Mackenzie Wallace, here alluded to, arrived with Dufferin from Constantinople, where he was "Times" correspondent, and afterwards became Dufferin's private secretary when His Lordship went to India as Viceroy. He was an able man, and acted while in Egypt entirely in concert with Dufferin, and has written the only English narrative of the events of 1882 which has any historical value.
What follows is in connection with the final attempt made by the prosecution to get evidence against Arabi on a point which might be treated as a capital one, namely, the arrest of Suliman Sami, who had been in command of the Egyptian rear-guard at the evacuation of Alexandria, and who, having been subjected to the usual intimidation treatment in prison, was now said to be ready to give evidence that Arabi had ordered him to burn the city. It was this sudden desperate attempt to obtain a capital verdict that brought matters to a crisis at Cairo, and resulted, as we shall see, in the compromise effected by Dufferin of the trial.
*Broadley to Blunt, November 17th*: "An attempt has been made to force Suliman Bey to implicate Arabi. It has been done so clumsily that Suliman has contradicted every other witness called to prove the same thing, *but* I believe it was done at a midnight or secret sitting when Wilson was absent.... Try and make your peace with the Foreign Office, Dufferin is square, and we could get a lot by soft words."