Chapter XI The Circassian Plot

Sami, to the members of the National Parliament requesting their attendance at Cairo. This was no doubt an irregular proceeding, inasmuch as the Parliament could only be legally summoned by the Khedive, and it gave umbrage to some of the members who were also annoyed at being called again to Cairo from their country homes at an inconvenient season of the year. Nevertheless, a large proportion of them came in answer to Mahmud Sami's letters, and though they had no formal sitting, decided at a meeting held in Sultan Pasha's house to support the Ministers, and it was resolved by forty-five to thirty, that, if Tewfik persisted in intriguing with the English and French Consuls against them, there was no other way than to impeach and depose him. Malet, however, having by this time received a telegram of approbation from the Foreign Office, and finding the Khedive wavering, informed him that the English and French fleets had been ordered to Alexandria on a plea of protecting European subjects. Upon this the Khedive sent for Sultan Pasha, the President of the Chamber, and exposed the situation to him, and so worked upon his fears, and upon a certain personal jealousy which he knew to have grown up in the Sultan's mind toward Arabi, that he persuaded him to take part with him, and trust to European support rather than run the risk of war. Sultan then, at a new informal meeting of the Deputies, declared himself on the Khedive's side against the Ministers, and obtained the adhesion of six other Deputies to his view, though the large majority of them remained faithful to the Ministry. It was at this juncture that my telegram to Arabi was received at Cairo, and it seems to have had some effect with Sultan, to whom it was doubtless shown.