Chapter XIII Dervish's Mission

producing anarchy. Also it is certain that Cookson had connived at the arming of the Maltese British subjects at Alexandria. Still, from that to complicity in a design to create a special riot there is a wide difference, and everything that I know of Malet's character and subsequent conduct in regard to the riot convinces me that he did not know this one at Alexandria was intended. Malet honestly believed in Tewfik as a trustworthy and amiable prince, and accepted whatever tales he told, and his undeception about him after the war I know to have been painfully complete. With regard to Colvin much the same may be said. He was probably as ignorant of the exact plan as he had been of the Khedive's true action the year before at Abdin, though it is difficult to understand that either he or Malet should not have soon afterwards guessed the truth. They had both allied themselves to the party of disorder, and when disorder came they accepted the Khedive's story without any close inquiry because it suited them to accept it, and they made use of it as an argument for what they wanted, the ruin of Nationalist Egypt and armed intervention. That is all the connection with the crime I personally lay at their doors.