They had arrived at a most critical moment when the attitude of the Deputies and of some among the weaker-kneed of the other civilian leaders was exceedingly doubtful. Malet had persuaded the Khedive to take heart and quarrel with his Ministers, and the Khedive had persuaded Sultan Pasha to join him partly by working on his jealousy of Arabi, for he was disappointed at not having been included by Mahmud Sami in the Ministry of February, partly by informing him that the English and French fleets were on their way to Alexandria. And Sultan, in his turn, had persuaded thirty, as against forty-five, of the Deputies. So that Malet had been able to telegraph to the Foreign Office that the Chamber was supporting the Khedive. My telegrams, however, had given new heart to waverers and had put such pressure upon Sultan that he had gone at once to the Khedive (who was engaged in drawing up a new list of Ministers under the Presidency of Mustafa Pasha Fehmi, the colourless Minister of Foreign Affairs) and effected a reconciliation between him and Mahmud Sami. The ministerial crisis was considered by everybody at an end. Hardly, however, was the arrangement made than it was undone. Malet, having got wind of the telegrams, sent for Sultan Pasha, and partly by threats about the fleet, partly by promises, once more persuaded him to take sides with the European Control.
Sultan Pasha, who afterwards deeply regretted his defection from the National cause at this critical moment, always affirmed that Malet, to win his support, gave him his word of honour that day that the rights of the Egyptian Parliament would be respected; and I have been told by his friends that Sultan died reproaching himself that he had been fool enough to believe him. Nevertheless, with the exception of Sultan, nobody of any importance among the Deputies allowed himself again to be detached from the National cause. All who had received my telegrams believed me rather than Malet, and Arabi's hands had been