with Cookson that I debated the various proposals made. He asked if we should be content with Haidar Pasha, but I said "we want no relation of the Khedive." There were no written demands the second time, only a renewal of the three demands of the 1st February, the Chamber of Notables, the raising of the army to 18,000 men, according to the firmans, and the dismissal of Riaz. They agreed to all. The Khedive was delighted. I know nothing of Colvin having been there, or of any advice he gave to the Khedive. The only ones I saw were Cookson and Goldsmid. It was Cookson who talked to me. If the Khedive had tried to shoot me, the guns would have been fired on him, and there would have been bad work. But he was entirely pleased with the whole of the proceedings.
You ask about Abu Sultan (Sultan Pasha). He was disappointed, because when the Ministry was formed under Sherif Pasha he was not included in it. It was thought, however, that the post of President of the Chamber of Deputies was more honourable and more important. Only he did not take this view, and was put out at being omitted from the Ministry. That was the beginning of his turning against us.
To your question about the ill-treatment of the Circassians arrested for a plot while I was Minister of War, I answer plainly, as I have answered before, I never went to the prison to see them tortured or ill-treated, I simply never went near them at all.
About the riots of Alexandria there is no question but that it was due to the Khedive and Omar Pasha Loutfi, and also to Mr. Cookson. The riots were certainly planned several days beforehand, and with the object of discrediting me, seeing that I had just given a guarantee of order being preserved. The Khedive sent the cyphered telegram you know of to Omar Loutfi, and Omar Loutfi arranged it with Seyd Kandil, the chief of the Alexandria mustafezzin. Seyd Kandil kept the thing from us who were at Cairo. Mr. Cookson's part in it was that a number of cases of firearms