about it when we met.
It is worth noticing in connection with this visit to Hurstbourne that Lord Granville two days later, 23rd May, sent the fatal telegram authorizing Malet to "act as he thought fit," with the result that the Ultimatum was issued on the 25th.
The view of the case in Egypt as printed at that date by John Morley in the "Pall Mall Gazette," runs thus:
"Affairs still remain in a very critical condition at Cairo. Ourabi1 persists in maintaining an attitude of defiance. He is playing his last card. The reserves are being brought up from the villages—in chains—troops are being hurried to the coast to resist a landing and artillerymen are being sent to the ports at Alexandria, the guns of which, such as they are, surround our ironclads. All this, probably, is only a game of brag, intended to extort better terms for himself."
"The experiment," says Morley, "of vigorous representations emphasized by ironclads at Alexandria has been fairly tried, and there seems to be no doubt that it has completely failed."