start for Egypt. Mr. Gladstone was out of town, staying with Lord Rosebery at the Durdans, in my eyes an ominous circumstance. I knew Rosebery's view of the Egyptian question, for a few weeks before I had found him at Downing Street with Hamilton, and had walked with them both by the little garden exit through St. James's Park. On the way I had asked him his views about Egypt, and he had answered very briefly, "I have no views at all but those of a bondholder." He was, in fact, through his wife, a Rothschild, largely interested in the financial aspect of the case; and I looked upon Gladstone's visit to him just then as an evil symptom. Rosebery was not as yet in office, but had influence with Gladstone, and I knew through Button that he was being pushed forward by the Rothschilds to do their political work for them. This continued for some years, and his mission to Berlin in 1885 was suggested and made successful by the Rothschilds, and later at the Foreign Office he worked consistently in their interests on Egyptian questions, though I have heard that before taking office he got rid of his Egyptian stock.