pretence to go to Constantinople. Now we have packed him off, anxious only lest he should be stopped at Alexandria. Button tells me that if I had persisted in going, orders would have been given to Sir Beauchamp Seymour to prevent my landing.... My mind is at rest."
If I had heard Gladstone's speech before agreeing with Hamilton to renounce my journey to Egypt I probably should have persisted in my intention, but, as things turned out, I doubt if it would have resulted in any good. Even if I had not been prevented from landing I could hardly have used more influence personally with Arabi and the other leaders than I succeeded in exercising through Sabunji. Sabunji was an admirable agent in a mission of this kind, and it is impossible I could have been better served. His position as ex-editor of the "Nahleh," a paper which,
whether subsidized or not by Ismaïl, had always advocated the most enlightened views of humanitarian progress and Mohammedan reform, gave him a position with the Azhar reformers of considerable influence, and he was, besides, heart and soul with them in the National movement. As my representative he was everywhere received by the Nationalists with open arms, and they gave him their completest confidence. Nor was he unworthy of their trust or mine. The letters I sent him for them he communicated faithfully, and he faithfully reported to me all that they told him. These letters remain a valuable testimony, the only one probably extant, of the inner ideas of the time, and a précis of them will be found at the end of this volume. Sabunji landed at Alexandria on the 7th of June and remained till the day before the bombardment.2