were landed, and sent to his consulate, obviously with the intention of arming somebody. The moment I heard of what had happened, I sent Yakub Sami to Alexandria with orders to make a full inquiry, and the facts were abundantly proved. Much of what has been said however was incorrect. It is not true that the bodies of Christians were found dressed as Moslems. The riot began with a Maltese donkey boy, but that was only the excuse. Omar Loutfi, as you say, was a strong partisan of Ismaïl's. You ask why a man so dangerous was left in a post where he could work so much mischief. I can only say that he was not under the orders of the Minister of War, but of the Interior. It was a misfortune he was left there. Neither Nadim nor Hassan Moussa el Akkad went to Alexandria on any business of that kind. Hassan Moussa went there on a money errand.
What you ask me is true about Ismaïl Pasha. He made us an offer of money. The circumstances of it were these. We had ordered a number of pieces of light artillery from Germany, but they would not deliver them without payment, and we had none. Ismaïl Pasha offered to let us have £30,000 to pay this, on condition that we would allow it to be said that we were acting in his interests. The offer was made through M. Mengs [Max Lavisson], Ismaïl's Russian agent, and Hassan Moussa had some hand in it. But it was never produced, and if Ismaïl really sent it to Alexandria, it remained there in their hands. We never touched it.
I do not remember to have heard of any offer such as you speak of having been made by the Rothschilds [this was an offer made as I heard at the time by the Paris Rothschilds of a pension to Arabi of £4,000 (100,000 francs) yearly, if he would leave Egypt], but I received soon after the leyha [the note sent in by the Consuls demanding the dismissal of the Mahmud Sami Ministry], a visit from the French Consul, during which he asked me what my pay then was, and offered me the double—that is to say, £500 a month from the French Government if I would consent to leave Egypt and go to Paris and be treated there as Abd-el-Kader was