utation and a voice to which
public opinion might be expected to pay heed. That man was Gordon.
Therefore he was sent for in post haste, and found the post of
President of "An Inquiry into the State of the Finances of the
Country" thrust upon him before he had shaken off the dust of his long
journey to Cairo.

The motives which induced the Khedive to send for General Gordon
cannot be mistaken; nor is there any obscurity as to those which led
General Gordon to accept a task in which he was bound to run counter
to the views of every other European authority, and still more to the
fixed policy of his and other Governments. In the first place, Gordon
being the servant of the Khedive, it would have been impossible for
him to have said no to a request which was entitled to be regarded as
a command. In the second place, Gordon did not know all the currents
of intrigue working between Cairo and the capitals of Europe, and he
convinced himself that a sound workable plan for the benefit of Egypt
and her people would command such general approval that "the financial
cormorants," as he termed the bondholders, or rather their leaders,
would have to retire beaten from the field. He had no doubt that he
could draw up such a plan, based on a suspension and permanent
reduction of interest, and the result will convince any disinterested
person of the fact, but Gordon was destined to find that all persons
cannot be guided by such disinterestedness as his, of which the way he
treated his Egyptian salary furnished such a striking instance. When
sent to the Equator, he was offered L10,000 a year, and accepted
L2000; as Governor-General, he was nominated at L12,000 a year, and
cut it down to a half; and when, during this very Cairo visit, a new
and unnecessary official was appointed under the Soudan
Administration, he insisted that his own salary should be further
reduced to L3000, to compensate for this further charge. Such an
example as this did not arouse enthusiasm or inspire emulation in the
Delta. General Gordon never dealt with a question in which abstract
justice was deemed more out of place, or had less chance of carrying
the day.

As the matter was very important, and interested persons might easily
have misrepresented his part in it, General Gordon drew up a
memorandum explaining every incident in the course of the affair.
This document was published by his brother, Sir Henry Gordon, in 1886,
and the following description merely